I find your post insulting on two levels - one the idea that Europe is a monoculture, and two that somehow 'being more like the USA' means that we'd be more dynamic risk takers. There are risk takers all over Europe. The main man behind Ycombinator is English for crying out loud!
If I tried hard and succeeded in the US people would want to emulate me, in the UK they would wonder who I had to screw over to get there. If I tried hard but failed in the UK people would remember me as a failure, in the US people recognize someone who tried...
I don't think your analogy is that accurate, we have plenty of successes here (James Dyson, Theo Paphitis, Alan Sugar, Richard Branson) as well as the many smaller ones noone knows about. Also, failure is relative. In the industry I work in, there are people that I know well who have exited on good terms, my main business makes a fraction of what they made, but I enjoy the freedom more and (to the best of my knowledge) so do the guys that work for me.
I do agree about the difference in the cost of failure though. Personally I blame Del Boy Trotter for a lot of that.
- Post-industrial Glasgow
- Finance and government based Edinburgh
- Oil oriented Aberdeen
- Farming/fishing/tourism of the Highlands
In fact the very first time I heard anyone talking about trying to get finance for a business was a school friend of mine when we were 20 - he was trying to raise enough money to buy his own fishing trawler.
I grew up in an environment in the North of Scotland where there were no large employers and a lot of small independent businesses - starting your own business wasn't seem as a big deal.
Why do you believe that all Europeans have got the same corporate culture?
Firstly Western Europe is still nothing like ex-communist block countries. Hell, parts of Russia lies with Europe.
Then even looking at individual countries France != Germany != UK != Holland, etc.
We all have wildly different histories. Different labour laws. Different business laws. Different tax rates. Different GDPs. Different natural resources.
There's no common corporate culture as the business climate is so varied.
Meanwhile, in the UK there's an opt out to allow people to work more than 40 hours a week, people get 25 days holiday on average and unions have little power in most cases, or act in ways that often damage peoples' jobs in others.
The differences between doing business in England and France are much more vast than the 23 miles that separate them. They're a product of France executing their aristocracy and the British not. A product of the French considering work 'travail' (toiling, or otherwise arduous activity) and the English not. And of course of the English being part of the industrial revolution early, meaning that the English could be more productive than everyone else with less resources, and of the French having to compete at a disadvantage. Add to that the other differences in French history and it's no wonder that many Brits (I wouldn't want to claim to speak for all as even we on a tiny island aren't a monoculture) generally feel closer to Anglophonic and former imperial countries than our European friends.
But do you really think that 2 anecdotes are enough to warrant that conclusion?
But wow, the rest of the material wrapped in that blog post ... stereotypes based on a couple of anecdotes, tarring an entire continent as a single monoculture, and inflammatory text such as 'Her cowardly behavior is the eventual result ...' says to me that this post was more about about someone's lack of understanding of culture (and dare I say attempt to appear superior) rather than any 'informative insight'.
Edit: I felt I should explain my objection to this post a bit more. In many cultures (particularly asian ones), communal harmony is valued more than individual success. This can often lead to decision by consensus (an extreme version being the one Rod saw). Is decision by consensus bad for innovation - quite possibly so (I believe it is myself). Is it cowardly? Absolutely not. Did it occur because mistakes were stigmatized? Again no - it's simply that shared decision making is valued for the community harmony. Different cultures, different values.
Edit 2: One of the tools we used on my course was Country Navigator (www.countrynavigator.com). You answer a short quiz which gives you your individual 'cultural' profile and you can then compare how closely you match other country culture profiles. It compares things like risk-taking/avoiding, do you relate as an individual or group etc. It was quite an interesting tool especially comparing how different countries related to me.
You're right, some countries value 'communal harmony', but that is not what this is about. It's not about having to meet 6 different people to get a sign-off because they have important input and will be directly involved with the product, it's about having to deal with one person who could easily make most of the decisions herself and having her take managers from everywhere because she just doesn't want to be responsible for any future disagreements.
This wasn't a brainstorming session. The manager's decision costed the time of 16 extra people and probably made the meeting go for a lot longer than needed, and at the end, instead of responding to the last question, they pass the torch to legal. To me this doesn't seem like avoiding responsibility, to me it's being irresponsible (at least towards other people's time, not even taking into account other people's sanity).
I agree that it's good team building to work together in a large group, but do you have to carry around 16 managers for every decision? Why is one person so afraid of standing up and saying I made the decision because I feel it benefits the company, and then go into your data and facts. Then have anyone who objects come forwarded. Instead of having to cross reference every member or other departments for trivial decisions.
This IS the way bussines is done in Slovenia. The company he is talking about is probably one of the state owned, monopolist, socialist leftover, dinosaurs. Basically it's your average government affair.
Your experience isn't that far-fetched. While your observation about risk taking and entrepreneurial spirit may be true in the US, the culture of risk avoidance exists in the US too. Unlike what we see on TV, there is a whole other side to America that people outside America do not see. (I say this as an immigrant myself).
However, I do agree that having 16 managers preview a site pre-launch and having to resort to "getting-back" on the answer to yes/no question appears lethargic. It appears that the organization's legal folks had not been engaged at the right juncture to comment on the content.
What?! "Running forward" is not a term I would use to describe the American economy at the moment. And not all of Europe is struggling to stand up straight.
I agree with other commenters that "Europe" is not such a culturally homogenous region that this generalization would be warranted, though.
