‘Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand’ – British Apprentices In Hamburg
The great North German city of Hamburg has always enjoyed a close relationship with the United Kingdom, and its ties to its neighbour across the North Sea have thankfully survived the bad times when allied bombing raids left much of the city devastated nearly seventy years ago. Industrial, commercial and social life was ghostly quiet in 1945.
By the late 1950s though, just a decade or so after the end of the war, the Hanseatic port on the River Elbe was buzzing to the sound of the Economic Miracle. This is the word Germans proudly coined to describe the unstoppable rise of the West German industrial machine from 1948, the year of the Currency Reform, to the early 1960s when the very first migrant workers from countries such as Italy had to be recruited to come and maintain the tempo of economic growth. They were known in the early days as ‘Gastarbeiter’ or ‘guest workers’.
Five English “guest workers” from Liverpool arrived there in 1960, called John, Paul, George, Stu and Pete. They were young, keen, hard working and ready to learn. And their trade? The booming entertainment industry which the Economic Miracle had helped to revive.
To earn their wages they learned how to please the many different kinds of visitors to the bohemian and red light district of St Pauli right next to the docks by playing rock ‘n’ roll in the little cellar clubs there. The boys returned several times to the city, right through until the end of 1962. By then Stu had tragically died, and Pete the drummer was replaced by a young man called Ringo from another band in Hamburg. The four young men had served their hard apprenticeship in Hamburg and were about to Please, Please the world as The Beatles.
In November 2010 eight young and keen men and women wanting to impress Lord Sugar on the BBC’s ‘Apprentice’ show were given the task of selling British crisps to the Germans, and sent to Hamburg to drum up export trade. Watching them scurrying about the city was fun, but at times painful too. Fair enough, they were thrown into a tough foreign market place with little warning, and this highlighted some basic issues about exporting.
The first predictably is communication. Only one out of the eight apprentices really tried to use German, and though his knowledge was limited he did at least understand the symbolic importance of acknowledging that he was a guest in Germany trying to win over German customers by attempting to speak a little German. In contrast, one of the other members of the same project team paid no attention to the importance of communication in a sales meeting and rattled off her sales pitch at breakneck speed. Alan Sugar later in the boardroom analysis chided her and spoke convincingly of the need to employ “export English” which he defined as a mode of communication “where you slow down and accentuate all of your words”.
Slowing down and learning to be patient are general rules to think about when doing business with Germans. They don’t like doing business fast and furiously, but want to be informed about the product factually and about the company selling it before making their decision. They are not hoodwinked by flashy design and smart talking. And as we heard several times in the course of the sales teams’ exchanges with the German on the street and the German in the boardroom, Germans will listen carefully and then deliver an often surprisingly frank reply.
Of course it helps if you leave your prejudices about Germany behind in England. When arriving by car at the German embassy one of the apprentices remarked “I hate the Germans”, and later back in London defending himself against Lord Sugar’s criticisms of his performance repeated that he “didn’t speak German, I don’t particularly enjoy going to Germany”. Incidentally he was the gentleman who got fired.
The Beatles knew a thing or two about the uses of communication. Even when they were starting to enjoy world-wide adulation in 1964 they were still happy to record songs in German to please their numerous fans there. ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ was translated as ‘Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand’ and ‘She Loves You’ as ‘Sie liebt Dich’.
In conclusion, the rewards for thinking seriously about business etiquette, subjective and counter-productive stereotyping and crucially about how to approach communication hurdles are there for all to see and profit from. Meeting German partners half way in the spirit of ‘Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand’ is a good starting point.