When I think about which intercultural topic I have spent the most time on with our clients over the years, the answer is very clear: time and again it has been and still is about the very question: “Duzen oder Siezen”?
The phenomenon of formal or informal forms of address is not really a German speciality. The Romance languages know it as well as the Slavic languages. In Europe, only English is an exception: “You is you” – full stop. This is why this problem is of particular interest to English-speaking clients.
And for this reason, English-speaking clients in particular always ask how they should deal with it.
A cultural peculiarity, however, is how Germans deal or dealt with this problem.
An example: At the end of the last millennium, the CEO of one of the most important German corporations was quoted in an English business magazine thus:
“Even among ourselves we are not on first name terms.”
He was talking about the communication culture within the board.
A little later, I met a British board member of this company at the corporate headquarters for lunch. John had been with us earlier for an intensive one-to-one German course.
I told John about this interview and provoked a little:
“Come on John, I don’t believe it. Your CEO must have been kidding.”
John’s response:
“Believe it or not – it is. During board meetings it goes strictly like this: ‘Mr X, Doctor Y, Count Z’. If we meet later for a glass of wine, then it may happen that a colleague addresses me as ‘John’, but only if we speak English.”
For John and me, the ‘du’ was quite natural, even though we only spent a few hours of German training together.
For John’s German colleagues on the board, on the other hand, the ‘du’ was unimaginable, even though some of them had known each other for 20 years.
How is one supposed to understand German culture?
The – in my opinion – good news at the end: even in this company, top managers now call each other by their first names. And when German is spoken, the previously unimaginable informal ‘du’ may also be used.
Germany is moving – albeit rather slowly.
And should you also have a cultural question or two about ‘Germany and the Germans’ – we will be happy to advise you competently: