German Perfection vs American Speed?

Are you a perfectionist, or are you usually ok with delivering something as “sufficient”? Learn with us how different cultures can have different baselines, and which approach is more feasible in today’s time – do we need to be perfect or fast? This second English episode feels like a natural continuation of the first "The Role of Culture in Leadership" because the topics build on each other: In the first English episode, fundamental cultural assumptions and associations are discussed, while in this second episode, the cultural differences are translated more into the business/technology world. This also entails a slight departure from leadership towards strategy and innovation bringing interesting learnings to light. Perfection vs. Speed Andreas and Shahzeeb discuss how the “German Engineering-culture” has been historically focused on perfection – and how this has been key to the rise of Germany as a global export champion after the war, including the “Made in Germany”-stamp becoming a well-recognized synonym for quality. On the other hand, past two decades have shown how fast development and shipping of technology – predominantly from the Silicon Valley in the United States – has been disruptive for many industries across the globe vanishing giants which previously seemed unbeatable. Have times changed? Does this mean that going forward, we will not have enough time to make a product perfect? Are “slow companies” going to disappear? What is the role of the users? How can leaders create the right atmosphere for good products? Listen in to this episode if these questions made you curious.