Fishburn Hedges

28.07.2011

Deutsche Bank’s press release this week on its new leadership provides some amusement on the challenges a German-language company faces in looking global.  The background of course is that German, like French, has a formal form of “you”, and that use of the informal “Du” form and first names is pretty restricted in the office environment, especially in the older generation and at more senior levels.

In the press release, we have the supervisory board chair describing his successor by his last name:

Dr. Clemens Boersig commented: "The Supervisory Board has taken all decisions unanimously and in close cooperation with Dr. Ackermann throughout the process. They provide for both renewal and continuity and thus for the pre-conditions of continued success."

But then we have new co-CEOs Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen calling each other by their first names.  More of a shock, one imagines, for 62 year old Juergen Fitschen than for 48 year old, and non-German speaker, Anshu Jain:

Juergen Fitschen commented: “I could ask for no better partner than Anshu in building further on the bank’s success in our home market and worldwide.”

Anshu Jain commented: “I’m humbled and honoured at having been asked to lead this great institution together with Juergen.”

I instinctively checked out the German version, thinking perhaps last names had been slotted in there, but no, first names also used there, with the sole difference being that Juergen becomes Jürgen (no point in leaving non-German sub-editors to struggle with the umlaut).

I think probably Deutsche’s press office got this right with a pragmatic solution – it might have looked false for Dr Börsig to call Dr Ackermann “Josef” in the press release (not least since relations aren’t that friendly), but for the new co-CEOs to use their last names would have felt stilted to Anglo-Saxon ears.

Jain is of course busy learning German, and we don’t know whether in fact they do “dutzen” in German (which sometimes involves a formal drinking ceremony) – but since Fitschen speaks fluent English, I doubt if they’re speaking much German to each other.

When I worked at Deutsche, it was very common for German colleagues to use their first names in English in front of international clients, and then revert to the formal “Sie” and last names when talking to each other in German.  These days, a very common, though entirely ungrammatical, compromise in many German offices is the use the first name plus the formal ‘Sie’ form, which implies collegiality and informality in the workplace without the strong sense of friendship that the “Du” form implies.

As this shows, big German corporates are hugely aware of these cultural nuances and the need to get the balance right.  As companies from the BRICs internationalise and put down roots and operation in the west, expect gradually to see more focus on these subtleties from them (while Anglo-Saxon multinationals may need to become more aware of language gradations in return).

Posted by Andrew Marshall