DDR-Management Style

I got into an odd topic discussion yesterday with a German....over Germans today who grew up in old East Germany (DDR) and today have management jobs in companies.  Their style of management?  Well....this is a curious thing which tends to get noticed. And a lot of this.....goes back to the 1949 to 1989 era of industry and 'survival'.

If you were part of the DDR-machine as a manager, you had goals given to you to accomplish A, B, and C.  If you needed to produce 40 Trabant 601-model cars per day.....then you geared your entire production line in some way to guarantee forty cars would come off that assembly line.  If the goal was stupid and they were selling every single 601-model immediately?  It didn't matter....the head guy for the government told you to only produce 40 Trabant 601's per day.

So you can go down through every single product produced in old East Germany....seeing that they all functioned the same way.  No expansion or modernization occurred unless the government guy first said that expansion or change was necessary. 

Then you come to problem-solving.  Even if your company was in a conflicted moment, and needed to have the 'boss' make a decision.....he tended to avoid making the decision unless he was directed by some government guy to make a change. A great example of this is to go and look at advancements of Trabant cars from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s.  Then you go and look at BMW and Mercedes models from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s. 

As the Wall came down.....these DDR executives and managers got into the German system, and they are noticeable today.  Yes, in an amusing way....when in a crisis situation or a discussion over a major impact....these gentlemen in their 50s and 60s....are not able to make decisions, and basically waiting for 'someone' (a boss over them) to tell them what decision to make.

So I asked.....what about the younger crowd?  Those who grew up after the Wall and were 'Germanized'?  Oh....they (in their 20s and 30s) are more than capable of looking at a problem and developing a solution, then implementing it. 

I sat there for a minute and then asked the million-Euro question....is Merkel a DDR manager?

Simple answer.....yes.

You can look at the character make-up of the three previous Chancellors, and find that Merkel rarely goes out on the limb to make decisions and move the government toward some major change.  In a way, she is the typical Trabant factory manager....knowing her goals, and producing only those results required.  Decisions are driven by time-impacts....so it the clock is running out, it'll drive her to accept some change, but if she has time....then no decision is made and things just keep going.

It is an odd management style to go and pursue.  It does make sense in some Communist regime situation, but in a modern 'western' environment....it aggravates people.  Has the public come to realize this DDR-management style?  Most Germans don't have daily contact with these type managers and they wouldn't be able to look through the decision process to realize the limitations with these managers. 

It's probably worth a PhD thesis to go and interview a couple of these guys and write a whole book on how they survived the past thirty years as managers.