Understanding rapid changes of opinion by Israelis

Case

Gilad is an Israeli engineer working in Cleveland on a three year relocation assignment. Tommy is his Nevada-born and bred boss.

During the course of a discussion in the Planning Committee (Plan of Record) on the expected development time for a new feature, developer Gilad strongly expressed three opinions.

  1. There is no way we can make the May 9th deadline; let’s be real.
  2. The May 9th deadline is challenging but clearly doable.
  3. I’m absolutely against promising the client a May 9th delivery date, but who knows?

Tommy, was aghast. Tommy called Gilad into his office and told him that he would be wise to understand the facts, then form opinions. Tommy told Gilad that his wavering behaviour appeared unprofessional, “which is a shame because you are one of our more talented developers”.

Explanation

The rapid changing of opinions by Israelis is common; it baffles and annoys managers who have been raised to think differently. I shall attempt to provide a few reasons why Israelis appear to change opinions at the drop of a hat.

  1. We tend to have less distinction between facts and opinions. Very often, people have opinions and then look for facts to support them. This is a manifestation of a very ideological society.
  2. Words are important yet less significant as a commitment to action than is western cultures. There is even an expression,`just words`, IE, meaningless prater. (רק מילים)
  3. Entertaining very opposite opinions  at the same time, and then reaching a decision, is the very essence of the way Israelis think out a problem. Faced with impossible situations on a daily basis, this is an ultra pragmatic defense mechanism.
  4. There is no need for a safety net when changing an opinion,  because contradicting yourself is part of thinking things out. There is no expectation that people in a constant case of crisis be consistent.
  5. Anything that you say is true at the moment you say it, but everything changes all the time. This is survival mode in action.
  6. Any decision made (except for written contracts) can reopened for further discussion. This is also survival mode in action.

A common Hebrew idiom explains it all, אז מה שאמרתי (az ma sheh amarti). Here is how it is used.

  •      A-Let’s work this out over supper tonight.
  •      B-I thought you said that  tonight you need to take your daughter to see your mother.
  •      A-Az ma sheh amarti! (so what if I said it).

 

 

 

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Remembering Lizzie

Lizzie had the most beautiful smile I had ever seen; and although she was an exquisite woman, I remember her smile most of all. And her voice.  Lizzie had a soft, mellow and slightly deep voice.

To be honest, I remember more than her voice and her smile. She was something else.

I met her in Spanish 200 at McGill, which I had chosen that as my 3rd language requirement. So had she. Over the next three years, we slowly moved from speaking English to speaking Spanish, which both of us did quite well.

Lizzie and I used to meet before class started and  would continue talking after classes ended. I don’t even remember what we talked about. But we talked for hours and hours over the years.

“Do you know who you are talking to?” asked Paul, as we ate at the student union. “She was the most popular girl in school, and she has been seeing this guy Steven for over 4 years. You don’t have a chance”.

One of the things Lizzie and I talked about were concerts at the new Places des Arts. I had seen her there with the aforementioned Steve. I had been with Paula.

Lizzie and I agreed that “wouldn’t it be nice if we saw a concert together” and we never did. As my studies at McGill  ended, I was back in Israel doing my MA and she had gone to grad school.

I was living in Kiryat Yovel, Jerusalem in a student dorm, along with a German PhD student named Hans who was studying the commonalities between Yiddish and Hebrew, and  an agriculture student named Uri, who was almost never in the flat.

One day, I got an aerogram from a McGill friend who stated, by the way, that “Lizzie W from McGill Class of 70 was killed in a car accident on the way to Ottawa. Do you remember her?”

Some people loose their memories with age. I have a memory like an elephant. And when I think of Lizzie 50 years after I met her in Prof Stagen’s Spanish class in Peterson Hall, Room 120 at 1000 AM, I wish my memory was not as good as it is.

 

 

 

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C’est moi-about me

Georges, my long time companion

That’s me; Fall 2021

 

“We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files”  Mrs Robinson, Simon and Garfunkel

……..

I am a OD Canadian born and educated Israeli consultant, specializing in acute global diversity, post merger integration, interfaces between HQ’s and their “remote offices” and working with senior managers/teams to acquire global competency. And no, I have not retired, nor is it in the plan.

However, I put aside time for lots and lots of reading, walking, swimming, writing this blog as well as  my satiric blog,  which saves me mental health charges.

I am multi lingual, educated at McGill (Montreal) and Hebrew University (Jerusalem). My Hebrew and English are perfect. My French used to be excellent but has become very rusty. I need a few months in Spain to retrieve my Spanish, in which I was almost fluent. I can muddle along in Arabic, i.e. understand the gist of a conversation. Although my satiric character Gloria loves long German words, I do not know any German at all.

I am a nonconformist, an acquired taste and in some ways, a “most peculiar” man

I spent time a career officer in the Israeli Defense Forces, years and service of which I am very proud. These years of service give me a free pass to express my ideas freely, which I do. I am secular, atheist, radical centrist, liberal yet realistic and not woke.

I work with Fortune 500 companies, family businesses, start ups, individuals and Boards in India, the Mid East, Europe, China South East Asia and North America.

I am appalled by  the western bias of Organization Development  and hope that before I die, I can make a difference to rework OD’s value to global organizing. I don’t plan on dying any time soon, but I no longer buy unripe bananas. My latest obscure article on this subject is attached.

I am a disciplined reader. One classic, followed by a best seller, followed by a historical biography, followed by a book in Hebrew, and repeat. I am a great fan of Radio Swiss Classic, and never miss the daily Haaretz. 

I also like reading stuff with which I do not agree. Especially in this day and age when people love to inhale their own smoke, if you get my drift.

Part of  my family has been in Israel since the beginning of the British Mandate in Palestine (1918) after Word War One. The rest of my family comes from England and Montreal. All of my family is secular. Thank God.

I have a son (Amir) , a daughter (Sarai) , a son in law (Nadav) and a daughter in law (Deby) . I have 4 grandchildren  Daniel, Johnny, Maya and Rona…plus one more granddaughter on the way. I had a real British grandmother,  and a Canadian one.

And just a few more facts that may surprise you:

My Uncle Al was a famous boxer. 

I got arrested for J walking in Manilla even though I did not J walk. (I paid off the inebriated  cop to let me go).

I have a huge picture of  Kamal Ataturk and the former King of Thailand over my desk.

Despite my in-your-face style, I am quite likeable in person. If you just read what I post, I am a pain in the ass.

I can speak English with a perfect Thai, French and German accent. 

 

 

 

 

 

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Doing and believing – On “changing” company culture

Readers of my blog may be surprised to learn that despite my being a complete atheist, I have made a point to study (adult) university courses in religious thinkers over the past 4 years.

To be specific, I have studied the teachings of Paul, Augustine, Spinoza, Maimonides (Rambam) and Leibowitz.

I have been introduced to the vast differences between a focus on dogma, beliefs and faith on one hand, and a focus on  deeds, behaviours, and actions on the other. I find this area fascinating, full of paradox, intrigue and extreme cognitive/emotional complexity.

In this post I want to share with my readers a few free associations I have had about changing company culture, based on the stuff I have been studying from a totally unrelated area, ie, religious thought.

Although there is almost no parallel between the subject and the metaphor, whilst studying the complex link between between beliefs/action in religion led to me to thinking about company culture/ which I have always claimed cannot be “changed” as consultants claim it can. And I got myself thinking about the amount of focus on beliefs and dogmas in promulgating company culture, as opposed to the focus on acts and deeds.

I thought about a company that has a poor level of customer support, because their product is unstable, the service engineers get no cooperation from development team, the IT system is too slow and tier support level 2 and 3 are understaffed. In this company, over $200,000 has been invested in creating a culture focusing on “client intimacy”.  Of course, nothing changed. Except that $200,000 has been pissed away.

Culture cannot change by inculcating a series of beliefs or dogmas.Things need to  done differently, as this may  result in a  “change of culture” after a certain time gap.

Naturally, things need to be done differently within a given context,  and that context  is no doubt on based on beliefs.  Yet the major focus must be on consistent action, otherwise nothing will change.

Action without appropriate beliefs may result in some change. Belief and dogma not translated into action are a futile effort. As a matter of fact, belief and dogma do NOT impact culture at all. Culture is changed ONLY by concrete actions.

One more free association. Do staff need to understand why they are asked to behave in a certain way? Here is a true story, I worked for a company  that promised that clothes purchased could be returned NO QUESTIONS asked. The salespeople were furious because they claimed that customers bought clothes, went to a wedding and then returned them. Staff refused to comply because they felt humiliated, or “frayers” in Hebrew, dumb suckers.  Finally after a few people were disciplined, the automatic refund started to be implemented.

So yes, there is an element of “just do it” in company culture. And if you do not understand it, do it anyway.

 

 

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Trust busters in virtual/remote teams

Remote and virtual teams have chronic ailments. These ailments exist in almost all teams of this nature. The goal of this post is to point out the most severe generic impediments to provide a context for readers interested in this common organizational configuration.

 

  • Hidden Agendas around control

Hidden control agendas are based on who tells whom what to do, which site is strategic and which site is tactical, and who is the dog that wags the tail.

Over time, the stronger more controlling sites gets the sexy work, the budget and the senior management patronage so necessary for long term growth of the local site. The other sites whither and are downsized, or are relegated to boring continuous engineering.

 

  • Transparency

Most remote sites have more internal transparency to one another than they have towards other sites. It is a type of local patriotism. Information that is shared internally within a site may not be as freely shared with members of another site.

And to be even more blunt, transparency between remote sites is are rare as democracy in the developing world, Middle East and Africa. Transparency is often viewed as weaknesses, in the Darwinian struggle between sites.

 

  • Competency

Various sites tend to have very different competencies. US based sites are close to the market; Israel based sites are highly innovative; India sites are very flexible; Japanese sites have unique customer intimacy, and the list goes on and on.

The lack of trust between the sites often  reflects the tension between the competencies; for example the Japanese site will obsess about what the client asks for. whilst the Israeli site will focus on what the client “really needs”, whilst the American site will try to ensure that the demands of the Japanese don’t divert the product from an agreed upon (American) product road map.

 

And a final comment. There is very important work to do in order to enhance the individual skill of the remote/virtual team member. Nevertheless it is important to carry around individual skill enhancement  within a context of the trust-busting environment in which ALL remote teams function, so as not to saddle the individual with the burden of the organizational design.

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