ITALY: The flip chart

Emiliano Ruffino is an Italian development engineer. Together with a group of German engineers, he is working on a project for a large US manufacturing company that has its European headquarters in Italy. At a meeting in Germany, members of the team reported on the progress of the project, and the milestones for the next six months were discussed and agreed on.

Despite some language difficulties (the meeting was held in English), a clear consensus was reached on what needed to be done. Everything went smoothly until one member of the German team, Martin Schneider, ended the meeting by writing on a flip chart a list of the action items together with the people responsible and the completion dates. While Martin was doing this, Emiliano was visibly upset.

After the Italians had left for the airport, Martin reported to his manager: “The meeting went well. We reached an agreement very quickly, and there were no objections from the Italian engineers. To be absolutely sure that we all had the same understanding of the results, I made a list of the main action items. I’ll mail you a copy of the results. As you know, it is vital that we all meet those deadlines if the goals are to be achieved.”

On his return to Italy, Emiliano’s colleagues asked him how the meeting went. “Martin was impossible again,” he told them. “He clearly doesn’t trust us. From now on, I’ll work at my own pace: nothing happens to you anyway if you don’t meet the deadlines. Let’s see how the Germans react to that. Why does Martin always have to insult us? The project will never get off the ground if we go on like this.”