Hard. Soft. Backwards.

Many in the business world make a distinction between so-called hard and soft factors. The hard factors are those which influence business practices in a direct and fundamental way. They are seen as facts, hard, real, unavoidable. One can identify, collect, measure, almost grasp them. Methods have been developed to systematize and analyze them so as to anticipate and react to them. The hard factors are seen, for example, in numbers, processes, and structures.

The content and methods used in the business context to deal with these hard factors can be learned. One can attend a university and study business administration, economics, law or the engineering sciences. Departments within larger companies, and entire service sectors such as business consultants, concentrate on the systemization and application of these management methods.

When taking a closer look at the so-called hard factors, one can come to the conclusion that some of them are anything but hard. In many cases they turn out to be rather flexible. Statistics, for example, can and must be interpreted. It is understood that they can be often manipulated. Work-processes and organisational structures in today’s global economy are modified on a constant basis. Management concepts, as another example, appear to change on a regular basis. Change is constant.

At the same time many have begun to realize that the so-called soft factors might in the end be the true hard factors. Up until recently the soft factors were those which one could not readily identify, collect, measure, grasp, or systematize. They revolved principally around the human factor, which is flexible, in need of interpretation, therefore soft, unpredictable, not easily calculable, difficult to grasp.

In the context of inter- or bi-national cooperation in the business context one notes rather readily that the factor human being is everything but soft. Despite a common language used in business (American English), despite the fact that many of the key terms used are very similar and therefore easily translated between German and English, despite fundamental agreement on the key characteristics of effective cooperation, Germans and Americans experience in their bi-national cooperation differences in thinking, working, approaching problems, resolving conflicts, planing, negotiating, organizing, and envisioning the future.

These similarities and differences on the human level are always and invariably based on a concrete national-cultural business context. They have a source, a home. Their roots go back into the social and cultural history, the historical consciousness of a people. They are not easily identified, collected, measured, grasped, or systematized by today’s management methods. It is because they are difficult to grasp that they are termed soft.

They might represent in the end, however, the true hard factors. Hard in the sense of difficult, challenging, risky, precisely because the management methods cannot „grasp“ much less „manage“ them. Which methods used in the area of financial planning, marketing, product or service development, or personnel is helpful when, for example, trying to explain to managers how a German or an American prepares a negotiating strategy, exercizes leadership, builds consensus, develops and maintains relationships, distinguishes between „friend“ and „foe“, formulates and communicates a common vision, plans strategically?

The business world’s understanding of hard and soft factors, especially in the international context, is somewhat confusing. The hard factors have proven to be rather soft. Soft, precisely because they can be systematized. They are in a way two-dimensional, transparent. The methods are not only learnable, they can be learned at schools and universities in many countries around the globe. Meet the academic and financial requirements and one has an opportunity to learn them. This is not difficult, not hard.

The human factor, however, is three-dimensional, to a very high degree national-cultural-mental predisposed. In the area of international cooperation the human factor is the most difficult, the hardest of factors, the most factual reality, the least avoidable variable.

In order to succeed in the international context one needs to succeed in dealing with the human factor in its specific national-cultural context. The methods employed are based on common-sense. The common-sense approach is not so much systematish as it is flexible. It does not presuppose a closed system to be discovered.

The common-sense approach considers the human factor as an open system. It does not aim to, nor can it grasp, measure or systematiz the human factor of a given national-cultural business context. Colleagues of two or more business cultures take a common-sense approach when they aim to understand the other on his/her own terms. To integrate their efforts optimally is to focus on combining their strengths and minimizing the weaknesses. This approach requires structure, time, good will, openness and imagination.