FAQWhat is unique about Magee‘s services?

Nothing. We need not invent anything. Instead we need to return to our senses, to remove the blinders, to rediscover what we have always known. That the true hard facts of the global economy are not the quantifiable, but the non-quantifiable.

The term „hard“ has been turned on its head. I‘m not sure when it happened, or by whom. We could, however, peel back the onion and identify when and by whom. It will have been a process over time.

The blinders are the mistaken belief that only those things which you can express in numbers are relevant, should be addressed, are factors to be taken seriously. People speak of hard and soft factors. Hard factors drive businesses, drive economies. They are of primary importance. Soft factors are malleable, wishywashy, for folks who aren‘t in the thick of things. Soft factors are of secondary importance.

We see things differently. Our experience, our research, tell us that „hard“ is not what you can quantify. In fact, it‘s the opposite. How „hard“ can something be if you can define it with a number, if you can manage it with a process, if you can plug it into a system? How „hard“ can something be if it applies, or is the same, in all cultures, in all societies, in all contexts? If you can teach it and learn it anywhere, in any language, at anytime? How „hard“ can a factor be if it is separate from context, separate from culture?

Let‘s return to the true meaning of „hard“. Hard is difficult, complex, not easily penetrated, unyielding. Hard is not expressable in numbers, processes or systems. Hard is what is difficult to move, change, modify. It is deeply rooted, felt, believed in.

Allow me to provoke. Provoke in the sense of stimulate or call forth reflection and discussion. Which is „harder“, in the sense of more difficult, teaching and learning certain principles of mathematics, physics, biology or chemistry or researching, analyzing, understanding and explaining: How the Chinese devise and execute a negotiating strategy; how best to establish a collaborative working relationship with an Indian software firm in Bangalore; how to anticipate the long-term product portfolio strategy of your South Korean competitors in the electronics sectors; the interplay between the private and public sectors in the French economy; how to be accepted into the inner circles of the London financial world?

If we are honest with ourselves, as Americans and as Germans, we really don‘t have much of a clue about these things. How could we? Americans are Americans. Germans are Germans. Neither Germans nor Americans are Chinese, Indian, South Korean, French or British. Those cultures, those business cultures, are foreign to us. We are not a part of them. They are not a part of us.

You can‘t quantify Chinese negotiating techniques, the role quality plays in the self-understanding of a German engineer, the importance of being „a member of the club“ in the UK, pragmatic decision making in the American business context. Yet, we all agree that they exist, are of fundamental importance, exert great influence on how business is done.

But folks, it gets even more complex. Ask a Chinese to explain to you how the Chinese devise and execute a negotiating strategy; an Indian about the inner logic behind how they establish a collaborative working relationships; a South Korean the logic behind their long-term product development strategy; someone from France to explain the interplay between the private and public sectors in their country; a London investment banker how one gets accepted into the inner circles of the British financial world.

Obviously there are people, many people, in those respective countries who have done these things: negotiated, set up collaborative relationships, formulated product portfolio strategies, worked at the intersection of private and public sectors, gained access to influential financiers.

But who of them can explain, map out, describe, teach how and why they did what they did; how it works; the thinking behind it; where it comes from? Then ask them to explain, map out, describe this insider-knowhow to someone from another, a different culture. How does a Chinese explain to an American how the Chinese negotiate; a German explain to a Chinese the pivotal role quality plays in everything a German thinks and does; a banker from London explain to a German how to network your way into the most prestigious financial circles?

People rarely reflect about, much less analyze, the inner logic at work in what they do. And they even more rarely attempt to explain it to people from a wholly different culture.

But, isn‘t that the essential task of those companies operating globally? Companies are people. People are thinking and acting. People, thinking and acting, are rooted in culture. They don‘t exist in a vacuum. They were not developed in a vacuum. Vacuums don‘t exist. Peoples, societies, cultures exist. Peoples, cultures, societies, logics operate globally.

So, we believe that national culture is truly hard. Methods, approaches, traditions, ways of thinking and acting, beliefs, belief systems, go the core of who we are, what we do, how and why we do it. These are deeply rooted, tested through the generations. We believe in them. They work for us. They provide for us. They ensure for us a good future. We hold them close to the heart. We protect and defend them. We are reluctant to give them up, to allow them to be changed, especially reluctant when the force for change comes from the outside, when it is foreign.

So for us, for our work, „hard“ is re-discovered, is re-understood as requiring study, reflection, dialogue, about who we are, how we think, how we do things, our national cultural hard-wiring.

Globalization, working cross-Atlantic, Germans and Americans teaming up to succeed, is hard work, requiring study, reflection, dialogue, about who we are, how we think, how we do things.