I have spent more than a decade working with US colleagues in this sector. Overall, three things come at a disadvantage for US that explains overall this puzzling productivity problem.
First, management. I don’t exactly know where it comes from, in the land of Westinghouse, Edison, Tesla, and the likes, but being an engineering project leader is not seen as the career path of a winner. It’s all about business, storytelling, laws and politics, where the power and the money is. Compare that to Germany where the chancellor is a PhD in physics and there you go.
Second. Individualism. No. Team. Spirit. Everybody wants to be with the best at what he/she does and recognized at such. There is no willingness to fill cross functional gaps, people are absurdly specialized, resulting in very inefficient performance at the collective level and surprisingly high level of bureaucracy.
Third. Protectionism. US established market is protected against foreign competition. The net result is that the US consumer is never benchmarking what he gets against real alternatives. His appliances are crap. His social protection is bad. His car is a good laugh compared to most Japanese or European models. As a consequence he as no notion of how good a deal he is getting on such things (and in most cases, he is being ripped off).
The combination of the three explains quasi all of the shortcomings noted here. I believe these problems were not as acute some decades ago. I think these behaviors have been pushed to the extreme through the various US tax reforms that have allowed very few to capture most of the wealth, thereby promoting the above behavior.
It’s not the first time in US history though. I believe it will be fixed eventually because it’s becoming too absurd. :)
First, management. I don’t exactly know where it comes from, in the land of Westinghouse, Edison, Tesla, and the likes, but being an engineering project leader is not seen as the career path of a winner. It’s all about business, storytelling, laws and politics, where the power and the money is. Compare that to Germany where the chancellor is a PhD in physics and there you go.
Second. Individualism. No. Team. Spirit. Everybody wants to be with the best at what he/she does and recognized at such. There is no willingness to fill cross functional gaps, people are absurdly specialized, resulting in very inefficient performance at the collective level and surprisingly high level of bureaucracy.
Third. Protectionism. US established market is protected against foreign competition. The net result is that the US consumer is never benchmarking what he gets against real alternatives. His appliances are crap. His social protection is bad. His car is a good laugh compared to most Japanese or European models. As a consequence he as no notion of how good a deal he is getting on such things (and in most cases, he is being ripped off).
The combination of the three explains quasi all of the shortcomings noted here. I believe these problems were not as acute some decades ago. I think these behaviors have been pushed to the extreme through the various US tax reforms that have allowed very few to capture most of the wealth, thereby promoting the above behavior.
It’s not the first time in US history though. I believe it will be fixed eventually because it’s becoming too absurd. :)
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