7 ms·

The more neutral term is directness, which is undeniably a mainstream dutch style of conversation. Expats living in the Netherlands do sometimes express it bei

by fleddr 5y ago

The more neutral term is directness, which is undeniably a mainstream dutch style of conversation. Expats living in the Netherlands do sometimes express it being too blunt at times, yet quite a few more find it refreshing. And it's easy to see why. It's simple and efficient. You don't have to decode all the misdirection, fakeness, sugar coating that comes with less direct communication. You just get the message. It's less effort to parse and no information is lost in the process. And as you experience the delivery of this directness in real life, you can tell from body language that the messenger has zero intention to harm or upset you. Good intentions are clear. Directness is also an asset in business. Just the other week I openly challenged a manager 3 levels above me in a large 200+ meeting. I basically told him that his plan was based on quicksand, poor research (none at all), with unclear benefits. There's very few countries where you can do this, but here you can. And it's wonderful. In other cultures, you may simply not challenge a bad idea at all or needs tons of political massaging to get your feedback across. The result is that real, direct, non-political feedback flows to the top, which should be a core interest for leaders, rather than having yes-men. The dutch reject nonsense as part of their core, based on the national slogan "be normal, that's crazy enough". We don't like fluff, celebrities showing of too much, window dressing, misdirection, or any other tactic that is based on deceit. As such, arrogance is not our style, it is the very thing we break down.

tuatoru 5y ago
If this is really so valuable, why aren't the largest, most successful corporations in the world Dutch? Interesting organization theory question here.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  Because "the market" isn't perfectly efficient at removing poorly functioning organizations thanks to various delays in the feedback mechanisms. Also, humans aren't 100% rational and are perfectly capable of perpetuating even the dumbest of corporations. And even if they were, who's to say there aren't other criteria which wouldn't have greater influence on the success or failure than the directness of the Dutch versus the English euphemisms and couching.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fleddr 5y ago
  Well, they are? Ever heard of Shell? Unilever? Heineken? Philips? Tons of lesser known names dominating water management, heavy transport, mega scale infrastructure? ASML, as the basis of almost any device with a chip in it? Ever heard of farm valley? The ridiculously tiny country being the #2 food exporter: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-... Is this all a result of directness? No, it's a combination of the total dutch business culture: Directness. Brutal efficiency. Brutal effectiveness (work smart, not hard). Next-level automation. Rationality. Fast error-correcting. Reliability, do what you promise. Combined with world class infrastructure in roads, the largest rail network in the world, the busiest harbor of Rotterdam, and Schiphol airport. Combined with an extremely international outlook, consisting of a trade history spanning centuries. When you want to get shit done, and get it done properly, you call the Dutch. With this, I end my patriotism. Should this be a little too biased, note that it's Steve Jobs producing the quote "the best idea has to win", in reference to how one's position in a hierarchy should carry no weight to the value of an idea. And finally, I've once read a philosopher claiming that the reason capitalism has won over communism, is the lack of a feedback loop in communism. Well intended directness combined with anti-fragility is a super power.
  - esyir 5y ago
    I have to say, well done. My intuition was also somewhat aligned with the previous commenter, but the blowout list really says it all, especially considering the relatively small size of the Netherlands.
  - guiraldelli 5y ago
    First of all, I want to say that I agree with most of what you said. I want be redundant and tell again the good parts of the Dutch culture. However, I _strongly disagree_ eith a few of your points, which I think are over-the-top and incorrect. And I say so given my experience of living in the Netherlands and working for two of the five companies you quoted. I understood you are Dutch and making a good point against a possibly Usonian troll which has limited view of your country, its culture, tradition and influence. However, years working for Dutch companies and living in the Netherlands allows me to state those points I quoted below are not true. (And I am not limiting my analysis to the companies I worked, but also government, companies I had to deal with, etc.) The points are disagree are: > Next-level automation. Rationality. Fast error-correcting. Reliability, do what you promise. Rationality is one of the biggest "cultural shocks" I had when moving to the Netherlands. It is _said_ that decisions are rational; in practice, it is the _opinion of the selected majority_ that matters, or a deturpation of the poedermodel. And above it all, > When you want to get shit done, and get it done properly, you call the Dutch. Trading ia what flows in Dutch blood. It is part of their DNA. It is incredible. They are incredibly good at it. That implicitly means they are great salespeople. And salespeople sells the buyer's dream, not necessarily a reality. What I want to say is that Dutch are not exemplary engineers. Do not misunderstand me: they had instances of great scientists and engineers, but it is not their number one cultural goal as the comment I quoted implied. And that is so clear that engineers, for decades, are brought from abroad. The exemplary Dutch engineering companies are _managed by Dutch_, but the products are (mostly) _designed by immigrants_ (which are incorrectly called _expats_). So, the culture of "do it properly" (which is pretry engineering mindset) is not around, as implied. The "get it _somehow looking_ done", however, is. And that is trading mindset. Once I learned this cultural difference, I got piece of mind and started to be more effective at my Dutch job and society—and that is the "work smart" part you told about. And it is not the Dutch are trying to fool people delivering _somehow looking done_ stuff. Not at all! It is just that their trading features comes first over their engineering ones. Still, and again, I tend to agree with most of what you said.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >If this is really so valuable, why aren't the largest, most successful corporations in the world Dutch? Well, first the Netherlands do have some of the most succesful corportations in the world, given their size. Second, because while being valuable inside a business, honesty is not necessarily the be all end all criterium for success. You can be honest and more efficient for it, but lack other factors, like a large internal market, a huge military and diplomatic machine securing cheap resources, controlling trade routes, supporting your national currency and brokering deals for your companies, a good headstart when Europe was broken down and shattered from WWI and WWII which barely affected your country, and so on. And, of course, honesty in society in general might be very good without translating in any way to more succesful businesses. Kindness, honesty, and treating people well are good and valuable things, but they don't make you money, nor help you build a billion dollar corporation. A honest ad, for example, for most products would be "you don't really need it", not "this will change your life". A conscious corporation would make products long lasting, which loses money compared to planned obsolesence. A kind employer would compensate employees well, sharing its mega-profits, not squeeze blood out of them - but having your employees wear diapers at the warehouse or risk getting fired for bathroom breaks makes you more money. Similarly pressuring employees that need the job into working 14+ hour shifts to get more units ready for Xmas is more profitable that giving them work/life balance and understanding that holidays are for family and friends, not for pushing people into more consumption.
  - andi999 5y ago
    Large internal market, currency and trade deals is solved by the EU since a while.
- lupire 5y ago
  Nobody caught your sly joke about Dutch East India Company, the largest, most successful corporation in history.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company
  - fleddr 5y ago
    It's a sensitive topic, as it involves colonialism. Our former PM once said we need our "VOC mentality" back. He obviously meant the entrepreneurial spirit, but it was taken the wrong way.
wil421 5y ago
I hate the nonsense and wish more people were direct like the Dutch. In my experience pure academics and scientists are more arrogant and lack empathy rather than being Dutch and direct.
- fleddr 5y ago
  Biased as I am, I'd agree. It's unlikely for a dutch person to mislead you or be dishonest. There's no agenda. It's safe, reliable and comforting. And should such a direct remark upset you, the other party expects directness in return, and can handle it. As for academics and such, we reject elitism. Sure enough we accept differences in success and wealth, but we won't let it get to your head: https://images0.persgroep.net/rcs/rl7MK73sKTwSudzEJaBS-jjwW7E/diocontent/163123548/_fitwidth/694/?appId=21791a8992982cd8da851550a453bd7f&quality=0.8 https://images0.persgroep.net/rcs/rl7MK73sKTwSudzEJaBS-jjwW7... That's our PM cycling to work. You can talk to him should you come across him. There's no secret service, as in our society, he's "just another guy". This is expressed in another local slogan: "stick your head above the corn field and we chop it off". It's not a reference to communism, it means don't get cocky when successful, don't believe you're better than anybody else at a human level, and don't take yourself so serious. Admittedly, times are changing and inequality is on the rise. I'll end with saying that the "bluntness" some complain about is still a suppressed version of our actual directness. I'll illustrate by means of a recent conversation with a friend: Me: what do you think of my new clothes? Friend: Did you dig this up from the graveyard? I love my country :)
  - goto11 5y ago
    > It's unlikely for a dutch person to mislead you or be dishonest. Er...didn't the Dutch government just resign due to a fraud scandal?
    - fleddr 5y ago
      Well, now we're getting quite off-topic. Obviously my remarks should be seen as a stereotype, I'm not going to vouch for 100% of dutch people. The point I was trying to make is that dutch people speak directly in general, so what they say is close to what they think. The lack of an additional agenda. I would hope that you agree that as it comes to politicians, the above is the least likely to be true. Dutch politicians operate in a massively complex consensus culture where it's inevitable that they have quite a lot of hidden agendas. In this case, it was a cover up. Few would care, but I can give some background as to what happened. The Netherlands has a relatively generous welfare system, which invites abuse. There have been incidents, such as immigrants claiming all kinds of benefits without even living in the country. The response was a more firm approach in checking eligibility. Yet this new firm approach got out of hand and incorrectly flagged a group of people as fraudulent, whilst they were not, at huge individual cost. Many got into huge debts, lost their house, and so on. Shit happens. It's an error, or plain incompetence. The true scandal is the response. Instead of admitting the error and compensating the victims, most effort went into denial and covering it up. So, you have a point. But we're comparing apples to oranges. The typical dutch person in the streets is not the same thing as a sleazy politician.

by fleddr 5y ago

tuatoru 5y ago

If this is really so valuable, why aren't the largest, most successful corporations in the world Dutch? Interesting organization theory question here.

Jtsummers 5y ago
Because "the market" isn't perfectly efficient at removing poorly functioning organizations thanks to various delays in the feedback mechanisms. Also, humans aren't 100% rational and are perfectly capable of perpetuating even the dumbest of corporations. And even if they were, who's to say there aren't other criteria which wouldn't have greater influence on the success or failure than the directness of the Dutch versus the English euphemisms and couching.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fleddr 5y ago
Well, they are? Ever heard of Shell? Unilever? Heineken? Philips? Tons of lesser known names dominating water management, heavy transport, mega scale infrastructure? ASML, as the basis of almost any device with a chip in it? Ever heard of farm valley? The ridiculously tiny country being the #2 food exporter: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-... Is this all a result of directness? No, it's a combination of the total dutch business culture: Directness. Brutal efficiency. Brutal effectiveness (work smart, not hard). Next-level automation. Rationality. Fast error-correcting. Reliability, do what you promise. Combined with world class infrastructure in roads, the largest rail network in the world, the busiest harbor of Rotterdam, and Schiphol airport. Combined with an extremely international outlook, consisting of a trade history spanning centuries. When you want to get shit done, and get it done properly, you call the Dutch. With this, I end my patriotism. Should this be a little too biased, note that it's Steve Jobs producing the quote "the best idea has to win", in reference to how one's position in a hierarchy should carry no weight to the value of an idea. And finally, I've once read a philosopher claiming that the reason capitalism has won over communism, is the lack of a feedback loop in communism. Well intended directness combined with anti-fragility is a super power.
- esyir 5y ago
  I have to say, well done. My intuition was also somewhat aligned with the previous commenter, but the blowout list really says it all, especially considering the relatively small size of the Netherlands.
- guiraldelli 5y ago
  First of all, I want to say that I agree with most of what you said. I want be redundant and tell again the good parts of the Dutch culture. However, I _strongly disagree_ eith a few of your points, which I think are over-the-top and incorrect. And I say so given my experience of living in the Netherlands and working for two of the five companies you quoted. I understood you are Dutch and making a good point against a possibly Usonian troll which has limited view of your country, its culture, tradition and influence. However, years working for Dutch companies and living in the Netherlands allows me to state those points I quoted below are not true. (And I am not limiting my analysis to the companies I worked, but also government, companies I had to deal with, etc.) The points are disagree are: > Next-level automation. Rationality. Fast error-correcting. Reliability, do what you promise. Rationality is one of the biggest "cultural shocks" I had when moving to the Netherlands. It is _said_ that decisions are rational; in practice, it is the _opinion of the selected majority_ that matters, or a deturpation of the poedermodel. And above it all, > When you want to get shit done, and get it done properly, you call the Dutch. Trading ia what flows in Dutch blood. It is part of their DNA. It is incredible. They are incredibly good at it. That implicitly means they are great salespeople. And salespeople sells the buyer's dream, not necessarily a reality. What I want to say is that Dutch are not exemplary engineers. Do not misunderstand me: they had instances of great scientists and engineers, but it is not their number one cultural goal as the comment I quoted implied. And that is so clear that engineers, for decades, are brought from abroad. The exemplary Dutch engineering companies are _managed by Dutch_, but the products are (mostly) _designed by immigrants_ (which are incorrectly called _expats_). So, the culture of "do it properly" (which is pretry engineering mindset) is not around, as implied. The "get it _somehow looking_ done", however, is. And that is trading mindset. Once I learned this cultural difference, I got piece of mind and started to be more effective at my Dutch job and society—and that is the "work smart" part you told about. And it is not the Dutch are trying to fool people delivering _somehow looking done_ stuff. Not at all! It is just that their trading features comes first over their engineering ones. Still, and again, I tend to agree with most of what you said.
coldtea 5y ago
>If this is really so valuable, why aren't the largest, most successful corporations in the world Dutch? Well, first the Netherlands do have some of the most succesful corportations in the world, given their size. Second, because while being valuable inside a business, honesty is not necessarily the be all end all criterium for success. You can be honest and more efficient for it, but lack other factors, like a large internal market, a huge military and diplomatic machine securing cheap resources, controlling trade routes, supporting your national currency and brokering deals for your companies, a good headstart when Europe was broken down and shattered from WWI and WWII which barely affected your country, and so on. And, of course, honesty in society in general might be very good without translating in any way to more succesful businesses. Kindness, honesty, and treating people well are good and valuable things, but they don't make you money, nor help you build a billion dollar corporation. A honest ad, for example, for most products would be "you don't really need it", not "this will change your life". A conscious corporation would make products long lasting, which loses money compared to planned obsolesence. A kind employer would compensate employees well, sharing its mega-profits, not squeeze blood out of them - but having your employees wear diapers at the warehouse or risk getting fired for bathroom breaks makes you more money. Similarly pressuring employees that need the job into working 14+ hour shifts to get more units ready for Xmas is more profitable that giving them work/life balance and understanding that holidays are for family and friends, not for pushing people into more consumption.
- andi999 5y ago
  Large internal market, currency and trade deals is solved by the EU since a while.
lupire 5y ago
Nobody caught your sly joke about Dutch East India Company, the largest, most successful corporation in history.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company
- fleddr 5y ago
  It's a sensitive topic, as it involves colonialism. Our former PM once said we need our "VOC mentality" back. He obviously meant the entrepreneurial spirit, but it was taken the wrong way.

wil421 5y ago

I hate the nonsense and wish more people were direct like the Dutch. In my experience pure academics and scientists are more arrogant and lack empathy rather than being Dutch and direct.

fleddr 5y ago
Biased as I am, I'd agree. It's unlikely for a dutch person to mislead you or be dishonest. There's no agenda. It's safe, reliable and comforting. And should such a direct remark upset you, the other party expects directness in return, and can handle it. As for academics and such, we reject elitism. Sure enough we accept differences in success and wealth, but we won't let it get to your head: https://images0.persgroep.net/rcs/rl7MK73sKTwSudzEJaBS-jjwW7E/diocontent/163123548/_fitwidth/694/?appId=21791a8992982cd8da851550a453bd7f&quality=0.8 https://images0.persgroep.net/rcs/rl7MK73sKTwSudzEJaBS-jjwW7... That's our PM cycling to work. You can talk to him should you come across him. There's no secret service, as in our society, he's "just another guy". This is expressed in another local slogan: "stick your head above the corn field and we chop it off". It's not a reference to communism, it means don't get cocky when successful, don't believe you're better than anybody else at a human level, and don't take yourself so serious. Admittedly, times are changing and inequality is on the rise. I'll end with saying that the "bluntness" some complain about is still a suppressed version of our actual directness. I'll illustrate by means of a recent conversation with a friend: Me: what do you think of my new clothes? Friend: Did you dig this up from the graveyard? I love my country :)
- goto11 5y ago
  > It's unlikely for a dutch person to mislead you or be dishonest. Er...didn't the Dutch government just resign due to a fraud scandal?
  - fleddr 5y ago
    Well, now we're getting quite off-topic. Obviously my remarks should be seen as a stereotype, I'm not going to vouch for 100% of dutch people. The point I was trying to make is that dutch people speak directly in general, so what they say is close to what they think. The lack of an additional agenda. I would hope that you agree that as it comes to politicians, the above is the least likely to be true. Dutch politicians operate in a massively complex consensus culture where it's inevitable that they have quite a lot of hidden agendas. In this case, it was a cover up. Few would care, but I can give some background as to what happened. The Netherlands has a relatively generous welfare system, which invites abuse. There have been incidents, such as immigrants claiming all kinds of benefits without even living in the country. The response was a more firm approach in checking eligibility. Yet this new firm approach got out of hand and incorrectly flagged a group of people as fraudulent, whilst they were not, at huge individual cost. Many got into huge debts, lost their house, and so on. Shit happens. It's an error, or plain incompetence. The true scandal is the response. Instead of admitting the error and compensating the victims, most effort went into denial and covering it up. So, you have a point. But we're comparing apples to oranges. The typical dutch person in the streets is not the same thing as a sleazy politician.