February 26, 2005
Passion, Fondue, and Pharma
Cufflinks clinked down, my manager gave me a few sentences of advice the day before I took my first of many SwissAir flights: "Take your best suits and ties. If you set a deadline with our clients you'll be expected to keep it precisely. And never use the word 'passion' when you talk about work."
In my first international client project at a small consultancy I shifted from business casual to formal, and spent two months on-site at the headquarters of Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company. I enjoyed the work, the team, and the clients: and on first arriving thought Switzerland wouldn’t be all that different from the various places I’ve worked and lived in the United States – and much less different than many places where I’ve wandered. Suissedeutch is a bit hard to understand, true, and cheese and cream grate a Santa Barbarian stomach – but with a relatively commensurate GDP per capita, similar or better educational attainment levels, and common western European-oriented history and culture, my first jet-lagged days made Switzerland seem less foreign than, say, Mexico might after just a few minutes just across my home state’s border in Tijuana.
Fewer than 15% of Swiss citizens own real estate property. From college friends who’d spent a week canoneering in Interlaken I’d heard that Switzerland was, “the perfect almost classless society. Everyone’s smart. There’s not much crime. And it’s beautiful.” Rather than classless I found Switzerland to be of two classes: almost everyone and the jetsetters. And everyone I met was impressively smart and educated – my company’s client, our client’s direct reports, and those reports’ secretaries were all analytically clever, well-spoken polyglots. The Starbucks baristas were the most articulate I’ve ever met – and, apparently, the most expensive: high minimum wages make for 5 dollar cappuccinos. After two sequential weekends wandering through the Alps I had to wonder whether it was the country’s general equality, crisp air, or merely its altitude that made its citizenry seem…well…uniformly satisfied.
In my early weeks of work on the group – and even the day before my initial JFK-Zurich non-stop -- I took my manager’s first two recommendations to heart: I was happy to dress-up for awhile, and it wasn’t surprising to me that the world’s premier clock country valued time precision – but I didn’t understand his third point: no passion? It wasn’t until I spent two weeks back in New York, sloshing through a blizzard’s residual mess, passing by bankers and bums, that his comment started to resonate. The main difference between the smart, extremely competent and educated Swiss I spent two months working with and their American analogues was the former group’s distinct lack of emotional involvement with their work. Motivated, yes. Exceptionally competent, also, yes. Emotionally driven – seemingly no. Even in my company’s home office people tend to occasionally wear their disaffected days on their sleeves – likewise with their passionate push-buttons. In my (admittedly, relatively short, still) time on the group not one Swiss Pharma worker, VP or secretary, so visibly flew a work-related emotional flag.
To pose one hypothesis for this: might this lack of workplace emotion be tied to Switzerland’s general social equality? If the difference between a good year and a great year has no tie to whether a middle manager will be able to afford a house (because almost no one gets to buy a house), could this explain why he or she will neither be overly excited or defeated in response to workplace outcomes? I’m not fully convinced by this argument, given the subtle signs of social disquiet I encountered (notably the prevalence of anti-Semitic graffiti, the thorough disparagement of the recent Turkish immigrants in the city where I worked, and the prevalence and open use of an odiferous banned substance) – but from a material point of view, where the “American workplace” (epitomized in NYC) seems to purposefully tie employee emotions into their own subtle social and economic scramble, the Swiss seem satisfied giving lower managerial payouts, providing everyone strong educations, and ensuring high gainful employment rates. Or maybe it’s just that, due to their years of practice, they don't need passion to make perfect fondues and oversee several of the world’s most visible product sets -- watches, food products, and pharmaceuticals, for example.
Posted by Sam Hodges at 06:51 PM
