What culture can teach managers and defense counsel

Traveling on business has given me a chance to finish "The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way To Understand Why People Around The World Live and Buy as They Do" from Clotaire Rapaille. His take: When Americans ask someone what he does for a living, we are really asking, "What is your purpose?" The question for Americans, unlike for the rest of the world, goes to a person's fundamental identity. To quote Rapaille, Americans "believe that if we work hard and improve our professional standing we become better people." Translation: Some find salvation in a church, we find it in an office. But don't Americans really work for money? Rapaille says no: "Money is the proof of our goodness, not in itself the goal. . . . money alone is the worst reward for an American employee." (Reminds me of my blog post on Daniel Pink.) Rapaille says an American works for recognition and to prove herself as a worthy person, someone upon whom others can rely. For us, money is not the sole reward. Rapaille suggests when a worker gets a promotion, managers should give him new tools to help him do a more effective job; such rewards "give him a visceral sense that his identity is expanding." What about teamwork? Rapaille’s take is that the workplace needs teams, but managers should never reward teams for a job well done; instead, the rewards should go to individuals on the teams. Rapaille argues that the United States is an adolescent country, and Americans act like adolescents — even those in middle age. The prevailing view is that everything is about me, me, me. I agree with him. Job loss is so devastating to Americans because it is not the loss of a job but of our identity and of our ability to become better people. This is why employment cases are dangerous for employers; jurors know all this in their reptile brains. My job as defense counsel is to show jurors they need not worry that whatever befell the plaintiff will happen to them; rather, this particular plaintiff is an outlier, and he had the power to avoid his fate.