
VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal - tetrep
http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/12/vw-says-rulebreaking-culture-at-root-of-emissions-scandal/
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sageabilly
So Chairman Pötsch said _" All of this was caused by a desire to expand diesel
sales in the US, a desire that wasn't matched with sufficient time or budget
to develop engines that fully complied with the tough NOx emissions
regulations of the US."_ The unsaid implication being that someone was pushing
that desire, and the very much danced around implication of either "Management
said we have to sell more cars _no matter what it takes_ " (indicating
management knew about it and didn't care) or possibly even "Management wants
to sell more cars _and you must make cars more sellable at all costs_ "
(indicating that the developers were afraid for their jobs if they spoke up
about potential misdeeds while making cars more attractive to consumers.)

Someone, somewhere, either felt like they couldn't blow the whistle without
getting fired (obviously a problem) or management knew about the rule breaking
and _just didn 't care_ (which is a bigger problem.)

~~~
masklinn
> Someone, somewhere, either felt like they couldn't blow the whistle without
> getting fired (obviously a problem) or management knew about the rule
> breaking and just didn't care (which is a bigger problem.)

Don't forget somebody blowing the whistle to the hierarchy and a middle-
mangler (of justice) "losing" the call. Feynman recounts multiple instances of
manglement ignoring or railroading warnings and whistleblowing from engineers
and workers, both in and out of NASA, when they didn't fail to consult with
their report entirely.

Here's a verbatim quote from "Why do you care what other people think" (norton
paperback, page 185)

> When I left the meeting, I had the definite impression that I had found the
> same game as with the seals: management reducing criteria and accepting more
> and more errors that weren't designed into the device, while the engineers
> are screaming from below, "HELP!" and "This is a RED ALERT!"

And top manglement may not only know (and not care) about the issues but cause
them, see this other quote a few pages further (194) in the Software Group
section (Feynman had been very impressed — positively — by the engineering
discipline of the shuttle software group)

> One guy muttered something about higher-ups in NASA wanting to cut back on
> testing to save money: "They keep saying we always pass the tests, so what's
> the use of having so many?"

~~~
Shivetya
process driven cultures tend to generate a lot of apathy from the standpoint
that speaking up is systematically discouraged as there is no reward. doesn't
matter how right your position is, far more will follow a process to any end
as the process itself provides cover from fallout and failure

~~~
masklinn
Feynman recounts very much the opposite (of apathy), that engineers and even
factory workers had remained surprisingly (to him) involved, interested and
high in morale, e.g. recounting his meeting with the workers reshaping and
reassembling the solid rocket booster sections:

> the point is, the workers were _thinking!_ I got the impression that they
> were _not_ undisciplined; they were very interested in what they were doing,
> but they weren't given much encouragement. Nobody was paying much attention
> to them. It was remarkable that their morale was as high as it was under the
> circumstances.

~~~
Shivetya
apathy does not necessarily manifest in bad morale, if anything it can be a
coping mechanism. let alone in such groups the idea of not rocking the boat is
similar to the Wilder effect; you be what they expect when asked because to
disagree causes discomfort or the need to be seen as a team player is real

~~~
masklinn
> apathy does not necessarily manifest in bad morale

Apathy is defined as a lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern, the text I
quote is about Feynman finding none of these lacking.

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balls187
Can German HN readers can explain this to me. My interpretation of German
culture was that rule breaking was looked down upon. My own experience
traveling in Germany was that rules were deliberately followed, for example,
no one ever crossed the street until the Walk sign was present, regardless of
it being busy. Honking your horn by an irritated driver happened only once in
my 3 weeks there (and the cyclists took the driver to task for it).

The name escapes me, but an expat friend of mine living in Germany mentioned
there is a government group that is in charge of making sure posted signs
follow strict laws (can't find this on Google).

German engineering culture is known for high precision and quality.

Made in Germany has the same brand power that Made in Japan, and Made in the
US have.

Given these stereotypes of German culture, to me, it seems out of sorts that
VW (arguably one of the most public of German Companies) would have a culture
of rule breaking.

~~~
yoodenvranx
We Germans are not perfect at all. Yes, we are good at engineering and yes, we
take our rules a bit more serious than other people, but all in all you will
find the same problems here as anywhere else. The rulebreaking is just toned
down a bit but it still exists.

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anigbrowl
'Move fast and break the law' might not have been the best slogan to put on
the wall....

~~~
woody223
It's working alright for Uber ;)

~~~
CamperBob2
Arguably the laws Uber is breaking are themselves immoral.

When it comes to emissions controls, though, even the worst lawbreakers among
us need to breathe.

~~~
DannyBee
"Arguably the laws Uber is breaking are themselves immoral. "

By whose standards/judgments?

~~~
BurningFrog
Mine, among many others.

You're free to see it differently. I think that makes it "arguable".

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gsibble
"It's all those damn engineers' fault."

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johansch
This sounds like such a German corporate reaction - almost as if it were a
caricature - "they didn't follow the process - how can we be responsible? we
better double down on process."

How about failing in building a corporate culture that rewards openness and
learning from failure?

This gives me very little hope for VW, and to an extent, for Germany. These
top of the crop german execs just _don 't get it_.

~~~
alayne
Is the incident with GM's ignition switches that killed 100 people the kind of
learning from failure we should shoot for?

~~~
johansch
Please read this:

[http://www.governing.com/columns/smart-mgmt/col-culture-
open...](http://www.governing.com/columns/smart-mgmt/col-culture-openness-
candor-critical-organizational-success.html)

"Creating a culture of openness and candor is critical to organizational
success. It takes a strong, concerted effort by leaders."

"How could this icon of U.S. industry allow the ignition-switch problem to
fester for a decade without recalling the faulty vehicles and without
notifying federal authorities (as required) and the public?

The answer seems to lie in the company's culture. For decades, GM was plagued
with warring fiefdoms, so it wasn't in one's interest to surface problems in
front of your colleagues. And even when problems were brought to senior
managers' attention, action was often impeded by poor communications between
GM units. As crisis-management expert Gerry Meyers puts it, "In any big
organization, there's an effort by lower-level management to insulate upper-
level management. And the more layers there are, the less [likely] that a very
serious matter can get to the top."

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paulcole
One man's rule breaking is another man's disruption.

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vladsanchez
Rulebreaking!?!?! They must be PuertoRicans! :-D

Disclosure: I am PuertoRican

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Theodores
I just wish one government would say to VW - 'sorry folks, those cars do not
meet emission standards, they are destroying the health of the general public
to an extent that our health services do not want so please take those cars
off the road today.'

Thereafter the police being instructed to stop any offending VW found on the
roads and tow it to the yard, to be released once VW fixed it, with yard
storage charges applied at market rates for the locality. The police have
automatic number plate recognition, this talks to the licensing authority and
a few lines of code could be added to flag up the emission-spewing diesels.
Simple.

This would also be an experiment in air quality. If overnight a sizeable
percentage of cars were no longer on the roads, would there be a noticeable
increase in air quality?

This would also be handled by market forces, I am sure my VW driving friends
would sort out alternative rides or find garages that could add some fancy
exhaust pipe that makes them compliant.

Draconian? It depends on whether air quality matters or not. That is a fairly
black and white thing - either it matters or it doesn't.

The 'rule breaking' culture in VW is all very interesting but neither VW or
our elected governments have done a thing to take those polluting machines off
the road until they are fixed. It is this culture of complacency that bothers
me more because it is happening now. The 'rule breaking' culture continues.

You would not breathe diesel fumes if you could see them.

~~~
sliverstorm
That sounds a lot like punishing the consumer for being duped by VW.

On the bright side, VW is a very small portion of the market, and I suspect
the cheating cars are not much worse than older cars that we allow on the
road, which are held to less stringent standards. So while it's completely
unacceptable behavior of VW, it's also not the end of the world if people keep
driving them until VW issues the software update.

~~~
mrob
We already "punish" people who are duped into buying stolen property (by
confiscation of that property), so why should people duped by other illegal
activity be treated differently?

~~~
sliverstorm
In the case of stolen property, that's mostly because the property needs to be
returned to the original owner. Zero sum and all that. You don't own the
property because the thief who sold it to you did not have the rights to
transfer to you; the rights are retained by the original owner.

