Close your eyes and picture a typical American workplace: an orderly layout, cubicles like in the movies and windowed offices for managers. Now imagine an Israeli workplace. Does it look the same? Maybe — but the differences are enormous.
“Americans have a plan and a structure that guide them at work. They are extremely effective because when things work, they work with remarkable efficiency. There’s a well-known thesis about the McDonaldization of the world — how you get a hot hamburger in two minutes — and in a sense everything in the United States is McDonaldized. Everything is carefully planned,” says Prof. Gad Yair, a sociologist who has studied the U.S. in recent years and is publishing a new book titled This Is America — A Portrait of a Nation.
According to him, “Many U.S. companies have procedure manuals detailing what to do in every scenario. They tell you how to operate. You don’t need to take initiative — you just follow instructions. Think of going to a government office: the clerk in the U.S. follows the template and works exactly by the book, while in Israel you often hope you’ll ‘get’ the right person who can solve your problem. It’s amazing to see how this well-oiled machine works in the U.S. It comes from a Protestant mindset that you received a task from God, and you must carry it out because it’s a command from above.”
In a recent meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, this point was reinforced. “He told me that Americans treat planning as a moral code. His childhood mantra was, ‘Plan your work and work your plan.’ That’s the American template.”
So how would he characterize the Israeli worker?
“Our strength is exactly their weakness — how you react when things break down or fall outside the norm. The Israeli system internalizes survival in any situation, being ready for every twist. Americans aren’t used to that, so when something goes wrong, it takes them much longer to recover. You see it clearly in emergencies, like the Boston Marathon bombing, when Israeli teams flew in to help the Jewish community, and authorities there needed time to regroup and move forward.”
On the other hand, that well-oiled machine works only as long as nothing challenges it. Yair recalls an incident from his post-doctoral years in Chicago. He had returned to Israel and planned to fly back for a conference using the same student visa. “It wasn’t the correct visa for that visit, but I thought it would be fine. At the U.S. entry, they detained me, put me in a side room with asylum seekers and people with improper documents. I was sure they’d send me back — I didn’t fit their protocol. At the last moment, after I explained everything, the officer said it was a ‘final warning’ and let me in.
“In the same spirit, try asking to change a dish at a restaurant or serve coffee in a different cup, and see what happens. It’s hard for them to deviate from procedure. Anything that requires doing something slightly differently is difficult. There’s no good English term for it — they’re just very rigid.”
‘Meet at the park? Can’t you see I’m busy?’
One of the most common shocks for Israeli parents who move to the U.S. is the after-school playdate. While Israelis routinely arrange spontaneous meetups at the park or at a friend’s home, in the United States, you often need to book one two weeks in advance.
“Israeli parents are stunned that they must schedule a meeting between kids from 4 to 6 p.m. two weeks ahead. If you respond in an ‘Israeli’ way — ‘How about coming to the park now?’ — it’s seen as a mistake or even disrespectful. You’re basically telling the other parent that they’re not busy, that their child has nothing planned. The American mindset is that even if the child has nothing to do, you must project that you’re busy, that you’re working. Spontaneity doesn’t exist. If you understand the playdate, you understand the entire American business culture. Everything is built on long-term planning. To us it feels rigid.”
Where does this show up in career planning?
“One interviewee in my book was an Israeli who spent nearly a decade in Boston doing post-doctoral work. He decided he had to return to Israel with his daughters because he didn’t want them entering that intense race of planning their college trajectory and business-world future. He wanted that Israeli mental rest — the sanity of not being pressured 10 years ahead. In the U.S., everything is mapped out from a young age toward the right college and the right career. You constantly sacrifice the present for the future.”
In Israel, the situation is completely different — not only because of the status of academia but also because people begin their studies much later, at around age 25 on average, and because life itself often begins alongside school. “Israel is a completely different work world,” Yair explains. “Partly because of the older age, but also because of heavy family pressure. We get married and have children before making major decisions about our field of study or career path. Americans postpone family life so the plan will work properly. They delay marriage, delay relationships and often remain alone. Women who want careers especially tend to stay single to ensure the plan holds. Here everything mixes together. We have a both/and mentality — you don’t have to choose. There, if you commit to the plan, you’ll do everything to fulfill it. Here we’re much more flexible.”
Another major difference, he says, is that “Israelis are very emotional and operate with emotion, unlike Americans who are highly programmed to be rational. We often act emotionally, so our decisions bend around constraints. The emotions you encounter — relationships, family — are things they simply don’t have in the same way. Their lack of emotional interference allows them to follow the plan. There’s no room for emotional disruptions.”
Cover of the book 'This is America'Can you give an example?
“There are studies on American academia showing that if you’re doing a Ph.D. and happen to have a partner — don’t mention it. Don’t say you have a partner, and if you’re pregnant, heaven forbid. What does that mean? That you’re falling behind in the race. You can’t compete. You’re already failing.”
He recalls a defining moment in understanding America. “On my first day at the University of Chicago in 1994, I met one of the top sociologists in the field. His first question was, ‘Are you married?’ I was stunned — I came to talk about science, and he asks about my family. I said yes. Then he asked, ‘Do you have children?’ I said yes, I have two. And he told me, ‘Well, that’s it. You’re done. You won’t get a job in Chicago. You’re not built for Chicago because here people work 80 hours a week.’ That’s the American work ethos.”
Jumping from horse to horse
Globally, one of the defining traits of younger workers is the constant urge to diversify, advance and switch jobs frequently. Yair says younger generations “don’t have the patience to wait long for professional growth. If even a small opportunity appears, they leap from one place to another, constantly looking for the next horse to jump onto. The older generation viewed employment as something stable and long-term. That mindset has completely changed.”
According to Yair, “This will be employers’ biggest challenge — how to retain their best workers. Organizations will need tremendous effort to keep top talent. The dynamic has flipped. Today the organization must work to retain employees, not the other way around. In a sense, the job market is becoming the NBA: everyone wants the best players, and they move overnight from team to team. It’s business. The whole talk of ‘the Google family’ or ‘the Amazon family’ is pretty much over.”
Did smartphones ruin us or save us?
Data show that out of 24 hours a day, we spend about seven hours staring at the small screen in our pocket. What does that mean for workplace skills? “There’s a sharp decline in reading books and long texts, and a rise in scrolling through mobile content. We no longer have the ability to sit for long hours and read, so if you’re not reading, you also can’t write. Writing is a muscle — you need constant practice. Something in our intellectual capacity is fading, and we rely more and more on technical crutches like artificial intelligence. Some people find that alarming, but we shouldn’t whine. This is where the world is going. There are pessimists who believe the 2026 job market will collapse because of AI, and there’s no doubt many professions or technical tasks will be replaced by digital agents. I agree that some fields have reason to worry. In a way, I’m glad I’m near the end of my career and don’t have to compete with this,” he says, laughing.
So what does the perfect employee look like — American planning, German work ethic and Israeli thinking?
“Absolutely. Cultural mixing helps people think outside the box and encourages innovation. The best scientific labs are built from people of different nationalities and backgrounds. Americans and Europeans lack the courage to take risks and try. That’s where we — and I should add the Indians, who are quite similar to us in this regard — come in.”