Harmony between american and french methods

Richard Schomberg, currently EDF's R&D representative at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, has dual nationality and is completely bilingual. He started his new job one fine day in sunny California, basking in the prestige associated with belonging to the world's largest electricity company, and filled with the desire to create good working relationships with his American counterparts whose failures in terms of the deregulation of electrical services were well known. However for six long months, nothing happened ! It took all of his French sensitivity to systematic approaches and all his goodwill for advancement (this being rather an American characteristic) for him to be recognised by his peers, and to plant in American thinking the hidden extra (the je ne sais quoi) which is so unfamiliar to them, and yet is the force behind the EDF model.