Greenspeak

by Nick Evered

Today to be successful, it is no longer enough to just be Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Australian or American. To be really successful we must embrace that we are living in a global community and therefore fully engage to understand what that means. This is far more than just language, vocabulary and grammar, although these are very important, it is more about really understanding the culture and the environment in which other people live so that you have a context within which to communicate.

One of the most challenging aspects to management is getting employees to not only know “what” you want them to do, but also the “why”, a clear outcome you want to achieve and where it fits in the companies strategy. If you leave staff with just the “what” then naturally they become only task focused, working away at that task without really understanding the purpose or the context. This most often leads to wasted time, boredom and worst of all, you never get to truly tap into an individual’s creative talent. This is a significant management issue when you are just dealing with managers and staff from the same country, with the same language, same culture and environmental context. Add the dimension of people from different countries, with different languages and context, and immediately you exponentially increase the complexity and therefore the likelihood of miscommunication, wasted effort and under utilized or inappropriate use of resources.

Numerous times I have seen or even been involved with a management meeting of senior executives from different countries with different native languages, all of who spoke and understood English reasonably well. They have sat in a room, discussed an issue, all seemingly agreed to what had been decided and then three months later you find that different managers have done things very differently than what was agreed. This ends up with so much wasted time and effort, and has a significant impact on both the top and bottom line of a business. Another meeting is inevitably required to fix it, incurring additional cost plus the opportunity cost due to wasted time and effort. This opportunity cost loss in today’s fast moving world is almost certainly very much larger than just the direct costs.

I believe many senior executives these days realize that this problem exists, and in order to avoid it, frequently create additional dimension. We see numerous examples where a senior leader brings in “their team” - basically this means they put in place people they know who they can communicate with easily. Most usually, this means people of similar nationality, culture, linguistic background who end up dominating the decision making process of a group. The net effect is that they don’t get to tap into the diversity of talent that already exists within the company. The more enlightened leaders are those who foster a program that develops young managers from diverse backgrounds. These young talented people need to be groomed not only professionally but an investment made into their development of language skill, cultural understanding, and a global appreciation.

In my experience, the people who are becoming the most valuable in the market are those who have spent some time overseas and have acquired both an additional language and an awareness of intricacies of another culture in addition to their own. This is much more than just about the language, but fluency in English, both spoken and written, including colloquialisms and local specific terms are also important.

The individuals who display characteristics of a true global citizen are able to build relationships and friendships with people from different countries with ease, they are comfortable engaging and working with English speakers as well as those from different cultures, they are aware of the global world and respectful of the differences, they are the ones that consistently outshine others even if they have higher educational qualifications or even intelligence.

During my corporate career I have invested a lot of time in young individuals to help them broaden their experiences through providing them with foreign language courses, exchange programs or even temporary relocations to different countries. Many of these talents I keep in touch with and it is so rewarding to see them fast track to success.

I have always thought that there must be a better way to do this, as really these skills should be developed earlier in life. You want these skills to be in place before they start to build their career, hence why so many parents and even governments encourage kids to learn foreign languages, in Asia the focus being on English. As there is demand, there seem to be endless supply of extra programs; schools offering exchange programs, brokers who organize transfers to schools and camps overseas. However when I look at many of them it seems that they are a bit hit or miss hoping that by attending an overseas camp or school with local kids that language will be learned by osmosis. Of course it can help, but too often kids find the experience alienating and traumatic trying to integrate to regular schools and camps where teachers and home stay parents are not specifically trained to handle these children.

Looking closely at the problem of how to build the global leaders of the future, it has become clear to me that it requires a more integrated program that targets students and even young people that are already in the workforce to help them build the skills and confidence to be leaders of tomorrow. The program needs to include the three components of Language, Culture, and Environment and be built taking into account the specific challenges that are part of learning English as a Second Language. It needs to be delivered using native English speakers that can help students learn how the language is used in academic, business, and social context. It also needs to be delivered in an environment that nurtures and makes enjoyable the whole process of learning. Finally, the lesson of giving back to our environment, volunteering, engaging in projects, working together for a common goal, to not only reinforce the language, social, and global skills, but to build socially responsible and well rounded leaders that we are sure to need in our future.

Educators and parents need to look past exams as the only measure of English language competency, although they have their place. They need to see what communication and global interaction skills are required in the real world. Not tomorrow, but today.