A Global Learning Language

Ask a sample of employees to list the number of languages they speak or understand and at what level of confidence. The results will give you a sense of one of the major challenges the United States faces in going global — a language gap. An overwhelming number of American professionals only speak English, unless they grew up in a bilingual household. They are not overly interested in learning a second or third language.

At the same time, almost every U.S. corporation is turning to the global environment for its core growth: looking for new marketplaces overseas, growing internationally located workforces and partnering with offshore organizations in supply chains.

Whenever I attend a meeting overseas, I am reminded of the language gap. While I can use a bit of my high school Spanish or college German to help place orders in restaurants, I cannot operate professionally in another language. In contrast, many of the international colleagues at such events move easily between their native languages, English, French and, increasingly, Mandarin. Even when they are not fluent in English, their informal competency in my native tongue gives them an advantage.

When we think about talent, language skills are rarely mentioned. Rather than make a concerted effort to grow language skills, most organizations take a passive approach. They assume all business dealings are conducted in English, use translators for documents and in meetings and rely on global colleagues to act as translators.

After a meeting is over, sitting in a cafe with my global colleagues, leaders will sometimes take a risk and ask why so few Americans speak another language. If they are being totally honest, they will share a hunch that Americans are self-centered, and that we assume English is the international language of business, which means the rest of the world should be ready to learn it.

In our increasingly distributed world, with teams spread far and wide, the assumption continues to be that English will be the working language, even at the risk of misunderstandings or gaps in context and comprehension. Add telepresence, desktop video, texting, social media and other ways in which we are connecting globally; yet, most Americans can only participate in the English components.