Ready or not, English is now the global language of business. More and more multinational companies are mandating English as the common corporate languageAirbus, Daimler-Chrysler, Fast Retailing, Nokia, Renault, Samsung, SAP, Technicolor, and Microsoft in Beijing, to name a fewin an attempt to facilitate communication and performance across geographically diverse functions and business endeavors.
Adopting a common mode of speech isnt just a good idea; its a must, even for an American company with operations overseas, for instance, or a French company focused on domestic customers. Imagine that a group of salespeople from a companys Paris headquarters get together for a meeting. Why would you care whether they all could speak English? Now consider that the same group goes on a sales call to a company also based in Paris, not realizing that the potential customer would be bringing in employees from other locations, who didnt speak French. This happened at one company I worked with. Sitting together in Paris, employees of those two French companies couldnt close a deal because the people in the room couldnt communicate. It was a shocking wake-up call, and the company soon adopted an English corporate language strategy.
Similar concerns drove Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of RakutenJapans largest online marketplaceto mandate in March 2010 that English would be the companys official language of business. The companys goal was to become the number one Internet Services Company in the world, and Mikitani believed that the new policywhich would affect some 7,100 Japanese employeeswas vital to achieving that end, especially as expansion plans were concentrated outside Japan. He also felt responsible for contributing to an expanded worldview for his country, a conservative island nation.
The multibillion-dollar companya cross between Amazon.com and eBaywas on a growth spree: It had acquired PriceMinister.com in France, Buy.com and FreeCause in the U.S., Play.com in the UK, Tradoria in Germany, Kobo eBooks in Canada, and established joint ventures with major companies in China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Brazil. Serious about the language change, Mikitani announced the plan to employees not in Japanese but in English. Overnight, the Japanese language cafeteria menus were replaced, as were elevator directories. And he stated that employees would have to demonstrate competence on an international English scoring system within two yearsor risk demotion or even dismissal.
The media instantly picked up the story, and corporate Japan reacted with fascination and disdain. Hondas CEO, Takanobu Ito, publicly asserted, Its stupid for a Japanese company to only use English in Japan when the workforce is mainly Japanese. But Mikitani was confident that it was the right move, and the policy is bearing fruit. The English mandate has allowed Mikitani to create a remarkably diverse and powerful organization. Today, three out of six senior executives in his engineering organization arent Japanese; they dont even speak Japanese. The company continues to aggressively seek the best talent from around the globe. Half of Rakutens Japanese employees now can adequately engage in internal communication in English, and 25% communicate in English with partners and coworkers in foreign subsidiaries on a regular basis.
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Adopting a global language policy is not easy, and companies invariably stumble along the way. Its radical, and its almost certain to meet with staunch resistance from employees. Many may feel at a disadvantage if their English isnt as good as others, team dynamics and performance can suffer, and national pride can get in the way. But to survive and thrive in a global economy, companies must overcome language barriersand English will almost always be the common ground, at least for now.
The fastest-spreading language in human history, English is spoken at a useful level by some 1.75 billion people worldwidethats one in every four of us. There are close to 385 million native speakers in countries like the U.S. and Australia, about a billion fluent speakers in formerly colonized nations such as India and Nigeria, and millions of people around the world who have studied it as a second language. An estimated 565 million people use it on the internet.
The benefits of Englishnization, as Mikitani calls it, are significant; however, relatively few companies have systematically implemented an English-language policy with sustained results. Through my research and work over the past decade with companies, Ive developed an adoption framework to guide companies in their language efforts. Theres still a lot to learn, but success stories do exist. Adopters will find significant advantages.
Why English Only?
Theres no question that unrestricted multilingualism is inefficient and can prevent important interactions from taking place and get in the way of achieving key goals. The need to tightly coordinate tasks and work with customers and partners worldwide has accelerated the move toward English as the official language of business no matter where companies are headquartered.
Three primary reasons are driving the move toward English as a corporate standard.
Competitive pressure.
If you want to buy or sell, you have to be able to communicate with a diverse range of customers, suppliers, and other business partners. If youre lucky, theyll share your native languagebut you cant count on it. Companies that fail to devise a language strategy are essentially limiting their growth opportunities to the markets where their language is spoken, clearly putting themselves at a disadvantage to competitors that have adopted English-only policies
