Some years ago, when crossing the Green Line that splits Cyprus in two, I made a faux pas. I approached the checkpoint; a Cypriot border official, looking bored out of his mind, stared at me in a way that suggested he far preferred his boredom to my presence. He said nothing when I approached the counter. What was expected seemed clear enough, as people don't approach a border crossing in order to grab a couple of lotto tickets and a quart of milk. They want to cross the border.
"I'd, er, like to visit the Turkish side, please," was the way I phrased this. The bored stare took on an element of anger; perhaps he objected to my assumption that he spoke English? Not knowing any Greek, though, my options here were limited.
"There is no Turkish side!" he shouted and banged his fist on the desk—this despite the obvious presence of the Turkish army, tens of thousands of Turkish-speaking residents, and a collection of mosques not more than a quarter of a mile from his post. It was an impressive lesson in the difficulties of communicating, even in the same language, with people from other cultures. The offense had been unintentional but was no less real for that. (When I found myself at a loss to provide the street address of my hosts' flat, the man looked at me with absolute disgust in a way that needed no translation. Clearly, the look said, here is a man ill-equipped for life on his own in the world, and if he returns at all from the other side of the checkpoint, it will be a miracle.)
It wasn't the language that we spoke that created difficulties in communication, it was a lack of cultural context. As global companies standardize on English and expand worldwide workforces, the same problem has proved challenging. Can managers speaking English as a second or third language truly be effective leaders of those from other countries and cultures? Can they get results without being offensive?
The problem goes beyond accents; as the Wall Street Journal points out in a recent piece on the subject, colleagues who understand each other perfectly can still have plenty of trouble making themselves clear. The paper gives the example of "one French worker [who] took offense when a British colleague jokingly referred to a fellow Brit as 'not too clever' on a conference call." Now, training companies like GlobalEnglish increasingly offer cultural training in addition to vocabulary and conjugation practice.
As befits an interconnected world, this training can now be delivered over the Internet. The GlobalEnglish program, for instance, relies on Flash (but is Windows-only) to deploy its Corporate Learning System, and the system specs are light: a Pentium 266MHz machine and Windows 2000 or better.
English has long been the dominant language for international business and technology; heck, even a hat I picked up in the Czech Republic that was made and sold there said "Made in Czech Republic" on the label. When English becomes an adjunct to a native language, it can be a powerful tool for business and cross-cultural communication. The focus on English has its critics, though, who worry that it will eclipse other tongues, especially in immigrant communities in English-speaking countries. Such a view, long a staple issue in postcolonial literature, was put forward again today by Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), who wrote in a newspaper column that keeping another language and culture even has economic and political benefits.
"Contrary to what anti-immigrants argue, I know Vietnamese, Filipino, Indian, Latino and Chinese children in my district who have actually lost their family's native tongue," he wrote in a piece for the Mercury News. "When they grow up, they would be better equipped to carry out business relationships south of the border or in the Pacific Rim, had they kept their native languages. This would be even more important if they went on to help shape global U.S. policy."
Even without learning other languages, cultural training alone has become increasingly important for international businesses like Google, which has a presence in just about every developed country in the world. Newsweek has a nice profile of young Googlers who are sent on a company-sponsored round-the-world trip to see firsthand how business is done in other places and to pass out candy to kids in Indian villages. The candy might not change the world, but the visit could well change the Googlers (who might, in fact, change the world).
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