ENGLISHNIZATION

The fastest-spreading language in human history, English is spoken at a useful level by some
1.75 billion people worldwide—that’s 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’ve studied it as a second language. An estimated 565 million people use it on the internet.

Language – bridge or barrier?

Is a language strategy important to implement in all companies? Is It important for what?

- Competitive: communicate with a wide range of customers, suppliers, and other business
partners. Otherwise, you’re limiting your growth opportunities.
- Globalization: virtual and global teams and they need a common ground
- Negotiations: merger or acquisition

How was a language strategy implemented at yours? How important is it to speak a second or
third language for your work and your career?

What are the possible challenges of implementing a language strategy? But what about the
benefits?

What do you think about the role of translating and interpreting in business? What are the ups
and downs? Have you ever experienced that?

Are there other languages becoming dominant in the world? Is it possible English to be
overpowered?

Notes - Video

Companies – quickly adapt as common language or lingua franca

- Better partner relationships

Why English?

English is the common language of business.

Language strategy interchangeable with English

China is rising, will it take over?

For now, it won’t

English advantages: - massive head start, embedded around the world through British and
American culture
 - Easier to speak Broken English

When companies need a language strategy?

- Global strategy need lang strategy, extending domestic, and interacting different lang
backgrounds

Customers are getting spread around the world

Strong cultural identity

Compnies need to be very thoughtful

Toughest and radical things companies can ask

I developed adaption framework – they don’t feel identity watered down, gain a new skill

Select a language strategy – native speakers (English speakers) way to accommodate

Lang strategy is ensuring everyone’s involved

Native speaker big role

- Show up in mixed language environment and speak as they do, they need to slow down,
different vocabulary to accommodate others, they need to help co-workers
- Change communication behavior
- Managers manage communication when you have people from different places

Read the article from the book “Language – bridge or barrier?”

Vocabulary Check

Greater job mobility: Career mobility, also known as job mobility, refers to the movement of
employees across grades or positions.

Quicker Career progression: Career progression, quite simply put, is the process of climbing the
ladder during your working life. Moving forward, being promoted, finding new challenges, new
employers, new opportunities and getting the most out of your career.

Two big international companies

Rakuten

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 years—or risk demotion or even dismissal.

Honda Motor Co. has decided to switch its official corporate language for international
communications within the company to English by 2020, the company announced publicly in its
annual sustainability report.
The automaker had worked to make English an important part of its operations over the past
several years, but its decision to make English the corporate lingua franca recognizes the future of
Honda’s operations as more fully international in scope and character. By 2020, senior executives
will have to prove their English fluency before taking up their positions, and internal documents
that need to be in English will be written that way rather than translated from Japanese.

The new English policy is more than just a practical measure; it is a sensible response to business
realities. That comes none too late, since an increasingly large portion of Honda’s global sales are
in the largest English-speaking country in the world, the United States. Honda became in 1982 the
first Japanese automaker to start manufacturing cars in the U.S. and remains the fifth-largest
automaker in America. Though sales are down slightly from their peak of 2007, North America still
accounted for 47 percent of Honda’s revenue in fiscal 2013.

Honda clearly wants and needs to establish an international workforce that better matches the
reality of the company’s global presence. Last year, Honda hired 4,778 new workers in North
America, but only 719 in Japan. Japanese employees account for just 32 percent of Honda’s total
global work force of 204,730, and that share has been shrinking. Honda may be a Japanese firm in
origin, but it is increasingly international in character.

The move to English follows the lead of Japanese companies such as Fast Retailing (Uniqlo),
Rakuten and Bridgestone, which all have English-only policies. But it also follows the lead of other
large international companies from other countries. Chinese tech giant Lenovo made English its
lingua franca many years ago, and the same goes for Nokia, Audi, Airbus, Aventis, Daimler-
Chrysler, Renault and Samsung, among others.

Honda rival Nissan Motor Co. has already taken steps to internationalize, but in different ways.
Roughly 40 percent of Nissan’s corporate officers are non-Japanese, in addition to being in a
partnership with the French company Renault. At Honda, though, only one of 36 senior executives
is non-Japanese, though in North America, 59 percent of senior management at regional offices
are hired locally. The company’s character, in short, has changed considerably over the years.

In addition to personnel shifts, the fast pace of global business nowadays no longer allows time for
decisions to be discussed in Japanese, translated into English and distributed to non-Japanese
employees. Quick decisions, prompt responses and real-time communications are the keys to
remaining competitive. All of this, many companies are deciding, is easier when it’s all done in
English.