Messieurs les Anglais, tirez les premiers....

No, you are not looking at the wrong blog. This title, that is well known in France, can freely be translated in "Mr. Englishmen, please shoot first...". It goes back to the time of the archeries.

Now, why use this as a title. Well to highlight another aspect of global collaboration. English is the only language that is spoken more by non native speakers than by native speakers. It is actually a very rich language which has a lot of nuances. Listening to British humor is one of the best ways to experience that. Unfortunately, most of the non native speakers do not know these nuances and will make mistakes all the time. Messieurs les Anglais, keep that into account and do not get upset when you hear something that may sound rude .

I remember, years ago, I was responsible for the beta test of a product that my company was going to sell. We tested the product with a local company in Belgium. The development team, based in the US, was asking for our feedback. And we gave them feedback:

• You must include this function
• You must change the human interface in this way
• You must interface with this device

You probably already realize what happened. We completely pissed of the development team. When I went to visit them, they beat me up. You cannot tell us what we have to do. We should have used other words. We did not realize that the word "must" has a much harder meaning in English than in Dutch or French.

My request is actually pretty simple. Keep in mind that not everybody you talk to is as fluent as you are in English. It may avoid a lot of bad feelings.

Understand the language

I am currently in Kuala Lumpur and this morning we had a conference call with a customer in China regarding a project they were asking our advise on. The discussion was held partly in English, partly in Cantonese. Frankly, my knowledge of Cantonese is zero, or even worse, which means I did not get anything of what was said in that language. Fortunately, I had with me in the room one of my friends who can understand the language reasonably well.

This sounded invaluable, as it allowed me to assess more or less the thinking and feeling of the customer. Not being able to see him, it is important for me to understand how what I am saying is actually coming over. In some cultures, and when you know the language, you can assess that from the tone used. Unfortunately, when things just sound as a series of sounds without any meaning to you, it is very difficult to assess things.

That's the reason why it is of the uttermost important, when holding such discussions, to have somebody with appropriate language (and culture) understanding to keep you on the right track. And it needs to be a person you can trust. Particularly with Asians, that are very good at not showing their emotions, having such an ally is critical for any serious negotiations. Here again, I can only stress the importance of gaining a good understanding of what is in the mind of the person at the other side of the line. Keep that in mind when having discussions over long distances. Otherwise, you will be flying blind and may end-up in completely the wrong place. Remember this old Chinese proverb (actually this is how it was explained to me) "If you do not know where you are, no map will help"