It’s true:  the world is becoming a smaller place by the day as technology advances and eliminates the geographical challenges facing international businesses. But one of the key barriers remaining for many companies is language and the issues created when communicating across borders.  Around the globe, when English is used as the language of business, those who do not speak it are often at a disadvantage.

 

In a generally futile attempt to overcome this language barrier, the common practice for developing English language skills in companies over the years has been to enroll employees in weekly lessons. While delivering results in some situations, it usually proves to be an expensive method with students not necessarily picking up language relevant to their work. Furthermore, skills are quickly lost when English is not used on a regular basis.

 

Patricio Lagos, General Manager at Ingeniería y Desarrollo Tecnológico (IDT) site in Santiago, Chile, having experienced this very issue in his own career and frustrated by the fact that potential deals were being missed due to a language barrier, was inspired to develop a new approach to overcoming the challenge. Experiencing some real gains in his own language learning when taking intensive lessons tailored to his own needs, he envisioned that this concept could be improved by creating an immersion program inside his business.  Diane Greenstein, the team leader who is working with Mr. Lagos to create and implement this model explains, “the idea is to create an English-immersion environment, the natural context in which language is acquired, inside the business while continuing to carry on the business of the business.  In this way students are not learning the language and then using it, but rather they are learning the language by using it. “

Englization, the program implemented in IDT, obliges employees to work for set time intervals (increasing as time goes on) in English – be that with colleagues or external stakeholders. With native English teachers present every day on site to offer targeted support, classes and assessment – even coaching for conference calls and presentations – the 60 employees at IDT are being immersed in English and learning in a way that directly applies to the requirements of the organization.

 

The program has even caught the attention of Harvard Business School Professor Tsedal Neeley, who specializes in how organizations confront language and communication issues across international borders.  Dr. Neeley is working with the IDT Englization team to track progress and perceptions at the IDT site and at an Industrial Solutions site, which has also started to implement the Englization program.  Dr. Neeley’s feedback is helping this organization produce long-term, sustainable results for this initiative.

 

After 14 months of running the program, it is already bearing fruit. Carlos Chapa, a previous Integration Manager at IDT, remarked that he couldn’t believe how quickly skills had progressed so that he was able to speak English to the employees on site. Of course if we really want to measure the success of this program we have to look at our customers – taking its biggest US order ever from FirstSolar, the IDT team can be sure that the work has paid off.

 

This initiative is a great example of how we can rethink conventional methods and find new, more effective ways to empower and inspire each other… well done to the team in Chile!