For nearly three decades, English has been the lingua franca of cross-border organizations, yet studies on corporate language strategies and their importance for globalization have been scarce. In her new book, The Language of Global Success, my guest today Tsedal Neeley provides an in-depth look at a single organization—the high-tech giant Rakuten—in the five years following its English lingua franca mandate. Neeley's behind-the-scenes account explores how language shapes the ways in which employees who work in global organizations communicate and negotiate linguistic and cultural differences.

We discuss the following:

• Her new book: The Language of Global Success: How a Common Tongue Transforms Multinational Organizations
• How to bring together a team whose members are geographically and culturally dispersed?
• How organizations can become more globalized 
• How to overcome the challenges of cross-cultural communication
• What about facilitating dialogue amongst individuals from people who fundamentally hold different values from you
• The attitudes and behaviors that are necessary to make a successful global employee
• What went into her TEDx Talk: Why Global Success Depends on Treating Language And Culture Separately

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

• Website: http://www.tsedal.com/
• Tsedal's Book: The Language of Global Success: How a Common Tongue Transforms Multinational Organizations: https://www.amazon.com/Language-Global-Success-Multinational-Organizations/dp/0691175373
• Tsedal's TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8VoxpR08Vg&t=744s

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.