(Nikolaus Mach-Hour, senior JCO trainer)
In multi-national teams, English is usually indispensable as a common working language.
It is easy to assume that most misunderstandings could be avoided if the level of English was only good enough on all sides.
In my experience, however, a real risk remains, and it is less about wrong word choice than about the different interpretation of terms that everyone is using.
Words like "agility", "risk/reward", "innovation", "escalation", or even "compromise" are understood very differently across business cultures.
When the Same Words Mean Different Things
A case in point:
In one project, the word "compromise" was used by a US team to convince colleagues at HQ in Japan to accelerate the rollout of a new software solution.
"Surely, we can find a compromise to speed it up."
To the colleagues at HQ in Japan, however, this sounded like an implicit request to make a few compromises on their internal processes, which could ultimately affect product quality as well. For Japan, this was of course completely unacceptable.
Building a Shared Understanding
One of JCO's core recommendations is that all parties have an early discussion to either agree on a shared definition of key terms, or at the very least acknowledge that interpretations may differ and require further clarification.
Good English Alone Is Not Enough
A final note: JCO facilitates many global workshops (e.g. across APAC, Americas or EMEA) where the same dynamic applies.
In short, good English skills all around are no guarantee for mutual understanding.
