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In March 2010, CEO Hiroshi Mikitani (HBS MBA '93) stood in front of his employees at online retail giant Rakuten's Tokyo headquarters and dropped a bomb: all 7,100 workers would have two years to become proficient in Englishthe "language of business"or risk demotion. "I was simply astonished," said an engineer interviewed after the announcement. "Many Rakuten employees are allergic to English."
they'll never be as sophisticated, as influential, or as articulate as they are in their native language." Interestingly, Neeley found the French-to-English-only transition was most difficult for workers with midlevel fluency. They shared the most anxiety about their language abilities, which were neither stellar nor poor. One low-fluency worker painfully summarized his experience: "If you cannot express your ideas because you lack language skills, the collaboration becomes a nightmare. You lose interest to continue, and you feel you are being devalued." Most of these language-anxiety issues remained under the surface at Frenchco, Neeley says. These workers often suffered silently, worrying about disclosing a deficit, being passed over for promotions, being left out of conversations that they couldn't understand, or simply not being able to show their true selves through humor and discussions in English at the same level they were able to in French. Neeley's forthcoming Organizational Dynamics article, "The (Un)Hidden Turmoil of Language in Global Organizations," written with Pamela J. Hinds and Catherine D. Cramton, addresses the hidden nature of language struggles. These problems created an "us and them" class of native and nonnative English speakers, which sometimes led to resentment and distrust among nonnative speakers toward the native
speakers. Working with English speakers from the UK or America was more difficult for the Frenchco workers than working with English-speaking colleagues in Poland, the Netherlands, or Spain, Neeley found. In one interview a Frenchco worker said: "A real English person is in a stronger position, and I find myself justifying myself much more in those interactions." Native speakers can also dominate conversations, workers said in Neeley's interviews. "Sometimes it's hard to get our American colleagues to be quiet but we manage," a high-fluency speaker reported in an interview. "I say, 'If you don't stop we're going to talk in French.' " While many Frenchco workers were angry about the English-language mandate, Neeley says a small number of highly fluent workers viewed the change as a chance to perfect their English by asking for feedback from native speakers, participating in meetings as often as possible, repeating key phrases, and seeking out English speakers in their groups.
Neeley says. Managers should also be aware that workers often underestimate their language capabilities. In many cases, testing and offering benchmarks helps calm anxieties, as can limiting meetings for low-confidence English speakers until their language skills improve. Future research, Neeley says, includes exploring the role of language as the mechanism by which companies transform from a domestic to a global player-the fulcrum of language. When teaching the Rakuten case at HBS, where 35 percent of her students are international, Neeley says, students were passionately engaged. There is no topic that is more personal than language. You just need human experience to "get it." "I had an American student who couldn't stop thinking about what a nonnative classmate said in class: 'In English I am not myself. My personality is much smaller in this context.' So many people have said the case taught them about themselves." Aside from the deep personal connection, the case is also powerful for students because they have such an intense interest in globalization. "Language is emblematic of that," she says.