Team-Building
and English as a Second Language
by William R. Dodson
(adapted from the e-Guide, How to Manage Teams that Speak English
as a Second Language)
28
June 2002
Project
teams the world over are changing composition as more corporate efforts rely on
staff from different countries. Whether
the team is co-located under the same roof, with members from India, Latin
America and China; or whether resources are dispersed across national borders,
project managers must become more cognizant of the fact that English is
increasingly the second language of staff. Team leaders need to be conscious of
the challenges to the success of projects in which team members have a mix of
first-languages. Issues include explicit misunderstandings between team
members, unconscious actions perceived as personal insults, inadvertent
cultural insensitivity, and the mitigation of frustration with the lack of
English-language facility – all exacerbated by the different ways
multi-national team members use English.
ESL-TEAM Management
Best-Practices
Patience, persistence and an open attitude to the way others
communicate and relate with the world are key characteristics of an effective
project manager who has on his team individuals for whom English is a second
language.
Patience is a difficult quality to cultivate in any context;
however, it is especially difficult in the modern workplace. The pace of work
has picked up considerably since the mid-eighties, and shows no signs of
decelerating. Demands are greater, with fewer middle managers – especially
project managers – around to share the work. Expectations on delivery dates
have increased because of the introduction of technology. Turnaround rates on
deliverables is faster; the thirst for more information on project intricacies
greater; the demands on individual team members more substantial than in the
past.
And yet, if a project
manager has on his or her team an ESL speaker, the project manager must make an
effort to ensure the ESL-speaker understands what (s)he needs to do in the
project. The project manager must take the time to ensure roles and
responsibilities throughout the project are clearly articulated, and that the
ESL-speaker understands on a weekly basis his or her tasks and deliverables.
Of course, this takes time.
But the project manager must accept the tenant, “If you don’t have time to do
it right the first time; where are you going to find the time to do it right
later on?” The project manager must do all (s)he can to reduce the amount of
time the team spends in re-working project efforts. Understanding the reality
of language barriers and negotiating those barriers from the outset will go a
long way toward ensuring the effectiveness of ESL staff.
Listening Skills
The most important tool the project leader must have in his
or her relationship-kit are reflective listening skills. Reflective listening
is the simple act of echoing what a speaker has said. This confirms to the
speaker that the listener actually heard what was said and assures the listener
he heard correctly.
Reflective listening is
especially important in cross-cultural settings since it is very easy for ESL
speakers to say something that sounds like something else entirely. For
instance, many native Cantonese speakers – predominantly from Hong Kong – who
learn ESL naturally drop the last consonant of each of the syllables of the
words they speak. So, most words in the plural form inadvertently become
singular: ‘stamps’ become ‘stamp’ and ‘plans’ become ‘plan’. As well, some
words can simply sound the same to ESL-speakers: , “correct”, “connect” and
“collect” sound the to native-Chinese
speakers; while “ship” and “shape” can sound the same to native-Russian
speakers. And then there is the pronunciation of the sound ‘th’, which causes
native- Chinese, Russian and Turkish speakers no end of trouble. Whether “the”
or ‘tooth’ or ‘other’, the “th” sound
usually comes out like a ‘d’, so that ‘other’, can sound like ‘udder’ to the
American ear.
Enunciation/Articulation
Many ESL-speakers have residual accents from their native
language that actually filters what they hear spoken to them in English. It is
important, then, that the project manager pronounce his or her words clearly
and precisely. The project manager cannot be sloppy in communicating his or her
ideas, meanings or intentions.
Native-speakers are
especially susceptible to taking the English language for granted , since they
have so little contact with other cultures and languages. Americans assume so
much when we speak with other Americans that we very easily forget that
colloquialisms, trends in language and even tech-speak can create opaque and
impenetrable barriers to understanding for others.
Project managers must then
be more conscious than usual of the way they use the English language, and of
the way they express themselves It is very easy for words to be misconstrued,
or meanings misunderstood if the project manager does not take the time to say
what she means, and to mean what she
says.
Next week: more best
practices for managing ESL-speakers.
PART II
Respect for the cultures of others
Personal identity for many people in countries outside
America comes from their national heritage, their history and their struggles.
This is so for citizens of many developing countries, especially those that
were in the past staging grounds for conquests and exploitation by other
nations. To make jokes about another country or culture could be to directly
affront an individual team member.
Sometimes, though, it is
difficult to steer clear of such murky waters as the pride of another’s
country. So, unless references to another culture are anything more than
friendly questions about a culture, it is best to simply steer clear of bald
statements or even allusions about other countries.
Processing Complex Concepts
Another assumption American project managers may need to
re-examine when working with foreign nationals is the way in which foreign
nationals filter and process information to make sense of the world around them
and to communicate and act effectively. American managers have the luxury of
“getting directly to the point” when they deal with other Americans. They are
able to do this because much of their staff is acculturated in the same ways,
despite whatever state they come from: they share the same foods, the same
vocabularies, the same school systems, the same assumptions about the work
environment, the same direct approach to solving problems.
However, for individuals
from cultures in which nothing is given away to assumption, trust in the one
with whom one is working or with whom one is doing business is paramount. This
approach could involve the foreign national asking a lot of questions that may
seem irrelevant, or that may make it appear to the American manager that the
ESL-speaker is somehow incompetent. Really what is happening is a process of
information-gathering that gives the questioner a sense of the scope of the
issue at hand, and helps the questioner to prioritize needs and at the same
time builds a bridge of relationship and trust between the questioner and the
manager.
Integrity
Trust in a relationship is of primary import to many people
not raised in this country. Trust is not easily developed for such individuals,
yet is very easily broken should a colleague or project manager pursue project
objectives that overrun matters of civility and respect. The most important thing
the project manager can do then is to be true to his or her word: to act in a
consistent manner, to show respect though not necessarily to show deference to
the ESL-speaker.
An ESL-speaker can become
demoralized and his or her performance suffer when (s)he perceives mixed
messages: either between the corporate environment and the company’s
expectations of the employee; or between the project manager's own behavior and
the manager’s expectations of the team member.
The American project manager
must be conscious of the assumptions of the project environment. (S)he must
prepare the ESL-speaker for the inevitable conflicts of interest that will
arise when the ESL-speaker’s own expectations are not in accord with project 
demands
William R. Dodson is
Managing Director of Silk Road Advisors, L.L.C., a management consultancy
that builds and improves working relationships across cultures. He is the
international business editor of the American Management Association’s (AMA)
MWorld Journal of Management, and writes the weekly column “The Cultured
Business”, found at www.silkrc.com and at
the Global Perspectives section of the AMA’s member website. He can be reached
at sradvisors@gmail.com or +1
(847)722-7817.