“Effective cross-border communication and collaboration are becoming critical to the financial success of companies with international aspirations.”
An Economist survey shows that almost 90% of companies believe that “if cross-border communication were to improve at their company, then profit, revenue and market share would all improve as well”. Language and culture are acknowledged to be the major barriers in this regard, yet “47% say their companies do not offer enough training to hone their employees’ language and communication skills”. Often new recruits are required to have impressive language skills, but top managers and directors are usually too busy to attend a weekly language lesson.
This can be costly. The report states that “around one-half of the executives surveyed for the purpose of this report admitted that ineffective communication or inadequate collaboration had obstructed major international transactions, inevitably resulting in financial loss.”
English Training Solutions for Top Management
Managers with leadership responsibility have specific work tasks and learning needs, which mean that a very special kind of language training and support is required. As the sessions focus on real work tasks and preparing for meetings or presentations, the lesson differs greatly from traditional group classes and becomes a highly personalized and individual session.
This means that the trainer needs to be highly skilled in preparing presentations, well versed in various forms of business writing and experienced in a wide range of management situations. For many years, I and my colleagues have been helping top managers to achieve their goals and represent their companies or departments with confidence. My experience managing my own companies, with responsibility for staff, business processes, operations and quality management has given me further insight into the situations that management level employees face in their work.
The lessons are set up individually and flexibly to meet a wide range of specific needs, and typically include:
checking, optimizing and practicing presentations
wording reports or management reviews
writing and correcting business-critical emails
developing fluency and confidence
representing the department and chairing meetings
preparing for and practicing conference calls
expanding business vocabulary
In my experience not only managers, but also their departments and companies, benefit greatly from even a few sessions. In a very short course, for example, it is often possible to correct the recurring errors that managers make in their daily emails and optimize the company presentation.
A major difference from traditional language training is that you are not “learning” English in the traditional sense, but optimizing the ways in which you use the language. With many of my busy clients, I suggest ways in which they can help themselves to improve their skills between sessions or on business trips.
So even if you don’t have much time, which I’m sure is in fact the case, you should consider taking at least a little bit of time to optimize your English skills. A booster course could start from only 4 hours and yet will bring substantial benefits, provided that you already have a reasonably good level.
For an individual offer please complete a request form by clicking here, or send an e-mail to martin.epstein@perfect-word.de .
Find out more about the report at:
http://www.economistinsights.com/countries-trade-investment/analysis/competing-across-borders