What really happens when a company switches its corporate language to English?
It is no secret that English is widely considered the global language of business, with multinational companies (regardless of where their HQs are situated) are frequently insisting on English as the common corporate language for all employees, irrespective of geographical region.
But imagine this. You go to work on Monday morning. Everything is the same, and yet everything is different. You work with the same colleagues, attend the same meetings, do the same job, but with a key difference: all interactions, from technical emails to celebratory toasts, must now take place in another language.
[This article has been reproduced with permission from IESE Business School. www.iese.edu/ Views expressed are personal.]