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How you can reach us
• We are located at:
LTC-Circuit bvba-sprl
Rue Willemsstraat 14
B-1210 Brussels Belgium
• You can send us your comments and requests for further information by e-mailing us to this e-address
• We will answer your calls at number +32 475 267 341.
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7 Managers are attending a meeting or
Plurilingualism in meetings works
7 managers are attending a meeting.
The “accountability” meme is spooking through the company. As we are empowered now we've got to be accountable, haven't we?
But then there is also “responsibility”…
Fine. The meeting, held in English, starts.
More than 1 hour is spent on philosophical debate about the difference between being “accountable” and “responsible”, let alone the applicability of these concepts to the present situation.
Obviously everybody has a knack for slightly twisting the meanings of the words as it may suit their own hidden agenda.
And nobody feels the simple but natural impulse to just go and fetch a good English dictionary to check the meanings of both words.
And then, having ascertained what the exact meaning of these words are, no chairperson present feels compelled to decide, once and for all, whether meaning X or Y applies – here and now.
In this case, lingua franca unilingualism shows its inefficiency.
On one hand it maintains a false air of conceptual clarity questioned by none – as nobody speaks English really well yet everybody wrongly claims to do so… and on the other hand it shields participants off from emotions felt in languages they master more genuinely, reassuring them that they do not have to empathise with the other person by using his language.
The cost of the meeting ranks between 1,500 and 2,000 EUR.
7 managers are attending a meeting.
Among the Belgian managers, half of them speak Dutch as their mother tongue, the other half French.
Our student, who chairs the meeting, is German. She is fluent in her mother tongue as well as in English and Spanish. She has started a French coaching track with us, where she is at a pre-Advanced stage. Today, she has decided, is going to be her breakthrough, her graduation. She will prove herself to be advanced by functioning in three languages at the same time.
Soon the meeting is on. Everybody uses French, Dutch and English in various combinations, and the ones among the Dutch-speakers who know some German, German as well.
Our student speaks French with the French-speakers, occasionally helping herself out with English when the word does not come fast enough – and while exchanging ideas with the Dutch-speakers, she understands their Dutch while expressing herself in German.
The meeting proceeds quite well. Everybody intuitively strikes the right balance between the need to be clear and concise about the message he or she wants to convey, and the need to show empathy and communicative skill through “mirroring” the other's language.
Whenever too much “velvet” in the interaction risks to hamper the normal flow of ideas or the crispness of the argument, participants switch to a language more easily mastered by the majority (which in this particular Belgian case, is not necessarily English) so that ideas can stand stark, admittedly in a simplified form but nevertheless clear to all.
Whenever too much bluntness and roughshod-ness risks to alienate participants from each other or from identifying with the topics discussed, they draw nearer to each other by briefly taking over the other's language, molding themselves as it were in the other person's skin.
“When I want to prompt my staff to express their ideas with more precision when writing a business report”, one of our students once told us, “I urge them to write them down in another language than their mother-tongue”. Using another language often forces us to express succinctly what we have first well thought through. It allows us to prune our message of unwieldy digressions and stick to the essential.
On the other hand using the other's language allows us to show the extent to which we are willing to meet him on her territory. It shows our flexibility in human interaction without which even a crystal-clear message cannot stay alive.
The tolerance for the other's linguistic blunders during the plurilingual meeting conveys a mellowness to the interactions between participants so that they are assured that everybody participates for achieving the organisation's, and common, good.
At the same time it makes the lingua franca interactions stand out more sharply so that when points need to be made, it can be done, unequivocally, without anybody feeling threatened or aggressed.
Obviously powerful statements cannot be made at the cost of estranging the very people that have to carry them out and further – they need to be accepted.
Conversely, “language mirroring” empathy cannot derail into narcissistic duets of emotion – it must allow everybody to stay on focus.
The chairperson of such a meeting needs to make sure that people are “here and now” there and then, both mindful and with their souls – using languages as versatile instruments for rich communication.
That is precisely what our student did during that meeting, and which made it a success, with money well spent on solving the issues at hand.
Plurilingual interaction is not an iron fist clad in velvet.
It is a handshake, both firm thanks to tough bone and strong muscle, and soft thanks to warm skin and a smooth osmotic flow of energy.
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• The schoolkid kit
• “All this is marketing”: Coaching is co-creation or The proof of the pudding is in the eating
• Assessing the Learner's needs and skills
• How we plot the Learner's Language learning Adventure
• Plan thoroughly and implement flexibly
• Plurilingualism is key but also the key
• 7 Managers are attending a meeting or Plurilingualism in meetings works
• Assignment: Company-wide progress in Spartan circumstances
• Assignment: Company-wide coaching of High Performers
• Assignment: Customer-oriented writing in an insurance department
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