An interesting and enlightening day was had at the Global Skills Conference 2009, held in Kitchener recently (http://tinyurl.com/bkjyd2).  The event reminded me of the numerous training and enlightenment programs I attended when I first started out in Personnel Management, dealing with multiculturalism and just how confusing the beloved language of English is!

Even with the present challenges facing businesses in the current economic climate, Diversity (the quality of being different – definition from Wiktionary) in the workplace is an issue and faces an uphill battle.  In Canada, there is a positive push to ensure workforce diversity by improving the cross-cultural hiring practices and better preparing the individual for the Canadian workplace culture.  The keynote speaker at the conference was Lionel Laroche, now I know those who know me will have trouble accepting this but, I can highly recommend Lionel if you need a presenter on Cross Cultural issues, originally from France now living in Toronto, he provides his services to a global audience…Yes an Englishman is recommending a Frenchman!

He really opened attendees’ eyes and hopefully their minds to the fact that cultural differences are alive and prevalent and that the individual needs to recognize that each of us must adapt and focus ourselves on the needs and expectations of the business, not the other way round, as many ‘individuals’ believe should be the case.  He gave wonderful examples of miss interpretation due to the English language, now how many synonyms’ can you think of for PROBLEM? Check these out: http://tinyurl.com/8btynq 

Being that English is my language of birth and practice, I miss-interpret written words, just because my birth and early upbringing was in ‘Kings English’, being from the North, ‘Queens English’ being from the South and then there is Canadian English, US English, etc…I clearly appreciate how difficult, confusing, mind-boggling and frustrating it, is for individuals who are learning and developing the new working language, must be.  Check out the author and writer – Bill Bryson – notes "English is a dazzlingly idiosyncratic tongue, full of quirks and irregularities that often seem willfully at odds with logic and common sense."  He has 2 books that are well worth reviewing, including: ‘The Mother Tongue: English and how it Got that Way’ and ‘Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words: A Writers Guide to Getting It Right’, he also has a new book out in May ’09: ‘Bryson’s Dictionary for Writers and Editors’, I have already pre-ordered a copy…

In terms of Human Capital, Lionel reminded us all that we must not only read between the lines of a resume/cover letter, but also consider the possibility of a different interpretation by other cultures as to what is being sought…reduce ambiguity in your presentations, advertisements, job postings, evaluations, assessments, etc…and any documents that require others to read, comprehend and understand…

Check out this website and campaign for Plain English: http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/, they even have a nifty tool called ‘DrivelDefence’.