Language and culture event

By Nathan Smith

Yesterday evening I was honoured to be asked to speak about language and culture in international trade for an event run by the Regional Language Network and hosted by HSBC in Spinningfields.

We have 6 languages in-house at Smith & Smith and we are running a number of pan-European campaigns.  During my talk I tried to share my experiences, highlighting how for us, people with language capabilities tend to be good communicators full stop.  To this end, we’ve consistently tried to recruit staff who either have languages already or who are willing to take on language training.  It’s a policy that’s served us really well to date as has given us a great USP in business.

 

Along with myself the other two speakers were Richard Barnsley from the HSBC who did a terrific job of illustrating his banks support of international trade, and Colin Gore from Skymart who shared some great insights into some of the cultural issues around overseas business.

Comments

[Jane Smith]

Thanks for the comment Nick.
In our experience, people who've studied languages tend to be (i) keen on words and good at grammar - which includes good at English grammar, which is often sorely missing in candidates' skill sets; (ii) naturally inquisitive people - which is an asset in PR as you have to get quickly interested in and au fait with so many disparate things; and (iii) seasoned travellers, which makes them likely to be culturally aware and open-minded.

I do also think there's something about people with languages being good listeners, which is also important. In PR writing, whether it's feature articles or case studies, you often have to capture the client's voice, and well-written pieces can really reflect the rhythm properly as well as the content and the vocabulary.

I like that Stephen Covey quote as well!

[Nick Robinson]

Very interesting point - why do you think it is then, that people with language capabilities are good communicators?

Knowing Jane and Nathan I suspect that they are recruting people in their own image - that is, people with great listening and perception skills.

And isn't there a Stephen Covey quote about good communication:
"Seek first to understand ...then be understood"?