Speaking In Tongues

The precariously precocious 7-year-old second-grader visited last week and announced that he was learning, and could speak, a foreign language. We expected nothing less from his very fine school, and were prepared for a pithy phrase in Mandarin, perhaps French, or even German.

Not Spanish. He's from Miami, and all Anglos there pick up, in some osmotic process, a pidgin Spanglish, which is sufficient for most commercial and personal relationships (even intimate ones). This is a good opportunity for the curious and/or those who missed out on the prosecution of WW II in the South Pacific, to Google pidgin. The impact on local linguistics occasioned by global trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, and by war, had an impact that lasts to this day.

Any event, the proud lad disclosed that the exotic language in question is Australian. I remained, not speaking Strine myself, impressed. He taught us that their word for friend is mate. Hello is g'day, and goodbye is ta. He can scarcely wait for his next lesson.

Meanwhile, I began to contemplate his (possibly deliberate) greater meaning. It is easy to misinterpret, or read in unintended meaning, in our supply chain communications when we think we are speaking the same language, and don't understand subtle differences in usage, meaning, and values content.

And, we don't have to be dealing with partners across the oceans for these mishaps to occur.

The key, it seems to me, is - for those business relationships that are critical to mutual success - to invest in understanding the subtleties of others' communications, values, expectations, and social behaviors. A two-way investment would be even better. And, the understanding process should begin at, or prior to, the establishment of integrated operations, rather than after the fact of the first failure to communicate.

Now, where did I lay down me didgeridoo? I must have gone troppo . . .