In the increasingly global world of business it often happens that some of our teammates are more fluent than others in the Lingua Franca, or the primary language that's used for internal communications within the company. Many global firms, even if they're headquartered in France or Germany, often use English as their primary language of communication. And the varying level of fluency in that primary language can create a worrisome dynamic within teams. Research by Sidon Yillah from Harvard shows that we often equate language fluency with expertise and competence and as a result we can wrongly dismiss insights and contributions from those teammates who are less fluent in that language. This effect goes even further. Where we often build status hierarchies and teams around language fluency and not actual competence and expertise. As you can see, that effect has very detrimental consequences, not only for your teams, but also for the entire organization. So what can we do about this? Now I want to be clear that the responsibility for countering this effect, lies with both the more fluent, and the less fluent speaker of the language. As a more fluent speaker of Lingua Franca, solicit inputs from teammates prior to the meeting. Recognize that you're putting them in a particularly uncomfortable position. When you ask them to speak off the cuff, impromptu in a meeting. Prepare written handouts in advance, and make sure that your spoken language is aligned with the written language, in which case your handouts create a secondary, redundant channel of communication. Adjust your vocabulary. It's probably a good idea to reduce the usage of idiomatic expression such as, do you have any skeletons in your closet? Your Asian teammates would also tell you that often struggle with Americans' frequent use of sports analogies and metaphors. Monday morning quarterbacking, who's the quarterback again, why Monday, why morning? Reduce the use of jargon and acronyms as well. And finally, you actively engage others in the conversation. Refrain from dominating the meeting. If you're running the meeting using a conference call, it is a really good idea to make sure that each teammate owns and leads part of the conversation. That makes the team substantially more engaged. Now, as a less fluent speaker of Lingua Franca, first of all, resist avoidance behaviors. In some of Tidal and Neely's research less fluent speakers of the primary language would just avoid going to meetings all together. Now, you have to take your preparation to the next level. I often find that the less fluent speakers of the primary language that use within the company, are thoughtful and diligent enough to prepare the script. But they really struggle when the presentation goes off script, and so it's of course critically important to think about what you're gonna say and how you're gonna say something in a presentation, your script, but then think about the most likely objections, questions, comments that can come up. How would you respond to these questions? Think and prepare your response. Some of the best orators and debaters in the world are so good, not because they were born that way but because they're exceptionally well prepared. If you're presenting, it's perfectly fine to pause and ask if people understand what you're saying. Ask colleagues to repeat if you missed a particular point. And then refrain from switching to your native language. Varying levels of fluency in that primary language creates a fault line or a division in the team between more fluent and less fluent speakers of the language. Every time you switch to you native language, you typically deepen, or exacerbate that fault line. So refrain from doing so. One way to make sure it doesn't happen to you in meetings is don't sit next to someone who speaks your native language.