It’s not often that the non-existent foreign language skills of chief executives make the front page of a major newspaper. Today’s USA Today highlighted global trade’s requirement for language skills. While we question whether many CEOs of multinational companies actually negotiate big deals with any partner, much less a contract in another language, we do agree that the ability to make some small talk in other languages, understand another culture, and work within another business ecosystem are critical skills for CEOs. Of course, for the business managers who actually negotiate the deals and run businesses in other countries, fluency in the local language is a crucial enabler for global trade.
The USA Today article cites many of the datapoints familiar to people making business cases for localization:

• While English is still the global default for business, monolingual executives are at a disadvantage in dealing with foreign counterparts. To this point we have long quoted former German chancellor Willy Brandt — “If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen” (see our home page for a randomized translation of this phrase into a dozen languages).
• 200 million students in China are studying English. In the States, there are more students enrolled in Hellenic Greek and Biblical Hebrew than in Arabic studies. Few American high school students study the strategic languages of the future — Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Japanese, Russian, and Urdu. President Bush has made a token pledge of US$114 million to redress this shortfall.

This morning’s release of the Committee for Economic Development‘s 69-page report on “Education for Global Leadership” precipitated the USA Today article. The report notes that “To confront the twenty-first century challenges to our economy and national security, our education system must be strengthened to increase the foreign language skills and cultural awareness of our students. America’s continued global leadership will depend on our students’ abilities to interact with the world community both inside and outside our borders.”

Our response: That’s enough talk. Show us the money — and some real leadership.