What's the best business topic to present to a new team of 45 people working in finance and crossborder M&A?

Question

THe topics can be anything. I've thought about leadership, Sarbanes Oxley (boring???), brand marketing and salesmanship.

Answer 1

Crossborder? How about "How to speak English"?

Yes Im sure they think they speak english but I have had to teach "speaking english" to americans who do business with people who have learned english. Such as:

A) What does english sound like? I have had foreign friends describe it as "flowing water" (the nicest example). They mean that americans tend to chop the hard consonants off of the beginning and end of each word then glue them together in one long word. One sentence as one flowing word. Its very hard for someone who has learned english to pick out words from that if you dont seperate them and say the whole word.

B) Think like a thesaurus. People who learn english tend to learn one word for everything. Too many americans get frustrated at the first blank stare they get so they stop trying. What they should do is try the sentence again with variables on the words.

C) Tell them please PLEASE do not say something like "learn english". Its much better to apologize for not learning their language than to take an obnoxious defense.

Want to hear joke?
If someone speaks two languages we call them bi-lingual,
and it they speak three languages we call them tri-lingual.
What do we call someone who speaks one language?
.
.
.
American.

(if you are interested I can explain why that happens. Its not our fault)