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turning Anglophone I really think so

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Today I read that Japan's Fast Retailing is switching their internal business language to English.

This is the second major retail operator to do so in the past few months, the first being Rakuten. Both of the firms are booming right now but I really have to wonder what's propelling them to take this unusual step. I'm a big fan of Japan but I've noticed that the Japanese way of doing business is—shall we say—rigid, decision-averse, and slow-moving. I can't help but wonder if these firms are hoping that switching to English will do more than simple prepare their staff for interacting with foreigners. It could be that these firms hope to shift their culture a bit towards the less rigid foreign way of doing things. I realize that this is a pretty ethnocentric thing to say as an Anglophone, but I know very well that the language you're using changes the way you think about things.

I get hints from time to time that Japan is in the process of changing rapidly and I wonder if the experiment that these firms are engaging in isn't at the forefront of a new, more outward-looking Japan.