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Not a big deal...unless your engagements are about teaching your client grammar and diction.
Language exists a means of communication. if that's occurring effectively and the lack of a definite article is not confusing your clients I would recommend moving on.
My $0.02
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3 easy fixes
1)let him know about this issue, tell him it's not a major one but can be an issue in some client situations so atleast he's aware
2)tell him to download and use grammarly (it's a life saver on emails etc)
3)get him a voice coach (mckinsey did this for me to boost my presence, and know how to make my own style of communication more effective)
Could you recommend the name of the voice coach? I need them too
I expect a partner to know how to manage this situation. The example you provided is pretty innocuous. If the director’s relationships and delivery is out of the park, I wouldn’t worry and might bring it up in a light hearted conversation.
No need to get salty. He already indicated the delivery is great and he is performing really well
But wants to get input from the group here so that he isn’t biased. Also, Partners sometime need advice or input too..they are not know it all.
I think the world is getting increasingly diverse and imperfect english is no longer an automatic disqualification of professionalism. I have both, colleagues and clients with imperfect english language skills. If inadequate english language skills make someone unprofessional, then that will mean I give up on the clients too because we don’t like to work with unprofessional clients.
As long as his communication skills do not impact his ability to perform, and unless it it a case of total communications breakdown, I wouldn’t bother too much about the missing articles.
One doesn’t have to be Indian to have an English thing - true but there are some specific issues that you can correlate with country/region of belonging. If someone is trying to improve a team member’s communication - I don’t see that as an issue.
Probably just irks you. Everyone has a different way of speaking English. Even native English speakers swallow words while speaking. Communicating is an art - if he gets his point across and doesn’t befuddle people, you should not point this out. His written English is grammatically correct so you can’t ask him to improve his grammar.
“We have to get kick off deck completed” instead of “we have to get the kick off deck completed” I’m not sure if this is an informal way of speaking in Indian English or if this is just him. I’m looking for advice on how (or if) to approach this. I’d like him to use the articles as I think our clients might find it unprofessional, but I don’t want to be insensitive or offend.
I am on the same boat - have never been able to get comfortable with the articles. Using grammarly helps, however, it is now blocked in my org.
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I don’t see that as a problem, grammar nerd ! It is intelligent to be able to speak multiple languages.
Chief
There are no articles in spoken hindi or other Indian languages. This is my Achilles heal as well but grammarly helps!
Please do the needful and try to be more inclusive.
Not a biggie. I'm Indian and my British English tends to come out when I write eloborate sentences. My manager was a bit of an a$$ about it but whatever. I can speak and write multiple languages and variants of said languages so jokes on them I guess.
This is something you can change if you are an analyst. Pointing this out at this point of career only increases his self consciousness as opposed to his natural style and disturb focus on delivery.
If it really bothers you recommend grammarly and hope it’s suggested corrections would benefit him. Indians take suggestions/feedback well IMO. Don’t think adopting grammarly would be hard. But trying to change his communication style particularly when nothing wrong may not yield the result and will only strain your relationship.
There is something to be said about the phrase “partner level feedback”
How does it impact what he’s trying to convey? Is there a difference between saying “the…deck” and “deck”? Did it change the meaning behind his sentence and lead to confusion among clients and team members? Did the client complain to you? These are some important questions I would ask myself before advising someone to improve something so innocuous so far into their career.
I have an immediate lead like this who passes off their preferences as “standard industry best practices”
Have you never backtracked on a sentence in your career? Are your sentences and those spoken by other Americans always perfect? It’s a privilege to be able to speak multiple languages. If intelligence were to be judged based on English skills, Americans would rank last on the global stage and would be deemed unfit to handle international engagements.
I would say it’s time Americans met other people in the middle and let some things go. I am not wasting additional time in my life catering to trivial preferences when that time is best spent on something else. My two cents.