What I meant is not what you thought I said.

One of my beliefs has been that communication is an art. The way we communicate is constantly changing; from new words to new methods. The consequences of poor communication can be very costly. I incorporate this belief into NCS not only because it is vital to our company’s success, but also to our clients’ success. Poor communication such as confusing instructions can waste time, money and can create errors on a project. It can lead to frustration, conflict and lost customers or employees.

Have you gotten an email from someone, thought you understood it, but someone else read it a different way? More people need to actually read through what they write. Conversely, people need to accurately read what they receive. Have you sent an email with questions for someone to answer, only have the first one or two of the five you sent answered? So, now you have to send another email. Possibly even a third email. I hate that!

I read a very interesting and stimulating book called Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and In Life, One Conversation at a Time. It was given to me by Richard (Dick) Singer, from RDS Associates. The book written by Susan Scott has been invaluable to me. As described on her company web site http://www.fierceinc.com/, “Susan is a best-selling author and leadership development architect who has enabled top executives worldwide to engage in vibrant dialogue with one another, with their employees, and with their customers for two decades.” Susan points out that communication is a two way street.

Fierce Conversations made me think deeper about communication. I began to see how I could improve, how I could listen better, and how my company could improve. I know I am not the best communicator so I write, rewrite, and rethink. I give written material to one or two others to check. I try and make it as simple as possible, but natural, and of course grammatically correct. I make Project Managers have all important communication between clients or vendors checked by someone else. We do the same for quotations, proposals, purchase orders and the like, and we are constantly striving to get better.

I also started to reflect sadly, how poorly we as Americans are at communication. Some of the best editing comments on my material are from non-native speakers. I started to think about global implications and cultural issues.

I thought about English being one of the most confusing and often misunderstood languages with so many terms for the same thing. These terms really have no differentiation for use, as they would in other languages. This makes the translation of some texts very difficult.

Because translation is communication, I am always taking these principles a step further for NCS. Translation is an art, the way material is translated is constantly changing as languages evolve and technology advances. More translators are available and determining those that are qualified is harder.

The results of poor translation are very costly, both in money from damages and court cases, costs to correct the material, and time that is lost. An EU directive on Newcastle Disease was mistranslated in Danish. The fatal omission of one word meant that several Danish farms were kept in quarantine for several months, instead of 21 days. This mistake led to the bankruptcy of a Danish egg producer.

An image can be damaged – maybe beyond repair – worse yet, you may never even know. Back in March 2009 Hillary Clinton presented a simple red button that was supposed to “reset” relationships between the United States and Russia to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The button was mistranslated as “peregruzka”, meaning “overcharge”, or “overload” depending on the context. Tell me, nobody checked the translation or questioned the purpose of the button? There is a proper translation that would have conveyed the message. Here we see a nice simple idea, not properly executed that created bad press.

Mistranslation can even lead to illness and death. Drastic you may think but true. Mead Johnson Nutritionals had to recall 4.6 million cans of Baby Formula due to misleading Spanish label instructions, which could have caused illness or even death said a company spokesperson.

What are we doing here at NCS? We are striving to communicate better, help our clients to do so, keep reviewing and improving our translation process, our translators, and working at educating translation buyers.

Charlene Nagy
CEO of NCS