Englishnization (What an awkward word)

In 2010, Rakuten’s founder and CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani announced that the ecommerce company would officially switch its internal operating language from Japanese to English. Employees would be given two years to improve their skills or be subject to demotion. Due to Japan’s shrinking society, Rakuten looked to expand to the global markets to increase sales. Mikitani believed that switching the internal language to English would make employees more comfortable selling to foreign countries, make foreign business interested in the platform, and low to barrier to entry for foreign talent.Mikitani has dubbed this process, “Englishnization”, and this unique language changing process has garnered international interest by the likes of Harvard Business School.

Within the first year, Rakuten employees struggled with the change. Many people asked, “why do I need to learn this” or “is this really good for the company?” I personally admire Mikitani to make a bold, top-down decision and bring his company kicking and screaming into the global markets. Many Japanese companies are criticized for inertia, making slow decisions where everyone needs to agree. Had Rakuten taken that approach, the language change surely would not have happened.

After 8 years, the company has seen success as evidenced by employees scoring high on english proficiency test and an enormous increase in foreign talent. As a consequence, Japanese companies have to consider that difficult decision of “Englishnization.” I would think that Japanese companies would want to make the change in order to reach new markets. However, this change is a marathon, not a sprint, and it requires the everyone believes in English, not just the leadership.