Absolutely. and change that 5 yr plan daily. 
Good advice. 
[quote=âEleguaâ]Dunno⌠I agree that language is just another tool in the tool-box. But, unless you are working for a local company, once you get past the country level positions, language skills become irrelevant.
I donât know that foreign language speaking exec.âs are anything special, except for maybe a higher tolerance for ambiguity and risk. In my mind, language is like any other skill; with time and effort it comes. Some need more, some less.
What is a âwoopdewoopâ job anyway? I mean itâs work, as great as it might be, itâs still work. I donât know that anyone among us want to end up like Schmidt.[/quote]
No, the language skill is not irrelevant if you see yourself in the exalted position of country managerâŚwhy would they be? Surely they could even be MORE relevant as your position has increased in importance, any additional understanding of the local environment will be very important.
Silly corporate speak!
[quote=âheadhonchoIIâ][quote=âEleguaâ]Dunno⌠I agree that language is just another tool in the tool-box. But, unless you are working for a local company, once you get past the country level positions, language skills become irrelevant.
I donât know that foreign language speaking exec.âs are anything special, except for maybe a higher tolerance for ambiguity and risk. In my mind, language is like any other skill; with time and effort it comes. Some need more, some less.
What is a âwoopdewoopâ job anyway? I mean itâs work, as great as it might be, itâs still work. I donât know that anyone among us want to end up like Schmidt.[/quote]
No, the language skill is not irrelevant if you see yourself in the exalted position of country managerâŚwhy would they be? Surely they could even be MORE relevant as your position has increased in importance, any additional understanding of the local environment will be very important.
Silly corporate speak![/quote]
Dear Mr. HeadHoncholl
When you get past the country level positions, of which Country Manager would be one kind, or you work for a local company where the Corp. lingua franca is not Anglais, then non-English language skills become pretty irrelevant. Unless of course, you can speak the local lingo for each of the markets you cover. In this case youâre likely spending too much time learning languages. 
There is life beyond being a country head.
Wow, thanks for all your feedback. It helps to get a well-rounded approach. Currently, I use a website created by a guy living in Taichung. [color=#008040]Mod edit & note: link was provided in original post. [/color]
Iâve used other sites online, but found this one helpful for well-rounded learning. Plus, I think itâs cool that he (Adam) lives down the street from me. I actually listened to his podcasts while back in the USA.
-Kevin
EleguaâŚcanât make head nor tail of your post, sorry.
If you are trying to say that learning language skills AFTER you have attained a position that you want is irrelevantâŚno it is not. If you are trying to say that it is not relevant to a country manager position, of course it is, as it will help in the JOB you are supposed to do⌠not so much in greasy totem pole climbing. Yet if you do your job well, you will usually have a better career. Actually I work in the corporate area and was being sarcastic about âexaltedâ country headâŚI am country head of TaiwanâŚwhoop de woo!
Anything that benefits you competitively (and it is a competitive environment) gives you a better chance.
In the case of learning Chinese it will become more important for many careers as 1. Chinese market becomes more important 2. Being seen as not being able to speak Chinese will be poorly looked at compared to local managers and other foreign managers with language skills.
[quote=âheadhonchoIIâ]EleguaâŚcanât make head nor tail of your post, sorry.
If you are trying to say that learning language skills AFTER you have attained a position that you want is irrelevantâŚno it is not. If you are trying to say that it is not relevant to a country manager position, of course it is, as it will help in the JOB you are supposed to do⌠not so much in greasy totem pole climbing. Yet if you do your job well, you will usually have a better career. Actually I work in the corporate area and was being sarcastic about âexaltedâ country headâŚI am country head of TaiwanâŚwhoop de woo!
Anything that benefits you competitively (and it is a competitive environment) gives you a better chance.
In the case of learning Chinese it will become more important for many careers as 1. Chinese market becomes more important 2. Being seen as not being able to speak Chinese will be poorly looked at compared to local managers and other foreign managers with language skills.[/quote]
Alls Iâm saying is that there seems to be a âwindowâ of sorts where language skills matter. For example, if youâre a sales rep, then language skills surely matter. If youâre a country head, they help. If youâre promoted to a regional role, they are pretty irrelevant. (We can argue about at what point regional roles become more senior to in-country roles). In other words, it seems the importance decreases the higher you get in the organization.
Math > Chinese
Depends what you do. High school calculus and algebra was a total waste of time in my case. Havenât used any maths past tenth grade level (if that high) in nearly twenty years after school. If had had the option of taking Chinese at school instead of math it would have been infinitely more useful to me.
I studied maths to a high level in high school, promptly forgot most of it as never had a chance to use it and wasnât actually taught where I could use it.
Chinese, which Iâve studied on my own time, has been much more useful (and I work in a technical field).
Iâm with you headhoncho. Iâm the top lawyer in a multi-billion dollar company. Especially before I came to Taiwan, but even five years ago, I had no idea Iâd work my way into such a position. I feel incredibly fortunate and am extremely grateful for how it worked out, though I believe other hard-working, experienced professionals from the West can also have great career opportunities here. However, itâs blatantly obvious to me that my lack of Mandarin fluency is a major impediment to me making the next move. I can chat briefly about the weather in Chinese, but I recently sat in a two-hour meeting with our Group CEO that took place almost all in Chinese and I was kicking myself for not having learned the language years ago. The next day I was involved in discussions, in Chinese, about our companyâs big expansion in China and again I felt like a fool for having made it this far but lacking that key tool that would open so many more doors for me. Oh well, I did Rosetta Stone this morning and am finally working like mad to acquire that basic skill that will set me apart from 99% of other US lawyers. Comfort in Asia and familiarity with local customs, companies, industry practices, etc are all great, but local language ability would be a tremendous asset. Iâll never learn Chinese well enough to have serious, detailed business negotiations in Chinese, and our top management all speak good English, but Chinese is their first language (and that of our sales people and engineers), so they naturally prefer to speak in Chinese and I am missing out on a lot if I canât do so with them.
[quote=âheadhonchoIIâ]I studied maths to a high level in high school, promptly forgot most of it as never had a chance to use it and wasnât actually taught where I could use it.
Chinese, which Iâve studied on my own time, has been much more useful (and I work in a technical field).[/quote]
What is a technical field that does not require higher mathematics of some level?
From my experience if you speak native English being really good at math can open more doors worldwide than knowing Chinese or any second language. When I refer to math I mean more than just arithmetic, algebra, or differential calculus(though calculus is surprisingly useful if you learned how to apply it), rather I refer to subjects such as games theory, abstract algebra, differential equations, and other crazy subjects. While the direct use of such skills is limited to the sciences, learning them trains the mind to think analytically. Much like philosophy teaches an individual to slough their own opinion and analyze human problems from many perspectives, math teaches its students to remove themselves from the equation and see problems in an abstract way. When faced with a complex task you are able to naturally break it down into relationships, eliminate any unnecessary variables, and swiftly come up with a solution. This is a very marketable skill. I have a comp sci degree, but the only thing people ever want to talk about in interviews is math. Much like buttercup mentioned that knowing languages makes a potential employer know that you are clever, being able to understand math lets a potential employer know they are talking to an inquisitive and intelligent individiual.
Now I do not think learning Chinese is a bad thing at all. I think it is an extremely useful skill in many circumstances. It can also be a skill put to great use in Taiwan, HK, and PRC. I also have great appreciation for anybody who masters any subject. Learning is a beautiful thing and we must never judge where somebody chooses to focus. However if I were a native English speaker and given the choice to be a master of one other subject before heading into the world I would feel much better facing my adventures with a slide rule in my hand and axioms in my head.
I would LOVE to study maths and science. They just werenât really taught at my school. And the problem with British education is that kids have too much choice, so if you get a lazy kid, all the âdifficultâ subjects go out the window. Maths is not difficult, but you do have to learn stuff, whereas a lot of stuff like history and English is just reading and general knowledge.
If I had a daughter, Iâd tell her that the ability to read books in your own language, remember stuff that happened, know about art, and talk to people in other languages are pre-requisites, not an âeducationâ.
Itâs worth noting that admitting to being able to read and write Mandarin can result in one being subjected to an endless stream of paperwork, required readings, and translation assignments â all of which can be tedious in the extreme but which could otherwise often be avoided (with no substantial penalty in oneâs professional life) with a simple âkanbudong.â 
Same for fluency in English. Our PR Dept keeps sending me press releases to edit, definitely NOT in my job description, but so far Iâve been too polite to refuse. :neutral:
Buttercup I agree and to an extent you see the same thing in US higher education. When students are faced with the choice between 4 years of papers, spirited discussion and crazy antics or 4 years stuck in a lab memorizing a shitload of facts and changing how you think the choice is almost obvious. I hated my undergrad, and I will hate my graduate education(though slightly less) but I accept the pain and stress because it gives me so many more options than others who took an easier path.
I agree also about what constitutes as ânot an educationâ but I feel that they should be requirements for any education. The humanities help broaden the perspective of even the most scientifically warped mind.
My horizons are ginormous, and there ainât much I donât know about medieval history, old English, Germanic philology, Shakespeare, classical architecture, etc, etc. Itâs a rare day that someone offers me a few grand to expound on Hrothgarâs funeral, for example. I had a rich, priviledged education, which I enjoyed immensely, but it belongs to another age, in a way. Knowing these things assumes you donât need to âlearn a tradeâ. Ideally Iâd have an education, and know about other stuff so I could earn some real $$$. 
I doubt Iâd go back and change anything, though.
Stereotyping was still in force when I was a kid, along with the Thatcher era crash in resourcing. I went to a girlsâ school, and they didnât even offer separate sciences as subjects. (Biology, chemistry, etc) I just did a mixed science thing which you didnât even have to study for because it was so easy. Which suited 16 years old Butters just fiiiine.
At university, I dropped French because my second year lectures were up a big hill at 10 am, and we had to read Stendhal (difficult, long), rather than Camus (easy, short). 
I mean more than history or English. I learned how to cook, how to machine parts, how to work wood, how to rig lights and sound for plays, how to project and act in those plays, how black people spread around the world, lots of economic theories, how to navigate by the stars, how to sail, how to swim and many other weird subjects in university and high school. My trade is mathematics and computer science, but I am grateful that I have been exposed to so many strange and wonderful fields. They help me to be able to look at my problems from many different angles and to find solutions where I would not have looked.
I didnât learn anything at school. It was the 80s. No after-school activities at all, in the state sector.
English is boring because almost everybody can speak it, itâs like knowing how to swim, nobody cares.
Itâs good to learn Chinese in order to stay above the uni-lingual crowd 