What I learnt … speaking English as an American

Brian Mullins, 49, is the American chief executive of Mind Foundry, which owns an artificial intelligence technology that was spun out of Oxford University in 2016 by professors Stephen Roberts and Mike Osborne. Its platform helps regulated industries such as insurers, as well as government agencies, understand how complex AI systems make decisions, checking that their models are robust. Mullins joined in 2019 and it has since expanded from 15 people to about 100. Last year revenues reached £6 million. Working in a highly complex technical environment, Mullins is mindful of the differences between English and American English, where saying the wrong word can undermine credibility.
It would be pretty much immediately and on an ongoing basis. Churchill is credited with saying “One people divided by a common language” and it couldn’t be more true.
There is a lot of cultural significance that creates very noticeable differences that are important. If you just look at them superficially, it is easy to think they are weaknesses. But they really have some great strengths, on both sides.
For instance, it would be easy to say Americans are arrogant; that folks in the UK can be timid. Neither one of those is true. Of course there are arrogant Americans and timid Brits, but culturally it is probably better to describe it as there is a lot of confidence in the US business culture, which can be a tremendous strength. And in the UK it is not timid at all; it is very careful, thorough, diligent. When someone here says their technology works, it works. In the US, in the start-up ecosystem, it might mean there are a couple of guys in a dorm room who are pretty sure they can make it work.
The first made me realise that there is a much bigger gap than I thought there was. It was the way that people say goodbye, on a phone call or a video call. They say it several times. I would come across as very brash if I at least didn’t say it more than one time. Fortunately someone pointed it out to me.
Then two to three years later my assistant at the time came in and said: “You know, you are really tough on performance reviews.” It turned out that the word “quite” has a very different meaning in the UK to the US.
In the UK, the meaning is most accurately described as fairly. In the US it is very. If you say someone is quite good at their job that means something very different here than it does in the US. In the US I might say: “Despite them being relatively new to the team, they are quite good at their job”. Here it means they are pretty average, or in fact performing below average.
Another recurring one is the word diary. Diary in the US exclusively refers to a small book that young girls write their secrets in. And we would not use it to apply to a calendar in any way. It usually comes with a little lock on it, and it is a bit of a novelty. To hear the word diary applied to a calendar was a shock.
It is my responsibility. The more I can understand how I am being understood, the better I can be at my job.
The Brits are very polite and they work with me. Understanding that I am an American, they give me the benefit of the doubt. They let me correct myself when I put my foot in my mouth.
It is important for someone coming from the US to remember that by default you are going to seem more aggressive than your colleagues here.
In the cases where you want to be aggressive don’t try to be, just be yourself. And in other circumstances you might want to consider dialling it down to make sure the message you want to deliver is being heard.
I think I have also been able to bring some of the good side of the US culture, especially the business, communication and feedback culture, to Mind Foundry in a way that has been profoundly beneficial to us.
I have explained to the team the benefits of being able to give feedback in group settings and immediately as a way both to get the information quickly, but also to demonstrate the feedback behaviour to other team members … who can emulate it themselves. That culture of open feedback has been really beneficial.
Friction is dealt with in a different way here. People might get frustrated and not necessarily say something direct, but they will let you know in other subtle ways. I say, “How about we change that from an indirect communication, like in some kind of sarcastic comment, and turn it into a direct, positive feedback?”. In the US you can take it for granted, people are very open, and feedback is very fast. Sometimes too fast. But I think it has been beneficial to bring that with me.
In the UK, there is very little difference between the definitions of the words pride and arrogance. They are almost synonyms. Whereas in the US, you could drive a truck between those two words. You can be proud of your wins, in a humble way, without any arrogance at all.
I think that is really profound, because it points to where definitions of words can hold us back. One of the things I have worked hard on here is that I really feel it is important for people to feel proud of their wins, proud in the American way, so they can build on top of that and see the progress they are making. That creates momentum and is something that is extremely important for high-functioning teams that are building something new.
When companies are growing, people are having to sell to and work with customers that they have not encountered before, especially if you are trying to expand outside of the UK. That language [of avoiding being proud for fear of appearing arrogant] can hold you back.
When you are proud of your achievements here, you may say “Well, it does this and this” in a very humble way, which here is very ingratiating. But if you are talking to a customer internationally, to someone in a business environment, they are going to read that as a lack of confidence in the product or what you can deliver. It becomes this spectre, or mirage, that is totally unnecessary. How you present the capability of what you have built, and what it can do, is critical.
Brian Mullins was talking to Richard Tyler, editor of Times Enterprise Networkhttp://thetimes.com/ten