FROM OUR CEO

Does Your Accent Hinder Your Inclusion?

January 17th, 2023 | From our CEO

My entire life I have been the odd one with the accent.

• When I was growing up in Southern Denmark as a kid of parents from Fyn and Middle Denmark.
• When I moved to Copenhagen in East Denmark and was the youngster from West Denmark. Speaking very slow compared to the fast-paced Copenhageners.
• When I moved to Stuttgart in South Germany and was perceived by the locals as being a North German (proud my accent was not stronger).
• When I studied in the USA, and people asked me, if I was from the same country as Arnold Schwarzenegger. I am not. He is from Austria.
• When I worked in Estonia and did not understand a word of the office chit chat.
• When I lived in Netherlands and understood every single word (Dutch is basically a combination of Danish, English and German 😊), but could not speak it.
• Where I live in Denmark now, and the youngster’s taking orders at my pizza place laugh, when I order a no. 14… “Say it again, say it again!”, they giggle and I do my best to say it without an accent

I have always been the guy with the accent!

So, when bestselling author Heather Hansen shared with me that her next book would be on Accent and Language Bias, I was intrigued. Had accent hindered my inclusion my entire work life?

Research Project on the Impact of Language and Accent Bias

I am a ‘numbers guy’ and adhere strongly to the principles outlined in the book “Factfulness” by Hans Roslyng. He defines ‘Factfulness’, as “the stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts”. Consequently, I wanted to know the facts. I suggested a joint research project, and luckily Heather said yes!

So Innovisor and Heather Hansen are now conducting an ambitious research project into the impact of language and accent bias in organizational networks. We want to be able to answer these questions:

Does language and accent impact, how well people are integrated into organizational networks? – How does language and accent affect connectivity? – Is language and accent a hidden barrier to inclusion that must be addressed?

Do You Want to Be a Co-Sponsor?

We are looking for 10 x co-sponsors of the research project. 1 week after our launch the first 5 have already signed up.

Co-sponsors will for a price of EUR 2,490 get:

• Insights on the language and accent biases of their own teams and how it impacts their organizational networks (including comparison with other participating organizations)
• Their logo featured in a final summary report that will be published on social media
• Invitation to co-sponsor debrief of the results
• The chance to be featured in the upcoming book on ‘language and accent bias’ of bestselling author Heather Hansen

If your company wants to be part of this groundbreaking research, then get in touch and I will share more details.