I have accompanied a lot of technical missions over the years. British hosts, Latin American visitors, a full programme of back-to-back meetings, and lunch serv...

By the time the coffee arrived, you’d been introduced to two people who weren’t on the original invite, the conversation had moved well off the agenda, and nobo...

You sent the agenda four days out.

Three items. Tight. Time-boxed. One page attached to the calendar invite so everyone could come prepared.

They confirmed at...

Contrary to what most British professionals assume, interpreting a technical meeting about infrastructure is often simpler than interpreting the lunch that foll...

Between late March and September, something shifts in the way British professionals relate to each other. The diary fills differently. Conversations have a diff...

Your British counterpart did his homework. He knew Latin Americans build trust over the table, not just across it, so instead of squeezing in a second meeting b...

You know the feeling. The meeting was warm, engaged, maybe even overran by twenty minutes. Everyone left smiling. You sent the follow-up that evening.

Then sil...

Most people assume an interpreter’s job is to translate what is said.

It is. But only partly.

The more interesting part of the job is managing what goes unsai...