Plans Don't Deliver Projects. Conversations Do.
Six weeks into a supplier project, the customer's project lead mentions during a video call that they would like to make a small adjustment to the interface specification. The Finnish project manager on the call can see immediately that the change is anything but small, yet raising the issue in English, on the spot and in front of the customer's whole team, feels more uncomfortable than simply agreeing to look into it. He says that they will take a look, and the customer understandably takes this as a commitment. Three weeks later the adjustment has turned into unbilled work, a delayed milestone and an awkward discussion in the steering group, even though the project plan itself was perfectly sound. Had he felt confident enough to address the change openly, the same moment could have become a constructive discussion about priorities, and possibly an additional order.
Projects are delivered through conversations
When a company launches a project, it is natural to focus on the plan, with its scope, timeline, budget and risk register. The plan is important, but it only provides the framework within which the actual work takes place, and that work moves forward through a long series of conversations between people.
A project advances when someone explains a requirement clearly enough that it is understood the same way by everyone, when someone asks the question that reveals a mistaken assumption, when a risk is raised while it is still manageable, and when a customer is told about a delay in a way that preserves their trust. In international projects, a large share of these conversations takes place in a language that is not the project manager's mother tongue.
Where projects begin to drift
Projects rarely fail because the plan was poorly made. Far more often, they drift off course through small moments that never appear in any report. Two people may understand the same request differently without either of them realising it. A "yes" that was meant as "I hear what you are saying" may be taken as agreement. A concern may go unmentioned because the speaker could not find the right way to phrase it, and a status update may be accurate in every detail while still leaving the listener unsure whether there is reason to worry.
Certain conversations carry particular weight over the course of a project. The kickoff meeting sets the tone for the collaboration, and regular status updates determine whether problems come to light early or only when they have grown serious. Scope discussions are where a seemingly minor change can turn into significant cost, while escalations test whether a manager can stay composed and propose a constructive way forward. Handovers, finally, decide whether the knowledge built up in the project survives the transition to the next team. What these situations have in common is that they depend far less on vocabulary than on composure, precision and the ability to reassure the other party that the situation is under control. They are also the moments in which a project manager has the greatest opportunity to build credibility, because a customer rarely remembers the meetings where everything went smoothly, but they do remember how a difficult situation was handled.
A gap that rarely appears in the budget
When we speak our first language, we adjust our tone and choice of words almost without thinking. In a second or third language, the same adjustments require conscious effort, and under pressure that effort is often the first thing to disappear. Messages tend to become shorter and more blunt than the speaker intended, clarifying questions are left unasked because formulating them takes too much energy, and difficult news is postponed because delivering it well feels risky.
None of this says anything about the person's professional expertise. It reflects the distance between what they know and what they are able to express comfortably when the pressure is on. What makes this gap costly is that it usually remains hidden. A project manager who writes clear emails and reads technical specifications without difficulty appears to have perfectly good English, and the gap only becomes visible in live situations such as customer calls, steering group meetings or escalations. By the time the organisation notices it, it has often already cost time, money and some of the customer's trust.
Many organisations will recognise the symptoms, even if they have not connected them to communication. Status meetings report that everything is on track until a problem suddenly appears, customers start bypassing the project manager to get their answers elsewhere, decisions are reopened after meetings because participants understood them differently, and the scope of the project grows without anyone being able to point to the moment when the change was agreed.
A note for Finnish organisations
Finnish projects are becoming increasingly international, whether in their customers, suppliers, subcontractors or their own teams. The challenge, however, lies not only in language but in the way language and communication style interact.
Finnish professional communication tends to be direct and understated, and Finns are generally comfortable with silence and careful not to promise more than they can deliver. These qualities serve people well in a Finnish context, but when they are carried over into English in an international project, they can be interpreted quite differently. Directness may come across as abruptness, understatement as a lack of commitment and silence as disinterest or uncertainty. As a result, a Finnish project manager who is fully in control of the project may still leave an international customer with the impression that they are not. The same qualities can, however, become a real advantage once they are expressed with confidence, since honesty, reliability and a clear sense of realism are exactly what international customers value in a partner.
Organisations that invest in project management tools and methodologies, but not in how their people communicate in the meetings where the project is actually steered, leave one of the most visible parts of the work to chance.
Building communication performance for project work
Functional English is sufficient for reading a specification or writing a routine email, but project work places considerably higher demands on communication. A project manager needs to be able to run a meeting in which everyone contributes, ask a clarifying question without appearing uncertain, summarise a decision so clearly that it cannot be misread, and negotiate a deadline with a customer without damaging the relationship.
These abilities develop through practice rather than theory, which is why effective training starts from the real situations of the job, rehearses them under realistic pressure, and uses the language and terminology of the participants' own industry. In our collaboration with Technopolis, the service manager summarised the most important lesson by saying that confidence matters more than correctness. When professionals feel equipped to handle difficult conversations, they stop avoiding them, and problems begin to surface while they can still be solved. Over time, many of them also find that the conversations they once dreaded, such as a request for a change or an unexpected delay, become opportunities to show leadership, strengthen the customer relationship and steer the project in a better direction.
IWG's program for project professionals is built around these situations. Project teams benefit most from group programs that simulate the dynamics of real projects, whereas project managers, program leads and PMO heads often make the fastest progress in individual coaching that focuses on their own current challenges, such as preparing for a difficult steering group meeting or managing a project that has fallen behind schedule.
The outcome that matters
Plans document a project, but conversations are what deliver it. The organisations that complete their projects reliably are not necessarily those with the most detailed plans, but those whose people can raise risks, discuss changes in scope and maintain the customer's trust under pressure, regardless of the language the project is run in. For these people, a difficult moment in a project is not only something to get through, but a chance to demonstrate competence and earn the customer's confidence.
IWG Institute helps international teams perform well in exactly these situations. Founded in 1979, IWG Institute works with industries in which communication has real consequences, and our approach has remained the same throughout: language is a tool, and the real goal is professional impact. Our programs are available online, on site or in a hybrid format.
If you would like to understand where communication poses the greatest risk, and the greatest opportunity, in your own projects, we would be glad to help you identify the critical conversations and the gaps that may be affecting your results.
Maria Kunz, Director of Studies · maria.kunz@iwginstituutti.fi · +358 40 5877 142
Beyond Language. Into Impact.
FAQ
Our project managers already have good English. Why would they need this? Written English and reading comprehension are usually the strongest parts of a professional's language skills, which is exactly why the gap stays hidden. Someone who writes clear emails and reads technical specifications without difficulty appears to have perfectly good English. The difference shows up in live situations under pressure — a customer call, a steering group meeting, an escalation — where tone, composure and precision matter more than vocabulary.
Is this group training or individual coaching? Both, depending on who is being trained. Project teams benefit most from group programs that simulate the dynamics of real projects. Project managers, program leads and PMO heads often make the fastest progress in individual coaching built around their own current challenges, such as preparing for a difficult steering group meeting or managing a project that has fallen behind schedule.
Why does this matter particularly for Finnish organisations? Finnish professional communication tends to be direct and understated, and Finns are generally careful not to promise more than they can deliver. Those qualities serve people well in a Finnish context, but carried into English they can read differently: directness as abruptness, understatement as a lack of commitment, silence as disinterest. The same qualities become an advantage once they are expressed with confidence, because honesty and realism are exactly what international customers value.