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Skills 360 – Leading Group Decision-Making Meetings (1)

Business English, Business Skills 360, Communication, English for Meetings / May 19, 2018

Welcome back to Business English Skills 360 for today’s lesson on Business English communication skills for leading a group to a decision.

In fact, it might be better to say we’re talking about how to lead groups to good decisions. After all, any meeting chairperson can push for a quick decision, or call a vote before matters have been fully discussed. But that’s not the kind of leadership I’m talking about. And that doesn’t necessarily produce good decisions. A good decision is one that people buy into, and one that has a strong rationale behind it.

So how can we go about leading a group to a decision? Well, right at the start of the meeting, you need to set the stage for a good discussion, and a good decision. Firstly, you need to be very clear about the purpose. If you’re meeting to make a decision, make sure everyone knows it.

It’s also a good idea to have a decision-making process for the meeting. And that process typically goes like this: start with information-sharing, then run through or brainstorm different options, then evaluate those options through discussion, and finally make a decision. Notice that generating ideas and evaluating ideas are separate steps. That helps prevent people feeling criticized or getting defensive.

Within this process, leading group decisions is all about facilitating good discussion. And the magic of good facilitation is making everyone in the room feel listened to and emotionally validated. Overall, you need to make sure that everyone has had a chance to speak and express themselves. Sometimes this means calling on people directly. Or it might simply mean staying attuned to how those weaker voices attempt to join the discussion.

By being clear about purpose upfront, following a basic decision-making process, and using your meetings English and facilitation skills, you can come to a good decision. And remember, a good decision is one that people buy into and that has a good rationale to support it.

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BEP 324 – English for Discussing Company Performance (2)

Business English, Business English Vocabulary, English Collocations, Finance and Accounting / May 13, 2018

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s Business English vocabulary lesson on how to describe company performance.

Every company’s goal is to make a profit. But how they go about that is different. Different industries, different business models, different approaches – There’s no simple recipe for success. And there’s no simple, single way to measure whether a company is performing well.

Instead, we look at many different factors when we measure company performance. We’ve also got a lot of different expressions in English for discussing the topic. And many of these English expressions are what we call “collocations.”

What’s a collocation? Well, it’s just a natural combination of words. Ever heard the expressions “turn a profit” or “boost the bottom line?” We don’t say “grow a profit” or “up the bottom line.” Those simply aren’t natural collocations. And if you say something like that, you won’t sound natural.

So studying collocations is a great way to sound more natural with your vocabulary. You can learn combinations of words, rather than single words on their own. As you listen to the dialog today, try to pick out some of these collocations, and we’ll discuss them later in the debrief.

In the dialog, we’ll rejoin a meeting at a private equity firm. Three colleagues, Maria, Claudia, and Taylor, are talking about some of the companies they’ve invested in. They’ll use lots of great collocations as they discuss the performance of these companies.

Listening Questions

1. What does Claudia think about SmartMoney?
2. What does Taylor think they should do before selling off SmartMoney?
3. What has Claudia been focusing on with Byron Industries?

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BEP 323 – English for Discussing Company Performance (1)

Business English, Business English Vocabulary, English Collocations, Finance and Accounting / May 5, 2018

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on English for talking about company performance.

The economy is in a state of constant change. Companies grow, and companies shrink. New companies are born, and old ones disappear. And you don’t have to be an investor to get excited about the boom and bust of markets and the story of how company’s respond. But if you are an investor, your whole retirement might depend on whether companies make the right moves at the right time.

This makes company performance a popular topic around the business table, or at the pub. And when we talk about company performance, we often use special expressions called collocations. An English collocation is a combination of words that are commonly used together, such as “company performance” or “state of change.”

Native speakers use these collocations automatically. In fact, our brains store these groups of words together, as if they were one word. You can learn to remember and use these collocations too. Studying collocations is a great way to learn vocabulary and sound more natural. So, as you listen to the dialog, try to pick out some of these collocations and we’ll discuss them later in the debrief.

In the dialog, we’ll hear Maria, Claudia, and Taylor, who work at a private equity firm. Basically, it’s their job to invest in the right companies for maximum profit. The three are discussing the performance of several companies they’ve chosen to invest in.

Listening Questions

1. Why does Claudia feel positive about Ranger Gold’s performance?
2. What is Taylor worried will happen if Ranger Gold builds a new mine?
3. What does Maria think Intuition Software needs to do to remain profitable?

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925 English Lesson 19 – How to Talk about Abilities

925 English, A2, Business English, English Video, Functions / April 15, 2018

In today’s 925 English video lesson, we’re going to learn how to talk about abilities in english.

There are lots of opportunities at work to talk about your abilities. And I don’t just mean job interviews. That’s an obvious one, but there’s also work planning, project meetings, and just discussing who should do what on a daily basis.

925 English is a course of video English lessons for beginners. With 925 English lessons you can learn business English phrases and expressions to use in work and business.

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BEP 322 – Project Management 7: Debriefing User Testing

Business English, IT and Tech, Project Management / April 7, 2018

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on English for project management and debriefing user testing during a software project.

Ask anyone in the tech world and they’ll tell you that user testing is the key to good software development. In fact, that’s not quite true, because the key is actually good user testing. Users don’t always give you exactly the information you need. Or they may not give you all the information you need. For these reasons, you need to be able to do an excellent job of debriefing a user test with the users.

Debriefing basically means talking about an experience. Debriefing helps us understand a user’s thoughts and feelings during their experience with the software. And in software development, that means we can make the necessary changes to improve that experience.

Debriefing a user test effectively might require you to do several things. For one, it’s a good idea to start by setting the focus for the debrief. And later, you might have to bring the user back to that focus area. To get a general sense of the experience, you might ask for overall impressions. And to get more detail, you might ask the user to talk about the process of using the software. It’s also a good idea to acknowledge important issues when they come up.

In today’s dialog, we’ll hear a software developer named Jill debriefing a user test with Carla, an office worker. Jill’s company, OptiTech, has been developing new software for a logistics company where Carla works.

Listening Questions

1. What does Jill say she wants to focus on in the debrief?
2. How does Jill respond to Carla’s suggestion about being able to update a driver’s status?
3. How does Jill respond when Carla mentions that the routes are changing color too soon?

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