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BEP 36c – English for Presentations: Questions and Answers (1)

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on how to deal with the question and answer session at the end of a presentation in English.

A presentation can be planned, organized, scripted, and rehearsed. But that’s simply not possible with the questions you might get at the end of your presentation. Sure, you can try to anticipate what people might ask, but you never really know. They may refer to specific points in your presentation and challenge you on these points.

For this reason, you need the skills to handle whatever you’re faced with. And sometimes that means overcoming doubt or resistance to your ideas. You might have to use buffers to deal with tough questions and concede certain points to your audience. You may also find yourself clarifying a point and paraphrasing your audience’s questions.

In this lesson, we’ll listen to the Q&A following a presentation in English by Nick, a sales director for a steel company. Bryan and Cindy are posing some difficult questions. Nick, and his boss Max, are using several techniques for dealing with these questions.

Listening Questions

1. How does Nick respond at first when Bryan asks a tough question about the survey results?
2. Cindy begins to ask a question about retraining the salespeople. What does Nick say to clarify what he meant?
3. How does Nick deal with Cindy’s question about measuring success?

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Skills 360 – Problem-Solving 2: The Problem-Solving Process

Business English, Business Skills 360, Management English / September 8, 2024

Welcome back to the Business English Skills 360 podcast as we continue our look at problem-solving. In this lesson, we’ll focus on the process of solving problems.

As we talked about in our last lesson, the first step in problem-solving is analysis. This means gathering all the relevant information and understanding the problem’s causes. It’s important to look at the situation from different perspectives and ensure that everyone involved has a shared understanding of the issue. Without this, you risk coming up with solutions that aren’t feasible or acceptable.

Once the problem is understood, the next step is to define your goals. Many people skip this, but it’s essential to clarify what a good solution would look like. Set clear guidelines, including your timeline, budget, and who is responsible for what. This ensures everyone is aligned and focused on the same objectives.

Now, you can move on to brainstorming possible solutions. Encourage creativity and seek input from a variety of people. It’s important to separate the generation of ideas from the evaluation. Don’t judge ideas too quickly, just focus on coming up with as many as possible. This will give you a broad range of options to choose from later.

After generating ideas, it’s time to evaluate and select the best solution. The “best” solution is the one that fits the goals and criteria you set earlier. Remember, there’s no perfect solution, only the most practical and effective given the circumstances. Make sure the chosen solution is something everyone can support.

Finally, the last step is evaluation. After implementing the solution, take time to reflect. Did it work as expected? Could anything have been done differently? This reflection helps improve your problem-solving process and prepares you for future challenges.

Problem-solving requires a clear, structured approach. By following these five steps – analysis, goal-setting, brainstorming, decision-making, and evaluation – you can tackle problems more effectively and find the optimal solution.

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Skills 360 – Problem-Solving 1: Developing the Right Skills

Business English, Business Skills 360, Management English / August 25, 2024

Welcome back to the Business English Skills 360 podcast as we look at solving problems. In this lesson, we’ll focus on the skills you need to solve problems.

Problems are an unavoidable part of life and work, and in business, your ability to solve them is critical. Fortunately, problem-solving skills can be developed.

The first key skill is analytical thinking. Instead of trying to come up with any old solution, take time to thoroughly understand the problem. What caused it? Can it be broken down into parts? Analyzing a problem requires critical thinking, which helps you understand connections, prioritize, and identify patterns.

Next is creativity, which involves looking at the problem from different perspectives and asking open-ended questions. Creativity, paired with analytical skills, leads to innovative solutions, as it helps you break free from conventional thinking. However, trial and error is often part of the process, and that’s where resilience comes in. Resilience is the ability to stay focused and calm when problems get tough. It’s about persevering, even when your first idea doesn’t work.

Collaboration is another crucial skill, as problem-solving often involves working with others. Effective communication and emotional intelligence are vital in navigating complex group dynamics, especially when tensions are high. Finally, decisiveness is essential to avoid getting stuck in “analysis paralysis.” Making decisions, even with limited information, is crucial for moving forward.

Developing these skills – analysis, creativity, resilience, collaboration, and decisiveness – will significantly enhance your problem-solving abilities.

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August 24, 2024

BEN 57 – Robots: Back to the Future

Business English, Business English Vocabulary, Business News, IT and Tech / July 28, 2024

In this Business English News lesson on the resurgence of robots, we look at business English vocabulary related to robotics and technology.

While generative AI has been grabbing the headlines lately, the world of robotics has been developing at a rapid clip. The robot industry has been expanding exponentially, albeit mainly outside the spotlight of the mass media. And, as MSN explains, business is booming:

According to an announcement by the International Federation of Robotics, the stock of operational robots around the world has now reached 3.5 million units, and the value of installations has reached an estimated $16 billion. According to the Federation, robotics now plays a fundamental role in the changing demands of manufacturers around the world.

Of course, talk of robots will immediately call to mind automotive manufacturing, and car-makers were certainly one of the earliest adopters. But it’s not just the automotive industry anymore. Robots are being deployed on smaller scales, alongside humans, outside of assembly-line manufacturing. Robots have found applications throughout the economy, for companies big and small.

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BEP 409 – Quality Control 2: Customer Service

Business English, Business English Vocabulary, Customer Service, English Collocations / July 7, 2024

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson, the second in a two-part series on quality control. In this lesson, we’ll focus on quality control for customer service.

For companies that sell products, quality control is critical. Not just for ensuring consistency, safety, and reliability, but for meeting customers’ expectations. When customers buy from your company, they’re thinking about more than just the product itself. They’re thinking about how well you serve them.

Customer service involves a huge range of activities. Pretty much any time a customer interacts with a person or a system in your company, it’s customer service. And you need to think about everything from how easy it is to use the website, to the tone your employees use on the phone.

When we talk about customer service, and the quality of customer service, there are many special expressions we use. Many of these are combinations of words that we call “collocations.” You might often learn individual vocabulary words, but we don’t always think, or speak, in individual words. We speak in chunks of language. These chunks are called collocations. In fact “customer service” itself is a collocation. Those two words go together to create a new idea.

In today’s dialog, we’ll continue a conversation between Emma and Paolo. Emma is a consultant that helps companies with quality control. And Paolo runs a company that makes and services solar panels. As they discuss the work that Emma will do for Paolo’s company, they use many English collocations. We’ll explain those collocations later in the debrief.

Listening Questions

1. What two goals does Paolo have regarding customer service quality?
2. What does Paolo’s company do after every install or service call?
3. What has Paolo’s company not done yet, in a documented way?

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BEP 408 – Quality Control 1: Manufacturing

Business English, Business English Vocabulary, English Collocations / June 23, 2024

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson, the first in a two-part series on quality control. In this lesson, we’ll focus on the manufacturing side of things.

Successful companies understand the importance of quality. At minimum, quality control is about meeting industry standards or regulations. Beyond that, quality is a huge factor in brand reputation and customer satisfaction. And a commitment to strong QC, or quality control, can also lead to significant cost savings.

Given these benefits, no wonder many companies have entire teams or positions dedicated to monitoring quality. And, just like any other area of expertise, quality control comes with its own special language. Much of this language appears in set expressions that we call “collocations.” In fact, I just used one when I mentioned “monitoring quality.” To monitor quality is a common collocation related to quality control.

Collocations are just natural combinations of words. Certain verbs and adjectives always go with certain nouns. And certain nouns often combine to create a special meaning. If you just learn new words individually, you might miss these natural combinations.

In today’s dialog, we’ll hear a conversation between Paolo and Emma. Paolo works for a company that manufactures, sells, and services solar panels. Emma is a quality control consultant. Paolo’s company is looking to hire Emma to conduct a quality control audit, or a review of their systems. During their conversation, they use lots of English collocations, which we’ll explain later in the debrief.

Listening Questions

1. What does Paolo say they did after completing a safety audit?
2. What kind of testing will Emma’s work not include?
3. What is the purpose of “pulling samples” in quality control?

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Skills 360 – How to Overcome Cognitive Bias

Business English, Business Skills 360, Communication / June 9, 2024

Welcome back to the Business English Skills 360 podcast as we continue learning about cognitive bias. In this lesson, we’ll look at how to deal with the biases that impact our decision-making.

Trusting your gut and making quick decisions might work in some cases. But if you think your decision-making ability is based on perfect reasoning and complete information, well you’re wrong. You’re only human after all. And your decision-making machinery is flawed. In our last lesson, we had a closer look at exactly the kinds of biases that lead to suboptimal decisions. So how can you overcome these biases?

It’s a question that every good manager should be asking themselves. And making better decisions while avoiding biases comes down to a few key things: awareness, curiosity, and evidence. Let’s start with awareness. Now, if you tuned in to our last lesson when we talked about different types of bias, then you’re already on the right track.

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Skills 360 – What is Cognitive Bias?

Business English, Business Skills 360, Communication / May 26, 2024

Welcome back to the Business English Skills 360 podcast for today’s lesson on cognitive bias. These are factors that affect our ability to make good decisions and reasonable judgments.

Cognitive biases are factors that can negatively impact our decision-making and judgments. We make numerous decisions daily, ranging from significant ones like hiring employees to minor ones deciding where to go to lunch. These decisions often rely on intuition, information, and others’ perspectives. However, biases, which are unconscious tendencies, can lead to suboptimal decisions.

One common bias is the confirmation bias, where we focus on information that supports our existing beliefs and ignore contradictory evidence. This can cause us to become entrenched in incorrect views. Another is the sunk-cost fallacy, where we stick to a decision due to prior investments, even when it’s not the best choice.

The halo effect and horns effect are biases where one trait of a person influences our overall perception of them, often leading to misjudgments. For example, attractiveness can be wrongly equated with competence, while negative traits can overshadow a person’s capabilities.

Intuition can sometimes mislead us, making data crucial for decisions. However, biases like sample size neglect, where we draw conclusions from insufficient data, can still occur. Availability bias makes us overestimate the likelihood of recent events, such as fearing flying after hearing about a crash despite its relative safety.

The planning fallacy leads us to underestimate the time needed for tasks, often because we consider only the best-case scenarios. Recognizing these biases is the first step to mitigating their effects.

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BEP 35c – Meetings: Clarifying What Was Meant

Business English, English for Meetings, ESL Podcast, Functions / May 12, 2024

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on clarifying in English meetings. Previously we looked at how to clarify what was said when you didn’t hear properly. Today we’re going to look at how to clarify what someone means in order to avoid misunderstandings.

Life would be simple if everyone said what they meant clearly and directly. But that’s not the way things work. People often speak indirectly or use words that are a bit confusing. For this reason, we often need to clarify what people mean.

There are several ways to do this. You can tell someone you don’t understand. Or you might confirm an idea or restate what someone says if you think you might understand. And it may take some time to work out the general meaning or the meaning of a specific word.

Today we’ll listen to a meeting between Michael, Rachel, and Ryan. Michael is leading the meeting and talking about the disappointing launch of a new product. During the conversation, it’s not always clear what people mean. For this reason, they use several different expressions for clarifying what was meant.

Listening Questions

1. What expression does Michael use about the “numbers” that Ryan tries to clarify?
2. What does Ryan ask about that Michael wants to clarify?
3. What word does Michael use that Rachel asks about near the end of the conversation?

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