Business English
Vocabulary
Transcript
Here’s the text without the timings:
Hello everyone! You are watching a Business English series brought to you by British Council English Online. We’re hoping to equip you with the practical skills you need to thrive in the international, English-speaking workspace.
Today is episode 2 of the conflict management series. I’m going to give you practical tips on how to manage conflict effectively in the workspace.
Click on the little ‘i’ up here and it will take you to the first episode.
Alright, we’re going to go straight in with tip number 3.
Tip 3: Be specific about the issue and impact. When entering into a conversation that is attempting to manage conflict, saying things like “you always” or “you never” is never a good idea. Sweeping statements like these will often result in a defensive response. And to be honest, I can understand why. If someone said to you, “you always complain,” you’d probably think, “well actually I can think of quite a few examples and situations where I didn’t.”
Be objective and avoid personal attacks. So, for example, instead of saying “You always criticize what I do,” you could say: “I didn’t appreciate it when you criticized my work in front of our partners yesterday in the meeting at 10am.” Here you’re pinpointing the pain point. Remember, be specific about an issue, and avoid, stay away from generalizations.
Number 4: Don’t bring up past events. Anybody who has ever been to marriage counselling, couple counselling, friend counselling, any kind of counselling will have heard this advice before. We often bring up past events as a kind of trump card hoping it will put us in a position of power within that conversation.
Just because our friend here remembered how their colleague acted one year ago, doesn’t resolve the fact that they interrupted them yesterday. Here’s what we need to do. Take that list from out of your back pocket, the one where you’ve noted all the things that you didn’t like about your colleague over the past 2 years. Take that list, and tear it up, blow it away. When you bring up past events, you’re distracting people from the main point of the conversation, which doesn’t resolve why you’re in a conflict in the first place.
See you in episode three for our last 2 tips. Bye!