Making Business Decisions in English: Key Phrases

Hey, you found us. Here we are. In today's

lesson, we're going to be looking at discussing

options. So, this is something we do all of the

time. Last night, I was having a conversation

with a friend about which aeroplane to catch.

Should I catch the one on Sunday night or

the one on Tuesday night? And for a situation

like this, there are certain phrases we can

use to think about the advantages, the disadvantages.

Now, in a work situation, especially if you

are using English and it's not your native

language, it's useful to think about the phrases

that you might have to use in a meeting or a phone call, so you're preparing yourself

ahead of time. And today's lesson will give

you some phrases that you can take away right

down, and then when you have your next meeting

where you're discussing what your company

should do, an important decision, then you can use some of these phrases.

So, to start with, it's nice to have the big

picture, yeah? What is the overall situation

here? And you can actually ask your colleagues

or your friends to think about the big picture.

Well, looking at this from a long-term perspective,

yeah? So, not thinking about next week, the

week after, what's going to be a little bit inconvenient. We're thinking about, okay,

two months down the line, which action will

have created the most good? For example, with

this choice about which airplane. So, I'm in Canada now, and I have to go back to the

UK, and we were deciding should I go back earlier or later? Now, going back earlier

would have been easier for my family, but I've decided to make some more videos for

you guys, so I'm staying on a little bit

longer, okay? So, here we are. Thank you, wife.

Okay, next phrase. I think we should probably

look at the bigger picture here, okay? It's the

same thing. We're asking people to think about

the long-term, yeah? We need to develop a clear

strategy. So, this is a formal phrase, and you

wouldn't use it with friends, say, on a road trip

to, I don't know, Ibiza, even though to go to

Ibiza, you're going to need to get on a ferry

or a plane. Yep, strategy. This is the language

of business. So, once you've decided what is the

correct decision for the long-term, then how are

you going to get from A to B? Now, if we want to

indulge in this decision between A and B, we can have a great big discussion.

Well, we do have a number of options, yeah? Options, different choices. What are they?

We can either do this or we can do this, or we

could do option C, and then we're starting to

think, well, what would happen if you decided A

or B or C? How would it work if? It's thinking

about what exactly would happen. So, if I were to

leave early, then I haven't made all these videos

that I was hoping to make. If I did this one,

if I did this one, and I'm thinking about all

the different people involved in this decision, who it's going to affect.

If this starts getting a little bit confusing,

then we can try and simplify matters. I think

our options are quite clear here, actually. So,

we're trying to condense it. This choice means

doing this, this choice means doing this,

and then we have to go this one or this one.

I was once in a car in America, and we were deciding whether we were going to

return to Los Angeles or do a road trip to Mexico, and we decided to flick a coin.

So, we flicked the coin and we'd spoken about

all of this. Yep, the coin is still up there,

it's going to come down in a moment. We'd done

all this, but we couldn't make our mind up,

and it came down, and the choice was for going to the city, to Los Angeles.

But I could tell from my wife's expression that that was not what she wanted to do.

So, the coin toss allowed me to make the

decision that made her a little bit happier.

Okay, moving on. There's no point doing this

action if we can't... So, there's no point

going to Mexico if we don't visit such and such an amazing place.

So, now we're putting conditions on the choice.

Realistically, do we have the budget for this? So, here, we're starting to go, okay,

we like option A, going to Mexico, but how is

this going to work? Where are we going to stay?

How long is it for? What places do we want to

see? Okay, I've got some more phrases for you,

a little bit of magic. This here is like a

secret weapon for incredible English. Adverb,

adjective combos, short for combinations. So, here, we've got negative things. So,

we're trying to say if we do option A, I just

heard some thunder outside. This is going to

happen. This is going to happen. It's going to be

disastrous. Okay? So, these are my negative ones.

Look at the adjectives. Disastrous, worrying,

damaging. I'm painting a picture in the other

person's mind of bad stuff. Yep. But then, here are

the adverbs. So, you could have any combination.

Potentially disastrous. It just sounds good the way you put this and this together. It

creates a strong effect. Potentially, it means

it could happen, that it will be really bad.

Seriously worrying. Seriously worrying. Okay?

It's good sort of formal, serious English.

What about this juicy word, here? Irretrievably. Can

you pronounce that? Irretrievably. Irretrievably.

Irretrievably. So, to retrieve means to go

and fetch. Yep. There are types of dogs called

retrievers. They fetch things. But we have the prefix, a negative prefix, meaning that

it can't be got back, like you've gone over the edge to damage.

So, what kind of context can we use these in?

Well, politics and current affairs seem an apt

setting for them. I've been talking a lot about

Brexit recently, but, you know, bad things are

going to happen, maybe. Or, we've got some positive

ones. Now, look at the positive adjectives. Yep.

Good things happening. Stable, secure, safe, quick. You get what you want quickly.

Diverse. Yep. Lots of different types of things.

Diverse cuisine. You've got Thai cuisine,

Indian cuisine. So, what are the adverbs, here? Relatively stable. If the economy is

relatively stable, then, you know, it's not going

to suddenly go up, it's not going to suddenly go

down. Surprisingly quick. I didn't think it would

take such a short time to get to this place.

Increasingly diverse. They're getting more, and more, and more cosmopolitan.

Why have I put these in? Because putting in

one of these phrases can really help you with

your arguments of saying why A or B is better.

Okay? Nice little tool to have up your sleeve.

So, we've decided to go for B. Yeah? B for Benjamin. Hope you're a subscriber. Press

subscribe if you're not. I think we're in a really strong position, here. Let's go back

to this decision of going to Los Angeles or on the road trip down to Mexico. Look,

we've got so much choice, but we're in a

strong position, we have everything in the car,

we are prepared. I think the general consensus

seems to be that we should go on the road trip.

So, consensus means an agreement. The general agreement seems to be...

Is there anything else we need to think about? We've made the decision,

and now we're starting to plan how we're going to execute that.

I've put thanks, everyone, because if this was a

business context and you've been sitting around

and discussing, it's a nice way of closing

the meeting to say, "Okay, thanks very much,

everyone. Thank you for your contributions."

Thank you for watching. If you would like to

do the quiz now, see how much you can remember.

And it's always a good idea when you're watching

these videos to write down some vocab, have a booklet where you're writing it, and then

look back again and again and again until you're

using this stuff all the time. Especially with

this, this is something you can play with. See

if you can do some reading and spot any adverb,

adjective combinations. See you in the next video. Get practicing. Let's go.