The importance of BUSINESS COMMUNICATION: 3 Business English skills your team needs

3,622 views ・ 2023-02-06

Business English with Christina


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The right business communication skills can mean the difference between success
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and failure for your international team. And today,
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you'll see how just three of these communication skills can make your team
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more confident, more efficient,
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and improve their working relationships. Let's go. Hi,
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I'm your English coach Christina,
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and welcome to Business English with Christina,
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where you become better at business and better at English.
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And before we get into this lesson,
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remember to subscribe to my channel so that you can get more business English
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lessons that'll help you with your communication, your confidence,
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and your career. Are you great at active listening? What about your team?
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Now before you say, yes, Christina, I know active listening,
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I do it all the time, I'm very good at it, et cetera, et cetera.
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Really think about this question because active listening,
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it's one of those skills that it's not so
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natural for us. It's just not intuitive,
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but it is something that makes a major difference in your communication style.
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And think about your team. Would you describe your team as dynamic,
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competent, outgoing, experts, et cetera?
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Then there's probably a good chance that they like to talk a
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lot, but maybe they could use some help becoming active listeners.
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If you want your team to feel confident and to be able to really build rapport
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with their coworkers, with clients of your company, uh,
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with prospects, whoever you'll really want to encourage active listening.
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And one simple way that you can improve active listening is
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actually not with your ears, with your body. It's your body language.
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And one way to show that you're listening is to tilt your head a little to the
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side to keep your posture open and to look
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at the person that is speaking to you. Here's a tip that it sounds easy,
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but in practice, I mean, try it. You'll see that it's,
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it's a lot harder than it sounds.
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And it's simply when you're listening to someone speaking,
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don't interrupt them and don't respond right away.
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Instead, after your teammate finishes speaking,
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try to rephrase what they just said like this. You know,
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there's a conference coming up in the States in a few months,
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and I feel like we should really send some people from our team because
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a lot of the people in our target market are gonna be there.
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So you're saying that it's worth it to invest that much money to
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send some of our team to a conference in the us and if you notice,
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you don't have to agree or disagree, just show that you listened.
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And that creates a lot of confidence and trust between the two people.
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Communicating, also, taking care about how you communicate your goals with.
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Your team can build confidence,
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but also it's a huge boost for efficiency. And think about it.
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When you know what you're supposed to do, what the goal is,
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what you have to do to reach that goal, you're way more likely to get it done.
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I mean, I know that if I've got my day planned, I've got my to-do list,
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I am usually quite efficient at getting it done.
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And if I wake up and I start the day and I'm like, all right,
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what are we doing today? I don't know,
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like it's a guarantee that I will waste probably half of the day. Plus,
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when you or your team,
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you're not exactly sure what you're supposed to accomplish,
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that creates resistance, which means it's hard to get started.
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It means you go and check your email before you actually do something that's
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more important,
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and that slows down your efficiency and your progress. So here
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are a few tips to make your goals clearer.
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Talk about your goals in formal conversations dedicated to that.
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I mean, you know,
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it's great that your team sits and talks around the coffee machine or the
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water cooler,
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but you don't want those important conversations about your goals to just
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happen, you know, in a casual conversation.
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So hold an official meeting, dedicated this to this,
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and it can be a meeting in a fun place.
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It doesn't have to be like sitting down at a table in a gray room
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with a PowerPoint or something.
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Just make sure that someone is taking notes because that's gonna help you to do
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something else that is also really important and that is follow up.
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So maybe you send out an email or you share a document with your team, uh,
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with a summary of your shared goals.
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Maybe you check in personally with your team members to see how they're
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doing on their goals and actually taking the time to talk to them,
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to ask questions and to listen. And especially in an
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international context where people are working hard to communicate in different
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languages,
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then following up is even more important to make sure that everyone
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is on the right track and everyone understands everything. Now,
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here's an idea that maybe is not the most obvious when you think about improving
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your business communication skills, but it's essential,
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especially if you're working in an international team.
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And that is take stress into account and manage
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it. I mean, think about it.
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Maybe your team is really good at speaking in English and
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communicating when they're relaxed, like when it's, uh,
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a casual conversation or they're with their friends or they're, I don't know,
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just speaking English on their vacation, whatever.
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But as a neuro language coach,
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I can tell you that when you're in a situation where there is pressure,
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where there are some high stakes, where there is.
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Stress,
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your communication skills will suffer because you're stressed out.
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And that sort of creates this feeling of, you know, feeling blocked.
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And if you're trying to communicate in a,
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like a high stake situation in a different language,
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that is just going to amplify the stress and you can't
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avoid stress, it's a natural reaction, but you can plan for it.
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You can practice the situation with your team so that it feels more
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familiar and more comfortable.
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You can encourage your team to adopt practices
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like meditation, going out for sports regularly,
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maybe going out for a team workout, um,
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the morning of that big meeting to really evacuate some of that stress.
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Or if you don't have time or it's just not possible,
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just take a minute to calm your breathing. You know, it,
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it sounds cliche. I mean we say it so much. Take a deep breath. Um,
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but it really does work because what it does is it slows down
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the brain waves, it slows down your,
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your heart and the blood that is pumping fast through your body.
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And that helps to create a situation of calm.
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So the minimum go and hide in the toilets a little bit and take
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a few deep breaths before this big meeting.
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And that is going to help you to manage that stress.
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And if you need help,
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planning and preparing for your next challenging business communication
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situation,
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did you know that I have some live free interactive workshops every
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month for key business situations?
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You can get your invitation to these workshops in the link
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that's below this video. It's absolutely free.
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It's once a month and it can really help you make a difference.
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And if you don't use it, you lose it.
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So here's how you can use some of the things you learned today. In the comments
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below, tell me what is a communication situation or an
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event in your business that makes you feel stressed and how do
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you manage that stress? Tell us about it in the comments.
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I'm just curious to see what your own stress management techniques
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are to help you be better at business and at your English.
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And if this lesson was helpful for you,
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there are three simple ways that you can tell me and I would love to know.
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You can give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to my channel
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to get the future business English lessons.
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You can go over to my blog and read a very
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nice, very thorough, very complete, um,
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article about business communication skills and stress management
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and doing all of that in English.
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And you can watch this next lesson, how to Get Unstuck,
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nine practical Expressions for English Conversations.
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Thank you so much for improving your English and your business with business
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English with Christina, and I'll see you next time.
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