Speak Like a Manager: 8 Better Ways to Say “IMPORTANT”

In this lesson, I'm going to teach you eight

different expressions that you can use in

a business context to sound more professional.

Now, all of these expressions express the

idea or convey the idea of "important" without

using the word "important", alright?

So "important" is a very popular word, people

use it all the time, but what we should not

do is to use it too often, alright?

Because otherwise, it sounds a little bit

boring, and it also sounds like your vocabulary

is not very extensive and not very wide.

So let's see first what happens when we use

the word "important" too often, and then I'm

going to show you the eight expressions that

you can use to replace these ideas and to

sound much more professional, okay?

So, let's look at this first.

Now, this is a sample letter that somebody

wrote, it's kind of like a letter of reference

for someone, and that person who wrote this,

their vocabulary wasn't very extensive, okay?

Wasn't very advanced.

So they use the word "important" all the time.

So let's look at it.

Mary was an important person in the company.

She held an important job.

Her most important goal was to become an important expert in her field.

For five years, she played an important role

in our department, making important decisions

and solving important problems.

I believe the most important factor in her success was her people skills.

Okay?

Now, obviously, on purpose, I used the word "important" in the entire paragraph to show

you what can happen when you're only using this

word or when you only have that expression,

okay?

But now, I'm going to show you how you can optimize this and how you can upgrade these

ideas with eight new expressions, okay?

Let's do that.

So, let's start with the first one.

So, if you want to convey the idea, express

the idea of an important person, so what could

you say instead?

You could say "a key figure", okay?

Say it after me, "a key figure".

Now, in this case, we actually changed two words, right?

Instead of saying "important", we said "key",

and instead of saying "person", we said "figure".

Now, "figure" can mean also "person".

So, this business expression where two words,

two or three words, usually two words are

used together.

This is also known in English as a collocation,

a business collocation in this case because

it's used very often in business English and business situations, okay?

Say it after me again, "a key figure".

Good.

Now, suppose you want to give the idea of

an important job, then you could say "he has

a powerful position".

Say it after me, "a powerful position".

Good.

"She is a key figure", "he has a powerful position", okay?

Good.

If you want to give the idea of an important

goal, alright, or objective, you could say

"this is a top priority in our company", "a top priority".

Now, sometimes the word "goal", "priority" not

exactly the same, but the idea is basically

the same here, okay?

So here also, we replaced "important" with

"top", and we replaced "goal" with "priority".

"Priority" is something that is very important, okay?

And in this case, "a top priority", it's an important goal, alright?

Say it after me, "this is a top priority".

Good.

Okay.

Now, suppose you want to express the idea that "she is an important expert".

Now, you wouldn't usually say that in any

case, but what you should say instead is "she

is a leading expert".

Say it after me, "a leading expert".

That means there are many experts, and she is one of the top ones, one of the best.

She is the most well-known, a leading expert, okay?

Next, if you want to give the idea of an important

role, then you could say "he has a central

role in this division.

He plays", you can also use the verb, "he plays a central role in this division".

"Central" meaning important, alright?

Key.

Now, could you use "key" here instead of "central"?

Yes, you could, but in order for you to have

lots of varied vocabulary when you use...

When you speak, you could learn these expressions

kind of as they are, and that way you have

a variety of words available, and you won't sound the same when you speak or when you

write.

Okay?

Let's take another one.

Instead of saying "an important decision", what could you say?

"A critical decision".

Now, "critical" means very important, alright?

Now, there are two ways in which you can pronounce this word.

In North America, usually, they don't really

say the "t", so they say "critical", "critical".

Okay?

But, if you like, you could pronounce this "t",

and if you're not a native English speaker,

it might be easier for other people to understand

you if you do pronounce that "t" in the middle,

and it's perfectly fine.

So, then you could say "a" or "a critical",

"a critical decision", "a critical decision".

The main thing is don't try to say everything too fast, okay?

It's okay if you slow down, but people actually

understand you than if you try to go too fast,

and then people don't understand you.

Okay?

That's it.

Next. Next, "an important problem".

So, instead of saying "an important problem",

you could say "a major problem", okay?

Say it after me.

We are facing a major problem, okay?

Good.

And instead of saying "an important factor",

here's a nice advanced word you could use,

this is "a decisive factor".

"A decisive factor".

"Decisive" means one that kind of makes the decision, that impacts the choice, impacts

what happens, okay?

It's decisive, it's important, it conveys that idea.

Okay?

So, this is a decisive factor in our success.

We are facing a major problem.

He made a critical decision.

She plays, you can say it, a central role.

He is a leading expert.

This is a top priority.

He has a powerful position.

And she is a key figure.

Okay?

Now, how do you remember these?

Lots of different ways, okay?

First, you're watching this video, that's step one.

Next, what else can you do?

Well, you can say them out loud, okay?

After me, as you probably did, and I hope you did.

Next, you can write them down because that helps.

Then when you write them down, you could write

them in two columns, like you can put all

the adjectives in one column and the nouns in the next column.

So, you could put "key figure", and then you can fold half of it.

So, you can...

You can say, "Key what?

Oh, key figure."

Or you can fold the other half, cover the other half, and say, "What kind of figure?

A key figure."

Okay?

So, you can ask yourself that way and review it.

And most important, say it out loud, okay?

Because then your ears will also hear the right expression and get used to saying it.

Okay?

Now, let's see how many of these you remember

and can use when we go back to our original

rather boring letter that we looked at at

the beginning and see how powerfully you can

upgrade it.

Okay? Let's do that.

Okay.

So, now, you can do this in two different ways with me.

First, if you like, you could pause the video

right now, and you could go through this letter,

which we had looked at originally, and you

could try to put in the new expressions that

we learned.

Okay?

Now, what I've done is I've written the initials

of those expressions that you just learned

on the side, so you could also look at those, and

that might help you to remember the expressions

that we just learned.

Okay?

So, let's go through it.

If you want to pause, pause.

If you want to continue, then let's continue with me.

Okay?

All right.

So, the first sentence, "Mary was an important person in the company."

What could you say instead?

"Mary was a key figure in the company."

Next, "She held an important job."

"She held", good, "a powerful position."

Very nice.

"Her most important goal", "her top priority",

good, "was to become an important expert in

her field."

"To become a leading expert in her field."

Good.

You're with me?

Are you remembering them?

Okay?

Good.

Next, "For five years, she played an important role in our department."

"For five years, she played a", what is it, "central role in our department."

Very good.

"Making important decisions", "making critical decisions".

Very good.

"And solving important problems", "and solving major problems."

"I believe the most important factor in her success was her people skills."

The most important factor, the decisive

factor in her success was her people skills.

People skills, by the way, what is that?

People skills are the ability to get along

with people, manage people, communicate with

people well.

Okay?

These are known as people skills.

All right?

So I hope that this lesson helped you to pick

up eight very useful business collocations,

which you can use, you know, quite often in business situations to describe people and

to describe decisions, problems, goals, and so on.

Okay?

So, what you could do if you want to review

these, please go to our website at www.engvid.com.

There you can do a quiz on this, and also

check out lots and lots of other videos that

I have and that other teachers on engVid have that cover all aspects of English.

Okay?

And since this is one of my Speak Like a Manager

lessons, if you haven't seen any of the others,

then please have a look at those.

We have many others, and I have several in that series.

Okay?

And don't forget to subscribe if you haven't

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whenever I publish a new lesson.

Okay?

Thanks very much for watching.

Bye for now, and all the best with your English.