Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 188, Correcting Misunderstandings at Work.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 188.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in the beautiful city of Los Angeles, in the wonderful state of California.
On this podcast we're going to be correcting some mistakes that other people make.
When you have a conversation and you need to tell someone they made a mistake or they are wrong.
You need to do that politely, and today we'll find out how.
Let's get started.
I work in our company's Toledo office and I was meeting with my counterpart in our Raleigh office.
I was trying to explain to her our new proposal to make some changes in the corporate structure, but it wasn't going very well.
So with the new plan, the managers would report directly to the CEO?
That's not quite right.
The local managers would report to the regional managers and the regional managers would be supervised by the COO.
That would give the COO more oversight than he has now.
You're saying, then, that the managers aren't being well supervised now?
No, that's not what I meant.
We were actually thinking that the new plan would free up the CEO to work on attracting new business.
So you think that the problem is with the CEO.
He's not doing his job.
No, that's not it at all.
What I'm trying to say is that we need this new plan because our office has expanded so much in the past year.
Well, I don't really agree with you.
I think that both the CEO and COO are doing a fine job now.
I think we may have our wires crossed.
Let's set up a meeting for next week to talk more about it.
Okay, that's fine with me.
We listened to a dialogue between two people, Rory and Dean, who work for the same company.
The story begins by Dean saying that I work in our company's Toledo office.
Toledo is a city in the state of Ohio in the center eastern part of the United States.
And the person in the story says that I was meeting with my counterpart in a Raleigh office.
A counterpart C-O-U-N-T-E-R-P-A-R-T.
All one word is someone who does the same job as you but in a different part of the company.
Usually when a big company has offices in different cities, there are people who do similar work, similar jobs, and that those people have their counterpart in different offices.
So it's the person who does a the same job as you but in a different part of the company or in a different office of the company.
Raleigh is a city in North Carolina which is in the southeast part of the United States.
Notice also that when we are identifying the names of these offices, we use the city.
We don't normally say our office in Toledo, although that's possible.
We would say simply our Toledo office, our Raleigh office, our Chicago office.
Well, Dean in the story here is trying to explain to Rory the new proposal, or the new plan to make some changes in the corporate structure.
The corporate structure S-T-R-U-C-T-U-R-E, two words is is the same as the corporate or company organization.
Corporate is another word for company in this case, and structure means the same as organization.
So you have the president and the vice president, and underneath the vice president meaning working for the vice president would be other managers and so forth.
That's the organization or corporate structure.
But Dean is having some problems explaining this to Rory.
Rory says, so with the new plan, the new proposal, the managers would report directly to the CEO.
To report, R-E-P-O-R-T, means in this case that these are the people who are your bosses.
For example, if I work for my boss, I report to him.
My boss reports to his boss, and his boss reports to his boss.
So the person that is your boss, is one level above you in the corporate organization, is the person you report to.
It's the person that is in charge of you, who gives you your instructions, who tells you what to do.
So to report directly means that they would talk to that person without talking to anyone else in between.
The CEO capital C, capital E, capital O is the chief executive officer.
Often the highest person in the company is called the CEO.
Well, Dean explains to Rory that that is not correct, but he wants to say it politely to tell her that she's wrong.
So he says that's not quite right.
That's not quite, Q-U-I-T-E, right or quite correct.
It means that you've made a mistake.
You haven't gotten all the information correctly.
Dean says that the local managers would report to the regional managers.
The local managers would be the managers of the individual offices.
So, for example, if a company had an office in Los Angeles, an office in London, an office in Tokyo, an office in Rome,
Those would be the local offices, the local managers who would take care of things in those cities, in those offices.
A regional manager, R-E-G-I-O-N-A-L would be a manager who is in charge of, or who was responsible for, more than one local office.
So there might be a european region met regional manager, that's the manager of the area or region of europe, and there may be two or three offices that he is in charge of.
The local manager, The Rome manager, for example, would report to the European regional manager.
Dean goes on to say that the regional managers would be supervised by the COO.
To supervise S-U-P-E-R-V-I-S-E is a verb which means to be the boss of, to be responsible for.
The person who tells you what to do is your supervisor.
And to supervise is the verb the person who tells you, or the act of telling you what to do, giving you instructions and so forth.
Dean says that the regional managers are or will be supervised by the COO.
COO, capital C, capital O, capital O, is the chief operating officer.
In big companies, there's usually one person who is in charge of the whole company.
That person is usually the chief executive officer.
Officer here just means the person.
So the CEO is the top person.
Then there are other people. chief officers that work for the CEO or report directly to the CEO.
This would include the COO, which is the chief operating officer, and that's the person who takes care of the daily things or supervises the daily activities of the company and, For example, if the company makes cars, the COO is the person responsible for making sure that the cars get made.
Other people in the company could also be in charge of different parts of it.
The CIO... is the chief information officer.
This would be a person in charge of the way the company uses information communicates with other companies.
You could also have in a big company a CTO, which would be the chief technology officer.
And there are other possibilities depending on the company.
Not all companies have all of these features.
Well, Dean says that the regional managers would be supervised by the COO.
That would give the COO more oversight than he has now.
Oversight, O-V-E-R-S-I-G-H-T, here means more control, more ability to be able to know what is going on in the different regions of the company.
When someone says they have oversight skills over something, or oversight of something is probably what we would say.
To have oversight of a company or oversight of a part of a company means that you are in charge.
It's another way of saying that you are the supervisor and that you can see all the things happening in that part of the company.
Well, Rory doesn't quite understand what Dean is saying.
She thinks that Dean is criticizing the managers right now.
So she says you're saying then, that the managers aren't being well supervised now and that's why we have to change the plan.
And Dean says, no, that's not what I meant.
Again, this is a polite way of saying, you have misunderstood me.
You made a mistake in understanding me.
That's not what I meant.
That's not the meaning of what I am saying.
Dean says that we were actually thinking that the new plan would free up the CEO to work on attracting new business.
We were actually thinking is a way of saying you've made a mistake.
Here's the correct answer.
Here's the correct version of what I was saying.
You could also use the word really instead of actually.
What we were really thinking means this is the correct way that we were thinking, or the correct idea.
So Dean says what we were actually thinking is that the new plan would free up the CEO.
To free F-R-E-E up.
U-P two words means to allow someone who was working on something else to have more time to work on a different project.
I'm trying to free up some time means I'm trying to find some time, more time to do something.
In this case, the CEO is going to be freed up, meaning that he will have more time to do these other things.
So to free up means usually to take something away from someone, some responsibility or some part of their job, to give them more time to do something else.
Dean says that the CEO would have time to work on attracting new business.
To attract business as a verb means to find new business for the company, to make more money for the company by finding new customers or clients.
Rory says, again, misunderstanding Dean.
She says, so you think the problem is with the CEO?
He's not doing his job.
Again, Rory thinks that Dean is criticizing the CEO.
And Dean says, no, that's not it at all.
That's not it at all is a polite but a little more uh, direct way of telling someone that they're wrong.
If you say that's not it at all, that means you have it completely wrong, and you'll notice that dean starts out being very polite by saying that's not quite right And then he says that's not what I meant.
And now he's saying that's not it at all.
He's being even more direct with Rory, saying, no, you are wrong.
What I'm trying to say is that we need a new plan because our office has expanded so much in the past year.
What I'm trying to say is, is an expression that means here's what I'm really saying.
Here's the correct version.
Usually you are going to say it in a different way so the person can understand.
And what Dean is telling Rory is that the company is growing, is getting bigger, and that's why they need a new corporate structure.
Rory says again, still not understanding.
Well, I don't really agree with you.
I think that both the CEO and the COO are doing a fine job now.
Once again, she still thinks that Dean is criticizing the bosses of the company.
Dean finally says, I think we may have our wires crossed.
To have your wires W-I-R-E-S crossed C-R-O-S-S-E-D means that we are not communicating correctly, that we each have a different idea and that we are misunderstanding each other.
And that, of course, is what is happening in this dialogue.
Wire is something, a piece of metal, usually long and thin, that carries information.
For example, in a telephone, you have telephone wires.
And to have the wires crossed means that you are miscommunicating.
You are not understanding each other.
Dean suggests that they set up a meeting for next week to talk more about it.
And Rory says, okay, that's fine with me, which means that's okay for me.
That's acceptable for me.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a native rate of speech.
I work in our company's Toledo office, and I was meeting with my counterpart in our Raleigh office.
I was trying to explain to her our new proposal to make some changes in the corporate structure.
But it wasn't going very well.
So with the new plan, the managers would report directly to the CEO?
That's not quite right.
The local managers would report to the regional managers and the regional managers would be supervised by the COO.
That would give the COO more oversight than he has now.
You're saying, then, that the managers aren't being well supervised now?
No, that's not what I meant.
We were actually thinking that the new plan would free up the CEO to work on attracting new business.
So you think that the problem is with the CEO.
He's not doing his job.
No, that's not it at all.
What I'm trying to say is that we need this new plan because our office has expanded so much in the past year.
I think we have our wires crossed.
Let's set up a meeting for next week to talk more about it.
Okay, that's fine with me.
The script for today's podcast was written by Dr. Lucy Say.
Be sure to go to our website at eslpod.com to get the learning guide that goes with this podcast.
It will give you all of the words definitions, additional ways of using some of the vocabulary, culture notes and a complete transcript of this podcast.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2006.
