This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 122.
Use this magic mindset to broach sensitive topics at work.
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Hey, Michelle, we are back at it. How you doing today?
Good. Lindsay, how are you? Well, I'm just so happy to be on the mic again.
It's my favorite part of the week. And it's just it's so great.
It's so great. And you're back from a big trip to Paris.
I'm excited to hear about your experiences in Paris.
Yes, I did Paris and London actually. And I studied abroad in London.
So I went back to my old apartment. I did some videos for Instagram.
So you guys will see some things. And yeah, it was a great time.
And I can't wait to hear more about your Egypt trip.
We have a lot to catch up on. We have a lot to catch up on here, Michelle.
And our listeners are going to be able to listen in.
So I'm sure that we'll come back to Paris throughout these episodes on All Ears English and Business English.
But Michelle, I have a question for you today.
Are you ready? Yes. So do you find it difficult to bring up uncomfortable work topics with your colleagues?
Ooh, that is a good question. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's ever easy to bring up something that's uncomfortable, whether at work or... you know, in your personal life.
So I don't know that anybody really feels like, yeah, I feel great about doing that, right?
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think of what an uncomfortable topic would be.
I mean, maybe something like body odor could be something that people encounter, right?
That could be something that comes to mind.
These things probably happen more in an in-person workspace.
But I'm sure there are things that could come up even online with an online team or remote team.
Right. Yeah. Or things like things about projects that might feel uncomfortable, like assigning things.
There's all sorts of uncomfortable stuff.
But yeah, but we're going to talk about that today.
So you guys feel a little bit more comfortable, even though it is never easy.
We have a wonderful listener question, Michelle.
I'm excited. But first, I want to remind our listeners, guys, if you are not following this podcast, go and hit follow right now on Business English.
Why should they do that, Michelle? Why does it make it a little easier when they follow?
Well, so I mean, I have this I feel like with podcasts, if I'm not subscribed to them, I can forget or I always have to go and search for the podcast.
And why just make that extra step? It's so much easier when I've subscribed.
And again, like an alert that there's a new episode.
So make it easy on yourself. 100%, exactly.
And that's how we get better, right, Michelle, is by making something a habit.
And so that is the action you guys can take to actually get to fluency is by hitting follow and listening three days a week.
So good. That's right. All right, Michelle, we have a question from a listener.
Would you like me to go ahead and read it?
Sure, go for it. Okay, so this listener says, hello, amazing All Ears English team.
I'm French and I've recently moved to New York.
Woo-hoo, yay for New York, love it. A new start, like a second life, beginning from scratch with a new culture and a new language.
Your advice is so useful in my everyday business life and experiences.
I'm still listening to you, obviously, because learning a new language is a never-ending process, but also because you give me so much positive energy in your podcast that I feel boosted.
I love that, Michelle. I love that. That's so nice.
That's so nice. There's a professional situation that I don't feel really comfortable with.
And it's when you have to ask something to someone and you know you will disturb the person.
Do you have any magic expression for this type of situation?
All the best. This is William from William.
Lovely. all right thank you william so much yeah so this is a great question so i wasn't exactly sure if the question is asking about um how to ask someone something when you'll maybe interrupt them like disturb them like interrupt them or something that will bother them so i wasn't quite sure so i went with option two so that's what i was thinking maybe william meant and william if not send me a message but hopefully this will be helpful in the end case So we're going to talk about how to ask someone something that you know they might not like or will bother them in some way.
But before that, guys, just for fun, head on over to All Ears English, our other podcast.
It's a huge podcast. Episode 1998 is Missed the Joke, What to Say in English.
So that's a recent one that we did. So go ahead and listen to that one as well.
Mm-hmm. And that one really falls into a similar category, Michelle, of social awkward, socially awkward situations.
Right. Yeah, exactly. So so it'll definitely also help for the workplace as well.
So, oh, is there a magic expression? Lindsay, what do you think?
Is there a magic expression? I would say there's not a magic expression, Michelle, but there's a magic mindset and that is the mindset of connection, right?
And that's- Oh, very nice. So good, so good.
Right, so as long as you enter this situation, we're gonna give you some phrases, we're gonna give you words, but words will never rescue the connection.
Connection comes from a mindset of approaching that interaction where you just want to help the person or you wanna connect.
So make sure you lead with a mindset of connection.
All right. Love it. Yes, exactly. So when are some times this might happen?
I mean, maybe you have to ask someone for help when you know they're busy.
That kind of goes to the other potential question William was asking or what else, Lindsay?
Yeah. So asking someone for help when you know they're busy, which can be really hard nowadays.
People are just so darn busy these days, Michelle.
I don't know what they're busy with, but they're so busy.
Yeah. you have to ask someone to do a task that you know they're not going to like now every job especially if william is maybe a manager now every job has work we don't like we all have to do things we don't like and eventually your manager has to ask you to do those things but that might still feel uncomfortable for the manager right right oh true yes yes or let's say you have to bring up an uncomfortable topic like maybe somebody hasn't been doing their work or something something isn't quite right so these are all examples of situations where you might find yourself having to bring up an uncomfortable topic yeah these are all good examples so i mean yeah again come into it with that mindset of connection guys and now we're going to go through some steps right michelle that we can follow william can follow where does it start michelle Well, the first step is to be human.
And that goes along with Lindsay's overall connection mindset, the magic mindset.
Make sure you don't forget to say hello or how's it going or how is everything, you know?
We're all people, right? So if you just go into it right away cold, like we need to talk about this, right?
You need to warm up a little. I like that, Michelle.
Lately on our team, we've been doing, you and I sometimes often forget to do this, but a norm on pretty much every time we forget.
We have a norm. I know Aubrey and Jessica do this when they record the IELTS Energy Podcast, and Jessica and I do this when we meet during the week.
We start with the positive focus where we ask each other, what is one thing in your life right now that's positive?
Could be something over the weekend that happened.
It could be something as simple as the sun is out in my city.
Doesn't have to be a 10 minute essay or monologue, but it's a way of let me connect with you as a human being.
We are alive on this planet, living, breathing, feeling things.
And then we'll get into business. But you can't just go straight even as Americans who tend to want to do that.
We can't just go straight to business. I think that's what you're trying to say here, Michelle.
Is that right? Right. We just don't just be be human and try and connect with the person first.
I love it. So good. What's next? Okay, the next thing is to just acknowledge that the topic might be uncomfortable, right?
I think that the most important thing is to, if you just bring something up and make it seem like, oh, it's totally natural, maybe just take a step.
It's like, you know, say that you know, something is uncomfortable or awkward.
So the person knows that you have some sort of empathy towards the situation.
Yes, I love that. It just helps people. It kind of warms the whole thing up, right?
You're acknowledging that something is coming before it comes, right?
And the next step will be present the topic.
You're going to open up that topic. And again, we're going to give you words for all of this, guys, a little later in the episode.
And then, you know, acknowledge again, maybe if if if that would help that it might be tricky or something.
And then but the last thing is to get back to that human aspect, that connection is to encourage the person and end it on a positive note. i love that encourage them so let's give our listeners a live example here are you ready all right yeah you have something for me i think right yeah there we go yes all right hey lindsay how's it going i know we've been pushing off the libra account we do have to start looking at it again it's tough but i know we can get it done quickly if we put some time aside Oh, that's a cool name of a company, by the way, Libra.
Yeah, I don't know. All right. So here, you know, what did you do here, Michelle?
Are we gonna break this down? Like we do role plays?
Or what's the plan? Yeah, yes. So I said, Hi, how's it going?
Right? So that is be human. Obviously, this is a little bit, you know, you wouldn't necessarily say this all in one, right?
You always want to leave space for like, yeah, it's not a monologue is what you're saying.
Let's imagine that Lindsay, you know, there's some back and forth here, but we're going through the basic steps. um so anyway so you're like hi how's it going right that's the being human part um right and then i know we've been pushing something off right so that's kind of this acknowledging that something might be a little bit uncomfortable and one key here is that i said we right um yeah avoiding things like oh you sometimes can make it seem a little less harsh and i think this is a low-hanging fruit michelle when it comes to social dynamics at work especially if you're in a management position it's easy to just say we instead of you it's it's like you can take that as a you can partially take responsibility even though the person knows you're talking to them and they need to do something uh you can just sort of soften the blow a little bit by saying we yeah yeah smart exactly yeah um and then uh is that we do have to start looking at it again so that's the step of you know presenting the topic um then we said i it's tough so that's acknowledging it again kind of just that that connection mindset and then But I know we can get it done quickly if we put some time aside.
So that's more of an encouraging. I love it.
This whole thing together, it feels like, again, maybe you're in a management position here, Michelle, when you're saying this to me, it feels like I'm being well supported, but I'm also being held accountable, which is really what I think we want at work as employees, right?
We want to be held accountable. We want to do a good job and we want to be supported at the same time.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. See details online.
Okay, Michelle, where do we go from here?
Do we have another example? Oh, I love it.
We do. We have another example. We have a ton of stuff going on today.
So Lindsay, do you want to do the next one?
Yeah, here we go. So hey, Michelle, I know it may not be the best time to bring this up.
But if you could start contacting our clients for their emails, it would be great.
I know it's tedious work, but it shouldn't take too long.
Okay, so here, what did I do? I said, I know.
So here, I'm kind of acknowledging, right, that that something's coming, right, that I'm going to be presenting something in a minute.
Yeah, right, right, right, right. Yeah. And then you said, if you could start contacting, right, so now you are getting into the to the topic.
And of course, you started out by saying something by saying hi, also, as well.
And then and then what did you do? Yeah, so again, I said, if you could start contacting, so that's kind of the ask, that's the topic, presenting the topic.
I'm phrasing it in a very, not indirect, but a light way, kind of a request rather than a demand.
If you could do this, it would be great, right?
And essentially that is, that's a task that I'm assigning to you, but I'm saying it in kind of a nice way, right?
Right, yes, yes. Yeah, we have to read through the lines here.
That's another thing, Michelle. Maybe in another episode here on Business English, we present some of these and say whether they are requests, requirements, or suggestions to our listeners, because we could get confused, right?
That's right. I'm going to write that down right now.
Requests, requirements, or suggestions. So guys, that's why you want to hit follow on Business English.
Yeah. And what else did I say to you here?
Well, you said I know it's tedious work.
So like, basically, this idea is you're bringing this up because and it's uncomfortable because you know that this is not, you know, maybe it's not a good time for me to do this work.
And maybe it's I have a lot of other stuff going on.
So this is uncomfortable. So saying I know it's tedious work, and then encouraging, but it shouldn't take too long.
So a little encouragement. yeah i think it's important to acknowledge that not every workplace will have these norms now these are good for communicating between human beings but some workplaces have a tight company culture and that there's already the trust there's already the respect inherently there so there's not the need to kind of like wrap it up and it would be great and this and that hey could you do this right and so it just depends on your company culture so you won't always get this kind of sandwiching of a request.
And that could be okay. You have to read the whole situation of the company.
That's true. That's true. Yeah. Always listen to what others are doing and saying and try and match that as far as how people speak who are on the same level as you at work. yeah exactly so michelle do we have a role play to finish off today what do we have today we have lots of good stuff for our lives i know well i have a couple of role plays but i think we'll just do one okay let's do it all right so here we go so we are co-workers and i hate doing data entry oh who doesn't well yeah that's that is the worst um but the deadline is soon so you're gonna bring up this uncomfortable topic all right here we go hey michelle how are you Good.
How are you, Lindsay? Good. Okay. I know this is annoying, but the data entry part of the project is due soon.
Oh, I know. I know. I know. It's not a fun thing to do, but I really think it shouldn't take too long because you already have the templates.
That's true. Okay. I'll get to it. You're right. great thanks yeah so i'm kind of i'm sort of encouraging you along right to get it done i'm empathizing with you and so first i said hey michelle how are you this is the human connection moment right by opening up that connection and there could have been a little more there too even like how was your weekend right things like that right yeah whatever whatever seems best um and then you said okay i know this is annoying OK, so acknowledging that, just acknowledging that this is not fun, like, and that's OK.
But the data entry part of the project is due soon.
So that's we're also talking about the ask there.
Yeah. And so you kind of warned that something was coming.
I know this is annoying. And then there was the fact, right, the data entry part of the project is due soon.
And then you're empathizing, right? that third step I know I know or I was it's not a fun thing to do but I really think it shouldn't take too long and this is the encouraging piece right it won't take long because you have the templates so that hopefully makes it easier for you to go back to your desk and work on that with a sense of I can do this it matters what our mindset is Michelle when we start a project you know we think this will be easy or hard it really does matter to get over that hump Yeah.
Yeah. And something that you really don't like to do at work is that, yeah, that can be, that can be tricky to get it started, to get the momentum going, but that also feels good to start getting something done, you know, but rather than just sitting there for sure.
Yeah. Alright, Michelle, what is the takeaway for our listeners today?
I mean, first of all, I want to say to William, if we didn't answer your question, write us again and be more specific and exactly what you wanted an answer on here.
But I think we answered a lot of people's questions that they didn't even know they had, Michelle.
What do you know? Yeah. I mean, I think for the takeaway, I think, you know, it all comes down to that magic mindset, like Lindsay said, this connection aspect.
It can be hard to bring up these topics if you know somebody doesn't want to do something.
It's not their favorite part of work or something's due.
But we went over this template today to help.
But just know it's not easy for anybody.
But the more the more practice you get and, you know, following a template kind of like this could be helpful.
So just always remember, we're all human.
And just to not forget that at work. That is such an important lesson.
I love this. I love this template. And guys, remember that magic mindset.
And don't forget to hit follow right here on this podcast to get three episodes a week on business English.
Okay, Michelle, thanks for hanging out with me today.
And I will talk to you very soon. Thanks, Lindsay.
Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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