This is the Business English Podcast Episode 268.
Are we aligned?
Frazes for syncing up at work.
Welcome to the Business English Podcast from all years English.
Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business.
For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party,
this is Real Business English.
With your favorite American hosts,
Lindsay and Aubrey coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
Hello, Aubrey, what's shaking? What's going on today?
Not much, how are you, Lindsay?
I'm feeling good. Question for you. You ready?
Yes.
All right, so do you feel that you are pretty aligned with everyone that you work with here at Allers English?
Yeah, good question.
I have had jobs in the past where I wasn't aligned with everyone I was working with.
It was difficult. It is nice here at Allers English.
We often have team syncs where we make sure that we are synced up on goals and we're all aligned.
It makes such a huge difference.
There's a lot of ways that you could be aligned within a company.
You could be aligned on values and visions.
I think we're pretty well aligned around what we stand for here at Allers English, what we care about.
Then there's being aligned on timelines and metrics and deliverables for even a day or a project.
Absolutely. Yes, this verb, align, came up in a recent episode.
You interviewed Charles DuHig and it was episode 2183, three ways to be a super communicator.
I loved this episode and I heard him say this.
He was saying, you got to make sure you're aligning your goals in a conversation as part of being a super communicator.
I was like, this verb, I hear it a lot.
We got to talk about it on the Business English podcast.
It was super interesting. If you get his book, it's super interesting how he talks about the different,
we all enter conversations.
I think there are three or four ways, mindsets or alignments within a conversation.
What you're looking for and what I'm looking for doesn't always match.
We have to make sure it matches.
Yes, exactly. This is huge.
Make sure you're following the Allers English podcast so you don't miss that episode.
2183 is such great info there that also is often very useful at works.
Yes, I love it. So check that out.
But for today, let's go into how I'm sure our listener, I know a lot of our listeners,
especially here on Business English, are working actively in the Corp in the Global Corporate World.
Whether that's in the US or globally making business trips to the UK, the US, Australia,
it's happening. They're hearing this word.
Yes. You guys know that it's vital to be aligned with those you work with
and to be able to talk about it.
There are a few ways in English that we say this.
So it's not aligned isn't the only verb.
So we're going to dive into it and a couple of other great native natural ways to talk about this.
Yes. So all right. Number one is to be aligned.
So essentially it means to be in agreement with someone to be on the same page
would be kind of a colloquial way of saying it.
It means that as well. Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
And you might say, you know, are you aligned on this?
If you're asking about coworkers, this could be about goals, timelines.
Like you said, deliverables, like, are we all? Do we have the same goal?
Are we going to make sure that we do this all together?
Yeah, exactly. So maybe let's say for example, we just had a team sink
and we decided we were going to do X, some new goal or something.
We're going to try to do more this quarter.
Then maybe the next week I would come to you and say, Hey, Aubrey, are you aligned on this?
What am I asking when I say that to you?
Yeah, I mean, are we on the same page, right?
Do we see this the same way? Do we have the same vision?
Yeah, or we are agreeing on the timeline, right?
We're making sure everything's lined up.
Yeah, is there anything hindering like your ability to go after this particular initiative?
Right. Right.
And then if you find that you're not on the same page, you might say, OK, we need to get aligned on this.
Because we all recognize the value there.
We are going to be more successful if we're all aligned.
Mm-hmm.
I love it. Or I've heard, you know, are we aligned?
So you said, are you aligned on this? Are we aligned? I've heard that.
Absolutely.
Or let's align on this, right? Let's meet to align on this.
So a lot of things we could say here. I love this phrase.
Yes. Very modest.
Very professional, right?
If you haven't heard it yet, you probably will start noticing it now.
It's very common and I agree very professional.
Sort of an upleveled verb.
It really is. And I like number two as well.
To be in sync or more likely to to sync to be synced up, OK?
Or to sync up as the active verb or to sync.
Exactly.
All of those, right?
We often say, just sync or sync up as a phrasal verb.
You'll hear this a lot.
It also means to be in agreement to have the same timeline to be on the same page.
Like we said, we use that idiom a ton.
Mm-hmm.
Well, let's meet on Monday to sync up on X, right?
Exactly.
Or I'm glad we're in sync about this.
We'll also say just, you know, to be in sync, I'm glad we're in sync.
I feel like we all are aligned with our goals and our vision.
Yeah.
And I think this is useful because other alternatives feel a little too intense.
You know, even in my personal life, so I do a lot of collaboration with my brother on family stuff, family finances,
and what we're dealing with right now.
So oftentimes instead of saying to him by text, can we meet and discuss this?
That feels very heavy and intense.
I'll say, hey, can we sync up on this?
You know, when can you get on a call?
It just, I agree.
I don't know. It's kind of professional, but kind of personal, but not too heavy.
It's like a perfect, a little less pressure, a little less rest, even calling a meeting a team sync.
I love, as opposed to the other options, it feels so collaborative.
Yes, yes.
There's something really, really cool about this word.
So try it out, guys.
All right.
Harmonize. Ah, tell me about this.
Yeah, I like this one.
So it means like to make systems or goals similar.
So people can work together more.
And it's sort of idiomatic because we also use harmonies to talk about music, where we're bringing like,
you know, there's the melody and the harmony and we're wanting to make sure everything pairs well together.
We also use this verb in business to talk about making sure our goals and our vision pair well together.
Ah, interesting. Okay. So we could say we found a way to harmonize our goals. I don't use it this way. This is interesting.
I'm learning something new every time we record, Aubrey. I learned something new.
No, I do too, though, you know, because when I'm looking for similar vocabulary and I'm searching online, I'm doing a deep dive for you guys.
Because yes, I hear this, but where we're not day in day out in the corporate world, often I'll ask my husband, who is, or I'm googling to find out what also is being said.
And this is a big one.
Interesting. I love that. Okay. Another sample sentence would be that now that we've been able to harmonize our process, things are going smoothly.
Love it. Love it. Huh. Yeah. So it's the same as sync up a little more formal. Right. You know, we've found a way to harmonize now that we've harmonized the process.
So just slightly more formal, but definitely appropriate in every business context.
Interesting. Let's put this into a role play. We know our listeners love these role plays. So what are we doing here?
We're going to be doing a lot of work. We're going to be doing a lot of work.
We're going to be doing a lot of work. We're going to be doing a lot of work.
We're going to be doing a lot of work. We're going to be doing a lot of work. We're going to be doing a lot of work.
We're going to be doing a lot of work. We're going to be doing a lot of work. We're going to be doing a lot of work. We're going to be doing a lot of work.
We're going to be doing a lot of work. We're going to be doing a lot of work. We're going to be doing a lot of work. We're going to be doing a lot of work.
Okay. So super important to figure out if you're actually in sync. Right. If you're synced up.
Yes. And you can see in this role play, it's good to have multiple ways to say this.
Because if we use the verbal line over and over and over, it would be very repetitive, sort of strange.
We said it all these different ways here. You first said, you know, I'm glad we could meet up. Make sure we're aligned on everything.
If you use it over and over and over, you'd probably be in a meme like the tech bro memes that you find on Instagram all the time.
So watch out. Watch out.
The dog video of using a line 14 times in a Zoom meeting.
Oh, don't do that.
We've done episodes on this concept of overusing these trendy words. There's a real fine line, which is another phrase that our listeners learned recently.
I'm up, so Michelle and I did fine line. There's a fine line, Aubrey between using trendy corporate tech vocab and going over the line with it.
Yes. And it's just so important to point out whenever we do these vocab episodes, we're trying to get lots of options so that you don't have to repeat vocabulary.
You may need to express the same meaning in a few different ways. You need lots of different options with the vocabulary.
Yeah. Good stuff. Should we go through what we said here?
Yeah, let's do it. All right. So here I said, I'm glad we could beat up to make sure we're aligned. Very common to make sure we're aligned.
That chunk is something you're going to hear all the time.
Yes, absolutely. And use it. It sounds very polished and professional.
Yeah, we hear it a lot. You're going to hear it a lot now if you haven't before.
Right, because I think the problem is what's the alternative? It would be to make sure we agree, but that almost feels too personal to me for business.
Right. Maybe on the same page, but because it's idiomatic, it's a little bit more polished.
Exactly. What else? And then I said, I feel like we have a lot of balls in the air. So this will be good to make sure we're in sync.
This idiom came up recently in episode 244 of right here, the business English podcast.
We were talking about cutting corners and we were talking about having a lot of balls in the air.
And the air means like a lot of things going on at the same time, a lot to juggle. Yes. All right. So juggling balls in the air. Imagine someone juggling.
Can you juggle, Aubrey? Is that a skill you have? Okay.
I'm like, I throw one ball in the air. I'm lucky to catch it.
I've always wanted to know how to even learn how to do that. But I don't know how maybe one of our listeners knows and they can share with us.
What's the secret?
Post a video on social media and tag us. We want to see it. I have a press here.
I'm juggling. I know me too. And then I said, okay, as you know, they had a different vision, but I shared our progress so far.
And we're on the same page now. We're on the same page.
The idiom means the same. We also use it to mean same thing. We're in sync. We're aligned. We're on the same page.
Love it. And then what did you say?
Then I said, fantastic. I'm glad you were able to harmonize with them.
So this, yeah, it's great. Like we are making sure that even if we're not doing the exact same thing, maybe we are on different timelines, but they pair up well.
And everything will work out if we're in harmony, if we harmonize.
Yes. I love it. And what's the takeaway here? What's the, what's the deeper message for our listeners for their business success?
Would you say, yeah, I mean, your success at work is greatly affected by whether or not you are aligned with those you're working at.
It can feel very disjointed if you're not, if we're not on the same page, if we're not in sync, it can cause problems at work and also affect your connections.
Oh, for sure. I think it's good to lead with the assumption that maybe we all want to achieve the same thing and we broadly understand the project, but people have different ideas about how it's going to get done or there's some confusion.
It's good to assume if we're leading something that there is probably some confusion around the team, right. And so leading with that and checking in frequently in person or through videos like loom videos to clarify and make sure everyone is aligned.
That would be the key to getting the project done on time and successfully, right. I'll bring absolutely right. It's going to save time, going to make sure that there's as open communication as possible and that you're your setup for optimal success if everything is aligned.
Right. And then even if you're not necessarily a project manager in that in that case, if you are an individual contributor and doing some of the work checking in and saying, hey, I want to make sure we're aligned.
I want to make sure I'm on track here. This is what I've done is this correct that kind of thing is good to absolutely if there's any question you're not positive, right.
The more open the communication is just like in any relationship business or personal. It's all about communication. Love it. All right. Good stuff, Aubrey. All right. I'll see you very soon in the next episode of Business English. All right.
Awesome. Thanks, Lindsay. All right. Take care. Bye.
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