This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 508.
This is promising how to talk about potential at work.
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Hello, Aubrey.
How are you?
I'm great.
How are you, Michelle?
I'm good.
I'm excited to be recording with you today.
Guys, Lindsay is away.
She will be back.
But for now, Aubrey and I are getting a chance to record together, which is super fun.
But Aubrey, let's start with a question.
Are you good at keeping promises?
Yes, I do pride myself in being good at keeping promises.
I'm a vault.
What about you, Michelle?
Yeah.
Well, it's interesting.
Well, there's promises and there's secrets, right?
And there's promises to keep secrets, right?
But I would say, like for my kids, well it's.
I really try to keep promises.
But then there's you know, there's so many variables.
I mean, there's, first of all, like there are big promises, small promises.
If I tell them, oh, sure, you can have a piece of candy later, you can do this later.
And then something changes there.
You know like okay, for example this is kind of a funny example, but my father-in-law promised my daughter a cookie after we were out at lunch and he promised her a cookie and then, while we were at the she's three and a half, while we were at the lunch, we got my son a chocolate lava cake for his birthday.
We just ordered it.
So things changed.
But she's three and a half, so she ate a lava cake and then she's still asking for the.
I he said it could have a cookie, right?
Yeah, it's interesting.
I was thinking more about secrets, right?
Because I'm thinking like, I promise I won't share that information.
So I'm like, I'm a vault.
That would be more about sharing secrets.
It is interesting how promises could be like, I'm not as good at keeping promises to myself.
If I'm like, okay, I promise I'll work out every day this week.
It's more like a goal.
Forget it.
I'm not that good at keeping those promises.
Yeah, exactly.
So interesting to think about promises and secrets and how there are promises to keep secrets.
Anyway, today we are going to talk about a way that the word promise is used.
That can be really really good for the workplace.
Um, and this way is to say something holds promise.
Yes.
Or has interesting or has promise.
So what does that even mean?
I mean, is this really about keeping a promise?
No, it's interesting how different this meaning is.
It means to have potential, a good potential for something.
So a strong possibility of being successful.
We'll say this a lot about projects when it first starts, like, oh, this has promise.
This holds promise.
This is promising.
We use this a lot.
It has nothing to do with keeping a promise and everything to do with the potential something has for success.
So very different here.
So let's do some examples.
So I'll do the first one.
Based on her resume, I'd say she holds a lot of promise.
Let's give her a call.
Yeah, meaning you think they're going to be a good coworker, a good employee.
They have a lot of promise, meaning there's potential for them to be a good hire.
Or AI holds promise in our industry, but we have to proceed with caution.
So you're saying there's potential for it to be really beneficial, but also potential drawbacks.
Yes, exactly.
Or yes, the report holds promise, but that doesn't mean we should change our entire plan.
So there's potential there, but we already have a plan.
Maybe we're not as convinced as we should be.
Yeah.
I mean, Lindsay, I mean, Aubrey, I'm sorry.
Aubrey, would you say you use this, or would you say you're more likely to say holds promise, has promise?
Is one more natural?
Yeah, I think has promise is more natural for me that something has promise.
And even more natural, I would say it's promising.
Like, oh, this is promising.
That's more in my vernacular.
What about you?
Yeah, I would say that holds promise or has promise, it's very formal, which is fine.
But to say something is promising, or you might also hear looks promising like it seems like it will be promising.
I might say more.
So for example, like you could hear, I think I did well on the interview.
I honestly think it looks promising.
Or you could say, I honestly think it's promising.
I do think that I use these more than I use has potential.
Like instead of saying this has potential, I'll say, oh, this has promise or this is promising.
That's very natural for me to use that.
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
So we are going to take a quick break and then we'll be right back.
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That's right.
All right.
So then there's also to say something shows promise.
Yeah, for example, his work shows promise.
I think with a few tweaks, he may be a rising star.
I've heard this a lot where my father's an artist and I worked with him for some time.
And there would be newer artists that would come to the show.
And the more seasoned artists would say this like oh, his work has promise, or his work shows promise, or he shows promise, meaning there's potential, with more experience, that they could be really, really good.
Right.
And then there's look promising, which is what we already talked about.
So I just spoke to the head of operations.
It looks really promising that we will get raises this year.
Yeah, it's like a high probability, really possible, right?
So yeah interesting, because you're never going to use this it looks promising or something shows promise for absolutes or things that are definitive or definitely going to happen.
It's always about something that has potential.
And that's the next one we're going to share is holds potential.
You could say something has potential.
You could also say it holds potential.
So our work holds potential.
We are almost done.
You could also say a little less formal or more natural would be our work has potential.
Yes, exactly.
It is interesting how holds does sound just a little bit more formal.
So when you're trying to up-level your language a little bit at work, you could go with holds instead.
In casual conversations, we'll hear these other has promise, promising.
But at work, you might want to sound a little more formal and say it holds promise.
Yes.
Right, exactly.
And then one more word that we want to teach before we get into a role play is just encouraging.
Now, this is also very natural.
So this can be that there's a lot of potential, but it can also be, if you're kind of down and you need encouragement, you could say something was encouraging, meaning it looked like optimistic, looked like there was something good can come out of it.
Yes.
This makes me think of if you know someone has been ill and then you see them and be like oh, the color in their face was encouraging.
Meaning like it made me feel like they're doing better.
They're improving.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or for work, you might hear the way she sounded over the phone was encouraging.
I think good news is coming for our team.
So, I mean...
Aubrey, what can you infer about the way her tone of voice was?
How did she sound?
Yeah, sounded positive.
You know, something gave us the idea that there's good news.
So it's not that meaning of encouraging that, like they were trying to give a message of encouragement.
It's that something about their tone made you feel like it was positive.
Yep.
Yep.
It was encouraging.
Yeah.
So these are all very useful for talking about potential or positivity.
So let's do a role play.
We're not going to use all of them because we'd be saying promise over and over.
But let's give it a shot here.
So here, Aubrey and I are looking through job applications.
Okay.
Okay.
So what about Sue Thomas?
Did you see her resume?
I think she holds promise.
Agreed.
Let's count her in.
How about Danny Harkin?
Oh, I'm very impressed by him.
Look at his experience.
He definitely looks promising.
I'm so glad we have such encouraging candidates.
Okay.
Nice role play.
Yep.
Yeah.
Interesting.
So this first one, you know, did you see her resume?
I think she holds promise.
Meaning like there's potential that she could be a great candidate, right?
And there's so many ways you could say this.
And that's another nice thing.
You've given us so many phrases here today Michelle, that in a conversation like this, when you're wanting to share how promising these resumes look, these candidates look, you have lots of different ways you can say it.
You don't have to repeat yourself.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But maybe more natural, a little less formal would have been to say I think she um has promise, or I think she's promising, or I.
I might actually just say Oh, I think she has a lot of potential.
I think she has potential.
Yeah.
She has potential.
Yep.
Um, and then, uh, Danny Harkin.
Um, he, I said, I am very impressed by him.
Thank you.
I like making up the names.
I'm gonna look up Danny Harkin on Facebook a little see if he probably owns Harkin's theaters.
There's a theater chain here, oh really, but I think it's that's funny h-a-r-k-i-n so close um.
So I said, look at his experience, he definitely looks promising.
Yeah, so again, very similar, meaning just that you know potential for that to be a good candidate.
And then I said, I'm so glad we have such encouraging candidates or could say encouraging resumes.
This just means like the options we have are giving me hope are making me feel positive.
Right.
There's a strong potential.
We will find somebody from these.
So that's really good.
Um, so guys, Check out, I'm going to send you to an All Ears English episode.
Guys, that's our other podcast.
Go over there and hit follow.
It was episode 25, 24.
How crazy adds color to your English.
Oh, yes.
If you missed that one, that was a great episode about how we use the word crazy in English as an intensifier to exaggerate.
And we do this at work as well.
So make sure you did not miss that episode.
Be sure to hit follow on Allers English as well.
Yep.
All right.
So takeaway for today.
These are all really useful.
We've talked about which ones are formal, which sounds a little less formal.
So there are all sorts of things to consider there.
Anything else you want to add, Aubrey, before we go?
What a great way to connect with coworkers, to share what you think is promising or holds promise, to talk about the future, future goals, the future of your company, how projects are doing.
This is such a hopeful way of speaking about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's you're having a good attitude.
This is a very positive episode, actually.
So good.
Well, hope you can spread that positivity.
And Aubrey, thanks for hanging out with me today.
Lindsay will be back soon.
Um, but it's fun as always.
Yes, awesome thanks, michelle.
See you next time.
All right, bye.
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