Welcome to the Breakout Business English Podcast, where I help you to communicate better at work in English.
Hi everyone! My name is Chris, and I'm a business English coach and tutor.
Thank you so much as always for listening.
and today's topic is motivating your colleagues, motivating your colleagues.
So this week's podcast is for managers or people who want to be managers or maybe just people who have managers and want to communicate better with them which I'm guessing is most of you.
I've worked with hundreds of managers from all around the world in many industries.
One thing that I think I can confidently say from speaking to them and from my own experience managing teams is that managers like happy teams. Happy teams deliver better results and a generally better atmosphere at work.
Who wouldn't want a happy team?
Today we're going to talk about how to motivate your staff and some ways that you might deal with low morale.
We'll discuss some natural and native sounding vocabulary that you can use to talk about this idea and we'll hear some great examples of ways that you can speak to your colleagues regarding this important topic.
So, let's get started.
Let's start today with a quote, something that somebody said.
And our quote today comes from Dwight D Eisenhower, maybe you recognize the name Eisenhower?
He was an American and personally I think he had one of the coolest job titles I've ever heard. During World War two he was supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.
I always think that's a really cool job title Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.
I wonder how many people applied for that job if there were open interviews and open applications for that one.
So I don't think there are many job titles that sound quite that cool, however he was best known as the 34th President of the United States of America.
And here is what he had to say about morale and motivation.
Eisenhower said that the best morale exists when you never hear the word mentioned.
When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.
One more time, He said the best morale exists when you never hear the word mentioned.
When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.
Okay so there are a couple of words in there that we should probably discuss.
The first one is morale.
Morale is a couple of things.
Firstly, it is positivity.
It is enthusiasm and happiness.
We especially use this when talking about teams. The second part of morale is a little harder to define.
It's a team's confidence, their ability to work together as a collective, as a team, and their belief in themselves and what they are doing.
In short morale is when a team is working really well and enjoying their work.
Notice the spelling here, this word is morale, morale, that e on the end is really important.
Maybe you know the word moral moral without an e on the end, same spelling but no e on the end.
This has a slightly different pronunciation, moral, and a very different definition.
Morals are our idea of what is right and wrong.
If someone always makes the right decision the decision that is ethical then you might call them a moral person maybe something happens at work a terrible mistake is made and a client or a customer is really upset and your boss is really angry they say who did this who caused this terrible problem well instead of letting the team be punished for this maybe a moral person would say it was me I was the one who did it that would be the moral thing to do but the word that we're focused on today is morale not moral morale so make sure you get the pronunciation right on this one also when talking about morale
we can describe it as being high or low usually morale is high or morale is low.
For instance someone might say morale has been really high since we moved into the new office.
Morale has been really high since we moved into the new office.
Or maybe the team's morale is pretty low right now.
They really need a boost. The team's morale is pretty low right now.
They really need a boost. The second word that we should briefly mention from that quote is lousy.
L -O -U -S -Y I'm guessing this is a new word for most people listening to this podcast today, lousy is an informal word that means bad.
I think it's starting to sound a little old fashioned now, but if you really want to, you can take a page out of Eisenhower's book and describe anything from the morale of your team to the food at a really bad restaurant as lousy.
I had a manager many years ago who was much older than the rest of his team and he would tell us when we were doing lousy work.
I think this is a really interesting quote and it definitely splits opinion, it's quite polarizing.
People either really agree with Eisenhower on this that when morale is good we shouldn't talk about it we shouldn't need to talk about it or they really disagree with him.
I've actually been discussing motivation and motivating teams with a few managers who I coach recently and I'd love to get your opinion on this quote.
Feel free to leave your opinion in a review over on Apple podcasts or any other podcast player where you can leave a review I'd love to hear your opinion on this quote.
A moment ago we heard the word boost. Boost. B -o -o -s -t.
Which in this context means something that encourages people or causes an improvement in their mood.
I think one of the easiest things that a leader can do is to show their staff that their hard work is appreciated.
To tell them how grateful they are for this.
And with that said, let's take a listen to a couple of natural and native sounding examples of managers trying to give that teams a little boost. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the hard work that you've all been putting in, and to reassure you that it hasn't gone unnoticed.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge the hard work that you've all been putting in, and to reassure you that it hasn't gone unnoticed.
Thank you all for your contribution you should be patting yourselves on the back for the great work you've been doing thank you all for your contribution you should be patting yourselves on the back for the great work you've been doing.
You are hands down the best team I've worked with in a long time and I can see that you put your all into your work.
You are hands down the best team I've worked with in a long time and I can see that you put your all into your work.
Let's take a closer look at some vocabulary from that second example.
We heard the phrase to pat yourself on the back to pat yourself on the back.
I really like this idiom, this phrase, because it's one that you can really picture and understand where it comes from which is always nice for idioms some of them are really confusing.
If I tell you that you deserve a pat on the back or that you should give yourself a pat on the back I mean that you deserve to be congratulated, you deserve recognition for your work.
Sometimes if we think that people have done something well we reach over and well pat them on the back just like we could pat a dog on its head.
We might pat our friends on the back, literally putting our hand on the back and tapping them.
Well it's not just the action of patting someone on the back that has this meaning in English but even the words on their own are enough to show your appreciation.
So the next time your friend or your colleague does something particularly good you can pat them on the back or maybe you can just say to them wow you really deserve a pat on the back for that.
You really deserve a pat on the back for that.
In third example we heard the phrase hands down hands down this is an informal phrasal verb that means that something is easily achieved in an effortless way we usually use this phrase to talk about superlatives these are words like biggest, smallest, most expensive, or best. For instance, I might say that my boss is hands -down the hardest working person I've ever met.
Or, I could tell you that this is hands -down the nicest group of people I've ever worked with.
My listeners are hands -down the nicest people I And if your ability to communicate in English is hands -down the most important thing for you to improve, then don't forget that my full -time job is helping international professionals who use English at work to improve their communication skills.
So, if you need English to do your job but don't speak it natively, then maybe we can work together to help you to achieve your language goals.
If you'd like to book some time to meet with me through one -to -one video calls, just you and me working together, then you can go to BreakOutBusinessEnglish .com, that's the title of this podcast BreakOutBusinessEnglish .com and find out more.
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I've worked with over 1000 non -native English -speaking professionals from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders to help them to achieve their goals and I look forward to meeting you.
Okay let's keep going.
Okay let's move on to incentives.
Incentives. Time and time again research shows that the incentive that people are most interested in is, and I'll give you one guess, money.
Everyone wants more money.
People want their great performance to be rewarded with well great paychecks, they want cash.
There was a survey done by the website Survey Monkey working with another website bonusly back in November 2023 which showed that 33 % of colleagues prefer to be given gifts at work as recognition for their hard work.
With words of affirmation, encouragement and support being a close second at 32%.
So while you're saying thank you to your colleagues with some of the vocabulary from our first set of examples, let's take a look at some ways that we can talk about some other forms of rewards.
I think we should incentivise the staff a little more.
Maybe give them a bonus to work towards.
I think we should incentivize the staff a little more.
Maybe give them a bonus to work towards.
I really appreciate the new incentive scheme they've started.
It's nice to hear how well were doing, sure.
But I'm glad they've decided to offer us something more tangible.
I really appreciate the new incentives scheme they've started.
It's nice to hear how well we're doing, sure.
But I'm glad they've decided to offer us something more tangible.
These incentives are actually quite good.
Hitting these KPIs is finally worth our while.
Okay so the most important piece of vocabulary to discuss here is the noun incentive and the verb incentivize.
The noun incentive and the verb incentivize.
In the first example we heard I think we should incentivize the staff a little more.
I think we should incentivize the staff a little more.
And in the third example we heard it as a noun.
These incentives are actually quite good.
So an incentive is a thing that motivates you to do something.
This could be anything from additional vacation time to more money in your paycheck at the end of the month.
incentive is a really formal and professional way to talk about rewards and we spell this word i n c e n t i v e incentive.
the verb form of this word is incentivize to incentivize maybe your company wants to start thinking of good ideas for improving efficiency at the company so they send out an email that says that anyone who contacts the leadership team with a good idea that can make a process more efficient can get up to five extra vacation days this year.
We could say that they've incentivized their staff to come up with some good ideas.
Vacation days, extra money, maybe even the use of a company car.
We can call all of these incentives tangible.
Tangible. The possibility that your boss will tell the whole team how great your work is in the next team meeting, maybe that's an intangible incentive.
So, what does the word tangible mean?
In the first example we heard, they've decided to offer us something more tangible.
They've decided to offer us something more tangible.
The main definition of tangible is something that you can't touch and hold, so if I buy a car for instance, then the car itself is definitely a tangible thing.
The insurance policy that I have to take out on the car however is not tangible because I can't touch it, I can't hold it.
I remember working in business to business sales in around 2012 and spearheading a couple of intangible product launches for the company I worked with.
They're always more difficult to train staff on and to talk to customers about.
We can also use the word tangible to talk about the size or amount of something.
If the amount of money that you get as a reward as an incentive is only a couple of euros or a couple of dollars or a couple of pounds then maybe that's not that great of an incentive however if someone offers you a thousand euros a thousand dollars to work over the weekend well that's more tangible.
That's a really tangible reward that you would be getting.
I do remember hearing a conversation years ago or maybe I was reading a piece of a piece of news about a company that to its its best sales staff offered the use of a really expensive car for the month.
I think they were a HiFi company in the UK and at least for the first few years when they were still a small company if you were the top salesperson in that company then they would give you a Porsche or I don't know a really fast car a Lamborghini to drive around for the month.
I always thought that was a pretty cool incentive but then what if you don't live very far from work or you don't drive very far or maybe you can't drive or any other reason that you wouldn't really want to drive around in an expensive car as a reward but still definitely an interesting incentive scheme there.
I wonder if I would work harder for the opportunity to drive a Lamborghini for the month possibly.
Okay let's discuss the phrase worth your while to be worth your while.
In the third example we heard hitting these KPIs is finally worth our while.
Hitting these KPIs is finally worth our while.
If something is worth your while then you mean that the reward will be enough, the reward will be worth it even if it requires a little effort.
Let's say that your boss wants you to go into the on a Saturday.
It's optional, but they'll buy you lunch if you do it.
I've definitely been offered pizza to work on the weekends before.
Well maybe it's not worth your while.
Going into the office on a Saturday for pizza for lunch, yeah maybe that's not worth your while.
But then your boss offers you a $200 bonus to come in on Saturday, well now maybe that is worth your while.
And then he tells you that with lunch he'll even pay for dessert.
Well now that's definitely worth your while.
It's worth the effort.
The value that you are being offered is worth the effort that you are putting in.
It's worth your while.
And well everyone likes dessert.
Okay and just a quick note KPI's, KPI stands for key performance indicator, key performance indicator.
These are how companies often measure your success I spent almost 10 years working in sales and I was always thinking about and worried about hitting my targets and KPIs, so one more time KPI stands for key performance indicator.
That's everything for today.
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As i said, I've worked with over 1 ,000 non -native English speaking professionals, it's what I do every day for anywhere between five and seven hours a day of calls, meeting with people around the world, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders helping them prepare for job interviews presentations and just generally improve their professional communication skills in English.
And I look forward to hopefully meeting and working with you.
That is it for today thanks a lot for listening as always I really appreciate the time that you've me today, and I'll talk to you again next time on the Breakout Business English Podcast.
