Welcome back to the Breakout Business English podcast.
My name is Chris.
I'm a business English and communication coach and I have personally worked with over 1000 international professionals, just like you, to improve the way that they communicate at work in English.
Thank you, as always, so much for listening and for your time.
I know how valuable it is.
And our topic today is risk.
Risk.
So I think we can agree that risk is something that we all need to deal with, both at work and in our personal lives.
With that said, I have a quiz for you to begin today.
So here's your question.
When talking about risk, which famous actor said, don't be careful, be competent?
One more time, who said, don't be careful, be competent?
This is a quote from a Hollywood actor who is famous for doing his own stunts.
Famous for doing his own stunts.
It's actually...
Funny how often I find great quotes from actors that can be really useful when applied to professional contexts.
So, don't be careful, be competent is actually something said by Tom Cruise, the actor Tom Cruise.
And he said this when talking about safety and doing stunts in movies.
So, what do we mean by competent?
That's C-O-M-P-E-T-E-N-T.
If I describe my colleague as a very competent person, what am I telling you?
Well, if someone is competent, then they are skilled at something, usually through training and through practice.
When I first started helping people to improve their English through one-to-one video calls, I don't think I was very competent.
I had worked in classrooms for a couple of years and all of my experience up until that point was in working with groups.
However, over the past few years, I've improved my skills through hours of practice every day.
And I would say that I'm more than competent in what I do and the service that I offer these days.
Fortunately, the only risk that I need to manage is not delivering maximum value to the people who book my time.
However, if I ever need to ride a motorbike off the side of a mountain or climb up the outside of the world's tallest building, I'll definitely take Tom Cruise's advice.
Let's start today by listening to some natural and native sounding examples of people talking about levels of risk and communicating how risky or safe a situation is.
Outsourcing this task would pose a risk to our users' privacy.
Outsourcing this task would pose a risk to our users' privacy.
The last thing we want to do is risk a data breach.
This is a pretty high-risk approach, and the risk increases every day.
This is a pretty high risk approach and the risk increases every day.
So a quick note on grammar to start today.
You may have noticed that I used the word risk both as a noun and as a verb in those examples.
For instance, in the first example, we talked about something that posed a risk.
That's a noun.
Then we talked about risking things.
The second example was the last thing we want to do is risk a data breach.
That's the verb.
When we use risk as a verb, we follow it immediately with the thing that has a chance of happening.
For instance, if we don't leave now, we risk missing our flight.
So in this sentence, missing our flight is the thing that might happen.
So it goes immediately after the word risk.
One more time, if we don't leave now, we risk missing... our flight.
I should say on a quick pronunciation point as well, there were a couple of words in there that change depending on whether we're thinking in terms of British or American English.
So you heard me say privacy.
You can also say privacy.
Privacy and privacy are both fine.
And I said data breach, and of course, you can say data breach.
Data breach, data breach, both are fine.
Privacy and privacy, both of these are also fine.
Let's focus on that third example for a moment and look at the adjectives that we use to describe risk.
In the third example, we heard a pretty high risk approach.
This is a pretty high high risk approach, and also the risk increases every day.
The risk increases every day.
You can often think about risk in the same way as water level in a river.
By this, I mean that it can be high or low.
Water level in a river can be high or low, and so can risk.
By extension, The verbs that we use with risk are increase and decrease.
So if you do something that makes the situation worse or higher risk, then we can say that you've increased the risk.
And if you do something that makes a situation less risky, then you decrease the risk.
We'll talk more about increasing and decreasing risk later.
In the third example, we heard outsourcing this task would pose a risk to our users' privacy.
There aren't many nouns that we use with the verb to pose.
So I can ride a bike or drive a car.
But when can I use pose?
Well, when we do use this structure, it sounds very formal and very professional.
For instance, I could ask you a question, but I could also pose a question to you, or maybe pose you a question.
We might hear this in a sentence like, let me pose you a question.
Let me pose you a question.
And then you would follow that with your question.
Maybe, if things become difficult, we could say that they pose a problem or maybe pose a challenge for us.
And if things become really dangerous or maybe pose a significant danger, then we might even say that they pose a threat.
They pose a threat.
In short, if something poses a risk, then it is a risk.
If something poses a challenge, then it is a challenge.
If something poses a danger, then it is a danger.
You can see that we use pose as a collocation with some words to simply say that something is a particular thing.
And if talking about risk is important for the work that you do, or you'd like to improve your ability to use any of the vocabulary, grammar or ideas from today's podcast, then maybe we can work together.
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 you don't speak it natively, then I would love to meet you.
If you'd like to book some time to meet with me through one-to-one video calls just you and me then you can go to breakoutbusinessenglishcom.
That's the title of the podcast, breakoutbusinessenglish.com, and find out more.
Starting on our very first call, we can focus on the specific opportunities that you personally have to improve your English and communication skills.
And the mistakes that you make most often are the ones that cause the biggest problems with your communication.
And right now you can use the code PODCAST30 that's PODCAST30 at checkout to get a 30 discount on of your first booking of 30, 45 or 60 minutes.
Sometimes my calendar gets a little busy, so if you have trouble finding a time that works for you, then you can always send me a message through the contact page on the website and ask if I have any time to fit you in.
I've worked with well over 1000 non-native English-speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders, to help them achieve their goals, and I look forward to meeting you.
Now that we've talked about how to describe risk and how to communicate how high or low the risk of something is, let's talk about what we can do about it.
Let's listen now.
Some natural and native-sounding examples of how we can describe our actions and how they can affect the level of risk involved in our work.
We're aware of the risk, now we just need to decide how to manage it.
We're aware of the risk Now we just need to decide how to manage it.
We should plan the project in a way that mitigates the risk of delays as much as possible.
I think we've managed to minimise the risk for the time being.
I talked a few minutes ago about Hollywood actor Tom Cruise and his approach to risk.
Now let's talk about a thinker from the 1940s.
I graduated from university in 2010 with a degree in philosophy.
And since then, one area of philosophy that I've continued to read and be interested in is called existentialism.
Existentialism
One of the most famous writers and thinkers in this area is called Jean-Paul Sartre.
Jean-Paul Sartre, or maybe Jean-Paul Sartre.
And I sincerely apologize to any native French speakers listening today for my terrible pronunciation of his name.
I'm definitely not pronouncing it right.
One quote that came from his work and a key idea in his writing is that we are condemned to be free.
We are condemned like a prisoner.
We are condemned to be free.
And by this, he meant that we need to make choices.
Even not choosing is in itself a choice.
So when you are dealing with risk, for instance, there's usually no way to avoid it.
You need to make decisions.
You can make decisions which increase the risk, Usually that's something to be avoided.
Or decisions that decrease the risk.
Or maybe you just stay aware of the risk and manage it in the best way that you can.
But whatever you do, you're impacting in some way the level of risk that you have to deal with.
Anyone who has ever completed a risk assessment form for an event they want to arrange at work knows this very well.
So, with that said, let's talk about how we can describe the way in which the choices that you make can influence the level of risk that you have to deal with.
In the second example...
We heard we should plan the project in a way that mitigates the risk of delays as much as possible.
What do we mean when we say that we mitigate risk?
That's M-I-T-I-G-A-T-E, mitigate.
Well, if you mitigate something, then you reduce the unpleasant or negative effects of it.
For instance, if you've got a really bad headache, then maybe some medicine might mitigate the pain.
We very often talk in medicine about mitigating pain.
You might not be able to completely get rid of the pain and bring the pain down to zero, but it will definitely decrease it and have an effect on it.
Or maybe you need to walk to work on a very cold day.
You probably won't be able to make yourself very warm on that walk to work.
However, by wearing a nice thick coat and perhaps a hat and gloves, then you can definitely mitigate how cold you feel.
However, One of the most common things that we talk about mitigating is risk.
When we mitigate risk, we reduce it.
We make something less risky.
If you're a school teacher taking children on a trip somewhere, then you might mitigate risk by taking a couple of extra adults with you.
Or If you're a project manager, then you could mitigate the risk of missing a deadline by setting a soft internal deadline for a week before your project is actually due.
Then you have a week to deal with any delays that might come up.
So whenever you're trying to reduce the risk of something happening, then you can talk about mitigating that risk.
Now, sometimes risk comes cannot be completely removed from a situation.
However, if you mitigate it enough, then you might even be able to minimize it.
To minimize it in the third example we heard, we've managed to minimize the risk.
We've managed to minimize the risk.
Maybe you've heard the word minimum before, As in the minimum number of staff that it takes to operate the store is five.
The minimum number of staff that it takes to operate the store is five.
One common place to hear the word minimum when talking about business and professional contexts these days is minimum wage.
Maybe you've heard this idea of minimum wage before.
This is the smallest or least amount of money that an employer is legally allowed to pay an employee per hour.
I think in the UK, it's different when you're 16 to when you're 18.
And when you become 18, your minimum wage goes up a little bit.
I have definitely spent part of my career on minimum wage.
I think it's character building hopefully to spend some time on minimum wage, but I am very grateful that I'm no longer earning quite so little.
Minimum can be a noun or a verb, depending on how you build the sentence around it.
The word minimize is simply the verb form, which means to keep a number to a minimum, to bring a number down a minimum, to reduce something as much as possible.
When talking about risk, you might not be able to completely eliminate risk and bring it down to zero.
However, if you've done everything that you can possibly do and the level of risk has been reduced to as low as it can possibly go, or maybe reasonably go, then you have minimized the risk.
Think Going out to ride a bike wearing elbow pads, knee pads and a full face helmet and riding really slowly.
It might not be as much fun, but at least you've minimized the risk.
I'm not quite sure that's what Tom Cruise meant when he talked about being competent instead of careful.
I think there's a level of competency that needs applying here.
So don't forget that you can book a session with me to work on your English communication skills by going to breakoutbusinessenglishcom.
That's the title of the podcast, breakoutbusinessenglish.com.
Or clicking the link in the show notes, and use the code podcast30 that's podcast30 at checkout to get a 30 discount off your first booking.
I've worked with over 1000 non-native English speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders, to help them achieve their goals.
And I look forward to meeting you.
Between episodes of the podcast, you can get videos every couple of days on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
In fact, YouTube is the main place I'm posting these days outside of the podcast.
Just search for Breakout Business English.
If you're interested in seeing the kind of thing that I do in a coaching session and the kind of way, the kind of method we might apply when looking for your opportunities to improve, then again take a look at the YouTube channel.
I recently posted an analysis of the English skills of Viktor Orban, the Hungarian leader, who speaks great English but definitely has a couple of opportunities to improve.
So if you're interested in working with me, then maybe that video will be of interest to you.
Again.
Just head over to breakoutbusinessenglishcom and click on the video from the homepage, or you can just search for breakoutbusinessenglishcom on youtube.
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Leave me a message or comment on one of my youtube videos and i look forward to hearing from you.
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Thank you in advance.
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That is it for today.
Thank you so much for listening.
And as always for your time, I know how valuable it is.
And I really appreciate and respect your choice to spend some of your time with this podcast.
I hope you have a great week and I'll talk to you next time on the Breakout Business English podcast.
Thanks a lot, everyone.
Talk to you soon.
