This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 186.
How to transition to a new speaker in business meetings.
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Hey, Aubrey, what's happening today? Oh, we're talking about meetings.
This is going to be really interesting. I'm curious to know if our listeners lead meetings.
I know a lot of you do. And what we're talking about today happens in every meeting, sometimes multiple times in meetings, right, Lindsay?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, hopefully, right?
Hopefully you're not in a meeting where it's just one person speaking.
That's true. Good point. So let me ask you, Lindsay, do you ever have to introduce new speakers in a meeting?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, at our company, we do team syncs a few times a year and we do have our team members participate, present different things.
So for sure. How about you, Aubrey? Yeah, absolutely.
Same, right? And it's interesting to think about when this happens a lot, this is one place where your vocabulary can be really stale.
If you do it the same way every time. Recently, we taught a new phrase that's being used a lot, especially in the tech world, where they'll say pivot to a new person.
Let's pivot to Janet. She's going to share something.
It's an interesting way of saying that. And if you guys missed that, by the way, it was episode 2087 of All Ears English.
Should you minimize your corporate speak?
We talked about some new corporate jargon and kind of thinking about this, like how often should we use this industry specific vocabulary?
Oh, And that reminds me, just this morning, I was listening to a podcast, Aubrey, where the podcast... Actually, my favorite business leader, Simon Sinek, he has a great podcast, but he used the term over-index.
I think he was talking about parents tend to over-index in XYZ, a way of parenting.
He was talking about parenting and how that leads to people being a certain way in the business world.
So that is a real thing that is being used a lot.
And we need to do an episode on that to follow up to this jargon episode.
Yes, we talked a little bit about that word, but it's like a whole episode in itself.
So we are going to talk about over index and how it's being used in the business world.
And also we promised to follow up on a variety of ways to introduce new speakers.
And hopefully everyone over in All Ears English is following here on Business English because this is where we're doing that follow up.
We let them know. We're like, you don't know if it's on Aller's English Business English.
You got to follow both. Got to follow both.
Why wouldn't you want to anyway? So I love it.
I love it. Let's get into it. This is good.
What's next? So this is a great way to avoid making language stale.
If you have to turn time over to someone, you have to give the floor to several different people in a meeting, you want to switch it up.
You want to say this lots of different ways, introduce people lots of different ways.
And so we're learning three, four ways to do that today.
But first, we recently had a poll. We wanted to share the results.
When we taught the terms offer, proposal and suggestion, someone asked about the difference.
And we did a poll to ask which of these do you guys use the most at work?
Lindsay, share with us what were the results there? okay drum roll let's see what people are using i'm curious you know i wish i could listen in on our listeners at work and just have that special perspective but here is what they are using offer is 37 of you guys are using offer 22.9 let's call that 23 are using the word proposal the most and 40 aubrey are using suggestion so the winner is suggestion that's interesting i'm pretty split here right so i'm guessing a lot of you would have chosen all of the above if we gave that issue but that option but i'm glad we made you choose right what are you hearing the most very interesting is it was it what are you hearing or what are you using what was it what was the question both okay hearing and i can look really close really quick it was which word do you use most often so that is an interesting differentiation it kind of makes sense that proposal is the lowest i think it's kind of the most specific and it might be the higher level one right as we're advancing up we're looking to stretch our vocabulary guys Yeah, that makes sense.
So today we're going to share, speaking of stretching your vocabulary, right?
Lots of different ways for you guys to introduce someone in a meeting.
Let's dive in with the first one here, Lindsay.
All right. So here it is, guys. Write this one down.
Do whatever you need to do to take notes.
Number one, hand the floor over to or give the floor to.
I like this. The floor. Yeah, we talk about the floor like someone has the floor, almost like they're on stage, even if you're all just sitting in a meeting.
Yeah, you have the floor. Go ahead. Right.
We use this in a lot of ways. I don't think we've talked about this yet on the show.
Oh, nice. Something new is always really fun.
Let's do some examples here. Go for it. Thank you, Sylvia, for that update.
And now let's hand the floor over to Margo for budget analysis.
So you see how we've couched it. It's often comes where you're thinking whoever just presented information.
And then you use this as a phrase to transition to the next person who will speak.
You said we've couched it. That's interesting.
A lot of furniture and house vocabulary coming up today.
Yeah, we use this word a lot, couched. That's a good bonus.
It'll definitely be in the app where you're sort of saying you include information with something specific before and after it.
Almost like you squeeze next to people on a couch.
Oh, okay. I actually had not. I didn't know about that term before.
This verb, couched. Oh, that's funny. Now you're going to hear it everywhere.
This is totally one of those things that once you hear it, then you see it everywhere.
Yeah. You always teach me something new here, Aubrey.
And the next way to use the floor, right?
Let's give the floor to Marley for the next agenda item.
So you probably hear this to someone who's facilitating a meeting.
Hear someone say that to move on to the next speaker.
Exactly. We use these two very interchangeably.
It's sort of two versions of the same thing, either hand the floor over to or give the floor to exact same meaning.
And we'll often even shorten it and remove the floor and just say, hand it over to, right?
Give us an example of that, Lindsay. yeah so perfect thanks and now let's hand it over to mark for a quick presentation on survey results so do you think in this case it means the floor like we're handing it over it's very idiomatic right it's like control of the meeting like the responsibility for who's to speak next we call that the floor or we just say it right when we say okay let's hand it over to mark we're just saving time we're removing the floor but it has the same meaning Yeah, it could also mean it could also just be the presentation or the attention.
It doesn't necessarily, I think, mean the floor, but it means the attention of the group.
Let's hand it over. We're handing it over, whatever we're calling it.
I love it. Is there another one? Yeah. So number two here is let's turn the time over to.
So same meaning as you have the floor. We also talk about the time.
Right. So you might say, good to hear. Thanks for that update.
And now let's turn the time over to Carl to go over tomorrow's agenda.
And we'll also remove the time and shorten it to just let's turn it over.
Right. It means the time. the time okay okay i like it i like it good to know i'm learning new things today as well nice do you not hear this one as often not as much not as much i hear the floor more but it depends on your industry depends on who you work with right yeah i was looking online to see all these different ones i've definitely heard this one okay let's turn the time over to so and so different meetings you might have with your you know home and neighbors and friends if you're on a a fundraising committee or something.
There's all different ways to say this. And because there are so many options, you don't want to use the same one over and over.
Right. Or, I mean, you hear in Congress, often you hear, what is it, I give back my time or I yield my time to the senator from Missouri.
They do it in a very specific and formal way.
That might be where this comes for turning the time over because...
So congressmen will often have us or congresswomen will often have a specific time allotment that they're not allowed to go over.
So then they're saying like, I'm going to give up the rest of that time to someone else or something.
So we say, turn the time over, even though usually in business meetings, we don't have this specific time allotment.
We still sort of use that same expression.
Yeah, this might really come from government.
I have a feeling because there are very specific norms and rules, I guess, you have to follow if you're a senator making a speech and any of the basically I think hearings is where this happens.
Senate hearings and things. Yeah. Anything else here, Aubrey?
Yeah. So like we were saying, you can shorten this and remove the time and just say, let's turn it over to so you could say, great, thanks.
Let's turn it over to Sharon for the next agenda item.
I love it. Yes. See details online. All right, the next one I like, because it feels very personal.
Yes, definitely. Right. It's just on to you.
So you might say, awesome. Thanks, James.
On to you, Maria, for an update on sales.
And I do agree. It's a little more personal because you're directing this directly to that person.
To that person. That's why you're speaking to that person.
Aubrey, on to you for an update on our social media channels, for example.
This is very common, right? It's sort of a quicker one.
And again, just another option. If you've already used, let's give the floor to someone, let's turn the time over to someone, then we can just say, okay, on to you, Mark.
Yeah. So Aubrey, what is your style at work?
Would you like to lead meetings? If you had the chance to do that, would you want to do that?
What is your style? Yeah, sure. When I've been an operations manager or I've had to lead a certain project, I find it fun and exciting to lead a meeting.
And it's nice to sort of have the control to make sure it moves along quickly.
Because if not, then you're just there and it's out of your control.
Sometimes it might start feeling a little long or maybe there are sections where you're not quite as involved or quite as you know interested and you just sort of have to listen that happens to all of us at meetings whereas if you were the one leading you're on your toes the whole meeting right you have to make sure it keeps moving along yeah you're responsible for making sure everything gets done and that everyone is kind of heard interesting okay good to know good to know I'm curious about our listeners Aubrey Yes, this will be our poll question for today.
So if you listen in Spotify, go ahead and answer this poll in Spotify.
We want to know, do you often lead meetings at work?
So let us know yes or no, and we'll announce the results in an upcoming episode.
Yeah, this will give us a sense of how active our listeners are, you know, in terms of leadership or in their companies, just where they're at.
So guys, let us know. We want to know what you're doing at work.
You know, maybe we can create a course to help you go deeper into meetings if we know that you are leading meetings more often.
Yes, that would be interesting. All right, let's do a role play.
This is interesting, Lindsay, because you are playing multiple people. i am leading a meeting here about planning a school fundraiser and you are going to play everyone else at the meeting you can disguise your voice if you want everyone okay okay good great all right thanks jeremiah on to you deborah for an update on volunteers thank you yes we've had 13 volunteers sign up and we need another seven so we'll be posting on social media and sending home a flyer with students good plan hopefully we'll get a few more sign ups let's turn it over to lisa for budget details Unfortunately, we're likely to go over budget.
The performers and activity booths were more expensive than expected, so we may need to cut back in other areas.
Gotcha. Let's discuss options. I'll give the floor to anyone who has an idea to discuss.
Oh, that was hard to create two different voices.
Lindsay, I feel like I need to do that more often to give you opportunities to switch up your voice.
That was fun. That was hard. It's hard to be anything other than who I am, to be honest.
Exactly. Right. You went like a little lower, slower, a little higher.
Hey, that worked. If ever you listen to like an audio book and people will change their voice so much for the different characters, that's a skill.
Yes, we did that. There's a podcaster that we're friends with, and he released a special edition podcast where he asked other ESL podcasters to read a script of like a sci-fi situation that he published.
And I had to do a couple different voices, which was very foreign to me.
Very different. I bet you nailed it. That's funny, though.
I don't know. All right, cool. So what did we do here, Aubrey?
Yeah, so first, right at the top, I said, on to you, Debra, right?
And how did that feel? Did it feel a little more personal?
I liked it. I like this one. It's actually my favorite of today.
Nice. Yeah. And then Aubrey, you said, good plan.
Hopefully we'll get a few more signups. Let's turn it over to Lisa for budget details.
Very clear. Why onto you is more is preferable to you because this is a little colder, a little more professional, a little more formal, right?
Let's turn it over to Lisa or let's turn the time over to Lisa.
Whereas onto you is just more friendly. Because you're not talking to Lisa when you say, let's turn it over to Lisa.
Right. You're talking to everybody. And now Lisa's going to speak and I hope she's ready.
Exactly. That's true. Good point. And then the last one I said, all right, I'll give the floor to anyone who has an idea.
This is another way to use this where you're saying like floor is open, right?
The floor is available to anyone who maybe raises their hand and has an idea to share.
Yeah, interesting. I mean, the key piece is, you know, if you have a chance to lead a meeting, definitely accept that opportunity.
And we need to know how to do these things, how to transition.
You are now in charge of facilitating, right, Aubrey?
Exactly. And we can easily be too repetitive if we have to turn that time over five, six different times.
If you said it the same way every time, it would start feeling redundant.
So use all of these different phrases to switch it up.
Yes, I love it. And guys, don't forget to vote in the poll, right?
Aubrey, what is the poll question one more time?
Yes. Do you often lead meetings at work?
Let us know. All right. Let us know, guys.
And what's the final takeaway? I think we just said it.
Aubrey, don't be repetitive in anything in business English, but especially facilitating a meeting because people will fall asleep.
Yeah, right. That's a good point too, right?
That's what I said. When you lead a meeting, you're in charge of keeping the cadence going, right?
Keep it flowing. You may have to cut off someone who's being really long winded or sharing too much information for the group.
So yeah, you've got to keep it engaging, keep it interesting, both with the timing and your choice of vocabulary.
Yeah, it's challenging though, right? As you're leading, because if you and your team need to get through some details and actually make decisions, it's not always going to be super pleasant for everyone.
So we have to find that balance between we need to actually do something, right?
It's not a presentation. It's a meeting.
We need to make decisions versus we need to make sure we stay awake and engaged.
So how do we find that balance, Aubrey? It's just experience.
For sure. And it's tricky because you're managing lots of different presentation styles whenever there's lots of people in charge of sharing.
So that's tricky. Maybe another episode we'll dig into that concept.
All right, Aubrey, you have a good day. I'll see you soon.
Awesome. See you next time. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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