This is the Business English Podcast Episode 325.
Use this expression to foster creativity at work.
Welcome to the Business English Podcast from All Ears 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 Michelle coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA.
Hello there, Michelle.
What's going on today?
How are you doing? Oh, not too much.
I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good.
Lindsay, when you brainstorm, do you typically try to just come up with as much as possible and then just see what sticks or are you methodical with your brainstorming session?
No, I think by nature, brainstorming sessions are not very methodical.
It's the idea of everything is chaos at first and then you whittle it down.
Whittle it down. That's a good night.
An organization. Yeah, I think that's a different way of thinking.
It's a moment of creativity.
It's a moment of you don't say no to anything.
You put everything down on the whiteboard.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Exactly. Guys, before we move on, we want to remind you to hit follow wherever you're listening to the Business English Podcast so that you never miss anything from us.
Yes. Today, Michelle, we have a great listener question, which I'm excited about.
This is all about the topic of brainstorming and different ways that we can say it and talk about it in English, which I think a lot of our listeners are going to need this skill.
Shall I read the question?
Yes, this is from Rishi.
Rishi says, hi, Lindsay.
When I was listening to one of the Crime Junkies episodes, I heard the idiom throwing spaghetti on the wall.
I tried to Google it, but I came across multiple meanings of it, and most of them are completely opposite to each other.
Can you please help me understand what is the actual meaning of this one, or are there multiple meanings?
Huge fan of your voice, keep up the good work.
You guys are really doing a great job.
Lots of love from India.
Amazing. It's Rishi and asking us to respond with an episode number once we shoot out.
Rishi, you will hear this episode.
Yeah, guys, send your questions in.
We love getting your episode questions.
You can send them to support at allersenglish .com.
We'll write them down, and if it's a good question, if it's a specific question, we'll answer it.
Yes, exactly. In the beginning when Rishi was talking about the Crime Junkies episode, she had mentioned something about us giving out some podcasts on these crime episodes.
I guess it was you and Aubrey Polyga.
I don't know. That's where she mentioned Crime Junkies episodes.
Nice, nice, nice. Okay, love that.
Rishi, we wanted to snatch this up for the Business English Podcast because it's super useful for business.
What do you think, Lindsay?
I love it because in my mind that's how things start.
That's how new projects begin, technology ideas through brainstorming.
Yes, definitely, definitely.
I know this expression is, throw spaghetti at the wall, or also throw spaghetti against the wall.
Lindsay, to me it has one meaning.
Rishi was talking about a couple of meanings.
What do you think? Do you know it has more than one meaning?
I think it has one meaning.
I think about it to mean I'm trying different things and I'm seeing what works.
Maybe a bit beyond the brainstorming stage, maybe I think of actually a startup company that's trying to find their product market fit.
They're actually creating different products to see what their audience or their market really wants.
That would be the stick.
Right, right, right, right.
Exactly. I think of brainstorming, trying different ideas out.
Guys, Lindsay mentioned sticking.
This idea is, I mean, literally, if you were to take a handful of cooked spaghetti and throw it against the wall, some of it will fall down, but some, because of the oil, might actually stick to the wall.
Right, Lindsay? Yeah, well, they say that's how you know if your spaghetti's ready, right?
Oh, yeah, I've heard that too.
You're supposed to stick against the wall.
That's like an old myth, I guess.
Yeah, yeah. But if it's not, it doesn't stick.
If it falls down, it's not cooked enough or something like that.
So maybe that's the literal meaning of this that Rishi is talking about that they heard.
I'm not sure. Maybe.
I don't know. Exactly.
So we're not typically really throwing spaghetti against the wall, but we use this as a metaphor to talk about trying different things to see what it works.
It's used very frequently in business.
So just this idea of we're shouting things out or we're going to try a bunch of things.
And the other part of this expression is let's throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
So let's try something and see what sticks.
Let's see what works.
But we're going to try everything or we're going to talk about everything.
Yeah, I love that idea.
And I also love what it means, which is it means you're not going to build a company based on a product that people don't want.
You're getting direct feedback from the market, which is very smart.
There are a lot of companies that create products that just people don't want them.
Yeah, right. So exactly.
I mean, so Lindsey, let's talk about how we would actually use this.
I mean, to me, it can be used in a meeting to encourage people.
It's not too serious sounding.
So I think that's good.
Anything else, Lindsey?
I mean, showing that you're open to ideas.
Definitely as a leader in a company, it's really important to create an environment of we're open to anyone's ideas because the best ideas are probably not going to come from the most experienced people because they're very locked in to the way of thinking.
It might come from new people or new ways of thinking.
Okay, right. Yeah, true.
So again, you can say let's throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
Sometimes people might say, let's throw a bunch of stuff against the wall.
I've heard, I hear that too, like just like a bunch of, you know, but you can also use it broken up.
So you could say something like, we're just throwing spaghetti at the wall.
Yes, you could say, okay, let's try a few ideas and see what sticks, right?
So you could kind of break them up, those two ideas.
Right. You're kind of grabbing the end of that idiom, right?
So you could say see what sticks and adding it, just adding it with a literal, let's try a few ideas.
It's kind of interesting.
We're combining an idiom and a not idiom in one phrase.
Right. Right, right.
Exactly. So let's go over some examples.
So Lindsay, you did the first one.
All right, here we go.
We have a meeting at lunch.
I think the team just needs to throw some spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
We'll figure something out.
Okay, good. So very encouraging.
Yes. It used in a way to show that all ideas are accepted.
We'll talk it through.
Yeah. And here's another one.
Okay, team, let's just shout out some ideas and see what sticks.
Don't think too much.
I think honestly, it's more likely that I would say the second one, just because it takes a long time to say throw spaghetti at the wall.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think that's, I think it is more common just to use the see what sticks part or, or, but, but, um, you know, you'll hear the other one from time to time as well.
And so great image.
Um, so yeah, exactly.
I was going to say, it's also just good to know where that comes from.
See what sticks. It's probably coming from that idiom.
If you're just using that part, it's kind of good to have that meta understanding of the language.
Right. Interesting.
I actually didn't think about that, but yeah, I, it probably is from, or maybe not, maybe not, but it could be coming.
Just knowing a little bit more about where expressions are coming from is useful, even if you don't want to use them in their full form.
Yeah. Right. So what else could you say?
What are some things that mean the same thing, Michelle?
Okay. Well, you could say something like, let's throw a bunch of ideas out there.
Okay. Or let's give a few things a try.
Or you could say let's see what works.
Yes. Nice. Okay. Let's go into a role play here, Michelle at work and I'm leading a meeting and you are an employee.
So we will get into it.
All right. So there we go.
Okay. So Michelle, do you have any ideas?
Well, I have a few, but I'm not sure all of them completely are what you're looking for.
I'm totally open. I'd love to give a few things that try.
Let's just throw a bunch of ideas out there.
Okay. Sounds good. It's like throwing spaghetti against the wall.
Yep. Let's see what sticks.
We'll see what works.
We just don't want to get analysis paralysis.
Yeah. Lindsey, I think you use that expression, don't you?
Oh yeah. Yeah, sure.
It's easy to get stuck in that.
It's kind of the opposite of this, right?
Where before you launch a product, you just can't know what's going to happen.
So there's only so much analysis you can actually do.
There's some intuition we need to employ, creativity, talking to the market, all these things we need to do.
Yeah. Definitely. Definitely.
All right. Well, let's go through it.
So you are being very encouraging.
You said I'm totally open.
I'd love to give a few things a try.
And then you said, let's just throw a bunch of ideas out there.
Yeah. Nice. And then you said, okay, sounds good.
So it's like throwing spaghetti against the wall.
And you said, yup. Let's see what sticks.
And then you said, let's see, we'll see what works.
Yeah. And it sounds like you're kind of reassuring.
You're getting reassurance that it's okay just to throw out ideas, even if maybe you're just not sure about your ideas.
And again, a lot of that is about the tone that leadership sets in a company to be able to, so people feel the confidence, even if, like, if they think, Oh my, maybe my idea will seem dumb or something.
No, like they should be confident enough to throw it out there.
And that's about company culture, right?
Right. Exactly. Yeah.
You don't want to be in this place where, you know, you feel uncomfortable saying something.
You're just, Oh, if your ideas are just going to get shot down or even if, even if it's not a good idea, just like the way that your boss reacts to your idea, you know, just showing that open communication, that open culture, that could be a good follow -up as well.
Like showing, okay, maybe, you know, maybe we've talked about it a little before, but no, maybe a direct or something like that.
Right. We're right.
How can a leader, whether you're a manager or you just have a small team, you people reporting to you, or whether you're the CEO of a company, what are the key phrases that you need to, you want to say to foster that environment of people not being afraid to say, cause then there will be a really good idea.
Uh, that eventually will come out, but someone might be afraid if you don't create the right environment.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
So that's important.
Okay. Well, I'm hungry for spaghetti now.
I know Michelle. Should we go through the role play for our listeners and analyze what we said or what do you think?
I think we already did.
We did. We did. Okay.
We did. We don't need to do it again.
We don't. All right.
Cool. So where else should our listeners go?
Michelle, where should they go next?
All right, guys, we did episode three 18 of the business English podcast.
That was how to delegate work tasks before your vacation.
So another really sensitive cultural thing that can happen at work where you want to foster that positive environment.
You got it. And what is our takeaway for today?
I mean, I think it's, it's about, you know, this phrase falls in the category of creativity, of not being afraid to try new things and more and more especially, I think the biggest thing is as your company ages, it gets harder and harder to do this.
This is easy when you're a small company, you just started, you're a baby as a company, but it gets harder once you have a little success.
There's expectations, there's a payroll, right?
So how do you fight against that?
Yeah. Ooh, very interesting.
Yeah. Um, uh, interesting stuff.
So guys, definitely something to something to think on there.
And I'm curious, let us know.
Do you have a similar expression in your first language or another language that you speak?
Is this idea of throwing spaghetti against the wall?
Is that something that's a little bit universal?
Let us know. Right.
Good stuff. Michelle, you have a good day.
I'll talk to you very soon.
All right. Bye. Thank you for listening to business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
Want more from all ears English?
Don't miss our biggest and best podcast with 8 million monthly downloads.
Just search for the all ears English podcast and hit follow to get four new episodes per week on fluency, American culture, grammar, and so much more, or tap the link in the show notes.
Remember, we believe in connection, not perfection when it comes to learning English.
Follow the all ears English podcast now.
