This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 383.
When is it acceptable to hesitate in American business culture?
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Hey, Aubrey. How's it going today?
Excellent, Lindsay.
I'm so excited to announce the results of a recent Spotify poll that we did.
A lot of people responded to this poll.
I know. This is so exciting.
I mean, our poll question was very simple.
Do you like your job, right?
And we all, we love the weekend.
Maybe we don't like Mondays, but do we actually like what we do 40 hours a week?
That's the question.
Really, really happy to see that.
80 % of our listeners said yes.
Only 20 % said no. Not everyone is in their dream job, but that's really good numbers.
I'm really happy to hear that so many of you out there do love the job that you have.
That is so great because that has to affect our happiness, our overall happiness as a person in the world.
And so glad to hear it, guys.
So Aubrey, what are we getting into today?
And remember to stay till the end to hear the Spotify poll for today.
We love to see the results of all of these polls.
We are doing a series here on hesitating.
We got a great question about what does this look like when I hesitate?
How can I avoid hesitating?
When is it okay to hesitate.
And we did part one already right here on Business English, episode 379.
Yeah. And in 379, we taught our listeners three important vocabulary terms about hesitating.
And we also did a role play to learn those vocabulary terms.
So definitely go back to 379.
If you missed that, that's kind of a step one, a part one.
Go back, make sure you hit follow here on Business English.
But today we're going to talk a little bit just more philosophically about hesitation.
and is it okay? When is it not okay?
And what can we do?
We're going to get three strategies to handle it, to overcome it in different times.
Exactly. Because this is so vital for interviews, for first impressions.
If you are hesitating at the wrong time, this can be really detrimental.
So we want to make sure that you really understand American business culture.
When is it okay to hesitate?
And when is it not?
What can you do to avoid that hesitation?
Yeah. So broadly speaking, Aubrey, what does it mean to hesitate?
What does it actually mean to hesitate?
Yeah. If you're hesitating, it means you're unsure of yourself or unsure of your language.
Maybe you're doubting yourself.
You don't know what to say or what to think.
And it shows what there are a lot of verbal cues that show our hesitation.
Yeah. So for example, if you're speaking quietly, so maybe it's just in your nature to speak quietly.
But I do think in American business culture, people might think you're hesitating.
So that's kind of, some of this is about perceptions too, you know, maybe in your mind, you're not hesitating, but we're a very verbal culture.
Don't you think Aubrey?
Exactly. Right. Or maybe you're ending your statements in a question, which also makes you sound hesitant about your ideas.
Like you're questioning yourself.
And then there are also physical cues, not even in what you're saying that show hesitation.
Yeah, like avoiding eye contact.
And we talk a lot about not avoiding eye contact as being part of the connection, not perfection concept.
Our concept, our trademark, our whole vision for why we learn English.
When we make a mistake, we don't break the eye contact, right?
Because that shows that we feel ashamed of the mistake or we're hesitating, we're afraid, we're unsure of ourselves.
We can make that mistake, maintain the eye contact and maintain the connection, right?
Exactly right. My son had to do a speech recently, and this was part of the score that he maintained eye contact.
They couldn't just look down.
And it was amazing, as I'm listening to the other speeches, what a difference it made between those who were making eye contact, who were looking up, how much more confident they looked and sounded, how much more hesitant those who couldn't make eye contact very long were.
Interesting. Wow. Yeah.
So we learned this from a young age, right?
And it's so cultural too.
So we got to think about that.
And then other signs of it, we might avoid making a decision.
We might procrastinate on getting something done.
That could be hesitation.
We might do what else, Aubrey?
We might be saying, um, or, uh, before what we say, right?
There may be pauses, gaps in what we say, hesitating while we think, while we decide something.
And all of this, unfortunately, might be construed as a lack of competence.
This is worst case scenario when your ideas are the most impressive in the room, but due to hesitancy, a lack of fluency, it's assumed that the competence isn't there.
Yeah. And I think a lot of our listeners might face that situation frequently, right?
The competence is fully there.
You have the ideas, you have the data, the information that can help your company, but there's hesitation and that gets misconstrued and we want to help you in those moments right but there is there are moments when it's good to hesitate what do you think aubry i mean we yeah i agree no definitely right if if you're taking a moment to think about the right answer or the right solution this is valued in american business culture in american culture sometimes when you just say the first thing that you think of without thinking about it then your ideas start to lose value mm -hmm and this week i did
a bunch of interviews for our native speakers for the professional English level one that's coming out soon.
Hint, hint. It will be coming out in the next couple of months.
Super excited. And one of the things we talked about with our friends was interviewing tactics and strategies.
These are high level professionals, executives.
What should you do in an interview?
But what they did a lot of times in a very intelligent way, they actually took some time to think and they were silent after I asked the question, right?
In our interviews, they took some time and they knew that that wouldn't, it was the right amount of time.
It was a pause. And that made me think they're thinking about this.
They're taking this seriously.
They're contemplating it, right?
So there can be a good time.
Yeah. Thoughtfulness.
Exactly. And sometimes this is especially crucial for a leader.
Like, you know, if you're making big decisions, pivotal decisions.
If those decisions, the people you're making those decisions for, see you being thoughtful, see you thinking through these things, then there will be more trust built.
Yes, I love that. So in today's episode, we're going to have three tips.
Really, Aubrey, I think there are two scenarios where we might hesitate.
The first one is when you don't know the answer, and maybe you should know the answer right and the second scenario is when you're you probably do know what you want to say but you're paralyzed like you just can't move forward and take that action something inside you is holding you back right yes absolutely and this comes up for those of you who are studying for ielts or who have taken ielts this was huge for your fluency score if you should know the answer you couldn't just say nothing right you had to have interesting filler phrases that showed you were being thoughtful about the answer, but you couldn't just
have silence. Yeah.
And so that is our, let's talk about the scenario where you don't know the answer and you should know the answer.
You need to know the answer.
Like in the IELTS exam, our recommendation, our strategy for you is buy yourself more time, right?
And let's talk about that a little bit more, Aubrey.
Yeah. So you want to avoid saying, I don't know, or I'm not sure, or just silently, you know, you don't want to leave a long, silent gap, right?
And like we said on IELTS, you cannot have those silent gaps.
You must have filler phrases.
You can narrate your thoughts.
You can comment on the question.
Oh, interesting. I hadn't thought of that before.
Or I was just talking to a friend about this and that is buying you time to think of your answer.
Yeah. You can actually, you know, you can, as they say, kill two birds with one stone, you can compliment the person.
And I don't like that idiom, but I said it anyway.
You can compliment the person by saying that is a fantastic question, right?
As you're thinking.
So you're winning points with the person you're talking with by building the relationship, giving them a compliment and gaining yourself some thinking time as you're saying that.
Especially well in like a job interview where whoever's giving you that interview, they were thoughtful about which questions to ask.
So if you can say that is a fantastic question, Yeah.
They're thinking, thank you.
It took me time to decide which questions to ask.
Exactly. And so that's how you can start your response.
So let's say someone in a job interview asked you a question you just don't know the answer to, but maybe you should know.
Maybe it's something in your industry and you need to know it to be a qualified candidate.
So that is a fantastic question.
I'd love to look into that further and follow up after our interview.
All right. Yeah. And this is really smart.
Instead of just saying, I don't know, or I haven't thought about that.
If at least you can show that you are interested, you recognize that you should know that, you do want to know that, this is a good thing to say.
Yeah. And then there's another little piece of insider, I don't know, business language that I've come across recently talking to our native speaking professionals.
What is it, Aubrey?
If you're in a meeting, what could you say?
Yeah. You can say, let me take that as a follow -up.
So you're saying, I'm going to follow up on that separately and get back to you.
We'll work on that later this is a great chunk yeah and obviously make sure you do that right otherwise you want you want to be seen as someone that follows through here we go with phrasal verbs today follow up follow through right we haven't talked about the word follow through much on the podcast but we should we should right this is a really important skill in business english to have follow through we use it as a noun for sure so make sure you actually do that come back to whoever it is you're talking to what about socially aubrey when you don't know an answer yeah you can also compliment
the question here, right?
Someone asks you something that is such a good question.
Let me get back to you on that, right?
Or just, I would need to think about that before I decide, right?
This, I think shows, like we said, thoughtfulness, a level of deep thinking that you would need to research more before you decide what you think.
Yes. The wrongs we must write.
The fights we must win.
The future we must secure were together for our nation.
This is what's in front of us.
This determines what's next for all of us.
We are Marines. We were made for this.
Okay, Aubrey, we are back for our second tip.
Now let's talk about the scenario that I think a lot of our listeners do face probably more often where they're hesitating to take action because they just feel paralyzed.
Something inside of us sort of freezes us right and i'm sure that you and i have both experienced this in our lives absolutely right right you have to practice this is a skill that must be practiced right we have to practice taking action in our personal lives and our language practice before we are in the situation right it's just like speaking in english if you're never speaking aloud it will be very difficult to jump into conversations so you have to practice a lot to train your brain yeah exactly Exactly.
So that is our antidote.
That is tip number two, strategy number two, the antidote to being paralyzed is to practice taking action when it doesn't necessarily matter, right?
When you're not on the spot.
In a low stress situation.
Yeah, exactly. So what does this look like, Aubrey, logistically speaking?
Yeah. So we're training our brains.
Maybe an idea comes into your mind.
You'd love to get friends together for a community dinner, and then you're sending the text invites right away, you can make the full plan later.
Yeah. Sometimes I think we feel like we have to have it all together.
We have to figure out where's this going to happen?
What am I going to serve?
You know, how many people will be there?
What will the napkins look like?
What if I just sent the text and went ahead and took that action?
It's kind of like you short circuit your brain a little bit and you skip the thinking part and you go right to the action right exactly and then you have time later to flesh out all of the details right you're giving yourself a chance to be spontaneous to practice that skill of jumping in and doing something without a ton of forethought and practice yeah and that will translate to how you act in the professional scenarios where you're, you know, you're, you're volunteering to talk about one aspect of a plan of a business plan.
For example, you won't hesitate.
Then learning from mentors.
So trying to be around mentors who are action takers.
So people who have always built a life around just taking action on what they want.
Right. And pick their brains, right?
Have conversations with them about, you know, what makes them tick, how they became who they are, because this is a, it's a really valuable not only to have this mentor in your life, but then glean information from them.
I love it. And you're going to love the last one, Aubrey.
This tip is for you here.
What is it? It's games, right?
Especially for language.
English learning games are so useful, especially when you have to respond quickly.
You have to think of your answer.
It gives you that chance to practice using the vocabulary you're learning, pull it into your active vocabulary.
Heads up is a good example.
I love that you included this here.
Yeah, that's a good one.
I love it. So any kind of game that requires quick response, if we're doing that on a regular basis, it's going to become our normal natural habits to respond, to act, to jump into action.
And Heads Up is an app.
You can get it on your phone.
I see people playing it in line at Disneyland.
So download it if you haven't.
Check it out. It's a great game to play in English.
Yes, I love it. And Aubrey, we have a third strategy for if we are simply paralyzed, right?
We are hesitating. What should we do?
Yeah. You want to focus on the end result, right?
If you can be organized about what is my goal here, that is going to help you avoid being caught up in your own thoughts and getting distracted.
It will keep you on task.
Yeah. Try not try to focus more on not so much what people will think of you, but why are we here?
What are we trying to do?
Occasionally, I get nervous on this podcast for some random reason.
I don't know why. I just get nervous and self -conscious.
Not very often, but sometimes.
And then I always come back to you guys, to our listeners.
This is why we are here to help you in these moments if you're hesitating with your language.
That's what we want to do to stay focused and keep taking action.
Right. We come back to connection just like you should be doing at work or in your personal lives, right?
Think about who are you trying to help?
Why does this matter?
And this is going to help you avoid that hesitation if you have clear goals in mind to hit.
Yes, I love it. So that's it.
Focus on that end result.
And those are our three tips.
Aubrey, is there anywhere else our listeners could go right now when they finish today's episode?
Yeah, don't miss episode 344, three tips for joining an unfamiliar conversation at work.
We've had a lot of listeners ask us about this.
If I don't know that much about the topic, how can I still participate in the conversation?
So scroll up. Don't miss that episode.
That's a really, really good topic for an episode.
So I hope our listeners don't miss it.
And we have a poll.
So we're going to go ahead and give our listeners today's poll.
Drumroll. Aubrey, what is our poll for today?
Yeah, we want to know, are you good at buying time in English when you don't know an answer?
So if you put no, that's all right.
Hopefully after today's tips, you'll be able to practice this skill so that you can eventually say yes.
Yeah. And I think for a takeaway, I mean, Aubrey, what comes to mind?
Where do we want to leave our listeners today?
Yeah, well, we know that you have expertise.
You may be an expert in your field and your ideas might be being missed or undervalued because you're being, you know, if you're being hesitant or, you know, you're worried about your fluency, worried about making mistakes.
We're worried that you could be passed over for opportunities, that you won't be given the value and respect you deserve.
Yeah. So I think treat it like anything we're trying to kind of fix or improve, right?
If our car needs repair, we take it to the repair shop.
This could be a project, something we could focus on on the side before we're in our next high -pressure scenario or situation.
So we've been playing the heads -up game.
We've been working with a mentor and studying how they make decisions.
We've been taking action.
So when we're in that moment, we don't hesitate.
Does that make sense?
Yes, absolutely. Right.
Practice these skills.
So you're ready when the time comes and don't miss part one of this series, Episode 379.
We want you guys to know when it's OK to hesitate and know what to do to avoid hesitation when it's not ideal.
All right. Good stuff.
Sounds great. Aubrey, you take care.
Have a great day. Enjoy your weekend too.
Thanks, Lindsay. Bye.
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