Welcome to the breakout business English podcast, where I help you to communicate better at work in English.
English. Hi everyone, my name is Chris and I've personally worked with over 1,000 English 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 today's topic is how managers can build trust.
Trust with the staff who they work with.
One topic that I've found myself discussing a lot recently is trust. how to build trust between colleagues, within teams, and across hierarchy.
I spend around 30% of my time helping people prepare for job interviews.
And a question that a lot of managers and leaders who I work with have been struggling with recently is...
How do you build trust within your team?
A very common question there to be asked in an interview for a management role where you're going to be managing people on a day-to-day basis is how do you build trust within your team?
So today I want to talk about building trust.
We're going to talk about a couple of tools and techniques that we can use to build trust with the people who we manage. and the vocabulary that we can use to make this easy and help us to communicate these ideas.
If you're a manager yourself, then hopefully you'll find these ideas useful.
And if not, well, maybe you can leave a comment or a review. telling me whether or not these are things that you see your management team doing.
Let's start today with offering and asking for help.
One thing that colleagues can do when they trust their managers is to ask for help.
When we trust our managers, we feel that we can say things like, I need help.
I've made a mistake. Or maybe I'm not sure what I'm doing here.
This is something that I've heard called psychological safety, or at least a component of psychological safety.
It's a component of being able to come to work and not worry about what's going to happen if things go wrong.
As managers, we want to hear this. We need to know when our staff are struggling.
And we want them to feel like they can come to us and ask us about these things.
So let's listen now to some examples of managers trying to build this feeling and this culture of trust. with that stuff.
Would you mind if I check in with you later and see how you're getting on?
Would you mind if I check in with you later and see how you're getting on?
Let me know if you need a hand with anything.
Let me know if you need a hand with anything.
If you get stuck on anything then give me a shout.
If you get stuck on anything then give me a shout.
I think I've talked in a previous episode of the podcast about what it means to give someone a shout.
In short, it simply means to contact someone.
This might be with an email or an instant message, maybe a phone call.
But this phrase likely originates from the fact that if you're in the same physical space as someone, then you can literally just shout across the office or maybe across the factory floor to get someone's attention.
However, right now, I want to focus on the phrase to get stuck.
To get stuck. In the third example, we heard if you get stuck on anything.
If you get stuck on anything. To get stuck on something means that there is a task that you can't complete. or maybe something that you find too difficult, too challenging, or you just don't know what to do.
There are a couple of podcast topics that I've tried to write about in the past, but I keep getting stuck on them.
So I end up not recording those podcasts.
Maybe one day I'll get unstuck and you'll hear me discuss those topics.
I think that the idea of being stuck is quite well known.
For instance, in a sentence like I'm stuck.
Can you help me? I'm stuck. Can you help me?
However, in the example, I used the word get, G-E-T, get.
Get is a really common word in English and it's got a lot of different definitions.
If you type define get into Google, then you'll get a long, really unhelpful list of probably around 30, maybe 40 different definitions.
However, the most simple and general explanation that I can give you is that it means a change in situation.
For instance, I might say that I got hungry so I went to get a sandwich.
I got hungry so I went to get a sandwich.
In the first part of that sentence, I was not hungry, and then I became hungry.
So that's a change in situation. And in the second half of the sentence, well, I did not have a sandwich and I wanted to be in a situation where I did have a sandwich.
So again. a change in situation. So that's a general definition of get.
It means a change in situation or state or status, maybe.
So we use get stuck to show that you were progressing with a task and then you stopped progressing. you hit some kind of roadblock.
The reason that I mention this is because when I'm coaching people in one-to-one sessions and helping them to improve their English, I very often hear people say things like, I stuck on this.
I stuck on this. Or maybe, if I stuck on this, I'll call you.
If I stuck on this, I'll call you. Both of which are mistakes.
We can use the word to be, which would make the sentence, if I am stuck on this.
Or in the first example, maybe simply, I am stuck on this.
However, GET is a really great natural and native way to show that there has been change in this situation you were progressing you were moving forwards then something caused you to stop I think this mistake happens because people treat stuck as if it were a verb. but it's not, it's an adjective, a describing word.
Therefore, we need to build the grammar around it in a different way.
A similar mistake can be heard in a sentence like, I back home at 6pm.
I back home at 6pm. Back is, again, not a verb.
But a lot of people treat it like a verb.
This sentence could be I come back home.
I arrive back home. Or, of course, one of the most natural and native ways to build this sentence would be... get back home at 6pm.
But a back home on its own would be a mistake.
One idea that I really like from the first example is starting off with this question.
Would you mind? Would you mind? Would You Mind is a really nice way for managers to show their trust. in their colleagues, in their team, and in their direct reports.
You're saying that you're not going to intrude.
You're not going to invade their workspace if you're not welcome.
You're asking for permission to come into their personal area of work, giving them some ownership over the place that they're working in.
Now, in practice, is anyone going to really say no to this?
Almost certainly not. So what is the practical result of this?
Well, nothing really changes. you're still going to be able to come back and check on your staff.
The difference is that they feel like they have ownership over their work and ownership over the place that they are working. by allowing you to come and see how they're getting on or see how they're doing. they're also going to feel more open to your feedback and input.
After all, you asked them for permission to give them this feedback, right?
In the third example there, we heard the phrase to get on.
In the example, we heard that someone wants to check in with you later and see how you're getting on. to see how you're getting on.
How you're getting on with something means how you're performing, how you're doing, Are you performing well or are you struggling?
Is this easy or more difficult for you? If I ask you how you're getting on with a book that I have lent you, then I want to know how far through the book you are and whether you're enjoying it or not.
You might have heard this phrase before, used to talk about people.
If I get on with someone or maybe get along with someone, then it means that we enjoy each other's company.
We might even be friends. And we certainly don't dislike spending time with each other.
And the feeling is similar when I ask you about a task that you're doing.
So if I say to you, let me know how you're getting on with this task.
Or maybe let me know how you're getting along with this task.
This means that I'd like you to report to me on your performance.
Tell me how easy or difficult you're finding a task.
And of course, tell me if you need a hand with it. which means if you need help with something, if you need assistance with it.
And if you're not getting on very well with the English language, 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'd 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 breakoutbusinessenglish.com.
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 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 off your first booking of 30, 45, or 60 minutes, whichever is best for you.
Sometimes my calendar gets a little busy.
So if you have trouble finding a time that works for you, then feel free to 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 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.
The next method that I want to talk about for building trust with colleagues is vulnerability.
Vulnerability. I've definitely worked with managers who will never admit that they're wrong. and are even less likely to tell you that they're not an expert on something.
However, One way that managers can build trust with their staff is to show that they don't necessarily have all the answers. and that they themselves are always learning.
Let's listen now to some examples of managers talking about the idea that maybe they're not completely perfect.
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We're all fallible, myself included. It took me months before I could get this right consistently.
We're all fallible, myself included. It took me months before I could get this right consistently.
I dropped the ball on this one and that's on me.
I'll be sure to keep my eye on the ball from now on.
I dropped the ball on this one. And that's on me.
I'll be sure to keep my eye on the ball from now on.
To say that I'm out of my depth would be putting it lightly, so you'll have to bear with me on this.
To say that I'm out of my depth would be putting it lightly, so you'll have to bear with me on this.
Fallible might be a new word for you, but I'm going to guess that you know the word fail to fail.
If you fail, then you make a mistake. You don't achieve your goal or your target. to have a failure is the opposite of having a success.
In the first example, we heard, we're all fallible, myself included.
We're all fallible, myself included. Fallible comes from the same ancient Latin root as fail or failure. but it's an adjective that we can use to describe people who sometimes fail.
Not always, but sometimes. They have the capacity to fail.
It is possible that they will fail. or get something wrong.
Last week I mentioned that I'm a father.
I think we often grow up thinking that our parents know everything and have all the answers. then one day we might find out that they really are fallible.
Honestly, I think I'm just figuring this fatherhood thing out day by day, so I am definitely fallible.
The same goes for our managers and bosses.
I think a lot of managers like their staff to think that they're infallible.
That's the opposite. They are infallible, like informal or infinite.
They like to think that they have all of the answers and that they never make mistakes.
However, showing your staff that you're not perfect and you're just trying to figure everything out And that you're fallible is a common tool for managers to appear more human in their interactions with their staff.
But what do you think? I know that a lot of leaders will disagree with this one. feel free to leave a comment on the YouTube video for this podcast and let's start a conversation.
You can find the YouTube channel by searching, well, the title of the podcast, Breakout Business English, and that's where you can leave a comment.
It is back to sports analogies with the idiom in our second example, or actually both of these idioms.
And you can really imagine both of these idioms applying to a couple of different ball sports. such as rugby or American football, maybe netball.
However, this phrase likely comes from American football.
If we do a little bit of research, we can see that this became popular as an idiom in American English in the mid 1990s, before making its way into British English later in the decade. and it's still a lot more popular in the US than in the UK.
Equally, if you want to talk to me about how I do research on words and the resources and tools that I use to check word frequency or phrase frequency and where a word or phrase is most common or first came into the English language, then you can feel free to book some of my time. and we can talk about the many tools that are available online to do this kind of research.
So if you're playing a sport like American football, then you need to carry the ball all the way to the goal.
Not only that, but your team is relying on you to do this.
If you drop the ball, then this very literally means that you've failed to score. you've failed to achieve your target.
If we apply this to our professional lives, then we simply mean that you've failed at something. especially when other people were relying on you to do this thing.
Just as in American football, your team is relying on you to carry that ball all the way to its destination.
If the start time of a meeting changes and you forget to notify everyone who needs to attend, then you might need to apologise to your colleagues for dropping the ball.
I'm really sorry I dropped the ball on this one.
Or if you're a leader and you give your team some incorrect information, that means that they can't do their jobs properly. you could certainly say, I'm really sorry for dropping the ball on this.
Or maybe, I'm really sorry for dropping the ball this time around.
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Don't forget that if you would like to book some time with me to discuss any of the ideas, vocabulary, grammar or sports in today's episode then you can book a session to work with me on your English communication skills by going to www.breakoutbusinessenglish.com That's breakoutbusinessenglish.com or clicking the link in the show notes.
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As I mentioned, 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.
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That is it for today. Thank you so much as always for listening and for your time.
I know how valuable it is. And I'll talk to you again next time on the Breakout Business English podcast.
Thanks a lot, everyone. Talk to you soon.
