Do you lack confidence redirecting a conversation in English if it's gone off track?
As a senior manager, this is a great skill to feel comfortable with in English.
So let's focus on this today and help you feel more secure the next time you have to intervene.
Let's crack on then, shall we?
Hello and welcome back to Confident Business English.
I'm Anna, your host and Neurolanguage coach.
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So I was working with a client last week and they were like look Anna I've got these big meetings with the client and other people in my team and many times the conversation goes off track or it goes in a different direction and I need to be able to take charge again of the meeting but I just don't
feel secure with the vocabulary that I have.
This is really important because if there's anything I've learned from working with perfectionists, it's you need to know that it's 100 % right before you're going to take the risk to say it.
However, if you know the words that you're saying in English are right, that's just going to make you feel so much more confident and that is going to come across in the way that you speak and hold yourself in what probably may already be an intimidating room full of people and also a point where you
want to show leadership in front of your team this for me is also the exact type of interaction that is going to make your life so much easier if you can get it on autopilot and that means learning a few phrases not reinventing the wheel every time because look you're really busy you can't have every
single phrase in english for every single interaction you just simply don't need to it's not worth your time learning them.
Learn a few set phrases and use them time and time again.
It's like the gift that keeps on giving.
And then you can shift the focus of your anxiety into things that are slightly more important.
For example, next week I have to give a presentation in front of my executive board and I have to convince them to invest £500 ,000 in a new project.
Let's focus your energy there and get the day -to -day things as automatic as you possibly can.
Let's get on with it then and I'm going to walk you through a three -step process to coming up with a really, really good sentence to intervene and redirect a conversation in a meeting.
So if we break it down, an intervention normally in a meeting to redirect a conversation is made up of three parts.
The first thing is the interruption, the second thing is the problem, and then the third thing is the action.
Let's imagine then a typical situation, you're in a meeting and the conversation starts going off track.
If we use this framework of interruption, problem, action, it could sound something like this.
Sorry to interrupt, but I feel this conversation would be better offline.
Would you mind if we moved on?
Sorry to interrupt, but I feel this conversation would be better offline.
Would you mind if we moved on?
Just in case you weren't sure, maybe you've heard people say a meeting offline and you're like, okay, what does that mean?
Are we face -to -face?
Are we having a coffee?
Is it something like this?
It just means it would be better if this was a private conversation separately rather than within the meeting.
Now then, let me focus a little bit more on the vocabulary that I've used.
The first part for the interruption you literally don't need any other sentences other than sorry to interrupt which is your basic your classic or if you want to do something a little bit more informal it would be sorry to jump in.
But honestly sorry to interrupt is going to serve you in every situation and you really don't need to know anything else then when we come on to the problem it's very common to say I feel or you could also say in the negative I don't feel I feel this conversation would be better offline I don't feel
this conversation is appropriate for now etc etc so just use I feel and then the problem or I don't feel and then the problem of course there are other options but if you're looking for something where it's just easy and you can remember it every time just go with that.
Then for the last part the proposal or action we've got our hero phrase here which is to move on.
You can use this phrase in different ways depending on how firm and direct you want to sound.
Let me give you some examples going from the most let's say firm to more collaborative.
So you could say I want to move on I'm sorry, but I feel this conversation would be better offline.
I want to move on. Or you could also say, I'd like to move on.
You're not giving anybody the chance to jump in and ask a question.
You're like, no, we're moving on.
That's that. A step down from that then would be to say either let's or shall.
I feel this conversation would be better offline, so let's move on.
it's more of a suggestion rather than i want to move on so you can see the difference there then moving down a little bit from that that's where we start to go into the questions i'm really sorry to interrupt but i feel this conversation would be better offline could we move on can we move on and then
maybe the most diplomatic option would be would you mind if we moved on and for you these little things do matter because it's how you come across do you want to come across as more firm or do you want to come across in that moment as being more collaborative and it might be at different points in the meeting
there's a different approach but you can use this vocabulary move on in different ways and you don't need to reinvent the wheel every time I want to move on.
Let's move on. Could we move on?
Would you mind if we moved on?
Let me give you some more examples then and the first ones we're going to focus on are relevance and then also time as well.
Feel free as well with these next examples I'll leave a slightly longer gap and you can try and practice out loud after me.
i'm really sorry to jump in but i feel we're going a little bit off track so let's move on sorry to jump in but i don't really feel this is the right place to have this conversation so i'd like to move on if that's okay notice there at the end that I add that little softening phrase if that's okay another
way that I would say that is if you don't mind this is very common with British speakers and we do it after more direct phrases just to make them sound a little bit more diplomatic you can certainly try and use those phrases as well but it's not absolutely necessary.
Sorry to interrupt but I feel we've already covered this.
Can we move on to the next point?
Sorry to interrupt but I don't feel this needs to be addressed in this meeting so could we move on?
Sorry to jump in but I feel it would be better if we pick this up in another meeting.
Would you mind if we moved on?
Then for time again we're going to use that same structure, interruption, problem, action.
I'm really sorry to interrupt but we are running a little short on time.
Can we move on? you may be familiar with we're running out of time but I would say a slightly more elegant way to say it is this we're running short on time sorry to jump in but we're quite tight on time today so let's move on to be tight on time again same thing we haven't got a lot of time I guess
that would be a more straightforward simple way to describe it which would be absolutely fine but these are just some other options for you sorry to interrupt I'm conscious we only have 15 minutes left would you mind if we moved on?
Then imagine a situation where you want to direct it a little bit more.
It could sound like this.
I'm sorry to interrupt but I'm conscious we only have 15 minutes left so I'd like to move on please.
Those are your examples then.
I'm going to include those in the newsletter so you can copy paste them.
You can put them on a post -it note and you can try them out in your next meeting.
The important thing then to recap is, if you want to intervene and direct the conversation, have it follow those three steps, the interruption, the problem, and then the action.
Keep it simple and don't reinvent the wheel every time with the vocabulary.
Sorry to interrupt, that's the only one you really need.
I feel or I don't feel for the problem.
and then finally with the action you can use the phrasal verb move on and just depending on how direct you want to sound you can just modify it a little bit.
I hope you found that episode useful today and if you did make sure you sign up and become a free member of Confident Business English the link to sign up is in the description box for this episode.
Thank you so much as always for squeezing me into your busy routine whether that's in the morning, on the way to work, when you're at home.
It's a pleasure as always to be with you and I will see you again next week.
Bye -bye.