Riassunto esame Lingua inglese 2, Prof. Rossi Enrica, libro consigliato In company 3.0: upper Intermediate, John Allison, Mark Powell

Unit 1: Business or pleasure?

It is important to like the people you do business with. This is connected to the importance of networking, as you interact with people and create connections. Success with networking is due to the ability to converse and interact through small talks. Small talks (ST) allow you to have information about the person you do business with and find things in common. Unfortunately, small talk is something not so natural for most people; they need a lot of practice and effort, also to seem realistic and fluent. In my opinion, investing in corporate hospitality is something undervalued and really important. The ability to create a connection with a client, to earn their trust and make them like you is way more important, especially in crisis moments. People will buy from friends, from people they trust, even if it's not the best offer they have received so far.

For what it concerns me, they are not easy. I usually do not take the first step in a conversation, especially if I'm new in a place or environment like at work. My first aim when I do small talk is to make the other person feel comfortable and to have a good impression on her or him.

“ARE” rule for small talk

• Anchor: Find something in common
• Reveal: Say something about yourself connected to the anchor topic
• Encourage: Ask open questions

“FORD” rule

• Family
• Occupation
• Recreation, hobbies
• Dreams

ST are important also before doing business, so having a polite and friendly conversation with the person you do business with will develop trust. Start with chatty questions about the day, for example, and then go deeper into business. To start making ST, common compliments followed by questions (e.g., I love your bag, is it new?) are useful. Ask engaging questions that allow people to talk, ask for advice or opinions. Body language is also very important to let the other person know you, for example, if you tend to be expansive or more closed, the way you sit or stand.

Expressions to guide the conversation

• Incidentally
• Talking of
• By the way
• Before I forget
• That reminds me of
• On the subject of

Expressions to say something

• Not really
• Not very
• Not actually
• Not exactly
• Not any more
• Not at the moment
• Not so far as I know
• As a matter of fact

Expressions to give compliments

• You're looking well!
• I like your ...!
• Where did you get it?
• Btw you did a great job
• Compliments on your brilliant idea
• You really know how to do your job

Making conversation rules

• Use what you already know
• Try to compliment them with others
• Show enthusiasm
• Don’t contradict too directly
• Change the subject smoothly
• Don’t break off the conversation too abruptly

Unit 2: Information exchange

It is a fundamental part of a corporation to be well organized by having an excellent information exchange through meetings and briefings. Before holding a meeting, it is significant to ensure that it is kept to a minimum to not waste time, or it will become more important than the problem itself. How direct people are at business meetings or in business in general depends on the country's culture. Some of them tend to be more direct like Americans, Germans, and Italians, while others are much more indirect like British, Chinese, and Japanese, meaning they are more reluctant to say what they exactly think. Cultures can also be more or less expressive and confrontational.

The question of meetings is connected also to breaking the bad news. Sometimes proposals and solutions to problems can be controversial, and we may not agree with them, so it is important to analyze them one at a time, take note of the suggestions and comments, and be ready to change your mind.

Language of business

• Change of mindset: Rethinking your attitude
• Company's core competence: Things it does well
• Paradigm shift: Change in the way something is done
• Being proactive: Make things happen instead of waiting, have plan B C
• To synergies: Combine strength and benefit from working in teams
• Outside the box: Think totally new
• To drill down: Increasing a specific aspect
• Getting buy-in from: Get support
• To the next level: Expand
• Reality check: Reconnect to the real world
• Bottom line: Point of a discussion
• Big picture: Whole situation
• Benchmark: Compare to successful company's standard
• Empowerment: Give authority

Discussion Topics

• Production methods
• Balance sheets
• Market trends
• Staff appraisals
• Profit margins
• Distribution channels
• Quality control
• Sales projections
• Advertising campaigns
• Cost cutting
• Supply chains
• Product development

Unit 3: Rapport

Building a rapport with people who are different from us consists of very delicate and basic strategies (not taken for granted). Especially in the business world, having a solid relationship with your partner or client can take the whole commission to another level. The basics for building relationships are maintaining eye contact, smiling, and being sincere, being sensitive to cultural differences, and respecting personal space, due to the fact that not all cultures appreciate physical contact.

For the other person, it is important not to feel inferior, so trying to dress down could be a solution. Sometimes it is useful to mirror the other person's behavior, speech, and style, but at the same time be yourself. Make them feel comfortable, especially if they come to you. Connection is extremely linked to empathy, in particular to minimize differences between yourself and other people. It also helps to find common grounds like education, hobbies, experiences.

I think that matching the same energy with someone is a great way to start to build a rapport, but solid ones are built over trust and loyalty. If some techniques are way too far from your own personality, I think it won’t be a success, especially speaking of long-term rapports (like flattering). Sometimes they can seem insincere and not credible, like, for example, mirroring breathing, posture, or speech.

Trust can be cognitive - task-based, it comes from reasoning - or affective - relationship-based.

Culture Clash

I work in a restaurant as a waitress and I have like 10 other people that work with me, among them waiters, cooks, and chefs. Some of them come from Russia or Moldavia, and they have been living here for many years by now, so they speak a pretty decent Italian. I must say that the cultural shock was not that strong; these people are great workers, diligent, responsible, and well-organized. Being 4 of them Russian or Moldavian, sometimes they start speaking their language among them without considering that we don't understand a word. I noticed that they are way less extroverted than us but always say what they think.

Cultural differences in the business world can be related to many shades; apart from Hofstede's cultural values (power distance, individualism-collectivism, M-F, attitude towards future and risk aversion), there is dress code, socialization, age and gender roles, body language.

Cultural Sensitivity

• Understand your own culture and be aware of differences.
• Suspend judgement while observing others.
• Identify and share common values.
• Respect differences and don't try to convert.
• Be inclusive (we, us..).
• Be objective and positive.

We can define cultures as Coconut or Peach culture: coconut one is very difficult to know something about, they do not share lots of emotions and info, on the contrary, peaches are more extroverted, sociable, and enthusiastic. It can be applied also to people.

Unit 4: Voice and visuals

How to keep your audience’s attention when you speak. What keeps an audience concentrated while someone’s speaking can be expertise, enthusiasm, energy, and vocal range. Powerpoint is relevant to apply some of these strategies, due to the fact that a person’s attention span is about 15 minutes. People get distracted every 20 seconds. The attention span can change from one culture to another; for example, the best listeners are considered to be Chinese and Japanese. People generally prefer lower, softer, and friendly voices.

Visual impact is a fundamental key, but it’s not everything. What really changes someone's perception towards the speaker is the body language. Another perfect strategy is to accompany speeches with images, videos, samples, websites.

“Death by pp” means putting too many bullet-pointed slides which create a loss of impact.

Commenting on Statistics (best to worst)

• Increased tenfold
• Quadrupled
• More than tripled
• Nearly doubled
• Plateau’d
• Almost halved

Adjectives from biggest to smallest

• Huge/massive
• Considerable/significant
• Moderate/reasonable
• Modest/slight

Success rates

• Spectacular/phenomenal
• Promising/encouraging
• Disappointing/unimpressive
• Miserable/disastrous

Unit 5: Problems on the phone

In this chapter, we talk about problems on the phone and its usefulness and dealing with chatterboxes. There is an interesting quote by Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor company, “Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in training to solve them” and I think that it is absolutely true. The article says that over half the planet now owns a phone; up to 2 hours in every working day are wasted in small talk on the phone, for example, social chit-chat like “how are you?” and in these situations, you want only to finish the speech (get off the phone).

It talks about the amount of energy and time we waste on the phone every day at work, trying to solve problems from a distance. Sometimes we also deal with the so-called chatterboxes: those people who talk continuously, never getting to the point of the conversation and getting lost in so many topics, gossip, rumors, and news instead of telling us the purpose of the call.

The article gives us some advice and strategy for getting rid of chatterboxes on the phone, like asking what the purpose of the call was, which makes the other person understand that you want to end the conversation, that it was a pleasure talking to them but you have lots of things to do. If these strategies do not work, the most drastic one is lying and saying that someone has called you or that you can’t hear his voice on the phone anymore.

Speaking about daily life, one of these chatterboxes is my grandma: she calls every morning and starts talking about everything, even if she already told me the same things the day before. I know she calls me without a specific purpose, so I usually use the excuse of studying or helping my mum with housework. Although I realize that sometimes I am also a chatterbox, for example with my boyfriend. I often call him during...