How to LEAD MEETINGS in English - Business English lesson

Let's discuss some Business English vocabulary and grammar that we can use to lead meetings. Running a meeting or being in charge of an event often means that you have new responsibilities and today's podcast we’re discussing the professional vocabulary and phrases that you can use to talk to your colleagues and managers about what is happening during your meeting. We’ll talk about starting meetings, avoiding delays, staying on track, and also give you some natural and native sounding words and phrases to help you sound more natural and native when speaking English at work.

Don’t forget that 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 don’t speak it natively then maybe we can work together to help you to achieve your language goals. If you’d like to book some time to meet with me through one to one video calls, then you can go to:

https://www.breakoutbusinessenglish.com/start

Transcript

Welcome back to the Breakout Business English podcast, where I help you to communicate better at work in English. Hi everyone. My name is Chris and I'm a Business English coach and tutor. Thank you so much for your time and for listening. And today's topic is leading meetings. Leading meetings.So the first episode of this podcast that I ever recorded was on the topic of meetings. It really didn't have much structure. And I know the sound quality was comparatively quite low. Hopefully these more recent podcasts sound better, but it continues to be one of the most popular and regularly downloaded episodes of the show. Given that continued popularity, I might explore the topic further. Today, however, we're going to focus on the idea of leading meetings. The task of being the person in charge of and running the whole event. We're going to discuss some of the key tasks and responsibilities that you may have when running a meeting, maybe some tips and advice on how you can lead more successful meetings, and we'll hear some native and natural vocabulary that we can use to achieve this.So let's get started. Let's start at the beginning of your meeting. There are a few things that are useful or even necessary to do in the first few minutes of your meeting. And some really specific vocabulary that we can use to talk about these. Let's listen to some common things to hear in the first few minutes of a meeting. Just a little housekeeping before we begin. Can everyone please ensure that their phones are on silent mode? And don't forget to email your availability for the next two weeks to David. Just a little housekeeping before we begin. Can everyone please ensure that their phones are on silent mode? And don't forget to email your availability for the next two weeks to David. Emma was supposed to be with us today, but she's been called away. She sends her apologies. Emma was supposed to be with us today, but she's been called away. She sends her apologies. I've chaired this meeting a couple of times now, and it's great to be your chair again. I've chaired this meeting a couple of times now, and it's great to be your chair again. Let's begin our vocabulary discussion today with the word housekeeping. Housekeeping, which we heard in the first example. We heard just a little housekeeping before we begin. Just a little housekeeping before we begin. Housekeeping usually refers to the maintenance work that you usually need to do in order to keep a house working properly. This might be vacuuming the floors or washing the dishes, for instance. It's the name that we give to the department in a hotel that deals with these things. Maybe you've been staying in a hotel and heard that knock on the door, followed by the word housekeeping. If you use it during a meeting or event, then you're talking about things that are important for the running of the meeting, but not relevant to the agenda or the content of the meeting. For instance, maybe you need to tell everyone about a scheduled fire alarm test, where the nearest bathrooms are, or what time you plan to take a break for lunch. If your meeting is online and people are working from home, then there's probably a lot less of this. At least I hope people know where the bathrooms are in their own homes. In our second example, we heard the plural noun apologies. If someone sends their apologies, it means that they are supposed to be in a meeting or planned to be in a meeting, but cannot attend. They can't be there. We always use this in its plural form and always with the verb to send when talking about people being unavailable for meetings.So we often hear things like, she sends her apologies. She sends her apologies. Remember, this is the plural noun apologies, not the verb apologize. That's apologies and not apologize. I can apologize for not being in a meeting or say that I'm sorry that I can't be there, but the formal and professional, and I guess technical way to do this is to say that I send my apologies. In the third example, we heard chair used as a noun and as a verb. As a noun, we heard, it's great to be your chair again today. It's great to be your chair again today. And as a verb, we heard, I've chaired this meeting a couple of times. I've chaired this meeting a couple of times. I'm going to guess that chair is a word that you already know, but as a noun and as another word for a seat, something that you sit on. However, in the context of a meeting, the chair is the person in charge, the person who runs the meeting and controls what happens, therefore the verb to chair means to do this, to run a meeting and to be in charge of it.So we can say that a chair chairs a meeting. It's a slightly strange sentence, but we can technically say that a chair chairs a meeting, that's the noun, then the verb. In the past, it was common to hear chairman or chairwoman, chairman, chairwoman. These days, it's more common to hear chairperson or even more frequently, we just say chair. Before we move on to our next set of tips and vocabulary, don't forget that my full -time job is helping international professionals, probably just like you, 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 maybe we can work together to help you achieve your language goals. If you would like to book some of my 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. I sometimes have offers and discounts on class packages and entering your email address on the website is the best way to be the first to find out when those limited time deals are available. I've worked with over 1000 non -native English speaking professionals from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders to help them achieve their goals. And I look forward to meeting you. Okay, let's keep going. Now, if you're leading a meeting or chairing a meeting, which are usually the same thing, then one of your main responsibilities is to make sure that things keep moving, everyone follows the agenda and you avoid delays. Let's listen to a couple of examples of people leading meetings and trying their best to avoid delays. That's an important topic, but I think we need to stick to the agenda. Could we discuss it in any other business? That's an important topic, but I think we need to stick to the agenda. Could we discuss it in any other business? I don't think we have time for tangents today. Let's try to get back on track. I don't think we have time for tangents today. Let's try to get back on track. If we go down that rabbit hole, then we're in danger of derailing the whole meeting. Let's stay on track. Okay, let's start our vocabulary discussion with a phrase from the first example, which is, I'm afraid.Don't have time on our schedule to get sidetracked today. I'm afraid we don't have time on our schedule to get sidetracked today. I'm afraid we don't have time on our schedule to get sidetracked today. I'm afraid we don't have time on our schedule to get sidetracked today. And that was any other business. In the example, we heard, could we discuss it in any other business? Could we discuss it in any other business? Any other business usually appears at the end as the last item on an agenda and is almost always shortened to the initials A -O -B.So A -O -B is something you will very often find on the end of an English language agenda, especially for more formal meetings. This is a catch -all. It's a place to put all of those topics that people wanted to discuss in the meeting, but were not on the agenda. A -O -B usually gets whatever time is left at the end of the meeting allocated to it. Maybe that's five minutes and maybe it's 15. But if someone brings up a topic that is likely to take time away from the agenda and you want to avoid this, then consider discussing it during A -O -B or any other business. In the second example, we heard the noun tangent, as in, I don't think we have time for tangents today. I don't think we have time for tangents today. This is one of my favorite words in professional English. Admittedly, this is mostly because I think it's a fun word to say, but it is very useful. A tangent is a topic that is completely different from what is being discussed. If a meeting has been called, for instance, to discuss the hiring process in your company, and someone starts to talk about how much the HR department need new desk chairs, then we could call this a tangent. We often talk about going off on a tangent, as in, we went off on a 20 minute tangent about desk chairs. Or maybe the team went off on a tangent, but I managed to get them back on track.So the next time you're leading a meeting and someone suggests that you discuss something tangential, that's the adjective tangential, maybe you can discuss it in any other business. You've probably noticed a few phrases in this section, which include the word track. We've heard get sidetracked, get back on track, stay on track, and the related word to derail. There are a couple of ways to think about these words, but I encourage you to think about your meeting or task as a train and your agenda or schedule as the track that it needs to follow.So for instance, to get sidetracked means to follow a tangent and spend time on something that you didn't intend to. To stay on track means to continue following the agenda as you had originally intended. And to derail a meeting is to go so completely off track that it is impossible to get back on track. And the agenda of the meeting is a distant memory. In our earlier example, this might mean that you spend the whole meeting discussing exactly which new desk chairs would be the best choice for the HR department and when they can be delivered and who should get the old chairs. One particularly fun piece of vocabulary, which we heard in the third example, was rabbit hole, as in we don't have time to go down that rabbit hole. We don't have time to go down that rabbit hole. This phrase asks us to think of the place where a rabbit lives, one small hole in the ground that we can see, which then becomes a really complicated set of tunnels below. When we apply this to information or a conversation, we mean that we started talking about or researching something and then followed that to another idea and then to another until eventually you're discussing a completely different subject from the one you started with. Let's move on to taking breaks. If your meeting is long enough, then your attendees will eventually need a few minutes to refresh themselves for the rest of the meeting. Let's hear some natural and native sounding examples of how we can introduce and manage breaks when we are leading meetings. Let's adjourn for lunch and reconvene at 1pm. Let's adjourn for lunch and reconvene at 1pm. I think we should take five and give everyone a chance to stretch their legs. I think we should take five and give everyone a chance to stretch their legs. A slightly different set of examples there. I put all of the vocabulary I wanted to give you into two sentences, two examples. The first was particularly formal and the second was very much informal, much more informal. Let's start with the formal example. The first one. I used two formal pieces of vocabulary. The first was adjourn, as in let's adjourn for lunch. Let's adjourn for lunch. And the second was reconvene, as in reconvene at 1pm. Reconvene at 1pm. You might not have heard the word reconvene before, but you've definitely heard some related words. Maybe you've had a conversation before or you might have attended a convention or a conference, for instance. All of these and many similar words have their origins in the ancient Latin words for come and together. I did consider actually saying those words on the podcast, but I know I have some native Italian speakers listening, so I won't try. But I will say that the word for together there is con, C -O -N, con means together or with. Convene is a word that means exactly that, for people to come together.So convene means to come together. We can use this to tell people to come to a meeting. For instance, let's convene in my office at 2pm. Let's convene in my office at 2pm. Or maybe I've convened this meeting to discuss our budget. I've convened this meeting to discuss our budget. Then if we add the prefix re --- R -E to the beginning, we have a word that means to come together again.So in the context of a break, you end a break by reconvening a meeting. This is a word I heard a lot while working at universities around the north of England. I was often not participating in, but in the same room as some very formal high level meetings. And I often heard things like let's convene tomorrow or let's reconvene later. The second interesting word in our formal examples was adjourn, as in let's adjourn until 2pm. Let's adjourn until 2pm. The word doesn't come from Latin, but instead another frequent contributor to the English language, and that is French. This is the reason for the very French spelling of adjourn, which is A -D -J -O -U -R -N, to adjourn. Lots of English words come from French and adjourn is one of them. To adjourn simply means to take a break with the intention of continuing later. This could be in a few minutes or even in a few days. A fun way to use this word is to follow it with to and add the place that you want people to go for their break.So maybe the next time your meeting takes a break, you could adjourn to a local cafe, perhaps. Let's move on to our informal example and discuss take five and stretch your legs. Perhaps these need less explanation, but we'll start with take five. Using the verb take and then a number is an informal way to announce a break and to include the length of that break.Some common examples are take five, take ten, and I often hear take 20 as well. And of course, by starting our sentence with an infinitive verb, take, we have created an instruction.So when you say, Hey, everyone, take five, please take five. You're giving an instruction there. Incidentally, if you're a jazz music fan, then you might know this as the title of a really popular piece of jazz music by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Take five. Fantastic piece of jazz music there. We heard there stretch your legs, as in give everyone a chance to stretch their legs. Give everyone a chance to stretch their legs. If you've ever been on a long distance, long haul flight, then you've definitely been encouraged to do this. Similarly, it's one of the most common things that meeting chairs invite their attendees to do, along with going to the bathroom, getting a drink, and maybe even getting some air if it's a nice day outside. One more time. Don't forget that 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 maybe we can work together to help you achieve your language goals. If you'd like to book some of my time to meet with me through one to one video calls, just you and me, then you can go to breakoutbusinessenglish .com. That's breakoutbusinessenglish .com, the title of this podcast, and find out more. I sometimes have offers and discounts on class packages, and entering your email address on the website is the best way to be the first to find out when those limited time deals are available. I've worked with over 1000 non -native English speakers from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders to help them achieve their goals. And I look forward to meeting you. That is everything for today. Don't forget that between episodes of the podcast, you can get videos every couple of days on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and now Red Note as well. Just search for Breakout Business English. If there's a topic that you'd like to hear me talk about on the podcast, then I would be excited to hear your ideas. Leave me a message or a comment on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube, and I look forward to hearing from you. But I should say, if you really want to get my attention, leave that comment on YouTube. I'm on there a lot more than the other platforms. If you are on Apple podcasts, then feel free to leave a review, maybe write some kind words on there. Reviews help to push this podcast out to new listeners and bring more people to this show.So if you found any kind of value or use in this podcast and you want to say thanks, then a review is the best way to do that. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. And I'll talk to you again next time on the Breakout Business English podcast.