MEETINGS 5: DISCUSSION TECHNIQUES BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE

 

BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE 58. MEETINGS 5: DISCUSSION TECHNIQUES

 

A Hedging Hedging is when you avoid disagreeing directly. To hedge, you could say: • I take your point about punctuality, but clocking in and out would not be very popular. • I understand what you’re saying about the needs of each department, but each department must be treated in an appropriate way. B Checking understanding, interrupting, referring back To interrupt someone politely • Can I come in here? • If I can just stop you for a moment …… • Sorry to interrupt you, but …… To refer back to what was said earlier: • As we were saying earlier ………. • To go back to what X was saying earlier ………. • To go back to what I was just saying ………. To check that you understand what someone has said: • Are you saying that ……….? • Are you suggesting that ……….? • Are you implying that ……….? C Agreement, consensus or compromise? Hillary Rhodes is talking about how to deal with agreement and disagreements. ‘It may be possible to reach an agreement about something, or at least come to a consensus: something that most people can agree with. It may be possible to compromise or to find a compromise: an agreement where people accept less than they wanted at first. Or perhaps the differences are so great that there will just be disagreement. Something in particular that you disagree about is a disagreement.’ D Concluding Carla Eagleton sums up and brings the meeting to a close: EXERCISES 58.1 Use complete expressions from A and B opposite to complete the dialogue, based on the prompts in brackets. The first one has been done for you. A: We really will have to increase productivity. B: (hedge: coming) but there are limits to how much we can ask of each individual employee. After all, if you look back at the records for ….. I hear where you’re coming fro on this, but there are limits to how much we can ask of each individual employee. After all, if you look back at the records for ….. 58.2 Put the extracts from this newspaper report of a public meeting into the correct order. 1. a compromise or a consensus. There was total disagreement. After four hours of heated discussion, Ms Johns said, ‘It’s been a very interesting discussion but we’re running. 2. out of time we’re going to have to stop there. I’ll let you know the committee’s decision about the solution to this problem by the end of the month.

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