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In this article, we look at one of the most difficult—and most important—communication skills in the workplace: dealing with people who are angry . Some of this involves understanding how  to calm a tense situation, but for English learners the key goal is learning what to say and how to say it . From my experience, there are four essential skills  that help you manage anger professionally and confidently: 1.        Acknowledge the person’s anger 2.       Show that you are l

This post follows on from the previous one about structuring a meeting. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can find the link here - Chairing Meetings: Introduction & Structuring the Agenda   In this post, we’ll look at another meeting scenario—this time a one-to-one conversation between the mediator ( Aled ) and one of the conflict parties ( Francis ), who is accompanied by their lawyer ( Alex ). There are three particularly useful skills highlighted in the video:   1.        En

Many of my students have told me that they find it difficult to know what to say to lead or structure meetings in English. This blog post looks at a video that gives a really good demonstration of somebody chairing a meeting and breaks down some of the main language used in it, which can then be readily incorporated into your own professional lives. Firstly, watch the video below, and while watching, focus on the way the Chair moves between the different topics, and how they

Elicitation is a communication technique that originally came from the world of intelligence and espionage, but it’s surprisingly relevant to everyday English conversations. The idea is simple: instead of asking direct questions, you make statements that encourage people to share or correct information naturally. The topic is explored in a recent edition of the Diary of a CEO podcast which you can watch - the section you want is from 52:15-59:27. In the podcast they explain t

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