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Softening your phrases in business communication

English is much less direct than German. If you say “Ich kann nicht am Treffen teilnehmen, da ich zur Zeit beschäftigt bin”, your German colleagues will have no problems with how you communicated that information. However, using that sentence (I’m too busy to come to the meeting) with your English partner/colleague may cause problems in […]

Leading interactive virtual meetings

What strategies can be used to make virtual meetings as effective and engaging as possible? One of my clients recently asked me to listen in on a virtual meeting and give feedback to the chairperson of the meeting. This person wanted to make the daily meeting more interesting, interactive and motivating for the participants. Regularly […]

Building business relationships with the Chinese

One of the companies where I train recently opened a plant in China, so doing business with Chinese people has become a topic of great interest for a lot of the participants in my training program. Some of these participants recently had the chance to attend an intercultural training session that highlighted some of the […]

Brainstorming in English

Contributing ideas in English is a common problem for both native and non-native speakers of English. Brainstorming requires you to speak spontaneously and multi-task which can be both stressful and demanding – especially in a foreign language. Participants often have to listen to a lot of people speaking at the same time which can push […]

Keys to doing business with India

Over a period of eight years, I’ve worked in India in various multinational companies. I’ve had the opportunity to experience Work-Life-Balance of normal working class people, both in India and in Germany.  I believe that success in business ultimately boils down to understanding different cultures beyond the surface.  Doing business with different cultures can be […]

Saying goodbye via email

Originally published on 10.02.2014 1.  Congratulate them (when appropriate) Congratulations on… Well done…. I hear congratulations are in order. 2.  Tell them you’ve enjoyed working with them / that you’re going to miss them It’s been great / nice / a pleasure working with you. We’re going to miss you around here. The place won’t […]

Getting meetings back on track

Do you ever feel your meetings have gone off track? You’re in a meeting to talk about one thing, but someone is talking about something completely different, someone else is discussing an unimportant point, and others are debating something completely irrelevant – the whole meeting has gone off track! When this happens, it’s hard to […]

Ground rules for working effectively in groups

Originally published on: 05.06.2014 One of my program participants recently mentioned the workplace value of the skills of moderation and facilitation. This conversation piqued my interest, so I searched the Net for the best books about facilitation and chose one that is considered a classic text on the topic of facilitation: The Skilled Facilitator: A […]

Giving and asking for recommendations

Giving and asking for recommendations Have you ever wanted to recommend a person, their services or even a good restaurant to someone else but didn’t know how to do it? Have you ever wanted someone to recommend you to others? Maybe you have a special skill that you’d like others to know about. You might […]

Teleconferences are not normal calls

Not your typical phone call Teleconferences are a great way to connect to people around the world. They’re less expensive than face-to-face meetings, often take less time, and solve problems more efficiently than emails do. Conducting a teleconference should be easy. All you have to do is connect everyone on the phone and make decisions […]

CEFR Levels: A Beginner’s Guide

What is your CEFR level? In Europe everyone talks about their language skills in terms of being somewhere between A1 and C2. But what does this really mean? How do you really know what level you are? Does the next person have the same understanding of what that level really means? Do you even know […]

Presentation Fillers: 4 Quick Tips to Help

Are you using too many presentation fillers when presenting? Have you ever given a presentation and started using words like ‘umm’, ‘erm’, ‘well’, ‘I’m not sure’, ‘maybe’, ‘how can I put this’, etc. because you didn’t know what to say or how to answer someone’s question? Have you thought about the effect this has on […]

Clarification Emails: Structure and Phrases

How do you write your clarification emails? How many times have you gotten an email and asked yourself: What is this person trying to say?  What do they want exactly?  This has happened to all of us at some point in our jobs.  Even though this situation may be unavoidable, there are ways to respond […]

Saying Goodbye: Email Phrases

What are you writing when saying goodbye in emails? We need to say goodbye a lot. It sounds like a really easy thing to do, doesn’t it? But there are different situations in which we need to write emails for saying goodbye. Do you say the same thing to the colleague who is going on […]

Expressing Congratulations: Email phrases

Do you need some ideas on expressing congratulations to colleagues? Expressing congratulations when something positive happens in the personal and professional lives of your colleagues and clients is a useful business skill. When you extend your sincere congratulations, you send the message that you care about what happens in the lives of others, even if […]