BE 378: How to Catch Attention When You Introduce a Change in English
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This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 378. How to catch attention when you introduce a change in English.

Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business. For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA. Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English.

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Fluency Score, one word, allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. Hey, Michelle, how's it going today?

Hey, Lindsay, I'm good. I'm good. Lindsay, have you ever had a preconception about something that turned out to be false? Oh, for sure. This happens a lot. Preconception about maybe, for example, when I visit a new city that doesn't seem very interesting, but then it is really interesting. There's a lot going on there. Or sometimes about a person. I mean, we've talked about don't judge a book by its cover. But it's the human mind. It's natural to jump to conclusions about people.

And usually they're not true. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, a preconception is this idea that you have before you actually know. It's whatever bias you've built up in your mind before you know more. Exactly. So this is a huge skill, the ability in business to be able to talk about

how you might tell someone to come to something with a new mind like to dismiss everything you've ever heard about something I feel like when would this come up in business as an ability that might be useful

Yeah, well, I mean, just to introduce new ideas or perhaps at the start of a presentation could be really good to open it or in a meeting you could use it as well. But to me, it definitely screams presentation. What about you? Yeah. And I think also for innovation for companies, I think when an industry is more and more matured, more developed, there's a lot of

There's been a lot of innovation already. And then I think current solutions get in the way of new ideas. So if you want to try to get your team to kind of forget everything you know about solutions that exist for language learning and let's come up with something brand new that no one's ever thought of. Right. I could see someone trying to do that in a brainstorming session.

Yeah. Yeah. So, well, you just said the expression, so it's perfect. So the expression we're talking about today is forget everything you know about that, that, that. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing how like having a lot of information about something can actually prevent new ideas. Isn't that interesting? That is interesting. Yeah. We can't let things hold us back in that way. This is very common. I think that I would use this. What do you think, Lindsay?

Yeah, I do. I think it sounds a little dramatic too. Yeah, it does. If you're going to that conference keynote or something, now you're leaning in. Ooh, he's going to tell me everything I know is wrong. It's kind of intriguing, you know? Right. That's true. It is intriguing. I mean, it's about throwing away an old way of thinking or

Or a coming to, yeah, coming to something with an open mind. And it's about these innovative ideas that we want to share because we don't want people to be too set in our ways. For sure. For sure. Because like we said, innovation doesn't happen. Progress doesn't happen. I mean, like you think about these bigger companies like Facebook and like there hasn't been a ton of tech progress other than AI, you know, social media tech companies cropping up. And it's

part of it is because the field is already pretty crowded, right? Yeah. So I also think this would be great to convince someone to try something new, maybe a new product or a system, or just explaining that something is completely different than expected. But Lindsay, do you think that it could sound a little like

infomercially or salesman-y? I think it can. I mean, depending on who you're talking to, you know, if you're... Yes, I think it depends on the... If you're on stage, then no. But if you're, I don't know, going door to door and saying, forget everything.

- Everything you know about vacuum cleaners. - Then you are a little salesman, then you are a door to door vacuum cleaner salesperson. Nope, nothing wrong with that, but yeah, that is a little salesy for sure. So we wanna make sure we're connecting it to ideas rather than products, right? - Right, yes, yes, yes, exactly. So let's do some examples and show how this would look. - Okay, here we go. Forget everything you know about our old system. This is completely different.

Dramatic. Very dramatic. Or forget everything you know about SEO. Our team has come up with something new that will help increase your customer base by at least 50%. Or forget everything you know about how we used to contact customers. We are switching to all electronic records. Nice.

And I'm sure like a lot of offices, like my dad used to run an optometric office and they at some point, I don't know when, sometime in the aughts probably switched over to electronic records from the physical records, right? Could be scary for some people. And we could do other episodes about how to maintain, manage expectations and maintain your team, kind of assuage them a little bit when you do make changes like this. But that's for another day, Michelle.

Yeah, no, but that is interesting, right? When this can be very intimidating when you have to learn a new system, just a new way of doing things at work when you've been so used to something. Yes, it can be a lot. Oh, for sure. And I think in real life, this applies. Well, I think this applies when we learn new languages. Like when I tried learning Arabic a couple of years ago to get ready to go to Egypt, I

I kind of had to forget everything I knew about Spanish and Japanese and French because it was just so different and I had nothing to grab onto. I had no basics, no fundamentals.

It's kind of that feeling of floating or falling a little bit. Yes. Yeah, that's true. And just being like, just kind of settling into the discomfort in a way. Yeah. And I mean, you're saying here, it's true. It's sometimes our old knowledge or old way of doing things can get in the way. I 100% agree with that. It's like you need a, what we call in Buddhism, a beginner's mind. Right. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Very interesting. Mm-hmm.

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Well, you could say, this is that word preconceptions, right? You could say, leave your preconceptions at the door. Yes, yes.

So I know you're set. I know you are set in your ways, but try to leave your it's hard to say. I know you're set in your ways, but try to leave your preconceptions at the door. Yeah. And I would be careful with this. Who are you talking to here? I could see more using this when you're talking to like your parent or something, your older parent, elderly parents, maybe not because it is kind of rude to say you're set in your ways. I know you're set in your ways.

Right, exactly. Yeah, don't, yeah, that's a good point. Let's see, yeah, use this, save this one for probably outside of work. Yeah, for sure. Or ignore your inclination to do X, right? So if we're so used to doing something in a certain way, ignore your inclination to file your reports on this tab. It's actually going to now be done over the phone. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You get so used to something. It's like, you know, muscle memory. Um, so you have to change. Oh, for sure. It's like last year when we, we turned over, moved over to monday.com using monday.com and I had to really fight myself and I'm still fighting myself to not write down things I need to do on a piece of paper, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Um, or just, this is kind of different, but very similar idea. Yeah. Well,

But we're starting over. We're starting over. So things will be different. Nice. Love that. What do you think, Michelle? Is it harder for people to let go of their ways? Do you think as people get older, they tend to get more set in their ways? What do you think? I think so. I mean, listen, I mean, look at social media. I mean, it's harder to...

I don't know. It's harder to get used to things. I mean, even in our age group, Lindsay, I mean, when you get we get set in our ways about human social media. I mean, when, you know, there are certain things where I'm just like, oh, well, I'm not going to I'm probably not going to do that. I remember it took me a while to understand what the big deal about Instagram was. You know, like it's just like I think especially with technology and things like social media, it can be hard. And then but you want to stay up on it because.

Who was I just talking to? I don't know. Just about how, you know, if you if you get behind and don't and decide you're not going to learn something, then it's like reminds you of being like, yeah, oh, I'm like, oh, I don't know. I'm too set in my ways. I'm stuck. And then you're kind of that's what I think people start to look at you and they think you're a little bit.

old. Yeah, no, I think you're right. It's important to keep up with stuff, even if you are older, maybe in the workforce, maybe you have a lot of young coworkers and everyone's adopting AI and learning how to, you know, ask good questions to AI. That's something that is important to keep up with for sure. And that is my goal. I need to get more into that. So important to use it. And I'm sure it can be really useful if you know how to ask the right questions.

Right? Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, you know, this is just really good because it can also show that you understand someone is going through a change and how they do something.

something, how they understand something, their methods, their routine, whatever it is. So it also just kind of shows that you have that awareness as well, even though you're going to be teaching something new. Totally. Let's do a role play, Michelle, and see how it looks. So here we are doing a presentation to our team about a new kind of software. All right. Yes. Okay. So we know this is going to be tough because we're essentially starting over.

Exactly, but we're going to ask you to try your best to leave your preconceptions at the door. Yes, ignore your inclination to question this until you try it for a couple of months if you don't mind. Okay, so here we go. Forget everything you know about how we contact our customers. We are ready to introduce something that will completely change how we work. It's scary but exciting and we will be much better off for it in the long run.

Yeah, I think the challenge that organizations sometimes run into with this change management is that maybe they bring in external trainers that no one's connected to, right? To train on a software. And those people have no context for the company or ability to kind of connect anything to what was done before. And that could be scary for people, I think. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. So let's go through it. So I said, you said, this is going to be tough because essentially we're starting over. Hmm.

Yeah. And then you said exactly, but we're going to ask you to try your best to leave your preconceptions at the door. Leave your leave. This would be another episode idea. Leave something at the door. Oh, yeah. That would be cool. Yes. Hit follow on Business English, guys. Make sure you catch that episode. Yeah. Oh,

Or make sure you do it on All Ears English too because it might be over there. More likely it'll be over there. Yeah, good stuff. All right. And then you said ignore your inclination to question this until you try it for a couple months. That's a challenge, right? You're going to completely just dive into this. And that's kind of what you have to do. And then, okay, after two months, you can question, does it work? Do we like it? But...

The mind is so resistant to change sometimes. And you have to kind of set up a structure to say, I have a defense against my mind. Questioning and being cynical, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I said, so here we go. Forget everything we know about how we contact our customers. Everything you know. Forget everything you know. Right. It's a call to action here.

Yeah, so it looks like this is the actual start of the presentation. And maybe I'm even showing a slide or something like that. But just yeah, very, very good way to start off. Nice. Well, Michelle, what's another business English episode that our listeners should check out right now?

Yeah, guys, check out episode 368. And that is flailing with a new office tool. What to say? Love that. Go and check that one out. And what's our takeaway for today? I mean, this is all about managing change, introducing new ideas, clearing the mind.

Yeah, change is hard. So we, you know, we want to get to that base where of course you can't just forget everything completely that you know, but to be able to say, okay, this is separate and now I'm going to come into something with a fresh mind. Yes. I love that. So important. Michelle, thanks for bringing this topic to the podcast today and guys hit the follow button right here on business English. We'll see you next time. All right. Thank you. Have a good day. Bye. Bye.

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