How to fail and still succeed - Business English lesson (Intelligent failure - part 2)

This is our second episode discussing Harvard Professor of Leadership and management and her book on intelligent failure. So if you speak English at work, but aren't a native English speaker, then this episode will help you to think about failure, how to communicate with your colleagues on this topic and give you all of the natural and native sounding vocabulary that you need to do this.

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Also, if you're studying for the IELTS, TOEFL, or Cambridge English tests and exams then you might find some of the vocabulary in this episode really useful.

This podcast is all about helping you to communicate better, in English, at work. I work with international English speakers from around the world who use English, at work, as a second or third language and I hope that I can bring some of the ideas, vocabulary, and grammar, from those sessions, to you in this podcast.

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. 

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Today's examples:

- We've done our homework on this so we're pretty confident about the outcome.

- Now that we’re got a hypothesis, we just need to test it and see if it holds up to scrutiny.

- We’ve got a hunch, now we just need to test it out.

- If this doesn’t pan out then we need to make sure that it doesn’t impact the wider project.

- Fortunately, we’ve engineered this test so as to limit the fallout.

Transcript

Welcome back to the Breakout Business English podcast, where every week... We discuss how to improve the way that you communicate at work in English and the vocabulary, grammar and skills to help you achieve your communication goals. My name is Chris. I'm a business English coach who has personally worked with over 1,000 international professionals, just like you, to improve their communication skills. Thank you so much for listening, as always. And today is part two of our discussion on how to fail intelligently.So last week we started to look at the four criteria for intelligent failure described by Amy Edmondson in her book, The Right Kind of Wrong. Today, we're going to complete this exploration by taking a look at some vocabulary and ideas that we can use to talk about her third and fourth key points. If you missed last week's episode where we talked about the idea that failure is okay when you're exploring new territory and when you're in pursuit of a goal, then feel free to go back and listen to that. However, You... Don't need to listen to that to get value from today's podcast. Perfectly good. Podcasts that.So today we're going to talk about the idea that intelligent failure happens when you're testing a new hypothesis or idea, and that your failures should be kept as small as possible. So, let's get started. According to Harvard leadership and management professor Amy Edmondson, a failure can be called intelligent if you are testing a hypothesis. You should have a theory based on what you already know, and your goal should be to find out whether or not that theory is accurate and correct. Let's listen now. To some natural and native ways to talk about theories and hypotheses at work. We've done our homework on this, so we're pretty confident about the outcome. We've done our homework on this, so we're pretty confident about the outcome. Now that we've got a hypothesis, we just need to test it and see if it holds up to scrutiny. Now that we've got a hypothesis, we just need to test it and see if it holds up to scrutiny. We've got a hunch. Now we just need to test it out. We've got a hunch. Now we just need to test it out. Okay, so let's start our vocabulary discussion here with homework. Homework is a word that we usually use in school. To talk about work that our teachers want us to do home. Outside of school. Time. In our first example, we heard 'we've done our homework on this'. We've done our homework on this. Now, homework is often used to talk about planning and preparation at work in our professional lives. If you give a particularly good presentation, for instance, one in which you're able to answer all of the questions that you're asked, then your manager might say that you've obviously done your homework. You've obviously done your homework. In a job interview. You might get this response if you sound like you know a lot about the company or the project that you're interviewing to be a part of. It is important not to confuse homework with housework, however. Although they sound like very similar ideas, they are in practice completely different with completely different meanings. Housework is the word that we use to talk about cleaning up around the house. Doing the laundry, washing the dishes and vacuuming the floors. Definitely a different thing and certainly not as useful in a job interview. Let's move on now to the word... Scrutiny. Brutiny. In the second example, we heard: "We just need to test it and see if it holds up to scrutiny." We just need to test it and see if it holds up to scrutiny. That's spelled R. You. T-I-N-G. And Why? And if you want to check any of the other spellings or read the examples from this podcast, then you'll find all of those examples down in the show notes. Lutiny is a noun that we use to talk about the careful and close examination of something.Like the scrutiny that your passport comes under when you enter a new country. Or the scrutiny that an interviewer might put your CV under. Slander is a common word to use with scrutiny. Things come under scrutiny when they are closely examined. We often hear this in the form of a verb, and that is to scrutinize. To scrutinize. We might hear this in a sentence like, "You need to scrutinize the contract closely before you sign it." You need to scrutinize the contract closely before you sign it. And as we did in our example, if you scrutinize something and everything is fine, then you can say that it holds up. To scrutiny. It holds up. Discutiny. That's the phrasal verb, to hold up. We heard that the word punch. Lunch. That's H-U-N-C-H. In the third example, we heard "We've got a hunch." We've got a hunch. I wasn't quite sure whether to include this word, because to be completely honest, it's not exactly the same as a hypothesis. A hypothesis is based on evidence. It sounds scientific. If you've observed a situation closely and really analyzed the data, then you can develop a hypothesis. However, maybe you sometimes make decisions based on hunches. A hunch is based on your emotions and feelings. It might be called your gut feeling. Or if we want to sound a little more professional, we could call it your intuition. If a colleague takes a sick day off work, then you might have a hunch that they're not really sick. Maybe they're just on vacation. You can't be certain. And it's not really based on evidence. It's just your feeling. And if you have a hunch that improving your English will improve your career prospects or just your performance at work, then maybe we can work together. My full-time job is helping international professionals, likely 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 I'd love to meet you. If you'd like to book some 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. Starting on our very first call, we can focus on the specific opportunities that you have to improve your English and communication skills. And of course, the mistakes that you make most often or cause the biggest problems with your communication. And right now, you can use the code PODCAST30, that's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-3-0, at checkout to get a 30% discount off your first booking of 30, 45, or 60 minutes, whichever is best for you.Sometimes my calendar gets a little busy, so if you have trouble finding a time that works for you can always send me a message through the contact page on the website and ask if I have any time to fit you in, or just click the button to join the waiting list for a slot on my calendar. I've worked with over 1,000 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. The fourth way that Amy Edmondson suggests we work is to keep our failures as small as possible. This is the idea that we want any negative results to be relatively contained. And that we should limit the effects of our failures. Let's listen to some natural and native ways that we can talk about this idea. If this doesn't pan out, then we need to make sure that it doesn't impact the wider project. If this doesn't pan out, then we need to make sure that it doesn't impact the wider project. Fortunately, we've engineered this test so as to limit the fallout. Fortunately, we've engineered this test so as to limit the fallout. Let's talk first about the word 'fallout'. In that second example, we heard "We've engineered this test so as to limit the fallout." to limit the fallout. For this definition, I want to take you back to the 1970s and the 1980s, a decade which I just experienced part of. I was born in May 1989, so almost taking you back to my decade there.So let's go back to the 1970s and indeed the 1980s when nuclear war was a very real and immediate possibility. Many people were worried about what they would do if one of the world's superpowers attacked the other. When a nuclear bomb explodes, there are two things to worry about. The first is the initial explosion, what we might call the blast. The movement of air that pushes everything and very quickly destroys Everything near the event. However, With a nuclear explosion, there's something else to worry about. And the second thing is the Fallout.So in this context, the fallout is what is left in the air and maybe in the ground for many years after the explosion. In other words, it's not the explosion itself, but instead it's the long-term results. The aftermath of the event. Maybe you've heard of the video game Fallout about a world after, I guess, a nuclear war there. And yeah, that is named after this situation. We can use this same word to talk about politics. If you're worried about the fallout from something, then you're worried about the wider and longer term consequences of that thing. If you make a mistake at work, then your customer or client might be upset. However, You might get your manager into trouble. Maybe your whole team will need to go on a training course. Or your company might change some of its policies. We can refer to this as the fallout from your mistake. This is similar to the word ramifications that we explored in a previous episode of this podcast. And like I mentioned, just like ramifications, fallout is often a word used to discuss politics, when those bigger, wider consequences are less predictable. Now let's talk about the phrasal verb 'to pan out'. DuPan out. That's P-A-N. In the first example, we heard 'if this doesn't Anne out. If this doesn't pan out. If you watch Breakout Business English on YouTube, the YouTube channel associated with this podcast, then you'll have heard about this phrasal verb a few months ago in a video that I made about how to respond when you don't understand someone's question. However, I'm pretty sure this is the first time that I've talked about it on the podcast.So maybe it's new to you. And hey, if you follow me on YouTube, maybe it's not.So. Let's go back in time again. We just visited the 1970s, this time we're going back even further to the 1850s and specifically to California. I think this is becoming a time travel podcast episode, and I must admit that I'm quite enjoying this theme.So. Here's a quiz question. And you tell me. What was happening? In California. In the 1850s. Specifically what started in 1848 and finished around 1855. This... Situation. Attracted around 300,000 people. Mostly men, from all over the world. Do. California. They all thought that they had a chance of getting rich. And this was the California Gold Rush. These were the days when people from all over the world were digging for gold, but looking for it in rivers. One way to search for gold. Was to, and I guess still is to, take a large shallow bowl known as a pan and fill it with stones and dirt from the bottom of the river. Just reach down and scoop up. Everything that is on the bottom of the river. Then? You would slowly wash what you had collected, slowly releasing it back into the river to see if there was any gold there. This process is known as panning for gold. Panning for gold. And when you filled your pan with dirt, you were hoping that it would Anne out. To reveal some gold. We take this today and apply it to situations where we don't know the outcome.So, if I ask you, "How did the meeting pan out?" I want to know whether or not it was a successful meeting. Whether or not you got the outcome that you were looking for. We can say that something panned out well. Or didn't pan out well. If we say that simply something... And out. Then we mean that there was a positive result. If it panned out, this was a good thing. And if we say that something didn't pan out.Well, you can probably guess from context that we mean that there was a negative result. This was not the outcome that we were looking for.So, if you tell me that your job interview didn't pan out, Then you mean that you went for the job interview, but you didn't get the job. And maybe if an investment you made in a company on the stock market didn't pan out, then this means that you lost money on it.So this is the phrasal verb, to pan. Remember, as always, phrasal verbs are generally considered informal vocabulary. Certainly, if you're doing an IELTS test or any other higher level language test, then we probably would say that you should be using And out in your speaking test, but not your writing test. I should say as well that I spend about 20% of my time these days coaching people for the IELTS test.So if that's something that you're interested in doing, a test that you're interested in taking, then absolutely get in touch and we can work together on your preparation for that test. Amy Edmondson's book on this topic is called The Right Kind of Wrong, The Science of Failing Well. And if you want to discuss these ideas with me personally, Then don't forget that you can book a session with me to work on your English communication skills by going to www.breakoutbusinessenglish.com. That's breakoutbusinessenglish.com or clicking on the link in the show notes. Do we still need to say www dot? I feel like that's something that people said. 20 years ago. I think you can just type in the website and .com now. I don't think you need to actually... Type in the W's there.Anyway, if you do want to book my time through BreakoutBusinessEnglish.com, you can use the code PODCAST30. At checkout, that's PODCAST30, and that code will give you a 30% discount off your first booking of up to 60 minutes there. I've worked with over 1,000 non-native English-speaking professionals, personally in one-to-one video calls, everyone from new graduates up to CEOs and even a couple of government leaders, to help them achieve their goals, and I look forward to meeting you. If you want to see exactly what I do in my coaching sessions, then feel free to go to the Breakout Business English YouTube channel and take a look at that. I'm looking for podcast listeners who want to get involved. If you're interested in letting me analyse your English in a YouTube video, then you can go to breakoutbusinessenglish.com forward Slack contact. That's breakoutbusinessenglish.com forward slash breakoutbusinessenglish. Contact and let me know that you're interested. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, then I invite you to leave a review. Every review really helps me out, helps to grow this podcast and push it to new listeners and ultimately to make the show more successful, which means that you keep getting episodes of the show.So if you found this podcast useful. And you think that there are some valuable things in here, then feel free to write a couple of kind words, and I thank you in advance. A review is a great place to request a topic for a future podcast. Alternatively, to request a topic, you could go to the YouTube page, find the podcast on there, and yeah, let me know what you'd like to hear me talk about on the show. That is it for today. I hope that this has been a relatively positive look failure there and maybe this is a good way to think about failure hopefully you're having intelligent failures in the work that you do and I promise you that next week we will get back to something at least a little bit more positive I've been thinking about doing an episode dedicated just to professional success so maybe that's what we need after a couple of weeks of failure. Thank you so much for listening and as always for your time. And I'll talk to you again next time. On the Breakout Business English podcast. Thanks a lot everyone. Talk to you soon.