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Unit II. Dealing with people

Learn how to ask for something, make and react to suggestions, give and receive praise, cope with your colleagues’ bad habits, deal with consultants, make a compromise.

Lesson 1.Asking for something

Warm up

I. What do you often ask the following people for?

• a boss

• a bank manager

• a customer

• a colleague

• supplier

II. Talk about the last time you asked these people for these things. Did anything unusual happen?

Active Vocabulary

I. Listen to the conversation and answer the questions.

1. Who are the speakers?

2. What do they ask for?

3. Who is polite? Who makes demands? Why?

II. Look at the extracts from the conversation. Complete them with the phrases used for asking for something.

1. Hello. I ______________________________to Susan Crawley, please.

2. Would you ____________________________me a duplicate?

3. Now we'd _____________________________pay for the computers.

4. Do you _______________________________wait until next month?

5. We __________________________________pay before the end of June.

6. If we ________________________payment by then, _______________ we'll have to send someone round to pick up the computers.

III. Look at the extracts in 2 again. Mark them polite (P) or demanding (D). Then explain your decision to your teacher.

We can use these expressions in different ways to ask people for something:

would like

I'd like a cup of tea, please.

I'd like to phone home, if you don't mind.

We'd like you to send the cheque today.

advise, ask, expect, need, remind, tell, warn

We would ask you to pay in full by 1st May. We have warned them to pay promptly.

would you mind

Would you mind opening the window?

Speaking

I. Make a suitable request for the following situations. Try to use phrases from Vocabulary and Language. Your teacher will respond to your requests.

1. You ordered twenty color cartridges for your printer. Unfortunately, you received black cartridges instead. Call the supplier and ask them to correct the order.

2. You ask your boss if you can have the morning off next Friday because you need to sign some papers at the bank.

3. You ask for a return train ticket to Oxford at the ticket office.

4. Your colleague keeps forgetting to finish the report you have both been working on. It needs to be sent to head office today. You call him to help him remember.

Writing

I. You have received the following note from your boss. Write an email to the travel agency requesting information for his trip. Lesson 2. Consultants. Making suggestions

Warm up

I. Read the quote and say: if there is any truth in it; how important the role of a consultant in business is.

“Consultants are people who borrow your watch and tell you what time it is, and then walk off with the watch.”

Robert Townsend

II. Would you like to be a consultant? Why? / Why not?

Active vocabulary

Companies use consultants for many reasons. Match the sentence halves to discover a few of them.

Consultants are not involved

fresh ideas to the company.

Consultants have experience of

specialist knowledge.

Consultants bring

in internal company politics.

Consultants can be used

things realistically and objectively.

Consultants have

working with other companies.

Consultants see

quickly and efficiently.

Consultants work

by management to take the criticism foe unpopular decisions.

Note: two verbs that are often used for making suggestions or proposals are suggest and recommend. Look at the following examples:

We recommend changing the dates.

We recommend that you change the name.

We suggest using the Internet.

We suggest that you use the Internet.

Other expressions:

How about changing your job?

Have you considered changing your job?

What if you change / changed your job?

We'd like to propose that you invest €9,000.

Reading

Read the story about the consultant, the shepherd and sheep. What conclusion can you make, analyzing a consultant’s work?

Once upon a time there was a shepherd. He was standing by the side of the road, looking after his flock of sheep. Suddenly, a brand new Cherokee Jeep appeared and stopped near the shepherd. A young man wearing a Hugo Boss shirt, Yves St. Laurent trousers and Nike trainers got out and said to the shepherd: “If I can guess how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one of them?” The shepherd looked at the man, looked at his sheep – who were eating grass peacefully – and said: “Yes, OK then.”

The young man parked his car and took out his laptop computer and a GSM phone. Then he logged on to a NASA website and scrutinized the local area with the help of a GPS (global positioning system). Next, he created a database and 60 Excel tables full of statistics. After that, using a hi-tech micro-printer, he printed a 150-page report. Finally, he turned to the shepherd and said: “You have 1,586 sheep in your flock.” The shepherd replied: “You are absolutely right, I do have 1,586 sheep in my flock. Now you can take your sheep.”

The young man took a sheep and put it in the back of his Jeep. When he had done this, the shepherd said: “If I can guess your profession, will you give me my sheep back?” “Yes,” said the young man. “You are a business consultant,” said the shepherd. “How did you guess?” asked the young man. “Three things”, said the shepherd. “Firstly, you came here when nobody asked you to. Secondly, you charged me a sheep to tell me what I already knew. And thirdly, you have no idea what I do, because you took my dog, not a sheep!”

From In Company Intermediate

Listening

I. Bruston Bicycles and Cycling Accessories Ltd is in trouble. Sales are 15% down on last year. It is losing clients. Three of its best sales people have left the company in the last two months. To find out what's going wrong Bright Ideas Ltd, a business consulting group, visited the company a few days ago and made the notes below. Read the notes and then discuss the different problems with your teacher. In your opinion, which are the three most important issues, and why?

Bright Ideas

  • Sales and Production – only monthly meetings

  • staff not given enough information

  • products old-fashioned – design manager left a year ago – not replaced

  • company doesn’t use internet at all

  • name of company!

  • sales manager obviously overworked – covers national and export sales – no assistant

  • John Bruston – managing director – 79 years old, son of founder

  • Reputation for top quality, but delays of up to a month in deliveries