business meetings/ advice, recommendations and suggestions
Ask for advice on one of the problems below, politely respond to each suggestion, choose the best one, then take turns doing the same.
- All our meetings take longer than they should because they are always held in English and one person does not speak English very well
- Everyone is always really sleepy in meetings after lunch
- In marketing meetings, everyone speaks at the same time and doesn’t listen to anyone else
- Meetings in my company go on much longer than they should
- My boss is terrible with technical things and we almost always have to sort out a problem with his equipment in the middle of the meeting
- My boss schedules so many meetings that we can never get any work done
- One of the directors speaks so quietly during meetings that people can hardly hear her.
- One or two people in my team are too shy to speak out in meetings
- One person in my department has such bad presentation skills that people fall asleep when he is presenting
- One person in my section always dominates in meetings even when he doesn’t know anything about the topic we are talking about
- People spend too long chatting at the beginning of meetings
- Some people are always late for meetings
- The air conditioning in the conference room is very loud, so it is difficult to hear the people who are speaking
- The discussion of the first point always goes on too long, so we have to rush through the other points on the agenda if we want to finish on time
- The Head of R&D almost always forgets an important document he needs to refer to during the meeting and we all have to wait while someone goes and gets it.
- The marketing manager and the finance manager hate each other and every board meeting turns into an argument between them
- The meeting room has a view onto a busy street and people keep on looking out of the window instead of listening to the person who is speaking
- Twice last week someone spilled their coffee in a meeting and wasted lots of time clearing it up
- We usually waste the first ten minutes of a meeting deciding who will take the minutes and who will be the chair
When your teacher stops you, share some advice you chose and see if the class has any other good suggestions.
Ask about any situations above you are not sure about, brainstorming possible solutions each time.
Brainstorm how to communicate some of those decisions to your colleagues, e.g. what to write in an email choosing the next chair.
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Related pages
Business advice worksheets page
Advice, recommendations and suggestions page
Over 300 pages of meetings photocopiables here.
