Office English / Conflict

Sometimes at work we disagree with our colleagues.

Voicenote clipsI definitely think that everyone's ideas are worth something and it's definitely worth disagreeing with your peers.

Generally, I don't like confrontation and sometimes I worry if I disagree with someone, they might think I'm criticising them as a person.

There's this idea that people with authority always have things right, you know, impostor syndrome.

Today on Office English, we're talking about how you can keep things professional when disagreements happen at work.

Hello and welcome to Office English from BBC Learning English, your podcast guide to the language of the office. In each episode, we talk about business English that will help you succeed in your career. I'm Pippa.

And I'm Phil. And in this episode we're talking about disagreements at work. Of course we never disagree, do we Pippa?

No, we never disagree. We never have a crossed word. But different opinions at work, aren't always a bad thing, Phil. Sometimes you want different perspectives on a problem. Sometimes you want to hear what other people have to say, even if you don't agree. The problem I guess comes when a disagreement gets in the way of the work getting done.

Today we're going to talk about how to express your opinion, disagree politely and if necessary, complain about a colleague at work, all while staying professional of course.

And it's important to say that we're speaking from a British cultural context. So in Britain, we like to think of ourselves as quite polite. We're quite indirect when it comes to conflict. So we don't like to say straight to somebody's face that we disagree with them or that we think that their idea is rubbish. So that's what we have to think about when we're having this discussion, Phil.