Office English

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Office English / Delegating

Episode 250421/ 21 Apr 2025

4.9(19,389 ratings)·31,187 students

Transcript

Note: This is a transcript of a spoken conversation and is not a word-for-word script.

Pippa

Do you let people help you at work, or are you a bit of a control freak?

Sian

If it's something I feel strongly about and I have a very fixed idea of how I want it to happen, then it can be difficult to delegate. But generally, I think the more people involved, the better. And if people can help, then I'm very happy for them to, you know, do some of the tasks.

George

Generally, if I've got a lot of people to work with, I think the more the merrier. You can produce an excellent group effort, I think.

Phil

Today on Office English we're talking about delegating and giving other people instructions.

Pippa

Hello and welcome to Office English, your podcast guide to the world of work. I'm Pippa.

Phil

And I'm Phil. You can read along with this podcast on our website. Visit bbclearningenglish.com.

Pippa

Today's episode is all about delegating. So what's delegating, Phil? And do you find it easy to delegate?

Phil

No I don't. Delegating is when you give someone else something that you're doing to do, or you are someone to do some of your work. Yeah, I'm not very good at it. I try and do it all myself quite often.

Pippa

Yeah, I think I'm often used to working on my own and so when I then need to delegate, I've got too much to do, I find it a bit difficult to do that. I'm a bit of a control freak, I think. Also sometimes like you feel like it would take so long to tell someone else how to do it that I might as well have just done it myself, which is probably not the right way to think. But it s sometimes what I think.

Phil

Of course, Pippa, we're not managers, and I think that might be a big thing here.