Office English / Disagreements

What do you do when there's a disagreement at work?

I don't mind it too much when people disagree. I think it can be really healthy, and especially if everyone feels able to disagree in a kind of calm way. When people get angry, that's when it gets a bit a bit stressful.

I don't enjoy confrontation anyway. Having said that, I do think it's important to listen to different perspectives.

Today on Office English, we'll talk about agreeing, disagreeing, and compromising.

Hello and welcome to Office English from BBC Learning English. I'm Phil.

And I'm Pippa. This is your podcast guide to the world of work. And you can find subtitles and a transcript to read along with this podcast on our website bbclearningenglish.com.

So, Pippa, we've just heard some of our Learning English colleagues talking about keeping people happy at work. We often call this being diplomatic.

Yes, being diplomatic means acting in a way that doesn't upset or offend someone.

Yes, it can be difficult to keep everyone happy all the time at work, but there are some steps that you can take to make sure you're not being rude and to help disagreements be resolved more easily.

And it's important to note that it will depend on your company culture and the country that you work in, how diplomatic people are. There are some workplaces where people will just say what they think. They won't kind of try to, um, not offend people with their opinion. But it's very common in UK workplaces and in lots of international companies that you need to be diplomatic.