Professional English Language for Executive Management

TRAINING OUTLINE

Day 1: Advanced Literacy Skills

Golden Rules for Successful Writing

Follow these 12 rules and you will find people read what you have written without the glazed expression that greets so much business writing.

• Grabbing the reader’s attention and holding it while you get your message across
• Engaging their interest with great content
• Giving people reasons to believe what you write
• Avoiding jargon and clichés people misunderstand

Zombie Words and Living Language

Practical tips to help you avoid overused business words, replacing them with language that creates rich variety for your audiences.

• The 120 most over-used business words
• Slang and streetwise talk
• Repetition and rhythm in written and spoken English
• Similar words that are often confused

Advanced Vocabulary

Practical activities to expand vocabulary

• Word associations
• Comparison games
• Lexical threads
• Phrasal verb stories

Day 2: Advanced Reasoning Skills

Developing Verbal Reasoning

Extracting the correct meaning from complex written business information and explaining the implications.

• Understanding and thinking logically
• Accurately drawing logical conclusions from written information
• Clearly and simply conveying information to colleagues, managers, suppliers and customers

Improving Numerical Reasoning

Using numerical data as a tool to solve problems and make reasoned decisions.

• Interpreting, analysing and drawing logical conclusions from data in graphs and tables
• Clearly presenting and conveying business information in charts and tables to key audiences

Applying Logical Reasoning

Understanding rules and information from graphs, diagrams and flowcharts and applying them in written documents

• Interpreting, analysing and drawing logical conclusions from data in graphs and tables
• Clearly presenting and conveying business information in charts and tables to key audiences

Developing Abstract Reasoning

Thinking strategically, grasping the big picture and quickly solving problems

• Identifying patterns, relationships and trends in information
• Integrating this information and using it to solve problems in a logical manner

Day 3: Listening to Audiences

Understanding Different Types of Audiences

Business audiences have varying experiences and expectations; understanding these differences helps us tailor our writing to their needs

• Identifying and analysing the audience for your report, letter, email, or presentation
• Understanding the needs, interests and background of target audiences
• Different models for categorising audiences
• Adapting writing to meet the needs of the target audiences
• Exercise using an Audience Planner to define the key characteristics of your target audience

Feedback Mechanisms

Creating feedback channels to understand what people think and feel

• Print: questionnaires
• Face2face: focus groups, observation, visits, networking, open forums, Q&A sessions
• Online: forums, surveys, helplines

Getting to the Heart of an Issue

Using the V Method to drill down into root causes and identify the best solution

• Identifying the root cause of a problem
• Understanding why the issue re-occurs and hasn’t been solved yet
• Identifying potential solutions and selecting the best
• Scenario-testing the solution to see how it will work in reality

Unlocking Creativity and Ideas

Techniques for enabling teams to collaborate creatively and solve the challenges they face

• Common obstacles to creative thinking
• Ensuring everyone participates and feels part of the process
• Ideas generation and creativity tools
• Facilitating the process from initial brief to evaluation of ideas

Day 4: Developing Proficiency in Business Writing

Improving Technical Reports

Tips for ensuring audiences read, understand and act on technical and complex reports

• Writing for people who don’t have technical backgrounds
• Presenting complex processes, systems and other technical subjects in a clear, concise and coherent way
• Alternative structures that help readers find their way around technical reports
• Examples of different types of technical report structures to stimulate discussion about what is appropriate
• Including an ‘About the Author’ that demonstrates professionalism and builds credibility in the report

High Impact Proposals, Bids & Tenders

Best practices for creating documents that present a persuasive case and secure new business

• Responding to the client’s brief
• Engaging all readers from executives to technical experts
• Explaining benefits, features and value
• Making the document relevant and avoiding boilerplate text
• Editing content from multiple contributors

Winning Business Cases

Practical tips for writing persuasive and easy-to-understand business cases

• Identifying root causes of the issue you want to resolve
• Setting out clearly causes and solutions
• Explaining how the business will benefit so decision makers pay attention
• Writing from the decision makers’ perspectives
• Confidently explaining the outcomes you want

Crafting Business Plans

How to construct a practical business plan that your team members can effectively implement

• Deciding the business plan format
• Concept, feasibility and outline of the specifics
• Structuring activities so they are easy to implement
• Monitoring, review and corrective actions

Day 5: Advanced Spoken English in the Workplace

Giving Speeches that Grab Attention

Understand how to motivate and persuade audiences when developing and delivering both informal talks and more formal speeches.

• Building content
• Getting the words right
• Humour and other attention-grabbing tips
• Revealing personality
• Ending on a high note
• Ensuring audiences remember your key points

Facilitating Discussion & Debate

Techniques to help you facilitate positive outcomes from discussions and decision making.

• Best and worst facilitation practices
• Providing structure and guiding discussions
• Dealing with conflict, disrupters and emotional responses
• The CREATE model for focusing on solutions

Inspiring, Influencing & Persuading Through Storytelling

How to narrate experiences with enough detail and feeling so your audiences are engaged

• 6 types of story and how to tell them
• Essentials of a great story – knowing ourselves, standing for something, connecting with others
• Finding stories to tell – honouring achievements, explaining purpose, sharing good practices, imaging possible futures, acknowledging mistakes, and more
• Essentials – characters, action, structure, texture, language and emotion
• Time in narratives – learning from the past, standing in the present, imagining the future.