Navigating British Business Culture
Rachel Houseago ??
Specialist English Coach for Lawyers ?? | Helping Motivated Lawyers Advance their Careers | 1-1 & Group Coaching ?? | Negotiations ?? | Client Communication ?? | Interviews & CVs ??
If English is your second language, see the end of this article for key vocabulary.
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The very first thing I do with a new client on my 10-Week Legal English: Communication Skills Course is to talk about business culture.
Why?
I coach lawyers from different countries to improve their client communication: before I can help someone to advance their communication skills, I need to know the context they're working in. Business culture in the UK, the US, Saudi Arabia and Japan, for example, are all very different. If you’re not careful, you could find yourself in a sticky situation! [1]
The top 3 things you should remember when doing business with the British:
1.??????The British Understatement
In my experience, the British are partial to understatement for the following reasons: politeness, professionalism and humour. It can, however, be quite confusing if you’re not used to it! [2]
Why do you think the speaker is using an understatement in the following scenarios:
a.)????Walking out of a hearing – which you spent weeks preparing for – your client turns to you, furious with the outcome, and threatens to fire you. You turn to your trainee and say, “Well, that could have gone better.”
?b.)???“I read the draft of the contract and I do have a couple of minor suggestions.”
?c.)????Associate A: “What do you think about Barbara getting promoted to the Head of Tax Law?”
Associate B: “I’m not entirely sure she was the best person for the job.”
In scenario A, the speaker is using humour to make light of the situation. Her lack of emphasis shows the irony of how all the hard work before the hearing wasn’t reflected in the result; although it’s not obvious, she probably is upset.
The speaker in B is being polite and, most likely, has more than a couple of major suggestions!
Finally, the associate in C is trying to stay professional even though they clearly aren’t happy with the choice of candidate. If you found them a few hours later in the pub, they’d probably be much more forthright: “Can you BELIEVE they promoted BARBARA over ME? What were they thinking?!” [3] ?
2.??????Our Tongue-in-Cheek Humour
Italian lawyer: “My boss comes onto our Zoom meetings wearing a Star Wars t-shirt and making jokes for the first five minutes – is that a British thing?”
Me: “The humour thing is British. The t-shirt is all him...”
British humour is sometimes referred to as ‘tongue-in-cheek’ – this is when someone says something as a joke, but appears to be serious (imagine them biting their tongue to prevent them from laughing). It’s also referred to as ‘dry’ or ‘deadpan’ humour.
For example:
Juan is a new intern at a law firm, where his first assignment is to photocopy a contract. However, in the process of trying to get the photocopier to work, he has somehow managed to break the machine which – in turn – has completely shredded the original contract. Juan is panicking, imagining that he will be fired within the next five minutes.
His boss happens to walk past at this moment, sees the catastrophe unfolding, and (showing no emotion whatsoever) says to him: “Well, I can see you’re going to fit right in here, Juan.” Then walks off. [4]
We often use humour to make others feel more comfortable – in this example, the boss puts Juan’s mind at rest by reassuring him that the rest of the team make mistakes too and so he’ll fit right in. She also ignores the disaster unfolding in her offices, which us Brits would find quite amusing.
领英推荐
Nothing will help you build rapport faster with a Brit than ‘getting’ our humour.
?3.??????We’re Not Actually Sorry.
From the ‘How To Be British’ Collection - Copyright LGP [5]
'Sorry' is a word that the British use a lot. Now, in a lot of American self-development or business speak you’ll hear them say things like, ‘Never apologise – say what you want!’. And I get it. But they’re kind of missing the point: we Brits don’t always say what we mean.
A lot of the time, we’re not actually sorry. Sometimes, we’re the opposite of sorry! We’re just far more indirect than our American counterparts and, culturally, we really value surface-level politeness. It makes us feel comfortable and helps us to build rapport.
?Try out these phrases to help you speak like the British:
To ask someone for help: “Sorry to bother you but...”
When you didn’t understand something: “Sorry, I didn’t catch that?”
Or: “Sorry to interrupt you, but...”
(Remember: you’re not actually sorry. It’s more like punctuation).
Making the effort to understand these British quirks will give you a great head start in building rapport with your clients from the UK!
What advice would you give someone doing business with clients from your country? Let me know in the comments! ??
Key Vocabulary:
[1] A sticky situation [British expression] – a difficult or awkward situation.
[2] Be used to (something) [expression] – when something feels normal for you.
[3] Forthright [adjective] – direct and outspoken.
[4] (To) fit in [phrasal verb] – to belong and be accepted by other people.
[5] These guys are great. Check out their books and postcards here: www.lgpcards.com
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2 年Thank you Rachel. This tips are great.
Legal English Teacher: Courses for non-native intermediate+ English speakers who use legal English at work. (Alcove Training Founder; Singapore PR)
2 年It's interesting, isn't it? We might expect speakers of stereotypically more direct languages to have difficulty with being indirect but I actually find that even speakers of a generally quite indirect languages have trouble with this too. I remember chatting about this with some advanced English adult learners from Japan a while back when I felt their tone was a bit too direct. (Notice the understatement there - if I were in that pub Rachel mentioned I would have said 'offensive' not 'a bit too direct'!) The Japanese students actually said that they had been taught at school that English was a more direct language than Japanese and so they were consciously choosing to be blunt and enjoying the freedom that came with it! I think it is something that can be explicitly taught quite early on but I don't see it much in textbooks until the advanced levels. Would love to hear from people in different countries? How were you taught English? Were you taught to be direct/indirect/neither?
Coach. Trainer. Teacher | Helping professionals take their career to the next level | 1:1 & Team Coaching | Online workshops | Intrapersonal Management and Conflict Resolution corporate courses
2 年Great tips!!!
Educator ?? Integrative Counsellor ?? Helping people to achieve their full potential?? English Communication Skills and IELTS Expert
2 年You could have put a little bit more effort into this! (??) Very insightful.
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2 年Absolutely spot on Rachel!!! These British ‘quirks’ are so hard to work out so this really helps explain so common ‘Britishness’ Excellent!!