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Shadowing practice: Use These Five Phrases To Disagree With Powerful People

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  1. When it comes to speaking your mind and disagreeing with someone who is more powerful than you, the truth is you have to tread carefully.0:00
  2. Like it or not, there are power dynamics in every workplace, and we are talking about someone who may have positional authority over you, may control your project assignments.0:07
  3. So we want to make sure that we are not unnecessarily being disrespectful in the way that we disagree.0:17
  4. But at the same time, you do need to speak up, because you don't want a bad idea going through or something that hurts your team.0:24
  5. At the end of the day, you want to know you did your part to say what need to be said.0:31
  6. Here are five phrases you should use to disagree with powerful people.0:36
  7. First, do not say it to someone more powerful than you.0:40
  8. You're wrong.0:43
  9. It's antagonistic.0:44
  10. There are so many more delicate and diplomatic ways to say it.0:45
  11. I would also avoid things like, I don't think that's a good idea, or that doesn't seem to make any sense, because it can put judgment on the person who0:49
  12. is sharing the idea before you even understand the context or what they mean behind it.0:58
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  1. So it shuts down what could be an otherwise productive conversation and the opportunity for them to be open -minded to hear what you have to say next.1:04
  2. The first type of suggested response that I would recommend is something along the lines of, that's a fair point, and the challenge I see is blank.1:14
  3. Because when we think about conflict, most of the time, it's us against the other person.1:23
  4. We are on two different sides of the table.1:28
  5. But when you can say, that's a fair point, or I can see where you're coming from with that angle, now all of a sudden you are on the same1:30
  6. side against the problem and you can move forward from that shared basis.1:38
  7. They're going to be a lot more open -minded to whatever you have to say next.1:43
  8. I also love the script.1:46
  9. I'd like to add a nuance to that.1:48
  10. I like this one because you are framing your opposition as something that is additive to the conversation, not as something that is meant to shut it down.1:50
  11. You may have a view of operations or something from the client side that your leader who is sharing an idea or a proposal doesn't have.1:59
  12. So this gives you the opportunity to give additional detail, color, context on the situation that could in fact change their mind.2:08
  13. Another approach you could use is using a phrase like, my concern with that would be, and fill in the blank.2:15
  14. You are showing you are coming from the best interest of the organization, the project, the team, which shows that you are trying to be a team player and bring2:21
  15. something up that in the end is going to benefit everyone.2:31
  16. There will be times when you are communicating with leaders who are moving so quickly, who have been in so many conversations, that they forget certain angles or details about2:35
  17. an idea and they may present something that seems really ill -informed.2:44
  18. So what do you do in that case?2:50
  19. You can say something like, I want to make sure we're factoring in X, Y, and Z because you may have something to offer that they have just overlooked.2:51
  20. Another way you can come at disagreement is to ask a question in return.3:00
  21. So let's say your leader puts out this idea and you're like, oh my gosh, that is not going to work.3:06
  22. This is a terrible direction.3:11
  23. Before you just jump to that, ask a question to dig a little bit deeper.3:12
  24. What makes that top of mind right now?3:17
  25. Or how do you see this playing out over the next three to six months?3:18
  26. It's a way for you in the moment to calm your nerves, to give you a second to collect yourself before you have that emotional reaction.3:22
  27. And second, it's going to give you some insight into their decision -making process, their thought process.3:29
  28. It may give you something to grab onto to also inform the direction you take.3:35
  29. Now, there are also a couple of times when you may want to hold back from giving your feedback or saying what you want to say.3:40
  30. One of those times is when you are in a large group environment.3:48
  31. You want to weigh the pros and the cons there.3:53
  32. Is it important you speak up in this very moment?3:55
  33. Or actually, would it be better if you circle back with that leader, pull them aside privately and give some of this feedback about how you disagree or you see3:58
  34. there may be another way to go about this or something to consider?4:06
  35. Another time is when your disagreement may be misunderstood or interpreted differently.4:09
  36. So if we're talking over Slack or over email, where without your body language and intonation, it could be totally misconstrued.4:16
  37. And so in those situations, you may want to bide your time a little until you are with them in person and you can add a bit more of that4:24
  38. context and personalization.4:31
  39. So your intent really does come through.4:33

Business narration at B2: disagreeing with your boss in American English

This clip is a CNBC Make It narrator walking through five phrases for disagreeing with someone more powerful than you at work, at a CEFR B2 level. The narrator moves at 203 words per minute, faster than 64 percent of the catalogue, so the sentences run together the way real workplace advice does when someone is explaining something they have thought through many times.

It is a single American voice, not a dialogue, which makes it good material for american accent training: you are not switching between speakers mid line, you are matching one consistent rhythm across 51 lines. The subject itself, office power dynamics, gives you vocabulary you will actually reuse in a meeting rather than in a script.

The language in this clip: hedges that soften a workplace disagreement

Listen for how the narrator frames caution before she gives advice. In the opening line she says you have to tread carefully, and that phrase alone tells you the register of the whole clip: careful, professional, never blunt.

The blunt version she warns you off is short and sharp: You're wrong. Compare its clipped stress to the softer phrase she recommends instead, that's a fair point, where the pitch stays level and the sentence trails off rather than landing hard. A third line worth shadowing is I'd like to add a nuance to that., where the stress falls on nuance and the whole sentence rises slightly, more invitation than confrontation.

  • "you have to tread carefully": low, even stress, no word pushed harder than the rest
  • "You're wrong.": two stressed syllables back to back, deliberately harsh so you hear what to avoid
  • "that's a fair point": stress on fair, then the voice softens into point
  • "I'd like to add a nuance to that.": stress on nuance, rising intonation through the end

How to shadow this B2 clip, line by line

This clip rewards working it in the order the narrator built it, since each phrase is introduced against the one before it. Take one line at a time rather than the whole minute, and repeat each line enough times that the stress pattern stops feeling foreign.

  • Start with line 1, you have to tread carefully, and repeat it until the pace feels natural, this sets the tone for everything after it
  • Shadow line 6, the five phrase promise, at full speed once, then slow it down and rebuild it back up
  • Say You're wrong. on its own and notice how different it sounds from the softer phrases around it, this is english speaking practice for tone, not just words
  • Move to that's a fair point and match the trailing pitch exactly, this is the phrase most worth reusing in a real meeting
  • Finish with I'd like to add a nuance to that., recording yourself and comparing your rise on nuance to the original
  • Once the five lines feel steady, run the full clip once more without pausing, this is where daily shadowing practice for english speaking turns a phrase you can recognise into one you can actually say
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