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BEP 19 – Meetings: Supporting your Position (Part 2)

Clayton: Welcome to the second part of our series on how to support your
position or argument. Last week we introduced quite a lot of different phrases for
organizing or signposting the different parts of your supporting statements. Before
you listen to this episode, we recommend listening again to part one to familiarise
yourself with this language…..

Peter: Ok, so Clayton we’re again talking about how to support your position
or argument. This is a big topic, a HUGE topic, for any businessperson and one that
can be a challenge for anyone, let alone if they have to do it in another language,
so I thought it might be a good idea to go over some of the basic structures we use
to present an argument. Can you give us a simple explanation of the ways in which
we can structure or present our arguments?

Clayton: Sure, Peter. First of all before you begin to build your case you need to
be sure you’ve covered the following points in your mind:

1) The reasons for and against the viewpoint you are presenting.
2) Facts to back up your viewpoint and/or logical reasoning why your viewpoint is
correct.
3) An awareness of both sides of the argument and reasons why the opposing
argument is wrong.

Peter: I see, and once you feel comfortable you covered these points, what
structures can I use to present them so that people will agree with me?

Clayton: Well, actually there are a number of different techniques and the
approach can differ amongst different cultures. From a Western perspective,
arguments are usually structured in one of two ways. You can either take a
balanced view where the argument is based on factual evidence and logical
reasoning, or you can take a persuasive view where you make your personal
opinion clear.

Let me explain the basic structure for both.

The Balanced Argument

In this case you present both sides of an argument, without necessarily committing
yourself to any opinions–which should always be based on evidence–until the
conclusion.

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At its simplest your plan should be as follows:

Introduce the argument to your audience

i.e. why it is a particularly relevant topic nowadays or refer
directly to some comments that have been voiced on it recently.

Give your reasons in favour of the argument.

State your point of view, your evidence and your reasons.

Give your reasons against the argument.

State your point of view, your evidence and your reasons.

After summarising the two sides, state your own opinion,

and explain why you think as you do.

The Persuasive Argument

This second type of argumentative talk involves stating your own point of view
immediately, and trying to convince the listeners by reasoned argument that you
are right. The form of the talk would be, in outline, as follows:

Introduce the topic briefly in general terms, and then state your
own opinion. Explain what you plan to prove in the talk.

Give your reasons against the argument.

Dispose briefly of the main objections to your case. Provide
evidence and your reasons.

Give your reasons for your argument, the arguments to support

your own view, with evidence, reasons and examples.

Conclusion - Do not repeat your opinion again.

End your talk with something memorable
e.g. a quotation or a direct question.

Peter: If we look back at the previous episode, Jack was quite excited about
moving his company’s production to Costa Rica. What approach was he using with
his argument?

Clayton: Persuasive, or so he thought!!!!

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Jack is giving an update on the Costa Rican project. Dan is against the idea, because as
production manager, he doesn’t to lose all his production staff. Angie, as HR manager,
also does not want to lay off US staff, and is worried about the problems of hiring
foreign workers. Angie and Dan gang up on Jack with many good objections to his
outsourcing plan. Jack tries to defend his plan, but comes up short. The stage is set for
the final meeting…

DIALOG

Jim: ….moving on, we’re going to return to the subject of moving production overseas
Jack, do you have any updates?

Jack: Yes indeed. We’ve more or less completed the first round of negotiations with the
government in Costa Rica, and we’re pretty certain they like what we’re planning to do,
although at this early stage it is quite difficult to tell exactly what benefits this will bring.
It’s a little too soon to say whether we’ll get any tax breaks. Full tax exemption is
probably rather too much to hope for. But we’ve just about reached agreement on the
location and, all in all, we’re fairly happy with the way things are going.

Angie: That’s good, Jack. But I have a few concerns. To begin with, I’m not quite
comfortable with your plan to hire all local staff for the plant. We have a lot of
experienced workers here that know what they’re doing, and it seems to me that we’d
have to start all over in Costa Rica. And also, we’ve run into some extremely difficult
regulatory issues overseas before, and I’m somewhat concerned about the level of
cooperation from the government.

Dan: I agree. This whole thing is way too risky. We’re throwing away the best resource
we have, our people.

Jack: OK, of course this will involve some risks. Any big change involves risks.
But…we’ve got to think and plan for the future. And on the whole, I feel that this is the
best option to lower our future production costs.

Angie: Well, I don’t believe you’ve done quite enough research on this Jack. I can see
that you have researched some of these issues to some extent. However, it will be up to
Dan and me to make all of this work, and right now, there are too many parts of this that
are not very clear.

Dan: Well said, Angie. Jack, I just think that we’re moving a bit too fast on this whole
thing. You don’t have any plan for hiring, we don’t have any guarantees from the
government there, and you’ve never showed how we’re going to save on production costs
in the future. In fact –

Jim: Alright…all right. I can see this proposal is somewhat lacking in real data, so Jack,
I’d like to request that you put together a full and complete proposal, with all the answers
to these questions, and have it ready for our staff meeting next month. This will be the
final meeting on this subject, and we’ll present our recommendations to the Board, right
after that meeting.

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DEBRIEF

When discussing and arguing points in a meeting, one must be careful to be

diplomatic, and not sound too forceful when starting off. Notice how Jack begins
his update with phrases that lessen the impact of his statements: “We’ve more or
less completed…” and “we’ve just about reached”. In this case, Jack uses these
phrases to avoid sounding overconfident. Some other softening phrases are:

 We’re almost ready…

 I’m fairly certain…
 We’re just about finished…
 They are somewhat sure…

Similar to softening phrases are minimizing phrases. These are used to reduce the
effect of the larger phrase.

 a slight improvement
 a minor problem
 a partial success

Angie at first responds with diplomatic softeners to state her doubts about Jack’s
plan: “I have a few concerns” and “I’m not quite comfortable”. Opening statements
between opposing parties are typically phrased in these nice little polite statements.
Once the argument gets going, however, the language usually gets more direct and
forceful.

Angie then goes on to argue against Jack’s points using intensifier phrases.
Intensifier phrases are used to emphasize the points you make. Angie says “we’ve
run into some extremely difficult regulatory issues” and Dan also uses an intensifier
phrase to argue against Jack’s plan when he states “This whole thing is way too
risky”. Try some of these:

 It was an outstanding success...

 There is absolutely no way…
 There’s no doubt...
 It is the best solution

Returning to minimizing language, when people make negative remarks about

the information you’re presenting, you can often soften the impact by restating
their point in a more positive way. For example:

 You’ve accomplished nothing.

 Ans: We’ve had some partial success.

Or
 The whole thing has been a disaster.
 Ans: We’ve had so minor problems, yes, but we’ve dealt with them.

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Another way to emphasize a point is to use simple intensifying words, such as “is,
are, was, were, has, have, and had”, but to stress these words to emphasize the
word’s meaning in the phrase.

 There is just no other way

 It is our best chance of success.
 We were hoping for a better deal.
 We are doing the best we can.
 We have tried to limit the damage.
 We cannot go ahead with this.
 I do see what you mean.
 They did promise completion by

Very often when presenting your ideas, it's not what you say but how you say
it. You can stress not only simple helping verbs, but other verbs and nouns to
completely change the meaning of a phrase. As an exercise, listen to and
repeat these phrases, and think about the different meaning they have:
 The French will never agree to that.
 The French will never agree to that
 The French will never agree to that
 The French will never agree to that
Notice how the meaning is changed by a change of emphasis.

For effective arguments, we use not only emphasizing, softening, and word stress,
but also phrases to introduce many points to support an argument. These phrases
are also used to make it clear what the most important reasons are. Here are some
common phrases:

1. Plus … 6. What's especially important is...

2. Above all ... 7. But there's more to it than that....
3. In particular ... 8. It's also a matter of. . .
4. What's more ... 9. I'd like to emphasize . . .
5. In addition ... 10. The main thing is...

These are some basic tools, or weapons and shields, as some may use them that
are commonly used during arguments. In our next podcast, we will focus on
bringing all these techniques together into an organized argument to make your
points and win the argument. So until then, we are EXTREMELY pleased to have
you BACK at our podcast, and look forward to the NEXT time we will be talking with
you….

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