BE 342: Do You Push the Envelope at Work?
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This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 342. Do you push the envelope at work?

Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business. For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA. Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English.

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That's allearsenglish.com/fluenciescore. Hey there, Michelle. How's it going today? Good, Lindsay. Lindsay, do you know anyone who likes to push the envelope? Anyone who likes to push the envelope. That's interesting. No one comes to mind specifically, but yes, I have known people that have pushed boundaries, have pushed their luck.

Push the envelope for sure. You know, taking risks and pushing forward. I am excited about talking about this today, Michelle. Yeah. But before though, we need to remind our listeners of what they have to do right now before we continue the episode, which is what?

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all right okay so michelle i hinted at what it meant in my answer but what does it mean right so to push the envelope is to do something that's different um something that's new maybe there's a little danger uh to it a little bit of a risk um could be making a big change um you're

And the idea is that you're really seeing what's okay that may be outside of what is typical, right? So we're seeing, oh, how far can we push something? - Yes, yes, exactly. You're kind of on the edge, right? You're always on the edge. So how does this apply to business, right? I mean, sometimes we might actually need to push the envelope in order to make big changes in our industry, in our company,

or just in our own career, right? - Yes, right. Because to me, it's about taking risks. I mean, maybe you push the envelope by attempting a new ad campaign. - Yeah. - Bringing, or maybe you push the envelope by bringing up a new idea to your boss. It's just this seeing

seeing what the boundary is and not being afraid to get close to it in an intelligent way, of course, at work. - Yeah, I do think this is a positive expression, but sometimes it's not. It depends on what we're talking about, right? It can be risky to push the envelope, but inherently it implies a little bit of risk. So especially if it's something negative that you're doing, so you can be pushing the envelope by taking a risk.

maybe a physical risk, right? Maybe without, without apply, um, this wouldn't be at work, but I'm thinking if, you know, when teenagers do crazy things, like they jump off bridges and things. Yeah. Is that, would that be? Well,

- Well, I am also thinking about maybe style. - Okay, yeah. - Maybe fashion, you know, you see on the runway that designer is really pushing the envelope with that new style, right? - Yes. - So taking a risk, seeing like,

who likes it or whatever. Yeah. It's kind of like going out on a limb a little bit. I think we've talked about that one on the show before, right? Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So, I mean, for example, you also might be pushing the envelope if you bring up a radical change to your boss that you know won't make them look good or you might be pushing the envelope if you don't follow all the rules. So there's...

a lot of times where you might be pushing the envelope so yeah or if i was going to say michelle if you're that person that kind of pokes holes at things and kind of brings up i'm not sure if this would apply i think it does you can tell me if you see a flaw in the company's strategy but you're the only one calling that out everyone else is just towing the line and getting a paycheck and they don't really care but you care more and you're saying hey there's something wrong here

And you keep pushing the envelope by continuing to call that out. Maybe you're calling out your coworkers a little bit and like saying like, we're not doing this right. I would say that's pushing the envelope because you're risking your own career a little bit. Right. Right.

Right. So in terms of positive or negative connotations, I think, you know, it really depends on the context, of course. And you just have to be smart if you're going to push the envelope. But sometimes you need to push the envelope to bring about a big change. And I think as companies get bigger, right, it becomes harder. That's the whole, that's the...

the contradiction of business success. You know, I mean, what has, what is I, what has iOS developed in the last? It's real new and revolutionary in the last. What is it called? Apple intelligence. Yeah. You're totally just proving my theory here, but what happened?

What I'm trying to say is companies get big and they don't, they stop pushing the envelope a little bit. I mean, how many, how many, like what, how many new developments has I, the iPhone? You're saying that there haven't been. Oh, right. Right. Remember, you know, in 2005, I thought you were actually trying to quiz me on what's coming out. That's new, but ready with the answer, Michelle. I love it.

I misunderstood you, but it's true. I mean, in general, when you get a new phone, it's, it's, you get it and you're like, oh, it's a phone. There's not that much different at this point, but I don't know if that Apple intelligence will actually be. I mean, maybe, I mean, I hope so. Right. They kind of need it to be, is that their version of AI kind of, okay. So they need it to be because they haven't been, there's not much else you can do with the phone. Right. How much, how many times can you improve the camera?

The same thing with Facebook. I haven't seen Facebook release anything new in quite a while. I mean, I guess there was Meta, they rebranded, Metaverse, I don't know what's happening with that. But these big companies, they become behemoths and they become trillion dollar companies. And then it becomes really hard to push the envelope compared to when they were

a three-person startup in someone's garage, right? Right, right, right. Exactly. There's not that much more that necessarily can be done. And you almost feel like we're just waiting for the next real big thing. I mean, because there will be a point...

when we look at these cell phones as archaic and it's going to be, what's going to be that, you know, what is it going to be? I mean, I still see now the glasses where they might have, I don't know. It's scary to think about. And is it going to be the incumbents, the Apples, the Facebooks that develop those things or is it going to be brand new companies with, you know,

young minds, fresh minds, right? That have, that are not sort of stuck in the status quo because once you're, you have a P and L, you're bringing in a certain amount of money every month and you have investors, you're on the stock market. I'm sure it becomes a lot harder to take these kinds of risks. Yeah. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You're kind of held to a certain standard or have to please shareholders. Right. Yeah. They're shareholders. Exactly. You can't mess around as much.

It's really interesting. So sometimes that can be the downfall of companies, but that's a whole other conversation. Yeah. No, but it's a good thing. It's a good thing to touch on. I mean, Lindsay, do you think you ever pushed the envelope? Hmm.

I think definitely we've pushed the envelope throughout our history at All Ears English. In the way, in the style of this podcast, I think it's a little different from the way ESL is typically taught. But this is a lesson to us. We also have to continue to push the envelope if we want to continue to thrive as a company, right? Yeah.

So, you know, we built an Alexa skill a few years ago. That one and Alexa, we're not sure about how Alexa is going to do compared to the new wave of chat GPT and things. But yeah, we need to keep pushing the envelope to even as a small company, inventing new things, new methods, new pieces of technology.

Right. For our listeners. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You have to be evolving and up on the trends and always be thinking of new things that you can do to stay relevant. And yeah, but we're always thinking of new ideas, Lindsay. Yeah, exactly. So we have a couple of examples, right, Michelle, that we want to share with our listeners. Okay. Yep.

So the first one is she's a good worker, but she tends to push the envelope sometimes with vacation time. This is a great example. This is a great example. I know people who do this. Yeah.

People in my personal life that do this with their companies and things and you know, sometimes you can get away with it if you're a really high performer, you know, and if your company has kind of a unlimited PTO policy, and if you're coming in there and just delivering for your company, like you can get away with it. Yeah, 100% really interesting. But that's a great example. Push the envelope with some kind of a benefit.

Right? Yes. What's the next example? I really think we need to push the envelope here. Surprise people with our new design concept.

right so we need to take a risk we need to choose maybe choose new colors or do something unique that no one else is doing okay yep or do you really want to push the envelope now when everything has been going so well so you know it's this idea of you know just kind of this person is saying oh maybe it's just better to lay low don't make any big changes right now it's the classic it's the classic problem it becomes harder and you become

Reliant on that success, right? Yep. Nice. All right. We're going to take a quick break and come back and talk more.

All right, Michelle. So where should we go from here?

Okay, well, let's talk about other ways to express this idea. Okay. So the first one is rock the boat. Yes. This is a fun one. So you can say, let's make a big change here. Rock the boat a bit. I like that. Or stir things up means the same thing. I want to stir things up here, but I don't know if our office is ready for new policies. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

or stir the pot I don't mean to stir the pot but I felt it was prudent to bring this to your attention yeah and these don't all mean the exact same thing I'd say stir the pot means slightly something different but it's all in the same ballpark right right right yeah exactly yeah so let's do a role play here we are meeting about new policies at work all right so here we go

Okay, so we have this big meeting coming up with the head of the company. Yes, so I don't mean to stir the pot, but I do think some of the policies are a bit extreme. Oh, really? I mean, I know they're pushing the envelope a bit, but I think they're fine. Well, we can test them out with some of the staff before we present them, see if they think we're walking the boat too much. Okay, yeah, I don't think it's bad to stir things up a bit.

Nice, having a little discussion about are we going too far as a company, right? So first thing I said was, well, you said we have this big meeting coming up with the head of the company. I said, yeah, so I don't mean to stir the pot, but I do think some of the policies are a bit extreme. And maybe I'm saying that the head of the company set those policies, right? Yeah. Right. That's the context there. Yes.

And then I said, I know they're pushing the envelope a bit, but I think they're fine. So I'm saying I know it's a bit of a risk. We're testing boundaries, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. Exactly. And then you said, well, we can test them out with some of the staff before we present. See if they think we're rocking the boat too much.

Changing things too much. Yeah. And then I said, okay, yeah, I don't think it's bad to stir things up a bit. So yeah, we're kind of having a little debate here. You're a little bit nervous about all these changes and I'm more risky. I'm more open to it. I'm more risk averse. Yes. You're more open to risk. Yeah. Yes. Love it.

This makes me think of another episode of Business English 332, Michelle, that our listeners can go back to right now and you can check it out. Don't hit a brick wall when asking someone about their job. Interesting. Interesting title, actually. Yeah.

Absolutely, yes, that was a good one. So guys head on over to that one after you listen to this episode. Lindsay, what do you think is the takeaway for today? I think it's, well, first of all, the conversation we had about Apple and Facebook and what happens when you become a big company is really interesting. And I wanna encourage our listeners, if you're business minded, if you're interested in business,

which you probably are if you're listening to this show, open up a conversation about this. Who do you think will invent the next groundbreaking technology? Will it be one of these companies, Apple, Microsoft, or will it be a no-name company that's maybe they're in college right now, right? Just the way Facebook got started and all the others. So open that topic up. And then this idea of pushing the envelope, it applies in a lot of ways. Taking advantage of benefits or just conversations

kind of taking risks in a way. Right? Yeah. So use it. Definitely. All right. Well, this was a lot of fun, Lindsay. Thanks for chatting with me today. And guys, we'll see you next time. All right. Take care, Michelle. Talk to you soon. Bye. All right. Bye.

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