Do you use SWOT?
This acronym is great for meetings and business plans.
Listen in and learn how to use SWOT and similar business terms.
These will help you structure meetings and business plans in English.
Highlight of your week
Aubrey asks Lindsay about the highlight of her week so far.
Lindsay mentions she joined a run club that runs together on Tuesdays.
They run a few miles and then head to a bar for drinks.
Today’s episode was inspired by a listener’s question.
Today’s question
Hi, I have been listening to All Ears English for years. It helps me quite a lot in using and learning English.
I am working in an international IC design house in Taiwan now, English is the official and daily language we use. There are lots of meetings we have to do in English; most of the time we have to do the presentation in highlight and lowlight topics. But I am a little confused in the definition of the highlight and lowlight. Is that a good thing to be spoken as highlight? Bad thing to be the lowlight?
Please help.
Thanks,
DD
The terms ‘highlights’ and ‘lowlights’ are PowerPoint terms.
‘Lowlight’ is not commonly used in the U.S. business world.
It is not used as the opposite of ‘highlight’ except in hair coloring.
The word ‘highlight’ used in a meeting means to emphasize or focus on something.
Meeting structuring
In today’s episode, Lindsay and Aubrey share vocabulary that is similar to the terms ‘highlight’ and ‘lowlight’ along with some alternatives.
#1: SWOT
This is an acronym that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
It is a good way to break down the agenda of a meeting.
In this structure of a meeting it would be organized as follows:
- highlight good things
- talk about what’s not going so well
- focus on opportunities you’d want to take advantage of
- identify any threats
#2: Rose, bud, thorn
This is another structure similar to SWOT.
First you highlight positives or an opportunity then what is a possible roadblock.
This paints a bigger picture of any strategies you’re talking about.
#3: Highlight
Highlight has multiple meanings in English.
One is as mentioned by the listener.
It can be something that’s being emphasized or you are drawing attention to something.
Opposite of focus
The term ‘lowlight’ is not used as the opposite of highlight in U.S. business English.
If you don’t want to focus on something, you can use these terms as the opposite or alternative.
#1: Not highlight
You can say that you’re not highlighting a certain area.
This is something you don’t want to focus on.
Example:
We don’t want to highlight our lack of sales in the client meeting.
#2: Skip
This means you want to move on and are jumping past a topic.
Example:
Let’s highlight growth and skip the summary of how we got there.
#3: Not cover
Similar to ‘not highlight’, this means you don’t want to focus on this and are moving to the next topic.
Example:
We probably won’t cover upcoming events today.
Roleplay
Here is a roleplay using the vocabulary shared in today’s episode.
This will help you better understand how to use these words in an English conversation at work.
In this scenario, Lindsay and Aubrey are in a business meeting.
Lindsay: Let’s go over the SWOT from the sales meeting. Aubrey, can you share the strengths?
Aubrey: We did a good job highlighting the new product features. The presentation on that was really clear and concise.
Lindsay: Nice. What about weaknesses?
Aubrey: We’re still lacking a few things the client is looking for. That could be an issue in the future.
Lindsay: That brings us to opportunities. I think we’ve got some good ideas for growth.
Aubrey: Absolutely! Excited to see where our dev team will take it.
Lindsay: I don’t see any imminent threats as long as they can figure out development timing. Anyone else see something I’m missing?
Aubrey: I agree. I think we’re looking good.
Takeaway
It’s always good to have structure in a meeting and there are many options.
The terms “highlight” and “lowlight” are sometimes used but take note that “lowlight” is not commonly used as the opposite of “highlight” in English.
The words shared in today’s episode will help you articulate the good and bad in your business strategy or presentations.
Do you often lead meetings at work?
We’d love to read your comments below.
