312. 15 Minutes to More Precise Progress Updates

If you're a senior manager, you constantly report on progress. Have things happened? Are they ongoing? Have they stopped? In this episode, I write down four essential adverbs that make your English clear and accurate and help you feel more confident with your speech. Let's crack on! Hello and welcome back to Confident Business English. I'm Anna. I'm in your language coach and I help senior managers communicate with more confidence at work. This podcast is absolutely for you if you already have to use English at work, but you want to take it to that next step. Perhaps it's to earn a promotion, contribute more in meetings, to stop holding yourself back and take on bigger roles. Ultimately, what it all comes down to is helping you build that confidence that gives you more opportunities and as a result, a better professional life. Today, I want to focus on a technical but essential skill, which is about reporting progress accurately in English. As a senior manager, you're doing this constantly and if you do it really well, you're going to sound very precise and credible. If you don't, it's not going to be the end of the world. However, you are going to risk perhaps confusing people. Maybe they'll have to send you a follow-up email or a chat because they didn't understand and ultimately miscommunication. The goal really is, ideally, we want people to understand you the first time. So, let's get on with it. The four adverbs we're going to have a look at today are still anymore already and yet. These are four beautiful adverbs that are going to help you synchronal progress. They help you position your different tasks and situations in relation to an expectation or deadline we could also say here. I want you to keep in mind that I'm going to keep this at a very high level. I'm not going to jump into too much detail around the grammar and I'm coming at this from a lens of reporting progress. There are other ways that we use these adverbs, yes, but we're looking at this very specific use today. As a quick way to split them up, when we're talking about reporting progress, still is to signify something that's continuing longer than we had expected. Any more use and negative sentences is talking about something that was previously true or relevant or a task that we were doing that has now stopped. When we use already, we're talking about something that at the point of speaking has already been completed and actually earlier than we had expected. So, that's good news. Finally, yet, we're talking about a task that we'd expected to finish but has not been completed so far. Let's focus on still. And in the context of reporting progress, as I said before, the main use is about telling people that something is continuing longer than we expected. This could be that we're still working on something and it should have been finished previously and were passed the deadline or it could mean something a little bit broader that this is just a task that is taking longer than we had expected. Let's put this into context. We're going to imagine that you have to present a status update to the board about a launch of a new product. You had hoped and perhaps prayed that everything would be ready to go by March. However, unfortunately, as these things go, there is still some work that has to continue and this is when our lovely friend still comes in. We're still working on the final phases before we launch. We still have some things that we have to tie up before we go live. Tie up just means complete. Imagine you're tying your shoelaces as like to finalize things. There are also still some outstanding tasks that need to be done and we're still waiting for some of the final changes to be approved. Let's imagine as well that instead of saying we are still working on the final phases before we launch, you simply said we are working on the final phases before we launch. Absolutely fine. It's a valid sentence but you're missing that little detail that it's continuing longer than expected. We don't get that little nugget of information with the first sentence. Technical points here, you'll notice that it's an affirmative sentence. Still in terms of the position is before the main verb or after the verb to be and it's very common with the present continuous and also the present simple if we're using non-action verbs, for example, need. We still need the changes to be approved. All good so far? Great. There is one other way that we use still but we're going to come back to that a little bit later. Next, let's move on and have a look at any more and no longer. Which they mean the same thing is just a question of formality and also position. In the specific context of reporting progress at work, what these adverbs allow you to do is to talk about things that used to apply used to be true but aren't now and also things that we were working on but we stopped because of XYZ reason. Let's continue with the example before. Unfortunately, you've had to break the bad news that you won't be going ahead in March because you're still working on a few things. As well as that, we've decided not to go ahead with the system overhaul anymore as we don't feel it's very necessary at the stage. Additionally, we no longer require the support from the IT team, although I thank them very much for their support during this time. And finally, in relation to the issue with the client, I don't feel that this is a major risk anymore. However, let's just keep an eye on it. If you said this sentence like, "I don't feel the issue with the client is a risk," that's absolutely fine. But by adding the any more, you're giving that extra nuance of this was true, but it's not any more. And again, that's a little extra touch that you're adding in there to build up a more accurate picture. From a technical standpoint, you're going to notice that any more is in a negative sentence and it's at the end of the sentence. I don't feel this is a risk anymore. Now we could change that and we could use no longer. I no longer feel this is a risk. Notice there how we can't have a negative sentence because that would almost be like a double negative. No longer is position before the main verb and after the verb to be. It's just a little bit more formal. I would say it's much more common in written rather than spoken English, but you will find it and come across it every now and again. But certainly, no need to use it. If you don't feel comfortable, you can just use any more and you're doing exactly the same thing. No need to reinvent the wheel. Just before we move on, if you're getting a lot of value from the podcast, make sure that you're on my Friday newsletter. You'll get a short summary of each episode plus extra tips I don't share on here. The link to sign up is in the description box. Moving on, another adverb that is essential for you when you're reporting progress is already. This is a beautiful adverb for a senior manager because we're talking about something that's been completed before it was expected to be completed. I like to call this the proactive adverb. It's the ideal world, right? Look at all these things we've already done. It's not all doom and gloom. We're going to give them a bit of a flip side. So yes, there's still some things that we need to do. There's still some outstanding tasks. However, we have already got the go ahead from the client on the latest proposal, which is fantastic. And we've already managed to get them to agree to the additional changes that we had proposed. As well as that, let's just lay on thick. We've already had the comments back from the legal team and they are happy to go ahead as is. Anyway, some technical points here. You will hear that I'm using already with the present perfect. And that's the most common tense here. You may also hear it with the past simple too. That's quite cool, but I think if we cross the Atlantic there and we go to English from Canada and English from the United States, they might say we already did it. But I would encourage you to use the present perfect there. And the positional for already, it fits nice and snugly after the auxiliary verb. We have already. If there's a task that you've done earlier than expected, but you don't use already, you're missing the opportunity to give you and your team a well-deserved pat on the back. Let's compare, for example, we have signed the contract. Okay, great. Yeah. Fab with we have already signed the contract. Now you're talking something different. Now you're saying, this is earlier than expected. Look at me and my team. We've done a good job. Thanks very much. And I don't mean this to be boasting and like, look how great we are, but at this type of level, at this executive level, you've got to take the points where you can get them. Moving on, the last ad verb that's going to help you be really accurate with your progress updates is yet. This is nice and easy to explain, but these are things that we're expected to be done at this point in time, but they haven't been completed so far. Oh dear, we've hit them with the good news, things we've already done, and now we have to bring them back down to to Earth and give them a reality check. Here are all the things that we haven't done yet. Yay! I like to think of this as the Switzerland yet because it's neutral and that's going to make more sense in a minute. Typical sentences that you might say, unfortunately, you haven't been able to finalize the draft yet. And we haven't heard back from the client yet regarding their feedback. We also don't know yet what the recommendations from the board will be. If it helps you, you can think about this as the opposite of already. It's in a negative sentence and it goes at the end of that sentence there. However, there is another option here. And since we're on the topic of Switzerland, I'm going to call this the fancy St. Moritz option because that's a very sort of posh, nice luxury part of Switzerland. So sorry if I pronounced it horrendously, I'm sure I did. And this is the have yet to. Unfortunately, we have yet to be able to finalize the draft. And we've yet to hear back from the client regarding the feedback. Also, we're yet to know what the recommendations from the board will be. Have you heard something similar to this? Maybe in your meetings? What's the difference? It is a slightly different structure than saying we haven't yet. We have yet to. But it means exactly the same thing. It just means it hasn't happened so far. It's just a little bit more fancy. It's a little bit more formal. You might be more likely to use this, for example, in a board meeting if that is the vibe, right? If it's a more formal atmosphere. Now, just to touch on us a second because again, we're comparing, right? You could say, we haven't been able to finalize the draft. Okay, right. We haven't been able to finalize the draft. What you're giving with that tiny three lettered word is really vital information because what you're telling us is we know the draft isn't ready. But we're working on it. The wheels are in motion and it will be ready soon. And in fact, it would be very common in your progress update to say something like we haven't been able to finalize the draft yet. But we aim to get it done by the end of next week at the latest. So it's only three letters, but you are giving more information and more accurate information about the progress and status of that task. Finally, let's have a look at another way to use still in a progress report in English. And this is when we use it in the negative. And I'd like to call this the frustrated still. This is when something was expected a long time ago, but isn't complete yet. If we take the example of the launch, we could say we're still working on a few of the outstanding tasks. We decided not to go ahead with the overhaul anymore. But we have already had the go ahead from the client, which is great. But we still haven't heard anything from IT. And so I'd like to ask for your support to move this along. Still in the negative is a loaded phrase. And what you're loading it with is frustration. Now, of course, you don't need to over emphasize it like I'm doing, but that is the nuance with it. If we compared that with we haven't heard anything from IT, we still haven't heard anything from IT. And I was expecting to hear something from them like two weeks ago. It carries weight with it. Pressure, it signals delay, it implies frustration, even if a little bit subtle. Common ways that you might want to use this. Again, remember, it's still with a negative sentence, either present perfect or it can also be in the present tense as well. The work still hasn't been done. Or if it's a response, we still haven't heard back from them. The budget still hasn't been approved. And even uncertainty, we still don't know what their next step will be. So I'm hesitant to give you an answer yes or no today. So what next? All of these adverts are going to help you communicate your progress updates in a much more accurate and nuanced way. But what I'm interested in is how you implement this learning so you can feel more confident. First thing you can do is teach it back to yourself. Summaries that are learning from the episode out loud or write it down in your own notes that's proven to be a very effective way of consolidating information. You could also give yourself an audit. See which ones you use, which ones you don't. Pick one to get started. You can just use the sentence from the podcast, just pick it, lift it, use it. If you want a further exercise, you could think about a project that you're working on and force yourself to write out an update using these adverbs. Finally, go for it. Give it a try. Push yourself to try and use one of these phrases in the meetings that you have coming up this week. All right, that's it for me today. Thank you so much for tuning in and getting your training here on confident business English. I will see you same time, same place next week. Take care. [MUSIC]