ADV. 13.1. SUCCESS

I. COMMENTING ON SOMETHING YOU'VE WATCHED 

1. FACTORS OF SUCCESS

Success and failure

With a lot of vocabulary, there will be particular forms of a word that you know better than others. You will be very familiar with the adjective successful, and with the verbs fail and quit, but you may use other forms of these words less often: I should have quit sooner. I'm not a quitter. So, a person who quits is a quitter. This is pretty easy to work out, as the person who does an action often finishes with -er. Some nouns are less easy to guess, however. Do you know the noun that comes from fail? I failed, but I learned from it. I think you can learn from failure. In these cases, we simply have to remember that the noun form is failure. How about the verb and noun from successful? I didn't succeed in the beginning. Success doesn't always come easily. You may be less familiar with the verb succeed, but as an advanced learner, you will start to use these forms that are less familiar to you. It was an amazing success. It was a failure for a few reasons, I think. 2. ADDING EMPHASIS TO IDEAS Introducing comments   You will often hear what and one thing (that) used to introduce comments and opinions: What's really interesting to me is the role of failure.  There are a few grammatical options with this structure. In the first example, we use a pattern like this: What + be + adjective + be + noun. What's the pattern in the next sentence? One thing that was cool was that he wanted to pass on real-world experience. Here, we have: One thing that + be + adjective + be + that + clause We have the option to conclude this type of phrase with a noun like failure, or with a full sentence, as in the previous example. We also have the option to start the sentence in different ways. What's different in the examples below? What surprised me was that he was willing to admit to being a failure. One thing I admire about him is his honesty. Here we use verbs surprise and admire rather than an adjective in the first part of the sentence. You may also hear the way used instead of that: What I liked about his talk was the way he was so positive about failure.

II. WORKING OUT THE MEANING 

1. GUESSING UNKNOWN WORDS

Guessing meaning

When reading a text, you'll encounter unfamiliar words. You can try to guess their approximate meanings.

Words from the same family

You might know that the suffixes -al and -ial are used to form adjectives and that -ity is used to create nouns. If you know the meaning of entrepreneur, it will help you to guess that the word entrepreneurial is an adjective describing entrepreneurs. Knowing the meaning of scalable will help you understand that scalability is the ability to be scalable. Startup companies are entrepreneurial ventures. Investors are generally attracted to startups with scalability. Guessing the meaning of multipart words   Sometimes two words are combined to form a new word, and you can separate these words to guess their meanings. For example, if you know the meaning of the words high and tech (from technology), you can guess the meaning of the phrase high-tech companies. Many high-tech companies were started during the early 2000s. In many cases, multipart words have no hyphen. You can still separate them to guess their meanings. For example, widespread can be separated into wide and spread to help you understand its meaning: common.

The term startup became widespread during the dot-com bubble.


III. WRITING MORE COHERENTLY 

1. EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION

A process that can help increase employee motivation: analyze, benchmark, reward.

Analyze

First, the manager and employee should analyze the current situation. A manager and employee should work in a collaborative way to set goals. Employees feel motivated when they're involved in setting their own objectives. Benchmark    After a period of time, the employee's performance should be assessed. Benchmark can be used as a noun or a verb. The benchmark the employee is trying to reach should be realistic. It's important that an employee's performance is assessed after a period of time. Ideally, an employee will have reached or even surpassed the benchmark. A manager's success can be measured by how many employees reach their targets. Reward Managers should reward successful employees. Successful employees can be rewarded with vouchers. A reward should be substantial enough to motivate employees. It's in a company's best interests to have incentivized employees. 2. COHERENCE AND COHESION Coherence   If your writing is coherent, it will make logical sense to your reader, both in the individual ideas you express and the logical progression of ideas. Here are some strategies for adding coherence to your writing. General to specific The analysis phase is crucial. The manager should sit down with each staff member to analyze the skills they have and the ones they need. Statement, then example Successful employees should be rewarded. Rewards could include cash or vouchers. Question, then answer How can managers help employees make significant improvements? Working collaboratively and incentivizing an employee can be very effective. 3. MORE METHODS FOR COHERING WRITING References   References between sections of a text help the reader know what you're referring to without having to repeat the same words. In the example below, the phrase a program like this refers back to Incentivize your employees.   Incentivize your employees. Make them feel that the company's success means success for them as well.  There's nothing like a possible reward to motivate people.  A program like this will probably have to come from upper management, not just from the direct manager.   Repetition of key words   Another method is to repeat key words in a text. Notice in the paragraph below that the words listen and listening bring the paragraph together.   Listening is key. If people feel that their manager is listening to them, even when they are complaining,  they will be happier and more productive. Listen to your employees!

IV. MAKING YOUR POINT MORE EFFECTIVELY 

1. TRAITS OF SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE

Talking about success

Here are some expressions for talking about success: What manner of success are you looking for exactly? It's difficult to pinpoint what defines success. He was able to turn his academic success into business success. Here are some words for describing the traits of successful people: It's not easy to pinpoint what traits make people successful. She's very resilient. She's always able to bounce back from adversity. They're very proactive. They try to anticipate problems before they happen. No matter what happens, he never gives up. He's very persistent. Here are some more words for talking about successful people's traits:

She's incredibly passionate about her work.
Creativity is very important, but so are practical business skills.
He has a great ability to find pragmatic solutions to problems.
Steve Jobs was one of the most innovative thinkers of his time.


2. SUPPORTING YOUR OPINION

Giving examples or specific details

Sometimes it isn't enough to just state an opinion. You must strengthen or support it. One way to do that is to give examples or specific details. Good managers need to be proactive. When there's a problem, they don't wait for others to fix it. Providing reasoning   You can also provide reasoning to support your opinion. Good managers promote effective communication. Open and effective communication makes people feel valued and heard. Using contrast   Using contrast can be an effective way to support an opinion. A good manager needs passion. If managers aren't excited about what they're doing, how can we expect the employees to be? Summarizing   Summarizing your opinion can be an effective way to bring the focus back to your main idea. In the end, it's important to remember that a good manager needs to be both persistent and flexible. 3. BUYING TIME TO THINK The idiom buy time to think means to get more time to think before responding. There are many ways to buy time to think. Here are a few:   Ask for repetition or clarification Can you say that again? Can you be more specific?What exactly do you mean by effective management? You can also use expressions like these: I need a second to think about that. That's a good question. Let me think for a minute. If you are really at a loss to answer, you can use expressions like these:

That's not a question I can answer right now. Can I get back to you?
I'd need to give that some thought before answering.
Well, it's difficult to pinpoint exactly.