BEP 179 – Handling a Crisis 1: Taking Control

This is the first in a series of Business English lessons on handling a crisis.

Imagine this: it’s four o’clock in the morning and you’re sound asleep. The phone rings. It’s one of your managers. There’s been a terrible accident! What do you do? What do you say?

At some point in your career, you will have to deal with a major crisis. It could be a labor strike or an environmental disaster. And there are minor crises, like missing an important delivery or running out of paper, that can happen every day. These events can certainly do damage, but how much? That depends on how you deal with them.

Good crisis management is the key. Your success and reputation depend on it. So in this lesson, we’ll look at what happens when a crisis breaks, or begins. This is all about “Taking Control in a Crisis.” We’ll cover some useful techniques and language to deal effectively with that early morning phone call about an accident.

We’ll hear Sandy and Mike, who work at a factory in China that has just had an accident. Sandy is the plant manager, while Mike is the lead production engineer. A pipe has burst, releasing gas and injuring two workers. Now Sandy and Mike are calling their boss, Frank Menzies, in the U.S. Let’s listen as Sandy and Mike deliver the bad news and Frank takes control of the crisis.

Listening Questions

1. Why isn’t Mike on the call at the beginning?
2. What information about the incident does Frank want to know?
3. What does Frank instruct Mike to do at the end?

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5 thoughts on “BEP 179 – Handling a Crisis 1: Taking Control”

  1. I realky enjoy your podcasts! This one espescially has piqued my curiousity. Unfortunately, I keep getting a “Failure” to download. Has anyone else had this problem?
    Keep up the good work!
    Jenn

  2. @ Jennifer,
    There was definetely a problem 3 hours ago but it’s fixed now. I suspect our feed has not yet updated in your podcast software. If you have the option to ‘refresh’ the feed, try that. Or try to manually download the podcast from our site (the media link is definetely OK).

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  4. an amazing community . i learn useful stuff here . just listen to them consolidate my confidence. it aids me of preparing my BEC. thanks a lot and well done you all .

  5. These exercises come in handy for my lessons. They help my students grasp the language quickly and boost their vocabulary. Thank you business English pod! :)

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