Discussing CHANGE at work | Business English lesson

To begin, take a listen to these natural and native ways to talk about big changes at work.

We've decided to overhaul the whole workflow, and we're going to need everyone on board if this is going to work.

We've decided to overhaul the whole workflow, and we're going to need everyone on board if this is going to work.

I think there are a lot of things that we need to change, but we need to make sure that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I think there are a lot of things that we need to change, but we need to make sure that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We've decided to revamp our website since we've had some customer feedback that showed it was difficult to navigate.

We've decided to revamp our website since we've had some customer feedback that showed that it was difficult to navigate.

Okay, in our second example, we heard the fantastic idiom, to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Now, I must say that I learned something myself while writing this podcast.

I learned that the origin of this phrase is not actually what I thought it was.

There's a well-known story that many years ago families shared the same bathwater to save money and resources.

The father would take a bath first, then the other adults, then the children, and finally the baby.

By the time it was the baby's turn, the water was supposedly so dirty that you could barely see the child.

The story goes that when someone emptied the tub, they might accidentally throw the baby out with the bathwater since we couldn't see them.

Now, apparently this origin story, although entertaining, is not actually true.

However, it's so well-known, at least among linguists and language geeks like myself, that I thought it was worth mentioning.

In fact, the expression can actually be traced back to a German proverb from the early 1500s where it was likely just meant as an amusing metaphor, just something funny.

Either way, it's an idiom that you might hear from time to time in professional English language workplaces.

To throw the baby out with the bathwater means to discard, remove-Or throw away something valuable and important while trying to remove only the bad parts.

Let's say, for instance, you work in a business with a line of physical products, things that you sell and then you ship to your customers.

You might decide that a particular model or type of item is not selling very well.

However, instead of removing that one product or that one SKU, you instead stop selling the whole category of product, even the SKUs and product lines that are profitable to you.

Or maybe someone suggests in a meeting that a software system that you use is getting a little old and really should be replaced.

You might say something like, "I appreciate your perspective, and I think that there are some parts of that software that are essential for some of our teams.

We've got to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater." So I appreciate your perspective, and I think that there are some parts of that software that are essential for some of our teams.