Phrases for Dealing with Conflict and Heated Discussions in a Meeting

We have all been in meetings where the discussion has become quite heated, here is my guide to calming down any potential conflict!

When too many people are trying to speak at the same time:

“If we could just let him/her finish, (everyone will have their chance to speak)”

“Let’s listen to each other’s opinion respectfully and hear each other out, (everyone will have their chance to speak)”

“Let’s try not to speak over each other, (everyone will have their chance to speak)”

“Talking over each other won’t get us anywhere”

Encouraging participants to be respectful in responding to other’s opinions:

“If we could please show respect for each other’s opinions”

Calming participants down when they are giving strong opinions:

“I understand that we all have some strong opinions on this.. but if we could all be respectful when expressing them it would be helpful to the debate”

“If we can try not to use such strong language, it will help us all to have a sensible debate”

“There’s no need to raise our voices”

Calling for a break to calm down the situation:

“Let’s take 5 to cool off for a moment”

“I understand we’ve all got strong opinions on this, let’s take a quick break and get some air”

Attempting to establish some common goals:

“Look, we all want to reach an agreement on this, so let’s take a step back and discuss it sensibly” 

“Arguing isn’t going to get us anywhere fast, let’s just rewind and look at the points again”

“We may have to agree to disagree on this one”

If you would like to have any of these words explained further, or if you would like to see some more examples, feel free to email me at [email protected], or message me on Skype at live:fluencyspace! Also if you have any other questions about English I’m happy to answer your emails or I will write a post about it, keep the emails coming! Also, click here for more advanced vocabulary training!

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 David Cox

 Fluency Space

 Make the world your fluency space. Business English for career and life success

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