Umiejętności komunikacji ustnej — model answers
Język angielski w zastosowaniu zawodowym
How to use this document
These are model answers for the six scenario presentations. They are not the only correct answers — a different group with a different headline could deliver an equally strong five minutes. Each model is one version that satisfies every requirement and shows why particular choices were made.
For each scenario, this document:
- Reproduces the brief so the language requirements are visible alongside the answer.
- Provides a five-minute spoken script divided across three or four speakers, with the slide each speaker stands on.
- Highlights vocabulary and grammar choices in bold and tags them with the lesson where they were introduced.
- Closes with a short post-mortem identifying the easiest places to lose marks on this brief.
The annotations use the course’s grammar notation:
- L1 — globalisation, present perfect, first conditional
- L2 — strategy and management, sentence adverbials, cause-and-effect
- L3 — ethics and leadership, modal verbs
- L4 — finance / people / innovation, passive voice, reported speech
Read the script aloud once before reading the annotations. Five-minute presentations live or die on the rhythm of the spoken sentence, not on the page.
Scenario 1 — NorthStar Electronics
The brief (reminder)
NorthStar Electronics, premium consumer-electronics retailer (22 stores in Poland). Audience: board of directors; sceptical CFO, supportive CEO. July 2026 board meeting; five-minute opening slot. Decision sought: approval to commit €18m of capital to a phased entry into Romania, beginning Q4 2026.
Required language: three of {market entry, market share, first-mover advantage, joint venture}; strong opening that leads with a number; one first conditional in the call to action; one sentence adverbial as transition; one hedge.
Likely objection: “Why Romania and not Hungary?“.
Model script (five minutes, three speakers)
Speaker 1 — opening + Slide 1 (Total addressable market)
“€1.8 billion. That is the size of the Romanian premium consumer-electronics market in 2024 — fifty per cent larger than Hungary’s, and three times the size of Bulgaria’s or Slovakia’s. In the next five minutes, we will show why Romania is the right market entry for NorthStar, why now, and what we are asking the board to approve.”
“Looking at the market sizes side by side, Romania stands out clearly. The cluster around €0.6–0.7 billion — Bulgaria, Slovakia — is too small to absorb our format. Hungary at €1.2 billion is closer, but the addressable market in Romania is fifty per cent larger. Importantly, this is not a marginal lead; it is the difference between a flagship-store strategy that scales and one that doesn’t.”
- “€1.8 billion.” Headline rule: lead with the number, not with a warm-up.
- “market entry” L1 vocabulary, item 1 of 3.
- “In the next five minutes…“ L2 sentence adverbial as a structural signpost; doubles as a Promise of Structure (we will cover why Romania, why now, what we ask).
- “Importantly” L2 sentence adverbial #2.
- The Hungary comparison is delivered before the CFO can ask it — pre-empting the likely objection on slide 1.
Speaker 3 — closing and call to action
“To bring this together: a market fifty per cent larger than the next-best alternative; an income trajectory that mirrors Poland’s at the moment we scaled at home; and a fragmented competitive landscape with no premium-positioned chain in our segment. One caveat we should note: the CEE retail market remains exposed to currency risk, particularly RON-EUR, and our model assumes a five-per-cent buffer.”
“The decision required is approval of €18 million of capital for a phased Romanian entry, beginning Q4 2026 with three flagship stores and an e-commerce launch. If we approve this today, we will be operating in Bucharest by Q4 next year and will protect the eight per cent steady-state market share that the model is built on. We are asking for sign-off at this meeting; the next slot is October, by which point Hungary’s incumbent will likely have moved into Romania too. Now — what questions do you have?“
- “One caveat we should note” Hedge with modal verb (L3) should — required by the brief, and lets the CFO see we know our own risk.
- “market share” L1 vocabulary, item 3 of 3.
- “If we approve this today, we will be operating…“ L1 first conditional; the engine of the call to action. Notice it is specific (Bucharest, Q4, eight per cent) rather than generic.
- The closing names the body, the date, and the consequence of delay — the three-part structure for a strong ask.
Where this presentation can lose marks
- Generic opening “Today I’d like to talk to you about…“ burns the headline rule. Lead with the number every time.
- Reading the GDP chart aloud as data points rather than as a trajectory comparison. The chart is not an axis-by-axis description; it is a story about timing.
- Forgetting to address Hungary. The CFO will surface it if the speakers don’t.
- Generic call to action “We’d love your support” is unscored. The ask must name the amount, date, and decision body.
Scenario 2 — Meridian Bank
The brief (reminder)
Meridian Bank, mid-sized Polish retail bank (84 branches, 2.1m customers). Audience: executive committee; nervous COO and Head of Retail. December 2025 review. Decision sought: approval to close 22 low-traffic branches by end-2026, redeploying 80% of affected staff.
Required language: three of {restructuring, cost leadership, KPI, stakeholders}; lead with the channel-shift finding; one modal verb; one sentence adverbial; specific call to action.
Likely objection: “Closing branches signals retreat from communities.”.
Model script
Speaker 1 — opening + Slide 1 (Channel shift)
“In 2018, just under half of our customer transactions happened in branch. By 2024, that number was seventeen per cent. In other words, the customer has already left the building — our branch network simply hasn’t followed. Today we propose a structured restructuring of our physical footprint that recognises that shift. In five minutes I will show you the data behind it, address the reputational concern head-on, and tell you what we are asking the executive committee to approve.”
“The channel shift is the headline. Branch transactions fell sharply from forty-eight per cent to seventeen between 2018 and 2024 — a thirty-one-point drop. Mobile and online rose correspondingly. This is not a forecast; it is what has already happened. A branch network sized for 2018 customer behaviour is no longer the network the customer is using.”
- “just under half” L4 quantifier — calibrated approximation.
- “In other words” L2 sentence adverbial; reframes the chart as a single-sentence story.
- “restructuring” L2 vocabulary, item 1 of 3.
- “fell sharply” Trend verb + L2 adverb, calibrated to a thirty-one-point fall.
- “a thirty-one-point drop” L4 prepositional precision: the change, not the level.
- “This is not a forecast; it is what has already happened.” Pre-empts the “you can’t be sure” response: this is past data.
Speaker 2 — Slide 2 (Cost per customer) + Slide 3 (NPS)
“Building on this, the cost picture. Operating cost per active customer per month varies from PLN 24 in our high-traffic urban branches to PLN 58 in the low-traffic rural ones — more than double. The 22 branches we are proposing to close all sit in the upper half of that range. As a consequence, the closures concentrate exactly where the cost-leadership opportunity is highest — and where the customer is least often present in person.”
“This brings us to the concern about communities. The third chart is the answer. Net Promoter Scores by customer segment show urban customers at +48 and small-town and rural customers at +37 to +39. There is a gap, but it is narrow — and ninety-five per cent of the affected customers live within twenty-five kilometres of a retained branch. The proposal is not a withdrawal; it is a redistribution. Stakeholders — customers, employees, regulators — should see this as a network rebalancing, not a retreat.”
- “As a consequence” L2 sentence adverbial; causation marker.
- “cost-leadership” L2 vocabulary, item 2 of 3.
- “There is a gap, but it is narrow” Calibrated comparison; doesn’t pretend rural NPS is identical, but doesn’t let the gap drive the narrative.
- “should see” L3 modal verb — should signals what is reasonable, not what is enforced.
- “Stakeholders” L2 vocabulary, item 3 of 3.
- The NPS chart is used as the rebuttal to “closing branches signals retreat”. Chart-as-objection-handler is a strong move.
Speaker 3 — closing
“To summarise: customer behaviour has shifted; the cost structure of our network no longer matches it; the customer-satisfaction gap between segments is narrow; and ninety-five per cent of affected customers are within easy reach of a retained branch. The redeployment of eighty per cent of affected staff means this is a network change, not a workforce change.”
“The decision required is approval, by the executive committee, of the closure of twenty-two branches by end-2026, with the redeployment plan as drafted. If we approve this today, we will save approximately PLN 38 million annually and reposition the network for where the customer actually is. The next executive committee meeting is in February; one quarter’s delay reduces the FY2026 saving by twenty-five per cent. Could we agree the closure list at this meeting and ask Operations to bring the redeployment timetable to February? Now — I’d welcome your questions.”
- “If we approve this today, we will save approximately PLN 38 million annually…“ L1 first conditional. The number is specific, the timeframe is named.
- The ask has two parts (decision now, timetable in February) — a softer landing for a nervous committee than a single all-or-nothing approval.
Where this presentation can lose marks
- Apologetic opening “This is a difficult topic…“. Closure proposals fail when they sound apologetic; the data has to lead.
- Letting the NPS gap dominate. Forty-eight to thirty-seven is a real but narrow gap. If you frame it as a chasm, the COO wins the room.
- Vague redeployment language “we’ll find roles”. The number is eighty per cent; say it.
Scenario 3 — Lattica Consulting
The brief (reminder)
Lattica Consulting, 380-employee Warsaw consultancy. Audience: six-partner board; Managing Partner sponsor; some partners uncomfortable with conclusions. March 2025 board meeting. Decision sought: approval for structured promotion-review panels, sponsorship programme for women at Manager+, quarterly transparency reporting (≈ PLN 1.8m / 5 years).
Required language: three of {integrity, transparency, accountability, stakeholders}; diplomatic register; one modal verb; one first conditional; one hedged claim.
Likely objection: “This will create reverse bias against male candidates.”.
Model script
Speaker 1 — opening + Slide 1 (Pay gap by seniority)
“The Managing Partner asked the People Committee to look at the firm’s gender pay gap. We’ve done that work; this morning, we’d like to share what we found and what we recommend doing about it. Two per cent at Analyst level. Twenty-two per cent at Partner level. That is the shape of the firm’s gender pay gap, and the question this presentation answers is what we should do about it.”
“The first chart is the pay gap by seniority. At entry level the gap is small — two per cent — and within the bounds of normal year-on-year variation. The pattern that should concern us is the slope. Each step up in seniority adds roughly five points to the gap, all the way to twenty-two at Partner. This is consistent with structural rather than incidental causes — the gap is not accumulating randomly. It is accumulating systematically.”
- Diplomatic opening: names the Managing Partner’s mandate first, before delivering the finding. The room is then implicated with you, not by you.
- “The pattern that should concern us…“ L3 modal verb should — invites concern rather than demanding it.
- “This is consistent with…“ Calibrated claim. Strong enough to mean something; weak enough to leave room for partner-level discussion.
- Avoided the word “bias” deliberately at this point — it shuts the room down before the case is made.
Speaker 2 — Slide 2 (Promotion rates) + Slide 3 (Modelled scenarios)
“The pay gap is a symptom; the second chart shows the mechanism. Promotion rates by gender at four senior steps: Analyst-to-Senior-Analyst, women at forty-eight, men at fifty-two; almost identical. Senior-Analyst-to-Manager, thirty-eight to forty-nine. Manager-to-Senior-Manager, twenty-four to forty-one. Senior-Manager-to-Partner, eighteen to thirty-eight. Each step the gap roughly doubles. The McKinsey study found that firms with structured promotion panels typically show pay gaps sixty per cent smaller than firms without them. That is the lever this proposal pulls.”
“The third chart is the modelled outcome. The grey line is the no-action scenario: drift up by half a point over five years. The dark line is the proposed-plan scenario: down to three-and-a-half per cent overall by 2029. We should note that the projection assumes sixty per cent uptake of the recommended measures; the modelling team and I have stress-tested it, and at forty per cent uptake we still reach roughly five-and-a-half per cent — materially below where we are now. In short, the plan is not free, and it is not certain — but the data is consistent with substantial improvement at modest cost.”
- **“The McKinsey study found that…“** L4 reported speech; brings external evidence in cleanly without quoting at length. This also defuses the reverse-bias objection: the question is no longer “is this fair?” but “is this consistent with what other firms have done?“.
- “We should note that…“ L3 modal verb (should) flags a model caveat without undermining the recommendation.
- “the data is consistent with…“ Hedged claim, exactly as the brief required.
- “transparency” L3 vocabulary item 1.
- “substantial improvement at modest cost” A specific framing of the cost-benefit conclusion that the partners can quote back at their teams.
Speaker 3 — closing
“The recommendation has three parts. First, structured promotion-review panels with diverse membership; the McKinsey evidence is the rationale. Second, a formal sponsorship programme for women at Manager and above; this addresses the largest single step in the chart. Third, quarterly transparency reporting to the board, so we know whether it is working. The total cost is approximately PLN 1.8 million across five years.”
“One concern that has been raised is whether structured panels create reverse bias against male candidates. The structured-panel literature is the opposite* of bias by design: it standardises the criteria so that informal preferences — in any direction — have less room to operate. We can revisit the panel design at the six-month review.”*
“If the board approves the three-part plan today, we will close the gap to roughly three-and-a-half per cent by 2029, against a no-action drift of just under twelve. As partners, we have an opportunity — and an accountability — to act on this with integrity. I would welcome the board’s approval at this meeting and a six-month progress review on the agenda for September. What questions do you have?“
- “One concern that has been raised…“ L4 passive structure; depersonalises the reverse-bias objection so the partner who feels it is not put on the spot.
- “integrity”, “accountability” L3 vocabulary items 2 and 3.
- “If the board approves…“ L1 first conditional; specific outcome (3.5% / 2029) attached.
- The six-month review built into the ask makes it easier for an uncomfortable partner to vote yes today.
Where this presentation can lose marks
- Adversarial framing “The firm has a problem”. The audience is the firm. “We have data we should look at” lands; “the firm has a problem” invites defensiveness.
- Overclaiming on the modelled scenario. Without the sixty-per-cent-uptake caveat, the model looks naive.
- Missing the reported-speech opportunity of the McKinsey citation. “Studies show…“ is weaker than “The McKinsey study found that…“.
Scenario 4 — Korbex Logistics
The brief (reminder)
Korbex Logistics, mid-sized European logistics operator (≈ €170m revenue, 1,200 employees, 380 trucks). Audience: investment committee; previously rejected an €8m proposal as too cautious. November 2024. Decision sought: approval to commit €15m to fleet expansion (24-month deployment; modelled three-year ROI 31%).
Required language: three of {ROI, working capital, cash flow, profit margin}; lead with the Q3 result; one first conditional; one sentence adverbial; specific call to action.
Likely objection: “One strong quarter doesn’t justify a €15m commitment.”.
Model script
Speaker 1 — opening + Slide 1 (Quarterly revenue)
“Q3 revenue: fifty-two-point-three million euros. The forecast was forty-five. We beat plan by sixteen per cent — the largest gap in three years. In the next five minutes we will show why this isn’t a one-quarter accident, what it means for the ROI on a larger investment, and what we are asking the committee to approve today.”
“The first chart shows the last five quarters of revenue, actual versus forecast. The actual line — the dark bars — has tracked at or just above plan since Q3 2023, with the gap widening sharply in Q3 2024. As the committee will recall, our previous proposal sized the investment at eight million euros; at that scale we would forgo precisely the upside that this quarter has just demonstrated.”
- “Q3 revenue: fifty-two-point-three million euros.” Number-first opening, exactly as the brief asked.
- “beat plan by sixteen per cent” L4 prepositional precision: by, not to.
- “ROI” L4 vocabulary, item 1 of 3.
- “gap widening sharply” L2 calibrated trend verb + adverb.
- “As the committee will recall…“ L4 reported-speech-adjacent; pulls the previous (rejected) proposal into the room without a confrontational pivot.
Speaker 2 — Slide 2 (Cost categories) + Slide 3 (ROI scenarios)
“Building on this, the cost picture explains why* margins improved. Q3 2023 versus Q3 2024: fuel costs dropped from twenty-eight per cent of revenue to twenty-four; vehicle maintenance from fourteen to eleven; admin and overhead from nine to seven. In aggregate, profit margin has improved by approximately five percentage points. The single category that didn’t fall is driver wages — which rose modestly, by one point. In short, the operational gains are durable, not one-off.”*
“The third chart is the investment case. Three scenarios. No investment: baseline. Eight-million investment: plus eighteen per cent ROI over three years. Fifteen-million investment: plus thirty-one per cent ROI. The relationship is not linear — the larger investment produces disproportionately higher returns, because the fixed-cost share of fleet operations is relatively high. As a consequence, the eight-million proposal — which the committee correctly rejected as too cautious — left the largest single piece of the return on the table.”
- “In aggregate”, “In short”, “As a consequence” Three L2 sentence adverbials in this turn alone — not because the brief required three, but because the speaker is doing structural work (combining bullets, summarising, drawing causation).
- “profit margin” L4 vocabulary, item 2 of 3.
- “rose modestly” L2 adverb. Calibrated against driver wages, which is the one line item that didn’t drop.
- “The relationship is not linear…“ Strong claim, defended in the next breath. Doing both signals confidence without arrogance.
- The previous-proposal-was-correct-to-reject framing is rhetorically generous: the committee was right, and now there is more data.
Speaker 3 — closing
“To pull this together: Q3 results show the operational improvements have already happened, not are projected to happen; the cost structure shows they are durable; the ROI model shows the fifteen-million scenario captures the largest part of the available return; and at the pessimistic fuel and wage assumptions, ROI remains positive at seventeen per cent. One caveat we should note: the model assumes capital is funded from retained earnings, which preserves working capital at current levels and avoids any cash flow pressure.”
“The decision requested is approval, by the investment committee, of fifteen million euros of capital for a 24-month fleet-expansion deployment. If the committee approves this proposal today, we will lock in the procurement window before fleet prices rise in Q1 2025 and protect the projected ROI of thirty-one per cent. The procurement team needs sign-off by end of November to begin tendering. Now — what questions do you have?“
- “working capital”, “cash flow” L4 vocabulary items 2 and 3 (or 3 and 4 if profit margin counted).
- “One caveat we should note…“ L3 modal verb should in a hedge — defuses the “one strong quarter” objection by acknowledging the model’s assumption rather than pretending there isn’t one.
- “If the committee approves this proposal today, we will…“ L1 first conditional. The lock-the-procurement-window framing makes a fast yes feel rational.
Where this presentation can lose marks
- Forgetting that the committee already rejected once. Pretending it didn’t happen invites the same objection. Acknowledge it; reframe it.
- Treating the three charts as three separate stories. The chain is result → mechanism → forward case; each chart is a step.
- Missing the wages-up nuance in chart 2. If you only call out the falling categories, the speaker who sees the wages line first looks more careful than you.
Scenario 5 — Praxis Health
The brief (reminder)
Praxis Health, healthtech startup; €1.1m current ARR; product launched six months ago. Audience: Series A panel of four (two follow-ons, two new). June 2025. Decision sought: €4m at €28m post-money; lead-investor confirmation by end of June.
Required language: three of {time-to-market, product-market fit, scalability, USP}; strong opening leading with user growth; one first conditional; calibrated claim about NPS; specific ask to lead investor.
Likely objection: “Six months is too short to prove product-market fit.”.
Model script
Speaker 1 — opening + Slide 1 (Cumulative users)
“In month one we had one hundred and twenty active users. In month six we have two thousand eight hundred and forty. We have doubled in each of the last three months — and we are forty-two per cent ahead of our internal target. In the next five minutes we will show what is driving that growth, what the engagement data tells us about whether it is real, and what we are asking the panel to back.”
“The first chart is the user trajectory. The dark line is actual; the grey is target. What the actual line shows is acceleration, not just growth: the gradient gets steeper each month from M3 onward. By M6 we are at 2,840 against a target of 2,000 — forty-two per cent ahead of plan. The shape of that curve is the single strongest signal of early scalability.”
- “doubled” L4 multiplicative quantifier.
- “forty-two per cent ahead” L4 prepositional precision.
- “What the actual line shows is acceleration, not just growth…“ Frames the chart as a story, not as data. Frame the question, then resolve it.
- “scalability” L4 (innovation) vocabulary, item 1 of 3.
Speaker 2 — Slide 2 (NPS) + Slide 3 (ARR scenarios)
“Building on this, the engagement data. Net Promoter Score by user-engagement segment at M6: trial users at +12, light users at +31, regular users at +58, power users at +74. The score climbs steeply with engagement — which is the canonical pattern of an early-stage product-market fit signal. We should be calibrated about this: six months and 1,420 NPS responses is a small sample, and we are not claiming we have proven product-market fit. What we are claiming is that the data is consistent with it, and the trajectory is what we would expect to see if it were.”
“The third chart is the ARR projection under two scenarios. Grey: current trajectory, plateauing at 3.3 million euros at M18. Dark: with the four-million raise — thirteen-point-three million euros at M18. The difference is engineering capacity and a four-person commercial team — the two structural levers that the model is most sensitive to. The four-million raise is not principally a capital allocation question; it is a time-to-market question. Our USP in the segment is the integration with EHR systems that no competitor has yet matched; that lead is measured in months, not years.”
- “product-market fit” L4 vocabulary, item 2 of 3.
- “We should be calibrated…“ L3 modal verb should; the brief’s “avoid overclaiming” requirement, executed.
- “What we are claiming is that the data is consistent with it…“ Calibrated claim. The pattern is “not X, but Y” — a standard way to acknowledge limit and finding in one sentence.
- “time-to-market”, “USP” L4 vocabulary items 3 and 4. (Three were required; four felt natural here without forcing.)
- “The four-million raise is not principally a capital allocation question; it is a time-to-market question.” A reframe: tells investors what game they are playing.
Speaker 3 — closing
“To bring this together: forty-two per cent ahead on users; the engagement curve consistent with early product-market fit; an EHR-integration lead that competitors have not yet matched; and a four-million raise that is fundamentally about closing that lead before it disappears. One thing we should be honest about: at six months, our sample is small, and the curves we have shown could plateau. The downside scenario in the model is the grey line: 3.3 million ARR, profitable at low growth. The four-million raise is the difference between a profitable niche product and a category leader.”
“The ask is four million euros at twenty-eight post-money. If we close this round by end of June, we will be hiring the engineering team in July and shipping the second product line by Q4. We are asking the lead investor in this room to confirm by end of next week. The two follow-on investors have already indicated support; the round closes on the lead. What questions do you have?“
- “One thing we should be honest about…“ L3 modal verb should in service of credibility — the brief requirement to avoid overclaiming on a six-month sample becomes a strength of the pitch.
- “The downside scenario…“ Pre-empting risk by making it concrete is more credible than hiding it.
- “If we close this round by end of June, we will…“ L1 first conditional; specific dates, specific outcomes.
- The ask is named (lead investor, end of next week, four million at 28 post). Notice the social architecture: “the two follow-ons have already indicated support; the round closes on the lead” puts gentle pressure on the lead without naming them.
Where this presentation can lose marks
- Overclaiming on six months of data. The fastest way to lose investor confidence is to call this product-market fit. “Consistent with” is the right register.
- Treating the ARR chart as a forecast. It is a scenario model — say so.
- Vague ask. “We’re raising four million” is not an ask. “We’re asking the lead investor in this room to confirm by end of next week” is.
Scenario 6 — Tarsus Tech
The brief (reminder)
Tarsus Tech, 600-employee Polish software company. Audience: executive team — CEO, COO, CTO, CFO, Head of People (you). CFO concerned about productivity in distributed teams; CTO enthusiastic. May 2025; after a 12-month pilot of four teams matched against four control teams. Decision sought: approval of a company-wide rollout of flexible work from Q3 2025.
Required language: three of {retention, engagement, attrition, performance review}; lead with the attrition finding; one first conditional; one modal verb calibrating productivity; specific call to action.
Likely objection: “Self-reported productivity is unreliable.”.
Model script
Speaker 1 — opening + Slide 1 (Attrition)
“Eight per cent versus twenty-one per cent. That is the attrition rate of the four pilot teams against the four control teams over the last twelve months — a thirteen-point gap, in the same firm, in the same year, with similar team profiles. In the next five minutes we will show what the rest of the data tells us, address the productivity question directly, and tell you what we are asking the executive team to approve today.”
“The first chart is the headline. Pilot teams: eight-per-cent twelve-month attrition. Control teams: twenty-one. In financial terms, the thirteen-point reduction translates to roughly PLN 6.4 million per year in retained employees and avoided replacement-hire costs. The pilot wasn’t designed to test attrition; it was designed to test productivity — but the retention signal turned out to be the strongest finding.”
- “Eight per cent versus twenty-one per cent.” Number-first; comparative-first. Two findings in one sentence.
- “attrition” L4 (people management) vocabulary, item 1 of 3.
- “retention” L4 vocabulary, item 2 of 3.
- “The pilot wasn’t designed to test X; it was designed to test Y…“ A reframe that disarms the CFO’s likely angle of attack: the strongest finding wasn’t the one we were looking for, which makes it harder to dismiss as confirmation bias.
Speaker 2 — Slide 2 (Engagement survey) + Slide 3 (Productivity index)
“The second chart is the engagement survey. Across four dimensions — work-life balance, engagement, manager trust, and self-reported productivity — pilot teams score significantly higher than control. The gap is widest on work-life balance: eighty-two per cent favourable versus fifty-four. As a consequence, the attrition gap on the previous chart should be no surprise: people who are happier in their teams stay longer.”
“The third chart is the productivity question — and I want to address it directly, because the CFO has flagged that self-reported numbers are not the same as measured ones. The chart shows team-level productivity index change against the prior twelve months. Pilot teams: plus seven, plus twelve, plus four, minus two. Control teams: plus one, minus one, zero, plus two. The pilot teams range more widely, but on average they sit clearly above zero; the controls cluster near it. We should be careful about claiming productivity gains as the headline; we may, however, claim with confidence that productivity is at minimum neutral and probably modestly positive.”
- “engagement” L4 vocabulary, item 3 of 3.
- “As a consequence…“ L2 sentence adverbial; causation.
- “the CFO has flagged that self-reported numbers are not the same as measured ones” L4 reported speech, naming the objection in the room before it lands. Disarms by acknowledging.
- “We should be careful about claiming X; we may, however, claim Y…“ Two L3 modal verbs (should, may) doing the calibration the brief required. Notice the structure: “we should not claim more than we have, but here is what we have”.
- “at minimum neutral and probably modestly positive” Calibrated claim, with adverb (“modestly”) doing exactly the work the L2 toolbox is for.
Speaker 3 — closing
“To bring this together: a thirteen-point attrition reduction; an engagement gap of more than twenty points on work-life balance; productivity at-or-above neutral; and a population of 240 employees across eight teams in the pilot — a sample large enough to act on, even if not large enough to generalise without caveat.”
“The decision required is approval, by the executive team, of a company-wide rollout of flexible work from Q3 2025, with a six-month transition window per team. If the executive team approves the rollout today, we will save approximately PLN 6.4 million annually in retained employees alone, before counting any productivity benefit. The implementation team is ready to begin the performance-review redesign — which is the one operational dependency — in June. We are asking for approval at this meeting and a follow-up review at the September executive cycle. What questions do you have?“
- “performance review” L4 vocabulary item; the four required vocabulary items now all hit.
- “If the executive team approves the rollout today, we will save…“ L1 first conditional with named outcome (PLN 6.4m / annual / retention-only).
- “before counting any productivity benefit” A clean way to keep productivity in the picture without leaning on it.
- The ask names the body, the date, the outcome, and the operational dependency. The September review reduces the cost of saying yes today.
Where this presentation can lose marks
- Leading with productivity rather than attrition. Productivity is the contested finding; attrition is the strong one. The brief told you to lead with attrition, and there is a reason.
- Hand-waving the self-reported issue. The CFO will not let it pass. Address it on chart 3, with two modals doing the calibration, and the room hears that you have already thought about it.
- Generic call to action. “We’d like the team to support this” is unscored. The ask must name the body, the date, the rollout start, and the operational dependency.
Closing notes across all six scenarios
A few patterns that distinguished the strong models above from a generic five-minute talk:
- Number-first openings. Every model led with a specific figure — sometimes two. The headline rule is the single highest-leverage habit you can build for English presentations.
- Calibrated trend verbs. The same verb-toolbox (surged, climbed, rose modestly, edged up, fell sharply, plateaued) appears throughout. Pick the one that matches the data; pick the adverb that matches the strength.
- Modal verbs as credibility tools. Should, may, could did the work of acknowledging uncertainty without sounding uncertain. Hedging the claim, not the delivery.
- Reported speech for prior evidence. “The McKinsey study found that…“, “The CFO has flagged that…”. Reported speech brings external voices into the room without quoting at length.
- Specific calls to action. Every closing named a body, a date, an outcome, and (often) the cost of delay. “We’d like your support” is not an ask; it’s a wish.
The point of this exercise — and of the lesson — is not to produce identical presentations. It is to produce presentations that you can defend in front of a room of native speakers because every choice you made was deliberate.