BE 635: How Piggybacking Can Boost Your Performance at Work

This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 635, How Piggybacking Can Boost Your Performance at Work. Welcome to the Business English Podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business. For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Aubrey, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.

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Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Hello there, Aubrey. How's it going today? I'm great.

How are you, Lindsay? I'm feeling great, but I have a question for you. You ready? Yes. Not related to business, a little bit different. Did you often get piggyback rides when you were a kid, maybe from your mom or your dad or friends or older siblings maybe or like brothers?

Yes. Yes. And it's funny when, cause I saw this quiz as a question from YouTube we got and I was thinking about it and my kids will often give each other piggyback rides, but I'm more worried now because they'll either be like the same size or the one jumping on is like bigger. I'm like, be careful.

Don't fall. Yeah. Don't fall. Don't break your back. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I remember doing this too with friends and parents, that kind of thing.

Really fun when you're a kid. Yeah. For sure. But it's interesting because we use piggybacking at work in a very different way, right? It's not just that piggyback ride where someone, usually a child, someone smaller is carried on someone's back with their arms around their shoulders, right?

We say that you'll say like the toddler fell asleep. So his mom gave him a piggyback ride to the car. But we also use this as a verb and we use it a lot at work. Yes.

So this episode is going to be really applicable. It's going to be super important for our listeners, especially, again, to address your reputation at work, how eloquent you are when you speak up. Very important. The question comes from Silva10oli.

And shall I go ahead and read it, Aubrey? Yeah, let's do it. All right. So they say, learning new idioms can link culture and foreign languages. My suggestion is to see you girls from Allers English piggyback this idea and create a piggyback English episode.

As any child who likes to get a piggyback ride from dad or mom inside the house, the idiom is going to be so useful. Okay. Yes. I love this question. And I immediately was like, this is going to be especially useful here on the Business English Podcast because we use it a lot at work to talk about piggybacking on someone else's idea.

And it's actually a great way to give someone else credit. If someone had an original idea or a success, then we'll use this verb and a few other ways to say this that we're going to share today to share that we weren't the one that came up with the idea originally. Yeah. So, so important for connection.

And at work, connection becomes credibility, right? Giving people, acknowledging them, giving them credit for what they've come up with. Really important. Exactly.

And if you don't do that, right? If you do pass someone else's idea off as your own, that can really hurt connections. If someone finds out later, it wasn't your idea or that coworker who should have been given credit, that can really hurt your connection with them. Your connection with them and also your professional reputation, what people think of you at work.

You won't be trusted. It's not good. So let's get into these then. So the verb, the phrase here is to piggyback on. Tell us about it, Aubrey. Exactly.

Right. So this means to use or build on an existing idea or opportunity instead of creating something entirely new. So maybe in a meeting you could say, I love Mark's idea and I'm going to piggyback on it and add a suggestion for a slight change. So you're recognizing the original idea is not your own, but you're adding something.

And we'll use this verb piggyback to do that. Yeah, exactly. Or talking about the development of a company. The startup piggybacked on its partner's distribution network to reach new customers more quickly.

Yeah, this is so interesting because this is quite an informal verb. I mean, piggyback, it sounds probably very casual and informal to everyone out there listening. But we do use this in business English. It's really fascinating how even some informal phrasal verbs like this will come up in meetings during, you know, in quite formal scenarios.

Yeah. It's also something that I heard a lot in graduate school. So a lot of what graduate school is, you do a ton of reading, right? Then you come to class, and then you're sharing your reflections on the reading.

It's kind of popcorn style. And a lot of people would say, I'm going to piggyback on what Amy said, and I'd like to add something, right? Yeah, that's what's interesting. Because if you just say...

I'm going to add to that. That isn't giving the credit as much. To say I'm going to piggyback on that implies that you needed the foundation of what they said or did, and you're building from there, right? This verb, we use it in order to give that credit.

Yes. But there are other ways to say it though. We don't have to just use piggyback because it is a little bit of an eccentric verb, don't you think? Yeah.

You wouldn't want to say it over and over in the same conversation. That's for sure. No. Or even in the same, let's say seminar class, 45 minute period or something.

So what else could you use? Yeah. You can also use a couple of other phrasal verbs. Build on, first of all, which just means to develop or expand something that already exists.

So it has the same meaning. You could say, I'd like to build on Janet's idea. And that's in the same way giving credit that you're sharing. This foundation was necessary for what I'm doing.

I'm just building on it. Yeah. And just we want to acknowledge that I'd like to build on Janet's idea by starting that way is pretty formal. So if you want to make it a little more informal, you could just say to build on Janet's idea.

I'm going to build on that. That's a good idea to drop everything and just say to build on that. Yeah. And some people might say just to build on that, but we have done episodes in the past, Aubrey, about being careful about the word just as you open up what you're going to say.

I think it can, I mean, I'm sure I do it all the time on the show here, but it can kind of take away a bit from the importance or the value of what you're about to say, I think. It's a little bit of a softener. It's intentionally sort of minimizing what you're going to say in order to not step on toes. But often that's not what you want to be doing because it could cause people to not listen if they're like, oh, this isn't going to be important.

I mean, sometimes it's used as a connection skill when we're building good conversation, but yeah, it can, has a slight connotation of it's a little less important what you're about to say. So just be aware of that. Yeah.

One more example here. This proposal builds on the ideas we discussed in last week's meeting. So it's interesting. It doesn't always have to be that like someone has shared something and you're going to piggyback on it or build on it, right?

These phrasal verbs are used all the time. Whenever you have a foundation of something, it could be anything, a project, work that was done in the past, you could use these.

Love that. Or expand on. I like this one. It's very literal, right? This means to develop or expand something that already exists. You might say, let's expand on the idea Maria presented.

Yes. Or during the presentation, the CEO expanded on her vision for the company's international expansion by outlining several key initiatives. Yeah, exactly. So this is slightly more formal, right?

It has a similar meaning to build on. But just I think because it's a little bit of a less common verb expand, it feels up level just a little bit. I like it. Yeah, I would definitely recommend that one.

All right. Yeah. Have you ever listened to native speakers and thought, I understand the words, but I still feel slightly lost. That's because real English conversations include more than vocabulary.

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Okay, Aubrey, let's put these all into action here. Here in this scenario, what's happening? What's going on? You and I are on a team that is planning a client conference.

Okay, here we go. I was thinking we could piggyback on the customer appreciation event that's already scheduled. Since the venue and most of the logistics are in place, we'd save time and money. That's a great idea.

And let's build on what we did last year instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. The networking sessions were a big success, so we could keep those and add a few interactive workshops.

I think you have something there. Could you expand on that idea? What would the workshops look like? Okay. Nice. So we used all three here and you definitely need options, right?

We certainly couldn't say piggyback three times in this conversation. That would feel very strange. It would be very weird. People would start laughing for sure.

So I started by saying, I was thinking we could piggyback on the customer appreciation event that's already scheduled. So meaning build on it. Right. Exactly.

Right. We're going to plan something. There's an event already scheduled that we can just add to and kill. Yeah. So that sounds like a great idea. That's another way we're sort of using piggyback on not just on an idea, but on a project that's already started.

Yes, exactly. All right. And what else did you say, Aubrey? And then I said, that's a great idea. Let's build on what we did last year. And then a bonus here, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

So with all of these phrasal verbs, instead of starting from scratch or this idiom, reinvent the wheel, which means to recreate something that already exists, right? Instead, we often do this at work. We're trying to build on other ideas and projects, do what we can to save effort.

Oh, for sure. For sure. Yeah. We don't want to have to redo everything from scratch. It doesn't make sense. It's a smarter way to work. If we could take what we've done, make it bigger and better, right?

Yes, absolutely. And then I said, I think you have something there. Could you expand on that idea? And here I'm inviting you to expand on it, to say more, tell me more, build it out a little bit further.

Yeah, another way we use this, right? When if someone's just kind of given the bare bones of an idea, and you want to know more, what's their vision? This is a great way to do that. Could you expand on that?

Yes, really good stuff. So we're giving our listeners some very key tools, again, for a business meeting, talking to coworkers, maybe graduate school or college, university, really important. Guys, go over and check out episode 632. How should you respond when coworkers ask for a favor?

Okay. Yeah. Oh, that's a vital, right? You want to be sure that you're responding enthusiastically instead of begrudgingly. Don't miss that episode. All right.

Good stuff. All right. Any final thoughts for our listeners today on this topic? Yeah, I love this question. Thank you for sending it in. We do use piggybacking a lot at work.

It's always fascinating how even some very casual, informal phrasal verbs do come up at work. And sometimes that's the best way to connect and break down that wall of formality we talk about. Our language is actually often more informal than you would expect at work. So true.

All right. Thanks for being on the mic with me today, Aubrey. I'll see you back here soon. All right. Awesome. See you next time. All right. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.

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