Lesson Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome back to ItalianPod101.com.
My name is Desy.
Mi chiamo Desy.
And in this video we're going to talk business,
meaning we're going to talk about business culture in Italy.
La cultura aziendale in Italia.
Azienda is used to refer to a business, so an agency also.
Aziendale is the adjective that comes from the name, therefore cultura aziendale.
First things first, let's introduce ourselves, right?
So you want to say your full name if you are the first one of your company
to introduce yourself, otherwise if someone else from your company is introducing yourself,
you just want to go with the name because you want to show that you are close,
so you don't want to put emphasis on your surname instead of the one that already introduced himself
or on the company altogether, like the company has to be the center of attention.
Mi chiamo Desyree.
Mi occupo di...
E tra le... la mia posizione è...
but you wouldn't say that, you just say mi occupo di...
so I take care of...
and then you say what you do.
Also, if someone else is introducing yourself, they probably already said your name,
so you just say piacere di conoscerla or just piacere is also fine.
What I want you to notice here is that I said piacere di conoscerla,
which is the third person singular and that's the language that you want to use in business.
Unless the person you're talking to says that he wants to be referred with the to form,
dammi del tu, give me the you form or mi dia del tu, saying that with the formal way.
Unless that happens, you want to stick to the third person because that's the formal language.
So mi dica come posso aiutarla, for example.
Tell me, mi dica come posso aiutarla.
Cosa posso fare per lei?
What can I do for you?
Even though I'm saying lei as third person, I'm referring to you.
Tell me what can I do for you, but not addressing you directly, always using the third person.
Speaking of greetings, before COVID we used to shake hands with everyone new we met
and especially be careful because the bosses have to do that first while they do that you can
like do that with the other people that are there as well for the other company too,
but then only after your boss you greet the boss of the other company.
But I think that's just like common sense everywhere, not just in Italy,
but yeah we do handshake, not right now because of course it's social distancing
and sometimes since this is really the core of this video, since business is really really
based on human relationships in Italy, sometimes there's even a hug because it depends how many
times you've seen the person. In fact, since human connections are really important,
le relazioni umane sono molto importanti.
So you talk about family, famiglia or the weather or come è stato il viaggio,
how was the trip, how was the journey, assuming someone came to visit you.
Oggi fa proprio caldo, today is really hot or have you heard about I sentito che
some meetings don't really start right away talking about business, you have to get into the
mood like to just greet the other person, meet them like you were friends, so you talk a bit about
weather if you don't know what to talk about or if you do know them then maybe you ask about the
family or a specific condition you know they went through or something else, small talk. Also
meetings are not always made to talk business, meaning that sometimes it's just to meet the other
person and then if we do like them or if they like us then you talk business through emails
for example or later on on the phone. The meeting could end with you not touching on the business
topic at all or even like not deciding proper things. What I mean is the meeting is made to
brainstorm, to produce ideas, to confront yourself with the other person so don't get mad or confused
if the meeting doesn't have a proper decision at the end business wise. Also meetings often
take place in restaurants, meaning during lunch time or dinner time, so you can drink wine while
you're working.
To offer some wine is really common, I would say it's a must. So if you invite someone like
a business partner then it's up to you to pay for them as well. Here too, remember don't talk
business before the main entry at least. Talk about storie personali, personal stories,
anecdotes or just something that you did over the weekend. Also remember that dinner could be late
as well like 9 or in some southern parts even 10. Speaking of time, let's specify that Italian
office hours are usually 9 to 6 with an hour break in between, like usually from 1 to 2,
okay? But you do not want to do business in August, like you don't even suggest a meeting
or during a catholic holiday of course. Let's talk about punctuality. I know that you may say that
it's not really important, like we do allow some minutes of lateness and that's okay, but I
wouldn't say more than 15 because that's really the maximum. And I think we got it from the
university time, check the video on school if you want to know what I'm talking about,
il quarto d'ora accademico, it's allowed but no more than that. We've talked about meetings and
about what to expect from them, but what you really want to pay attention to is the dress code.
So let's admit that you want to dress to impress, right? Because even though Italians often say
that l'abito non fa il monaco, dress doesn't make the priest literally, so you shouldn't judge from
appearance, l'abito non fa il monaco, even though we say that a lot, la prima impressione è quella
che conta. First impression is what counts. La prima impressione è quella che conta.
So you do want to dress to impress, but I'd say quality over originality. Of course depending
on the business that you're in, because if it's fashion you want to go all in, but generally
speaking I would say that men have to stick to dark colors and like just a few accessories,
maybe a watch and that's it, like of course the wedding ring if you have it, and for women as
well you may want to have accessories like ring, necklace or earrings or even brooches on your
jacket, but I would say not all of them together, because you still want to be
discreet, formal and I repeat quality over originality, as you know we're kind of like into
brands, fashion brands, so yeah, dress code. That will also help you to make not only a good
impression, but bella figura. Fare bella figura means to have a nice figure, literally, but it
means to have a nice impression overall, so not just your appearance, but also your way of behaving,
for example you want to be formal but also friendly, as I said before be careful about the
form that you use and also about buongiorno and buonasera, for example, buongiorno, good day,
buonasera, good night, like if it's evening, good evening, you don't want to say salve,
for example. Salve it's a great thing that a lot of people think it's formal, because you don't
really use it with your friends, but it's actually not, because it comes from Latin and it just meant
like hi in Latin, so nowadays a lot of people care about the fact that it's not completely
formal, so don't use that, not even in emails. Emails that, let's remember, must be answered
within 24 hours, if you want to do a bella figura again. There is no gift-giving culture in Italy,
I mean business, of course, then there are souvenirs in between friends, but not in business,
like for example in Japan it's common to bring gifts from one company to the other,
but in Italy we don't do that, but really really important is coffee. For example, if I'm inviting
you to my office, I do want to offer you coffee, I will have it at my office or I'll ask you if you
want to stop by, like before getting to the office or do you want to just get out the office
to get some coffee, because coffee is really what we think of like when we say hospitality,
so if we want to be nice we offer coffee. Now this leads me to talk about not only relationships
between businesses, so agencies or like you know different people that still you haven't met,
but let's talk about business culture inside the business itself, meaning that okay there is no
gift-giving culture, but you want to offer something for your birthday in the office.
For example, you want to bring some pastries or something to share with your colleagues,
which is colleghi di lavoro or you may want to pay for the coffee if you're going to a bar,
you know to get something in the morning, so sharing is really really important in Italian
business, sharing condividere a meal, condividere un pasto with some business partners, but also
condividere del cibo with your colleagues, share some food with your colleagues or just make a
make a toast, like for example you can bring some wine and just have some with your colleagues
during lunch or at the end of the day, you also want to bring something to celebrate for example
your retirement or your wedding, you want to make sure your colleagues know it's really really
important to share, because that makes us feel like family, so coffee break is really also
important inside the business. I can ask you, if you're my colleague, cosa fai questo weekend?
What are you doing this weekend? I can ask you this on Friday and then on Monday,
so how did that thing went? Come è stato il weekend? It's really important to have genuine
connections inside the office, of course that means that sometimes you may hear some gossip,
let's say, but after all we're just a big family in business as well. Siamo una grande famiglia,
siamo una grande famiglia. Of course everything I said depends on the company and on the size of
the company, because that's also really important, because if it's like you know just a small group
of people you can get more familiar with them, otherwise if it's like hundreds of course it's
harder, but still what I said I think applies to any group of work in Italy, so I hope this gave
you an idea of what to expect if you have to deal with an Italian business partner or even
if you get into an Italian company for example. So let me know in the comments if there is
something that happened to you that kind of shocked you or that you didn't expect,
like I heard someone saying that about drinking wine during working hours. So yeah, thank you
for watching, if you haven't done it yet you can sign up for your free lifetime account on
ItalianPod101.com, just click the link in the description and download our pdf lessons to be
able to have even more real Italian conversations with native speakers. I see you soon, ciao ciao!

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