Look at the five pieces of bad news, which are followed by both a positive (confident and optimistic) and a more negative (realistic and cautious) response. Complete the responses using the phrases in the box.

I don’t understand why we’re getting this reaction / if we don’t change something immediately / I’m very happy with the progress we’ve made / I think the schedule is totally unrealistic / I think we need to find a new approach / I think we should continue / this is extremely worrying / we’ll catch up / we need to give things a little more time / we’re still doing better

1. Sales have dropped by almost ten percent. a) To be fair, ...... than our competitors. b) ...... and something we need to address urgently.
2. The project is two weeks delayed already. a) I think this is quite normal and ...... in a month or so. b) To be frank, ...... .
3. Customer feedback on the new website is a little mixed. a) ...... . Not everyone is going to like the changes at first. b) ...... . Didn’t we do user testing before going live?
4. The new safety procedures have not reduced the number of accidents by as much as we would have liked. a) ...... . We’ll see results in the longer term. b) ...... , we won’t meet the targets we set.
5. There is a lot of resistance to the ongoing changes. a) ...... . People need time to respond to change. b) ...... . People are really very angry