How to Get Good at Small Talk, and Even Enjoy It

MATT ABRAHAMS: I think

small

talk

is actually a misnomer. We refer to

small

talk

as any talk or simply conversation that we don't give much importance to. When in fact, small talk is a wonderful way to connect, bond, learn, and grow. And what makes it so challenging is the fact that we can't have a script. We have to follow what is happening at the moment. Many times we think that it is a test for us. It's like a tennis match, where I have to throw something at the person or people I'm talking to and hope it lands and goes well.

I think a better way to look at small talk is like that game of hacky sack: that little beanbag where everyone is trying to keep up at the same time and never make it to the ground. If you envision your job as collaborating with others to keep the conversation moving, rather than a hot tennis match, where I just need to throw it back at the other person, it can really change, one, how it flows, and two, the experience from your perspective. . Suddenly, it's something

enjoy

able instead of something scary. When you first find yourself in a small talk situation, I think we should set appropriate goals.

Rachel Greenwald, matchmaker and academic, has this wonderful saying. Your goal is to be interested, not to be interesting. Many of us approach these situations thinking that we need to be really fascinating, engaging and interesting, when, in reality, we just need to be present and interested in the conversation that is taking place. It also helps reduce the anxiety that many of us feel. We feel like we are being judged. And the reality is that you are being judged. You can reduce the intensity of that focus we feel by putting your attention on the other. Many of us have this desire as soon as something spontaneous happens and we have to respond to do it as quickly as possible.

We have the feeling that the speed to respond is somehow associated with competence. But in reality, what best reflects your competence is an appropriate response. And adaptation can take a little time. We've all said something we didn't mean because it wasn't clear or appropriate. Taking a break helps reduce that likelihood. So here are some things you can do to help you slow down. Paraphrasing is wonderful. Because? Not only are you repeating the essence of what someone said to ensure that you are responding clearly to what is asked or needed, but paraphrasing forces you to slow down and listen more carefully.

Paraphrasing is not what a five-year-old parrots what you said. It is a distillation of what the other person said. And when you paraphrase it, you do several things. One, you validate the other person because you are saying I heard you. You don't necessarily agree. Paraphrasing does not mean agreeing. It just means this is what I heard. And validate the content. So you validate the person, but the content… the person can say, no, no, no, no. What I really meant was this. So it helps with fidelity. Most of us listen long enough to get the gist of what someone is saying, and then immediately begin to judge, rehearse, and respond.

When I paraphrase, I have to listen very carefully. I have to listen to understand what the substance of what you are saying is. That stops me. And by slowing down my own thoughts and then paraphrasing them, I buy myself some time to really think. There is always something to say. You can always ask a question. My mother-in-law was amazing with small talk. She had a black belt in small talk. And her superpower was a simple phrase. She would pause for a moment and she would say, tell me more. If you ever find yourself in a situation, a communication, a conversation where you don't know what to say, most of the time you could just say, tell me more or give me more details, or what you meant by that point. ?

And just giving the person a chance to speak again gives them time to find what they might want to say and connect with that. TEAM: Tell me more. When you say, tell me more you have to act with curiosity. If you just say, tell me more, it's not... but if you say, tell me... yes. Tell me more. Tell me more about that. Yes. Errors are normal and natural in communication. We do them all the time. Spontaneous communication is about connection, not perfection. You know, in film and television, directors ask their actors to do several takes. A take is just another chance to do the same thing.

So, an actor can say something in a very passionate way, or he can say it in yet another way: with more curiosity. Those are all different takes. That's why I'd like people to reframe a mistake as a missed take. What you did wasn't bad. There may be another way to do it and we can try again. Many of us, when we feel very uncomfortable in spontaneous speaking situations, go on for too long. We discover what we think while we think about it. So we just take people on the journey of our thought process as we talk, and we go and go and go.

It's almost a defensive technique, where if I throw a lot of things, maybe something will stick and people will think, oh, that person is smart or knows what they're talking about. Conciseness is almost always better in communication. My mother has this wonderful saying. I know she didn't create it, but she tells me the time, don't build the clock for me. Many of us are clock makers in these spontaneous speaking situations. And we have to remind ourselves that when we start talking to just tell the time. I know the irony that I am talking about conciseness and I was not concise in that answer.

One of the best ways to be concise and clear is to take advantage of structure. The structure is not a list of ideas. They are not vignettes. The structure is a logical connection of its points. It's like a recipe or a map. Now this sounds ironic, right? We're talking about being spontaneous, and here I'm saying that structure is the key to spontaneity. But we see this in our lives in many other facets. If you like jazz music, jazz music is not just shuffle. Jazz music follows particular structures, chord progressions and note connections. So we can take advantage of structure to help make our communication closer and clearer.

One of my all-time favorite structures, because it's so useful in so many different situations, is three simple questions. That? So what? Now what? What is your idea, your product, your service, your belief? So why is it important to the person or people you're talking to? And now, what comes next? Maybe he'll show you something, answer your questions, and schedule another appointment. When it comes to small talk, this is a magical tool. Imagine you're at a corporate meeting, you walk in and there are people in the company you don't know yet. So if I strike up a conversation with you I can say, hey, what brings you here?

That's what. When you respond, I can say, oh, why is that important or why do you find that interesting? That's the so what. And after that, I can ask a question like, oh, so what else are you going to do, or what are you going to do next, or do you want to join me and go here? So now I have the question. As with anything you try to learn, you must practice it. When you read something or listen to a podcast, pause it, stop reading, think about what it is about, why it is important to me and how I can use it.

By piercing it, it becomes more natural. When we are in small talk situations, we often start with trite and very common phrases. How are you? What brings you here? What do you do for a living? These are simple and thoughtful ways to get started, but they won't really get you very far. I'm a big fan of starting through questions, but through questions that connect with the context and the particular environment in which I find myself. Just the other day, I found myself in a situation to make small talk. And the first thing I did was I walked up to someone I didn't know and I said, this is amazing to me.

There are more people in this room in blue shirts than I think I've seen in a long time. And the person said, you know what? You're right. That's really interesting. And suddenly the conversation started working. All I did was notice something in the environment. Leading off with something that piques someone's curiosity, something that might highlight something that's not commonly known or discussed at the time, can really invite people to participate rather than hello, how are you? And they say, well. Well, now I'm back to square one and it's

even

more awkward, right? Perhaps more challenging than starting small talk is getting out of it.

Many of us trust biology. Oh, I'm thirsty. I'm going to go have a drink. I'm hungry or I need to go to the bathroom. Biology is not necessarily the best way out for these circumstances. I love an approach I learned from Rachel Greenwald. It's called the white flag approach. If you know anything about car racing, before the last lap, the last lap, they wave a white flag to tell all the drivers that the race is ending. As the end of the conversation nears, whether because you need to leave, or want to leave, or the conversation has run its course, you indicate this.

They say, I need to leave in a moment, but... and this is where they ask one last question, they provide one last comment. Then you continue the conversation for a while. So it might sound something like this. I need to go because there are some friends there that I need to meet. But before I go, I want to tell you a little more about that trip you told me about to Hawaii. And together, you can end the conversation instead of abruptly saying, "Oh, I need to go to the bathroom." Oh wow, that looks like

good

food there.

It's just a much better, cleaner way to end a small conversation.