Mastering Small Talk At Work
Mastering small talk at work is more than just a social skill—it’s a gateway to building rapport, fostering connections, and cultivating a positive workplace environment. But how do you make small talk easy and effortless? In this week’s newsletter, global communication expert, Jessica Chen, chats with the Founder of Bright Ideas Only and Keynote Speaker, Kim Kaupe.
Below is a small snippet of their entire conversation held on our Soulcast Media | LIVE show on LinkedIn. If you’d like to watch or listen to the entire interview, click below. The transcript has been slightly edited for reading ease.
📺 Watch the full live event here
🎙️ Listen to the Podcast episode here
On Small Talk
Kim – What helps many of the people I talked to about this is you have to look at it as a fishing expedition. What do I mean by that? When I say a fishing expedition, I think that sometimes, when we have a goal in mind, it makes things a lot easier when we’re like flapping in the wind like a flag with nowhere to go; that can be very hard.
But if we know we’re going to do something, it helps us propel forward. So I always say, think of it as a fishing expedition, and what you are fishing for are tidbits that you can follow up on.
Giving yourself a mission when it comes to talking with people, I think, is a little bit easier for people to wrap their heads around than just flapping in the wind and wondering, what do I talk about?
On What To Talk About
Kim – If I could do a stack ranking system on small talk subjects, number one is going to be anything that person knows, loves, or likes. So that’s going to be the number one thing that you think that person will know or love.
The second one is anything that’s more general. So we’re talking about like the weather or sports.
And the third one, and it’s dead last, and it’s dead last for a reason, and that is work. Yuck. Nobody wants to talk about work. Listen, we all got to go to work. We all have to make money, but there are very few people in life who get super excited about work unless it’s a project that they are really passionate about.
Someone would much rather talk to you about their grandkids, their favorite Italian spot, or their favorite baseball player than they would about the last sales meeting report.
📺 Watch the full live event here
🎙️ Listen to the Podcast episode here
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