Welcome to the Conversation Factory, conversation designers. My guest today is Dr. Gillian Sandstrom, a psychologist at the University of Sussex who studies what happens when we talk to people we don't know. She is a scientist of Small Talk.
Her book, Once Upon a Stranger, is all about the science of how small talk can add up to a big life.
And I know exactly what you're thinking.
I hate small talk.
I hear this all the time from plenty of senior leaders.
"It's dumb, it's a waste of time!" they say. "Let's just get on with the real stuff. Big Talk!"
The research does not support your aversion.
Your brain is telling you that you dislike small talk because it feels hard. That hardness is the resistance we feel toward any new skill, not evidence that it isn't worth doing.
Small talk is a learnable skill, and it is far better for us than we think. It's like medicine we don't want to take that can heal us tremendously.
Dr. Sandstrom's data is clear: small talk is a life skill.
My anecdotal data shows that small talk is also a leadership skill.
A leader who says "I hate small talk" is missing out on opportunities to intentionally create connection and community, to learn what's really going on with their team, to build a little psychological safety into every meeting and interaction.
Some of the leaders I coach, and the leaders in the forums I facilitate, have made their peace with this by telling themselves, "Small talk isn't for me, it's for them."
And they're right that it's an act of service, creating a moment of connection for everyone else in the room. But here's what I think they're missing: how much they themselves might come to enjoy it, and how much they will learn from it.
In fact, the ones who've been willing to do the experiment, to lean into small talk, have found it has made their professional lives more enjoyable and surprised their spouses to boot.
Now, maybe you're thinking: but Daniel, I'm an introvert.
That's fair. But here's one of the most surprising things in Gillian's research:
Introverts enjoy social interaction just as much as extroverts, and they're just as good at it.
And across the board, these conversations that sometimes we feel resistance to and anxiety about usually go far better than we expect.
And here's the part that surprises people most: even when efficiency feels like the whole point — getting your coffee, getting through the line — taking a moment to actually connect leaves you happier and more connected. And you're still waiting for that coffee either way.
I've seen this efficiency work against leaders in meetings because I find that a meeting that starts cold stays cold, while a meeting where someone takes those first few minutes to actually welcome people in comes alive and leads to better work.
So let's review:
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Efficiency is overrated. Creating micro-spacious moments to connect with people is nearly always more enjoyable and beneficial than we think
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Even if you're an introvert, you can be good at talking to people AND enjoy it as much as an extrovert
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Talking to people is a learnable skill. We reference one of my favorite Pride and Prejudice moments where Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet discuss how talking to strangers is a learnable skill like playing the pianoforte, not a fixed personality trait.
Gillian has a framework in her book, the acronym QUICK. I refer to it in the interview, but we don't break it down.
How to QUICK-ly break down talking to people into manageable skills and mindsets
QU is for Questions, and her favorite is as simple as "whatcha doing?" You see someone photographing a fence, or fiddling with something in the park — "whatcha doing?" — coming from a place of real curiosity.
I've discovered that in meetings, you can ask almost anything at the beginning to get people talking and to create a moment of spaciousness. One CEO I coached loved asking icebreaker questions. On a day when I was observing the executive leadership team, he asked everyone, "What is your favorite sandwich?"
One amazing thing was that everybody answered the question differently. Each person's answer was a micro-manual to understanding more about that person, because the CTO answered differently than the COO, who answered differently from the CMO. Some people focused on stories. Some people focused on technique. Some people talked about their favorite sandwiches in different cities. It was a portal to understanding the person.
I-C is for In Common. It's why we talk about the weather: it's something we share. You can also point to anything in the environment the two of you happen to occupy — "Did you see those dogs? They are having the best day."
Folks who bristle at the concept of small talk often think that talking about the weather is silly. The truth is, it's okay to talk about the weather and to use that as a bridge to talk about something else. I also think it's one of the reasons why it's great to use your real background in Zoom calls because it gives people something to comment on: the guitar in your background, a painting that you have up there, your plants.
Giving people an opportunity to see the real (and curated!) place you're in gives you an opportunity to talk about something you have in common: you are both peering into a tiny window into each other's houses.
K is for Kindness — a compliment, directions, offering someone a seat, or your company.
And this is certainly a leadership skill that is under-exercised. Using the first few minutes of any meeting to compliment someone on something they did well recently can be incredibly powerful. I think it's an underutilized leadership skill to celebrate wins. Why not take a moment to celebrate some wins while you're waiting for everyone to file into the Zoom room or the conference room?
Underneath all of it is one quiet skill: noticing. Anything can be a portal — a t-shirt, a tattoo, a baby duck. The openings are everywhere. We're just not seeing them.
Which brings me to the real stakes. This podcast episode is indeed about small talk, but small talk is not about small talk. As Dr. Standstrom outlines in our interview, small talk is about creating opportunities for a life well-led.
Once you understand that you can create these tiny moments of connection — in a line, at a counter, in the first five minutes of a meeting — you start to walk through the world a little differently.
So let's talk to a stranger. Here's my conversation with Dr. Gillian Sandstrom.
Links
Learn more about Gillian's work at https://gilliansandstrom.com/
Gillian's write-up in the New York Times: https://archive.ph/cjSmJ
Gillian in the Greater Good in Action Project: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_hidden_power_of_talking_to_strangers
Gillian's book "Once Upon a Stranger: The Science of How Small Talk Can Add Up to a Big Life": https://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Stranger-Science-Small/dp/0063385414
Is Efficiency Overrated?: Minimal Social Interactions Lead to Belonging and Positive Affect
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550613502990
Abstract When we buy our daily cup of coffee, sometimes we engage in a social interaction with the barista, and sometimes we are in a rush. Every day we have opportunities to transform potentially impersonal, instrumental exchanges into genuine social interactions, and the happiness literature suggests that we may reap benefits by doing so; in other words, treating a service provider like we would an acquaintance (i.e., weak tie) might make us happier. In the current study, people who had a social interaction with a barista (i.e., smiled, made eye contact, and had a brief conversation) experienced more positive affect than people who were as efficient as possible. Further, we found initial evidence that these effects were mediated by feelings of belonging. These results suggest that, although people are often reluctant to have a genuine social interaction with a stranger, they are happier when they treat a stranger like a weak tie.
Why do people avoid talking to strangers? A mini meta-analysis of predicted fears and actual experiences talking to a stranger
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15298868.2020.1816568
Abstract People are often reluctant to talk to strangers, despite the fact that they are happier when they do so. We investigate this apparent paradox, meta-analyzing pre-conversation predictions and post-conversation experiences across seven studies (N = 2304). We examine: fears of not enjoying the conversation, not liking one's partner, and lacking conversational skills; fears of the partner not enjoying the conversation, not liking oneself, and lacking conversational skills. We examine the relative strength of these fears, and show that the fears are related to talking behavior. We report evidence that people's fears are overblown. Finally, we report two interventions designed to reduce fears: conversation tips, and the experience of a pleasant conversation. Ultimately, this research shows that conversations go better than expected.
Talking to strangers: A week-long intervention reduces psychological barriers to social connection
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103122000750?via%3Dihub
Abstract Although people derive substantial benefit from social connection, they often refrain from talking to strangers because they have pessimistic expectations about how such conversations will go (e.g., they believe they will be rejected or not know what to say). Previous research has attempted but failed to get people to realize that their concerns about talking to strangers are overblown. To reduce people's fears, we developed an intervention in which participants played a week-long scavenger hunt game that involved repeatedly finding, approaching, and talking to strangers. Compared to controls, this minimal, easily replicable treatment made people less pessimistic about the possibility of rejection and more optimistic about their conversational ability—and these benefits persisted for at least a week after the study ended. Daily reports revealed that people's expectations grew more positive and accurate by the day, emphasizing the importance of repeated experience in improving people's attitudes towards talking with strangers.
Books from Dr. Standstrom's shelf: https://www.amazon.com/Talk-Science-Conversation-Being-Ourselves/dp/B0D47VL32B
