How to do small talk well

Nobody goes from stranger to recommending you in one move. There is always a step in between and it's made up of conversation that appears to be about nothing.

The part everybody skips

In 1923 an anthropologist called Bronislaw Malinowski described a kind of speech that carries no information whatsoever. He called it phatic communion, and defined it as speech in which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words. His example, a century old, was nice day today.

His point was that this is not failed conversation. It is a different function entirely. Ordinary talking moves information. Phatic talking moves nothing, deliberately, because the content was never the point. The point is that two people who could have said nothing chose not to.

Which means when you decide small talk is fake and skip straight to the ask, you have not saved anybody any time. You have removed the part where someone works out whether they like you enough to put your name forward and recommend you for something.

The problem is that nobody explains what to put in it when it actually matters.

Start with where you both are

The opener is not supposed to be interesting. It is supposed to be easy to answer.

Whatever you are both currently doing is the safest thing in the room. The queue, the panel you just watched, the fact neither of you knows anybody. Something as simple as what did you think of the speaker. Malinowski's nice day today still works because it asks nothing of the other person except that they reply.

People overthink this and reach for something clever, which is harder to answer and makes the other person work.

Introduce yourself as a person, not a job title

Then they ask what you do, because that is what everybody asks, and this is where most people lose it. They say the job title and the company and stop.

A job title gives somebody nothing to say back. Unless they happen to do the same thing, the conversation ends there and you both start looking for an exit.

Give them something to grab. What you are working on at the minute, what you are trying to work out, what you have just started doing.

Not: I'm a marketing manager at a fintech.

But: I'm in marketing, and I've spent a month analysing our open rate to understand why nobody reads our customer emails.

The second one is still true and it hands them a subject.

Ask about a decision, not a fact

Naturally you ask the same question back. It is the follow-up where the same rule applies in reverse.

Facts are boring to answer. Where are you based? How big is the team? The person answering learns nothing and neither do you.

Decisions are different. People enjoy explaining decisions, partly because it is rare that anybody asks.

Not: how long have you been there?

But: how did you end up doing that?

Not: are you enjoying it?

But: is it what you expected?

The second version in each pair is answerable in a sentence. You gave them permission to explain something they have thought about yet likely never been asked.

Keep giving something back

If everything you say from here is a question, it stops being a conversation and becomes an interview. Things get awkward, fast.

Say something. A view, a disagreement, something you tried that did not work. It does not have to be impressive. It has to make the exchange mutual.

Do not ask for anything

Not in the first conversation. This is the part people find hardest, because it feels like a wasted opportunity.

It is not. The first conversation is the one that makes a second one possible, and a second conversation with someone who already likes you is worth more than ten first ones with people who do not.

Leave it for now. If it went well there will be a reason to speak again, and that is the conversation where asking makes sense.

Get your introduction ready before you walk in

You cannot research somebody you are about to stand next to in a queue. But you can walk in with your answer to what do you do already worked out, and your follow-up questions ready.

> I am going to [event or situation]. The people there are mostly [roles, industry, seniority]. Here is what I am working on at the moment: [a few lines, in your own words].

>

> 1. Give me three ways to answer "what do you do" that are not my job title. Each should be something I am actually working on or trying to work out, and give the other person something to respond to.

>

> 2. Then give me five follow-up questions for once they have told me what they do. Every one has to be about a decision they made rather than a fact about their job, and answerable in a sentence.

>

> Do not write me an elevator pitch. I am not asking anybody for anything.

The last line matters. Without it, you will get a pitch.

Everybody has been cornered by someone who introduced themselves, their job title and what they wanted in one breath. If you're the one doing the cornering, this is how not to be that person.