Small Talk Matters

An Underrated Technique of Persuasion

Small talk is very rarely listed as a business technique, let alone an essential one, yet it is one of the most useful and productive tools in the soft skills cook book, especially in the section titled social skills for influence and persuasion.

Small talk is often seen as irrelevant, a distraction and a poor use of time. This may well be true if it is done without a strategy, and when done ineptly it can be a minefield of disasters. But done correctly it will break down barriers, engender liking and build trust, and with a little bit of forethought will sow the seeds of future cooperation, collaboration, and with them, contracts. And that has got to be a result worth pursuing.

Small talk is generally a low risk activity if you follow a few golden rules, and the first of which is don’t ever talk about sex, religion, and politics, unless of course you know the other person really, as in really, really, well. It is probably best to leave football in that category too, on the basis that for some supporters it’s a religion, for others more divisive than politics, and for most more revelatory than sex. I expect this rule will have been handed down to most us, parent to child, through the generations, there should never be an exception to it.

The next golden rule is don’t say anything about a person unless you can say something good about them, unless of course it’s very, very, funny, and no one is listening.

The third golden rule is to always be positive, our time on earth is too short to be tortured with the verbal equivalent of drearily damp winter afternoons. There is however a more serious reason to being positive, and that is to be influential. Being positive conveys belief in the future, and not unreasonably most of us prefer to work with people who bring hope and expectation to the party.

The final rule, the big golden rule, is never, never, ever, ever talk about something you don’t want to happen.

So what should we do to make a success of small talk?

The turning moment in my love affair with small talk was the realisation that other people by and large preferred the sound of their voice more interesting than mine. This made talking to a stranger magically easy. I just had to find a topic that they want to wax lyrical about and voila, instant happiness. One of the easiest things you can do to develop a business relationship where the other person enthusiastically volunteers to meet up with you is to start listening to them.

The knack to precipitating relaxed and natural small talk is to ask the other person an open question, one where the answer is beyond a guttural yes or no. And let them talk away. When they pause for breath, demonstrate you have been hanging on to their every word and repeat a little bit back to them, word for word of course, and then ask them another question. The more the other person perceives you are listening to them the better they will feel. Just keep asking more questions and with a few crafty questions that allows them to display their superior intellect and you will rapidly rise to the top of the ranks of super-heroes.

It is of course now possible to shape their thoughts about you while they are doing most of the talking. The best way to do this is to gradually introduce the qualities you want them to associate you with by asking them questions about it. If for instance you want the other person to think of you as reliable and dependable ask the person what they think about the qualities of reliability and dependability, and because you asked the question they will start to associate you with the qualities. Best of all earn double points and turn your question into a compliment. “John, you have a great reputation in the industry, I would be really interested to hear your opinion on how essential are the qualities of reliability and dependability in your suppliers?”. If you are trying to emphasise the advantages of being a local supplier try “John, you have a great reputation for being an expert in supply chain management, what are the advantages of choosing local suppliers?” Once you understand this then you will begin to realise my earlier point about not talking about things you don’t want to happen. Of course you have to be subtle, never try to go too fast too soon, and never contradict yourself. It will go badly if you asked about the qualities of punctuality and you turn up late to the next meeting.

Small talk is one of these techniques that never stops giving. So far we have seen how easy it is to both get someone to like and trust you and then plant useful ideas in their head. The big advantage however is in just listening to them and learning the language they use, because whenever you really do need them to notice you, and pay attention to want you want to tell them and then interpret it favourably then you need to talk to them in their language.

However if you want to have a persuasive advantage over another person find out about how they feel. These are a person’s emotional needs that will finally shape every decision they make. In a world where nearly every competitor can match specifications and price knowing the other party’s needs and understanding them will give you the persuasive edge. When everyone can match your specification and price the ability to recognise the need for security, status and recognition will enable you to satisfy the unspoken demands of an agreement.

So when you next pass away time with a stranger find out about their hopes and their fears, their dreams and their aspirations. Keep them talking and learn their language. They will like you and trust you. When you need them to they will listen to you and when you tell them in their language they will hear you and want what you have to offer them.

Please visit www.softskillstraining.co.uk for more information about our soft skills webinars and tutorials. You can also listen to our podcast The Surprising Benefits of Small Talk for further inspiration.

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Persuasion and Punishment

by Peter Beard • 26 August 2020

It’s good to see persuasion in the news, if only for all the wrong reasons. There is nothing like a nasty little pandemic to bring the age-old question of persuasion versus coercion back to the forum. The announcement at the beginning of the week by the prime minister that social isolation will be enforced by punishment if persuasion fails provides a useful opportunity to consider whether physical coercion is ever the most effective way of controlling the behaviour of people and what are the other options, if any, in times of crisis. Persuasion and punishment are not two mutually exclusive options to manipulate the masses, and it can be argued that punishment is a form of persuasion, much in the manner of Carl von Clausewitz who famously described war as diplomacy by other means. There is an irony here, at least for those who dabble in philosophy, because there is a hint of the closet libertarian about Clausewitz, but I digress, that is another blog. Punishment can initially appear to be a very efficient method of changing behaviours but when you examine it closely its effectiveness, like any form of coercion, has considerable weaknesses and limitations. Punishment works on the basis that we all have an instinct to avoid loss or pain, or loss aversion as it is often known. The more we sense pain or loss the greater our desire and efforts to avoid them and when threatened with punishment our natural tendency is to comply. However, this effect only exists if we are constantly aware of the punishment and, more to the point, believe that if we transgress we will actually be caught and punished. Once we no longer perceive the harsh hand of retribution looming over us our sense of obligation to comply starts to diminish. The less likely we are to feel the pain, the less likely will we feel the need to obey. This makes punishment a high maintenance form of persuasion. You need surveillance and boots on the ground to sustain any compliance over even small periods of time, and that runs the risk of alienating the very people any law or rule was designed to benefit or protect, once this happens the threat of punishment is frequently counter-productive. The best forms of persuasion, measured in effectiveness and durability, do not depend on fear or coercion but instead rely on the willing agreement and commitment of people to behave in a manner that achieves mutual benefit for all. The goal of seeking mutual benefit has the advantage of becoming increasingly attractive the closer the goal comes to being realized, allowing the persuasive effect to be effortlessly self-sustaining. This is one of the effects of a positive bias, when the nearer we get to reaching our goals the more we are motivated to increase our efforts to achieve them. Unfortunately we can’t just make a wish for persuasion to happen, or just expect unknown powers of the universe to intervene. It requires a conscious effort and a little bit of thought; for the best results we need the application of a few well-tried techniques from the Influence and persuasion cookbook. Persuasion is very difficult without some of the attributes of influence. At the very least you need to be trusted, in so far people need to believe you are not dishonest, and you need to be trusted, in so far people believe you are capable of maintaining your side of the bargain or agreement. Without these two core attributes you might just as well try to scale an iceberg without crampons and an ice axe. However smooth your tongue, however slick your choice of words, without these basic facets of influence, your message will fall on disinterested ears. But even with influence it matters how you construct your message if you want it to be compelling and persuasive. There are many ways of making a message compelling such as highlighting positive outcomes, known as positive framing, or talking about what a peer group does, often referred to as positive framing. And there are a few techniques that verge on the dark arts, those that subtly elicit compliance and activate the imagination that give a message a hidden appeal. They can all be combined to reach agreement and obtain compliance that is durable and sustainable without coercion. Social proof is highly effective, it is the herd effect of wanting to conform, of wanting to do what all the other people are doing, or better still what other people like us are doing. Care must always be used in social proof to avoid highlighting what you don’t want people to do, it can backfire spectacularly. Positive framing is all about describing something in terms of its positive aspects, it’s as simple as that. It is highly effective. In an experiment concerning the outcome of a treatment for a disease with a high mortality rate stating the positive outcome had a startling outcome on how people perceived it. When the treatment was described as saving 200 out of 600 lives, 72% of people thought the treatment was good. When the treatment was described as one where 400 out of 600 people would die, then only 22% of treatment was good. This illustrates how the choice between two correct descriptions can significantly impact the attractiveness of whatever is being proposed. There are many other techniques available for making messages and arguments compelling without using threat or fear. They have the advantage of working well together to exponentially enhance their appeal and can be extremely powerful. So next time you need others to agree and comply remember the pen really is more powerful than the sword, literally.