Two Introverts Walk into a Bar

Are you uncomfortable in situations where you are meeting someone for the first time and feel at a loss for how to keep the flow of conversation moving?  You may intuitively be good at small-talk, but when asked to share your secret you might be at a loss to explain your superpower to marveling friends.  Anett Grant, president and founder of Executive Speaking, Inc., to the rescue.  She offers a simple 3 step formula for conquering small-talk: match, shift, and pass back.

Grant demonstrates her match, shift, and pass back formula through a conversation between two people discussing their weekend plans.  In Grant's technique, the first step is to match your response to something the other person says.  A typical opening question might be,  "Do you have any fun weekend plans?" In Grant's example, the person's response is, "Yes, actually I'm going skiing with some friends", and your match response might be, "Oh, cool! I've thought about giving skiing a try a few times, but I've never gone through with it."  Of course, if you're an avid snow bunny then you have a perfect jumping off point to trade tales from the slopes.  In the match step, you don't have to share a common interest, but you do need to show interest.  Just like good listening skills, demonstrating you heard the speaker by paraphrasing or restating their comment builds a rapport and sets you up for the next of Grant's steps.

Step two in the formula is to shift the topic, either in an attempt to find a new topic of common interest or to shift to a specific event or particular aspect of the topic.  In Grant's skiing example, you might try to shift to an activity of interest that shares a relationship to the first, like another outdoor, physical activity such as hiking.  She suggests you might say, "I'm generally not much of a cold weather person, but I do like doing outdoor activities in the summertime--especially hiking.”

Of course, people like to talk about themselves, and asking a follow-up question becomes the pass back that allows the other person to respond by disclosing more information.  Grant's example uses the pass back question of "Do you like to hike?", but you could also use the opportunity to get the other person talking more about themselves by asking an open-ended question.  For example, you might seek to understand if skiing is an avid hobby or if this is the person's first time out.  An open-ended question not only passes back conversational control to the other person, but can lead to deeper engagement with surprising results.

Grant's match, shift, and pass back formula is simple in its design, but powerful in its execution.  It's worth repeating two key elements that can add dynamite to your dialog.  First, try using non-leading, open-ended questions.  Instead of questions with simple, one word answers or questions in which the answer comes almost without thinking, try questions that elicit thoughtful and unprepared responses.  It's a conversational trick used by psychologists and therapists in counseling sessions to get their clients more fully engaged in conversation without making it feel like an interrogation.  Second, and the single most important thing to remember, is to approach your interactions with a sincere desire to get to know the other person.  Rather than focusing on yourself, invoke your natural sense of curiosity to learn something new.  In the end, that something new might even be something about yourself.


"3 Steps Anyone Can Take to Master Small Talk" by Anett Grant
http://www.fastcompany.com/3043228/work-smart/3-steps-anyone-can-take-to-master-small-talk