So, we’ve already seen that you should never drop bad news without preparing your boss or client for it. To review: bombs dropped out of the blue are much, much worse than bombs you expect. If you expect something, you can at least run into the bomb shelter before it happens.
Today, we’re going to add a nuance to this observation, on the importance of chit-chat and more broadly, small talk.
First, a qualification: everyone has their own level of chit-chat preferences. Some people love talking about the weather. Some people hate it. I’m in the “hate it” camp so today’s analysis is probably going to be the most biased analysis I’m going to write in this series. By far.
With chit-chat and small talk, the core argument I’m going to make is to avoid both extremes.
On one side of the fence are people that overdo the small talk and chit-chat. There are two key problems with that. The first is that these people (and I’m very far from one of them) conflate “small talk” with “relationship building.” No, no, no! Most people think that the way you build relationships is through lots of small talk. But let’s be very blunt: is there anyone you are deeply loyal to, that you have a strong relationship with, and that relationship was built through engaging in lots of small talk? We know the answer, no! Relationships are built—no, forged—through shared hardships, through intense experiences together (most likely why hazing is a thing, for better or for worse, it’s a structure for building relationships.) Relationships are built in other ways as well, like creating long-term value for the other person, or getting a sense of the other person’s inner soul, as visible as that may be. There are many paths for building relationships with other people. But small talk? Do you really think someone will give you any sort of preference or benefit or advantage over a stranger in any way or even just like you more because you’ve spent a few minutes or hours engaging in talk about the weather? For the vast, vast majority of human beings, the answer is no way, Jose! (No offense intended towards anyone named Jose.)
In short, if you engage in non-small amounts of small talk, just be honest with yourself. You’re doing it because you like doing so, and not for any strategic reason regarding your relationship with the other person.
A second problem with too much small talk is that it detracts from quality focus time on the issue at hand. Imagine a meeting is 30 minutes long, as is the most common norm. That actually means 25 minutes, since everyone needs a few minutes to prepare for their next meeting or a bathroom break. If you spend the first 5 minutes of a meeting on small talk, then that’s a full 20% of the value time is gone. That is a lot and it adds up. Choose a goal and stick to it, perhaps 10% of the meeting time?
But there’s a problem on the other side. I hate small talk and I try hard to avoid it. But that extreme also leads to two problems. The first is that, when discussing difficult issues, no small talk means you have to jump right into the deep end of a conversation or meeting. For most people that is a bit shocking and difficult. So small talk can be useful as a segue. Another segue is talking about easier issues first, before getting to the more difficult issues.
The second challenge with no small talk is that it cultivates a reputation for you as perhaps more intense than you intend to be. In a universe where time-wasting small talk is the norm, the person who doesn’t do that creates an atmosphere in which, when you meet with him, you jump right into the intensity—which tends to push away people who aren’t ready for that (this is very hypothetical of course, bearing absolutely no relationship to how people respond to yours truly, no, no, not at all, no way, Juan.) That’s not necessarily bad. Maybe you want to cultivate that reputation? But whether you do or don’t, the key point is to recognize it and consciously make that choice to cultivate that reputation, or not.
