CNBC offers up advice on what successful people do when making small talk, and it’s not “How are you?”. It’s asking more meaningful follow-up questions. The approach shows how to speak up so others will listen and how, in the process, you’ll both connect.
Contributor Gary Burnison writes (excerpt):
Start with a question that will build up to a conversation that meets the A.C.T. criteria:
A – There’s authenticity
C – There’s a connection
T – There’s a topic that will give them taste of who you are
Some of those questions might be:
“What’s your current state of mind?”
“What are you looking forward to this week?”
“You remind me of a celebrity, but I can’t remember which one — who’s someone you relate to?”