Have you ever had this situation in a Zoom meeting:
Your team is waiting for the last member to jump on the call, and it’s so quiet you can hear a pin drop. You can cut the awkward silence with a knife, and even with their videos off you can imagine people looking down at their shoes or the ceiling in quiet tension.
Wouldn’t you want a meeting that’s so lively people wouldn’t want it to end, where it feels like everyone on the call is so interesting you would like to hang out with them in person?
Small talk is a powerful tool to foster camaraderie between virtual colleagues, and the ability to enjoy each other’s company can be a forerunner of the productivity, creativity and ultimate success of a remote team.
In this post, we’ll dish out 6 potent tips for remote workers like you so you can get those “small talk” muscles going and never marinate in awkward silences with virtual colleagues ever again.
#1 Prepped For Anything
Many remote workers are gun-shy to get the ball rolling. They ask, “What am I going to talk about?” and “Will they be interested in what I have to say?”
If you’re not a naturally garrulous extrovert, it might be hard for you to think of something to say in the moment. The quick fix to this is to prep some topics or subjects you can talk about.
Have some go-to topics to help ease off the pressure of thinking something on the spot. Consider things like:
- Recent news: Find interesting stories or news to share. (Who went viral recently?)
- Hobbies and Interests: Movies, TV shows, books, sports, travel, and music can easily get a team going.
- Work-related topics: Talk about industry trends, upcoming deadlines or recent projects.
- Entertainment, Tech & Art: Has anyone tried out the new VR headsets?
Write them on a Post It and stick them in front of you. You may not use them at all, but it’s good to have something in the can, ready to go. This is a crutch just to get things going.
Don’t get your eyes rolling on the idea of prepping for “small talk.” The only difference between great talkers and quiet ones is that the former has a battery of topics, subjects or stories they know by heart and can talk about at the drop of a hat.
By prepping, by actually thinking ahead, you make things easy on yourself. So never take this one lightly.
#2 Beg To Disagree
Let’s say your colleague is talking about his favourite food.
The fastest way to cut a conversation short is to simply agree.
“Isn’t sushi great?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
That’s it. There’s no spice to this exchange
Now, you will be often told that finding agreement is the way to harmonious relationships. That may be true, but in small talk, there’s so much bonding potential to be had when one is disagreeing.
I’m not talking about some serious professional disagreement or arguments here. (That’s a topic for another day.)
Disagree in a “playful” and “nice” way. Then it becomes banter—a playful back and forth among friends.
For example:
- “Cats are better than dogs, you say? I have some adorable puppy videos that might change your mind!”
- “You think chips are the best snack? Clearly, you haven’t tried my secret cookie stash! Lemme send you what I had this morning.”
- “Wait, you’re a tea person? I need to convert you to the coffee side—it’s the only way!”
It’s simply light-hearted teasing amongst friends. You don’t want to come off as someone disagreeable or, worse, someone who thinks highly of himself.
The idea is to be playful and help others let their hair down and be more relaxed.
#3 Use The Chat Function
You can make the chat function your digital playground if you’re too reticent to sound off. “Small talk” can and should be taken to the chats because this arena has too much potential to ignore. For example, you can:
- Express emotions, expressions, and even gestures you may have been too timid to exhibit yourself. (Emojis have a thousand faces and they’re just a click away!)
- Conduct a mini poll and get a quick survey of the team’s thoughts. (As a way to spark conversations)
- Share funny memes, images, and videos and quickly be seen as a friendly human being.
- Stimulate interaction with light-hearted challenges like “Caption this” or “Guess what happened next…”
- Or simply send a friendly, “Happy, Monday everyone! Let’s do this!”
We’ve found that the liveliness of the chats often crosses over to virtual meetings.
And, as somebody who populates the chats, you will find your influence grow within the group.
#4 Before You Ask The Open-Ended Question…
Often in communication, you will be advised to lob open-ended questions—questions that require an explanation, a reason—not questions that can be dealt with by a simple “Yes” or “No.”
But before you even get to that, if you want others to open up, you have the first one to do it. There is a rule of proactivity in communication. If you want to foster small talk in a group, you need to assume everybody is just as timid as you are and take on the mantle and take the first hit.
By talking first, sharing a little story, or sharing an inspiring quote, you are modelling to others the preferred behaviour, encouraging the team to be vulnerable themselves.
You got your list of interesting things you can share from #1, right? Take them for a spin.
#5 Build On Others
One of the worst things about small talk is hearing crickets after sharing something.
“Did they not get what I said?”
“Is my story not interesting enough?”
“Is it because they just don’t care?”
Needless to say, it would take a small miracle to make that person talk again.
What a person needs after opening his mouth and being vulnerable is validation.
And it can come in many forms. It can come in the form of probing questions, that embolden guys to speak more, or a little tease, that at least makes the person feel that he or she has been heard.
Remote teams have a distinct advantage when it comes to small talk because of the natural distinctions that exist between members. They usually come from different nationalities and belong to different cultures. These are fat fodders for discussion. There are a lot of interesting dialogues that can be made from a diverse group.
Be interested.
#6 Talk the Walk
In the context of remote work, interactions are often limited to virtual meetings, audio calls and chat messages. The lag, the line’s clarity or video quality can often work against you. The communication dynamics are simply different.
To be effective in virtual small talk, you have to be more animated and more energetic than in face-to-face communications. Because, with the audio and video compressions going on, the messaging becomes blunt when it reaches the other end.
You must take this into account and put more effort into things you would otherwise take for granted.
- Use Expressive Body Language: Emphasize your message with slightly exaggerated gestures and facial expressions than you would normally. Do this even when there’s no video, because the tone will reflect what your body is doing, and it will still be heard on the other end.
- Use a more dynamic voice: Deliver your message by consciously varying the pitch, tone, rate and volume. (And…don’t forget to pause.)
- Use props or visual aids: If you’re telling people about your cat, it will be more effective if you show them your feisty feline. (Always a crowd pleaser. Too easy!)
- Use repetition and volume to emphasise important parts.
- Look straight at the camera and not on the screen.
These 6 powerful small-talk weapons work for all types of personalities and in a wide variety of scenarios. Observing each one, you will have that small talk firepower that’ll be heard around the world.
And more than that, you will have a virtual team that loves to succeed together.
Kinetic Innovative Staffing knows what it takes for virtual teams to flourish.
We help companies hire virtual teams for businesses and organisations. With our candidate database of over 4 million professionals, Kinetic can fill a wide range of positions and roles—from virtual assistants, graphic designers and writers, to lawyers, accountants and engineers.
Remote teams save companies, on average, 70% of their labour costs, while maintaining high-quality output.
If this sounds like something you would like to explore for your organisation, do not hesitate to contact us and we’ll get you the information and the assistance that you need.
Kinetic Innovative Staffing has been providing hundreds of companies in the Asia Pacific, North America, the Middle East, and Europe with professionals working remotely from the Philippines since 2013. Get in touch to know more.
