59: How to Small Talk Like a Pro at a Holiday Party with Special Guest Lauren Sergy

Hey there.

Welcome to the Confident Communications Podcast.

The podcast for helping people communicate in.

The modern age to build and protect their reputations. Or in the case of today's episode.

The fun way to do it.

Let's go to a party, people. Before I get to the interview, a gift for you to the listener. Well, a podcast version of the gift, I guess. Or a podcast version of a gift from St Nicholas who arrived over the weekend. Subscribers of this podcast received an Easter egg last Friday. That's a digital gift with a link to a special downloadable opt in about writing holiday cards. The tips to make it a lot easier when you send it personally and professionally. You can listen to the episode and hear the instructions for how to download the guide. If you subscribe to this podcast, all you need to do is click the subscribe button on your podcast app of choice and you'll see the bonus episodes. I add these special episodes for subscribers only, so you don't wanna miss out. So subscribe today. You can also subscribe to my newsletter. I was at a workshop this week, well, yesterday in fact, and a participant approached me before the start and said that he read my email that morning. It was a mashup with the artist formerly known as Prince Wayne in On Prince Andrew Duke of York. Doesn't that sound like fun?

So if you want to read it.

You can go to the website mollymcpherson.com subscribe gifts get me in the holiday mood. And there's something else that gets me in the holiday mood as well.

Parties.

It's the first week of December, which means the first parties are right around the corner that you have to navigate. My guest this week is public speaking and communication expert Lauren Sergi. If you remember the name, she was my guest a few weeks back on episode 55, executive presence. What it looks like, why you need it, and how to get it. I have included a link to the show in the show notes. Lauren, my Canadian friend is so much fun and that's why I asked her to record this episode. When we were recording the previous one, we were discussing the upcoming holiday season, the parties, the awkward conversations, the small talk, and boom, a new topic was born.

So if you have a holiday party.

Or two or three coming up, then you'll want to take a listen to my chat with Lauren.

Hello Lauren, and welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me on, Molly. I'm delighted to be here and already.

I'm sure my listeners can tell the lilt of a Canadian accent. I am speaking to you today where in Canada our neighbor to the north, Edmonton, Alberta.

If you, if you go to Missoula, Montana, we're just about six hours drive straight north.

Lauren, is that the most annoying thing that you have to do whenever you speak to an American is have to tell them where Alberta is?

No, I never begrudge that because to be perfectly honest, your states to us just look like this gigantic jumble. I'm amazed I know where New York City is. And that's pretty unforgivable, not knowing that.

Okay, so you are, you're. You're farther west, Midwest, West. And what would the temperature be today? So the time this is airing, it's around the holiday season, but we are in late October. What is the temperature in Edmonton? And I assume you're going to have to do Celsius.

I'll have to do it in Celsius. I'm afraid. It is 2 degrees, which means it is a hair's breadth above freezing. We are anticipating snow. Well, we've already gotten a bit, but it melted right away. And I'm thinking that we're probably going to get a big dump of it any day now.

Oh, I hate it.

It's gonna be a cold Halloween.

Oh.

Oh, goodness. We have a nor' Easter coming where I am. But. Yeah, not good weather, but good conversation because I am so excited to talk to you about this subject because I know my listeners are going to love it. So, Lauren, you are going to speak to us today about how to make a good conversation at a holiday party or a networking event. And we're also going to touch on how do you keep it civil, which is so timely for this day and age, wouldn't you agree?

Oh, it is so very, very timely. And it's getting harder, it seems. It's. I don't know if it's a function of just how, you know, traditional and social media are working right now, but really polarizing partisan opinions are being shared with greater alacrity.

Oh, listen to that wordsmithing now. Now, you are my Canadian counterpart, so of course, in, in, in the U.S. i mean, it's all political. It's all liberal versus conservative down here. But even in Canada, I mean, Justin Trudeau, your prime minister there, he had a. He had a bumpy few weeks and you're heading into election season. So that's the same thing up there, right? It's just the players are different, but you're dealing with the same type of situations and issues.

Yes, very much so. I mean, in general, as far as the, as far as the political spectrum goes, Canada Canadian conservatism is slightly more to the left than American conservatism, but we, we have our polarized opinions. This is. We're coming up on an election in just a few days. Actually, our federal election. It has been a particularly nasty one, especially in my neck of the woods. My province is a deeply conservative province and a very angry one.

Oh, okay. So you are in the thick of it. So you yourself understand why you need this type of skill. So I wanted to talk to you now because we're all heading into the holiday season. So whether it's a Canadian Thanksgiving or the U.S. thanksgiving, heading into Christmas or Hanukkah, all the parties and networking opportunities that we. And you are a communication expert, you help people communicate and develop strong in person communication, face to face skills. Correct?

That's it.

Okay, so now share some wisdom with us on how you can make a good conversation at a holiday party or networking event. So we want to talk about how to start a conversation, how to exit a conversation, and how to keep that conversation civil. So are you ready?

I'm ready to go. Let's do this.

Okay, so Lauren, you and I are at the. You and I are at a networking party, and we are the life of the party. Everybody wants to talk to us, right? But let's say everyone. So our listener, they're at the holiday party. They're all coming up. Even if it's a conference, there's a lot of fall conferences out there. Let's look at it from a networking point of view. So you're with colleagues, you're with co workers, you're with other adults, not necessarily family. So it could be a conference or a holiday party. What is the best way to start a conversation?

I love starting conversations by making other people do all the work of talking and I just ask them questions. An amazing amount of communication can happen when you offload it onto the people around you. It's really great. So what I like to do is you. We're always more likable when we show interest in other people. Right? And the easiest way to do that is to ask questions about themselves. Now, it is perfectly acceptable to open conversations with making wry comments about the weather or about sports or about those generic things. I know that people say, don't do that. It's perfectly fine because it gives you kind of a mutual point of agreement.

Who says, don't do that? They say, don't do that.

I hear that all the time. Oh, no, you should never start with asking people what they do or talking about the Weather that's terrible. Don't do that. It's so boring. No, it's an easy way to create a little bit of agreement and show some interest and, you know, find a, find a point of meaning. Everyone loves complaining about their local sports teams.

This is true. Unless you're in. Well, when we're recording in Washington, D.C. the Washington Nationals just clinch the NLCS. But. But yeah, so if you have a winning team, of course. But I think so. Sports. And I tell this to my son. It's like a universal language, as is the weather, of course, or even the location. Okay, so you and I, mutual agreement here that you can talk about the mundane.

As a leader, you can talk about the mundane. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean that you're boring. But once the mundane has kind of been explored briefly, I like moving on to asking other people what's going on in their world. And I try to keep a fairly positive spin on it because it's easy to get sucked into complainy or downer type conversation because it's, you know, our brains focus on things that are making us anxious. But I like keeping things light and happy. So one of my favorite openers is, so what's rocking your world right now?

Oh, so. Oh. Do you ever get. Do you ever get a not so classy response when you say, what's rocking your world? And someone says, my wife. Okay, maybe that, that, Maybe that's just me assuming that some guy's gonna say that. I'm sorry, that's.

If someone says something like that, what they're showing is that they have a sense of humor. They're probably quite playful and they don't hold back. So now you know what to expect from conversation with them.

Ah, okay. So could you say then right away, are you someone who likes to ID what type of person you're with? So you're going to manage the expectation and the narrative of the conversation just based on their opening line.

I don't base it just on the opening line, but I do try to keep a. I do try to get a sense of what they're like fairly quickly. And that opening line let. Giving them the opportunity to open a conversation like that does a lot to show what, what they're comfortable with. And it helps me then modulate my responses to make them feel comfortable. That's what I want.

Okay.

Is for them to feel comfortable around me.

Okay, so what's rocking your world? That sounds like a, like a entrepreneurial type of a greeting. Like I, I could Totally buy that. You know, some kind of saying that. What about if someone's a little more staid and they're at a business conference, like a numbers conference? What are some other versions of the same rock in your world?

Other versions, you just adapt your language to it. Right. So instead of what's rocking your world, you might say something to the effect of what's really making waves at, at the office right now or what's really making some waves in your life at the moment.

Okay.

And I tend to leave it open ended because if they start speaking about, and I've had people say, you know what, I don't want to talk business, but can I tell you about this really awesome new hobby I just discovered? Or I don't want to talk business, but I just found the best new restaurant and they'll take the conversation somewhere else.

So it's a, it's a direct question, not rhetorical, but it's so open ended that, you know, you're not getting into anything, any dangerous territory. Yeah, but it's a trigger to get someone to start talking about something interesting.

I like that it's a it. And, and it takes all of the heat off of you for having to think of, quote unquote, something interesting to say. It takes away all of the pressure.

Okay, so you go in. I love the opening line because it's a little different and it's different from the how are you? How you doing? What's going now? What would be the next follow up? So let's say someone gives you an answer and then there's that pause. How do you prevent it from being an awkward pause? What, what do you have in the back of your brain as a, as.

A, the next statement, the follow up questions I, I kind of keep in my back pocket. They tend to be very generic and some, I mean, I hope that the listeners aren't rolling their eyes right now, but this works like a hot dam, I kid you not. Questions like, really tell me more about that.

Oh, I like that.

They will tell you more. They will. And it's, and it is saying, I'm interested in what you have to say and you know, please tell me more, share me more about your life. It keeps them talking about themselves too, which again boosts your likability. If I have some kind of insight or if I think that, that whatever they're saying, if, if I, if I share an opinion or an interest or something like that, I will give some kind of. Me too. Isn't that neat? How did you get into that or how did this come about? Really, really vague responses. Right. But they're adaptable to any kind of situation effectively. All of my responses are versions of tell me more. So, okay, what, what brought that to your attention? Why do you think this came up now? How did you learn about xyz? What made you try kickboxing?

Yes. Okay, now, so I don't know if you're like me. Do you keep track of how often someone just talks about themselves and when they don't reflect back to you and ask you a follow up question?

No, I don't care.

Oh, you don't care? You don't think someone is self absorbed when they only talk about themselves? Or do you look at it as you're such a great conversationalist that they don't even realize that they haven't asked you a question?

I prefer to see it as the latter. And I mean from a strategic perspective. The whole point of parties and networking is to get people to become interested in you and like you. And I know I've said it several times already, but I'll say it again, you get people to think that by showing that you are interested in and like them that you make them feel comfortable, that you make it easy for them to talk.

Right, Right. And Lauren, you are touching on my special secret power. And this comes, I think, from a place, a place of journalism is asking questions, questions of people. You will always get more fascinating answers. And sometimes people will notice and they'll, they'll drop these little bombs, these little micro bombs and you know, because they get so comfortable talking to you, by the end of it, you have so much information. And that's not the only reason why I have a conversation with someone, of course, But I find that that's something that I elicit when I speak with people, is they, they become very comfortable telling me a lot of information quickly. And I think there's an art to that, wouldn't you agree?

There, there is. It's funny, years ago, before I got into this gig, it was one of the most awkward conversations with the boss that I ever had. But he was, we were driving to a meeting and he, I could tell he just wanted to bring something up. And he goes, lauren, people tell you things, a lot of things. I'm, why do they tell you things? I was like, oh my God, they do. And I think it was just because I gave them the opening to tell.

Yes.

And I invited, I said, tell me more, tell me more about that. Now, in terms of conversation, you always have a moment to make a response. And if it's something that you do that you can respond to or that you have some kind of insight in, then good. Now you have a conversation, but by asking the questions, you don't need to, and by inviting people to elaborate, what you don't need to worry about is quote unquote, making conversation.

Right.

Which is hard work.

It is hard work. And I think the people who converse well are the ones who have a healthy curiosity. It's a lot easier to carry on a conversation when you are genuinely curious of the answer.

Yeah, exactly. And then people, as they, as they develop that, like for you, as you see that they, that, that you are interested in them, they'll become interested in you. They'll start asking you questions.

Yes. Eventually they, they do get there. They absolutely do get there. Because they wonder what? Well, who's this person asking me all these questions? All right, so now you are deep into this very interesting conversation. So now we're going to take you down two paths. We're going to talk about the exit and the graceful exit. How do you gracefully exit out of a conversation that is very interesting, but it just has to come to a natural end because you, you've hit that internal time clock where been talking too long, or how do you get out of that conversation where it's either dead end, it's boring, you need to move on, or you find that you've just been, you've been dragged in too long. What is the graceful exit?

One strategy I love is to suck other people into the conversation. So as people. Oh, it works so well, so good. And then you look like an absolute masterful networker too. So as people are wandering by, or you might be, you might see someone coming by or even just be standing close to another group of people, you can reach out and touch someone on the shoulder. Oh, and do you know, John over here, we were just chatting about xyz. You know, I know that you have some ideas about XYZ too, and you kind of suck them into the conversation. The idea here is to get an and John talking to each other and.

They don't even notice. And then do you gracefully walk away or do you say, I'll just keep you. I'll just let you two keep talking while you move on?

Pretty much. I stay for, stay for a few seconds to help the conversation carry on and then make your excuse and move on. One thing that we need to remember is that everyone knows that at networking events you are expected to mingle. At parties, you're Expected to mingle, so then saying, you know what? I having such a good time, I'd love to carry on this conversation. You know, maybe we can. John, maybe we can get together for coffee later. Whether or not that's sincere. Yes, but John, maybe we can get together for coffee later, but I, I need to bolt over there and say hi to so and so for a minute.

That's the tactic when you can't pull someone into your vortex within arm's length is you bring it to an abrupt halt, but a gracious one by saying, let's continue this at a later date.

You invite the, you invite the conversation to carry on through different channels or elsewhere. And even if you do manage to suck someone else or a couple other people into conversation, that can your way of removing yourself without like, you know, pulling a Sean Spicer and backing away into the bushes.

Sean Spicer, Touche.

Look at you.

I couldn't come up with the press secretary in Ottawa. I'm sorry, I could not do that. But nicely, nicely done.

Here's the sad thing. I don't know who the Ottawa press secretary.

Okay, good. I can skip over that one. All right, so now. Okay, so you, you, you've illustrated how you do it when you're in a group, when there's a mass of people around you, when you're alone. I'm going to give you a twist now. Please do, because this happened to me. What do you do if you are on an airplane and you're sitting next to the person and you no longer want to speak to them and you want to exit out of a conversation in the exit row but you can't go anywhere? What do you do?

Oh, that is a good one. You're making me think on my feet now. I slowly dial up the boring level.

Oh.

On my responses. And it's like, it's like you're just slowly turning up or maybe turning down the interest level.

Is this self sabotage? Is it self sabotage that you want to bore them or you want to let them know that you are starting to get bored?

I think it's more letting them know that you're starting to get tired. Okay, not necessarily bored, but tired because it is tiring to, you know, speak to strangers for two hours while you're stuck on a fly or what have you. And they might be getting quite tired as well.

Oh, nice touch. So you bring in an environmental factor.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, maybe you have. Maybe they've interrupted you while you were reading a book so you might look back at the Book a little bit more, shuffle through a few paper pages. That's a really obvious signal. But in terms of dialing, dialing down the interest level, questions become more generic. Your responses become less specific. So instead of saying, oh, you know, that's, that's such a neat take on it. What did you mean by that? You can just say, oh, that's really interesting.

Oh, while you, while you segue into the showing that you're tired or fatigued or moving on to the next.

Exactly.

Oh, that's nice.

Yeah. You stop inviting and specifically requesting that they answer you.

Ah, okay. So you start, you stop doing the direct questions that demand an answer, and you make them more vague in nature. Yeah, you can work your way. Oh, I love that. I love that.

And then you work your way out of it. It's a, it's a, it's a gentle letdown. And they are probably going to be grateful that you did that too, because many people don't know how to end a conversation, even when they desperately want out.

Oh, there's such an art to it, I'll tell you. Two on a plane, one that I did and one that was done to me, thankfully. One that I used was to take out my computer, like, oh, I have to work now. And then, of course, I couldn't log into the WI fi and, you know, like, well, that didn't work. Work. And I started working on some other work. But another person that I was talking to, I had a great conversation with this person on a plane. And one reason is because he happened to recognize me because he listens to the podcast. Like, we just started chatting and he said, and he started smiling and he said, you're Bali McPherson. I listen to your podcast. I was like, what? So it was one of those great moments. But then you keep talking and then at some point, you know, you need this conversation to end. And so I was just staring straight ahead and he did the best move ever that I'm going to swipe. He said. He took out his earbuds, his AirPods, and said, well, I'm going to check out now. But it was really great speaking with you. And I thought, oh, that is so smooth.

That's cool.

Oh, so good. So I, I, I loved it. It's using technology.

Well, it's very, it's very direct, too. He's telling you at that point, I'm going to check out. It's not that I don't like you.

Yes.

It's just that, okay, we're probably both pretty tired, right?

And here I will note this as me, as a Gen Xer, and he's a millennial. I think millennials are more comfortable and being more direct, you know, when they speak. Whereas me, the Gen Xer, you know, we're like the consummate middle child where we always have to make sure everybody's okay with everything. And I was just staring. I was doing more of the non verbal communication where he was just using the verbal and very direct communication. And it was great. And I thought, oh, I'm so using that. But you need to have your AirPods or your headphones in your hand.

Yeah, something like that. Although I will say your inclinations are very Canadian.

What's. Oh, to be very passive. Yeah, that's the Minnesotan in me because I'm. I'm from the north. I border Canada. Maybe that's part of it. Okay, so now the last question. So we spoke about how to start a conversation, how to exit a conversation. Now, how do you converse in one of those sticky conversations where you want some, some civility? But it's getting very challenging in this conversation. So how do you keep it civil?

Okay. Number one thing is remember that if you, if you, you do start to get into an uncivil conversation with strong opinions, you can be, you can be pleasant or you can be right.

Oh, such an important distinction. Right.

So you have to decide what's more important in the moment. To be pleasant, to get along, or to be correct. And by the way, you're never going to be right in this conversation.

Oh, correct. Because someone will always have a differing opinion.

Yeah. When we get into conversations that get really tense and we're challenging one another's ideas, the response, the natural response is to entrench in your ideas and actually push back a little bit against it. So I always see networking events and parties are not the time to prove a point. But if I want someone to be willing to talk with me further, they have to be comfortable, they have to feel heard. So I have many political opinions, but I rarely voice them in such company.

Okay.

It's not the point of the encounter to air the. To air the political dirty laundry. So my approach is to not pretend that I don't have an opinion, but let my opinions take the back seat. And I dedicate myself to learning as much as possible about why the other person thinks the way they do do. So we're going back to asking questions.

Okay.

Really?

Okay.

Why do you. So what makes you. What makes you feel that way are those values that you have in other areas of Your life is there. You know, like what sort of, what sort of past experience have. Experiences have you had with this issue? I now want to learn about their context. This is going to do two things. As I said before, it's going to help them like you, because now they feel heard, but it's also going to help you see them as a human being with potentially rational reasons for thinking the way they do.

Okay? So that is. To me, it seems like a very prickly, dangerous road to go on because now you're asking for encouragement about why they are so ultra conservative or ultra liberal, which is fine, as you mentioned, based on context, because maybe you are speaking about politics. What if you are sitting at the holiday dinner, okay, you're sitting down for Thanksgiving, Canadian Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner, Hanukkah, whatever it is, or a Christmas dinner with colleagues, and you really want to avoid the conversation, the political rhetoric altogether.

What could be.

What is a gracious thing to say, to remove yourself without being off putting to the other person or group?

At this stage, I'm gonna pull a page right from your, right from your airplane friend. I have found that it's become acceptable to just say, oh, man, this, this stuff is exhausting, isn't it? Let's. Let's chat about something else for a while, okay?

And just make that abrupt declaration. Make it very open and honest, like, like we're. This is a political free zone or political free dinner, whatever it is.

Yeah, exactly. As long as you, as long as when you say it you're not being preachy, then other people can take to it fairly kindly. But I do think that it's important to let people know that you really don't want to engage in this. And at this stage, honestly, I think everyone's just about. Everyone is tired of it, right? Or at least enough people are tired of it that they'll say, yeah, okay, I'll let you off the hook on that one. And it's acceptable to remove yourself from the situation. I will make excuses that someone over there needs help or, oh, I've just met someone who I. I see someone over there. They don't know anyone here. I'm going to go over and. And introduce them. Excuse me for a moment. I make excuses to remove myself.

You're giving yourself the hook. In other words, you're. You're removing yourself very dramatically from the conversation. So, Laure, is. This is good advice. So as we, as we went through the. The formula here for how to start a conversation, how to gracefully exit a conversation, and then how to Keep a conversation civil and how to remove yourself when it no longer is. It sounds as if you really need to be more of a passive bystander on these conversations. That the point of all these conversation, especially as it relates, relates to a networking event or a holiday dinner, is not to inject too much of yourself, but to be more gracious and almost look as it like as a conversation host where you're letting the guests talk more and get more out of the conversation than yourself. Correct.

You got it in one. And you're going to eventually you're going to be in parties and gatherings and situations where you can open up where you are comfortable, where people will ask you the questions for a change. Change those, those will happen. Those will happen. But at first the default mode is I am interested in you tell me about yourself and you let them take the lead.

Yes. And the, and the tactic that, that you brought up that I employ a lot, deploy a lot which is tell me more.

Tell me more. You know, some of the three most powerful words anyone can say to someone.

Else other than I love you. It's tell me more. Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah.

Oh, Lauren, it's, it's such a pleasure to speak and for you to share your wisdom from the north, of course. But no matter where you are, no matter where you are, conversation is important, especially when it relates to work functions, family functions, because we want to keep our best foot forward in terms of how we present ourselves, especially to workers. So Lauren, thank you so much. And Lauren, of course you are, as I said, my Canadian counterpart in the sense that you love to help people communicate well. So if you want more information about Lauren, you can check out her website, laurensergi. And you have a course that will eventually be online soon, correct?

Yes. I am getting ready to launch the first online version of my of the in person training that I deliver and that is going to be coming out in January.

In January of 2020. Well, I look forward to seeing that. Okay, well Lauren, thank you so much and happy holidays.

Happy holidays. May your parties be productive and pleasant.

Oh, I don't have a clever line like that.

That's.

Love that. Okay, well thank you, thank you so much, Lauren for your time.

Take care.

There you have it. Now you can be a hit at.

Your next holiday party. I want to thank Lauren for speaking with me today. For more information about her, you can Visit her website, laurensergy.com her last name is S E R G Y. And again I'll include a link in the show notes. She also has a YouTube channel that you can subscribe to too. She's always uploading videos on how to's in communication, so I highly, highly recommend that you check those videos out. If you have an idea for a topic on the podcast, no matter how serious or no matter how fun, head on over to the podcast page on my website mollymcpherson.com podcast and you'll see a box there where you can type in information to suggest your next topic. So head on over to the website and let me know what you want to talk about.

That's all for this week.

I hope you all have a great week and enjoy your parties. If you're heading out this weekend, bye for now.