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The team is assembled and waiting for the manager to start. The sales team meeting is about to start in a few minutes. Seems like we won’t have an Indian summer this year.”īy the end of the conversation, Jill has filled her cup and is heading back to her seat. Jill: “Sure is, I already pulled out my sweaters from the back of my wardrobe.” 🔸 Example 1: Water cooler talkĪs Mike gets up to fill his water cup, he bumps into Jill who’s just filling hers at the water cooler. When people work together in the same physical environment, there are plenty of opportunities for small talk.
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Examples of small talk in the office environment However, office chit-chat is a lot different from small talk in a remote environment. That’s because the function of this phrase is not to start a deep conversation, but rather to help coworkers connect socially while maintaining a respectful distance. The usual response, no matter how things are actually going, is, “Great, you?” or even a simple nod and a smile. Often, we don’t even learn anything from casual chit-chat.Ī great example is the question “How’s it going?”, which people usually don’t answer with, “Terrible actually, my youngest is down with something, I’m late on the mortgage payment, and my boss won’t cut me any slack!” There’s no agenda in small talk other than to communicate socially with a coworker. The most important distinction between the two is the agenda. small talk) and core business talk based on several criteria: 📖Criteria A book about small talk titled (you guessed it) “ Small Talk” makes a rough distinction between phatic communion (i.e. The anatomy of small talk at workĬhit-chat and work talk can get interrelated. It may be the only opportunity for employees to acknowledge each other as real people with lives outside of work. bonding by language), and it is indeed a way to build rapport (bond) through casual conversation (language).Ĭhit-chat is an inevitable social element of work, and it’s essential for good team communication. The first time someone ever talked about small talk in a formal paper ( Malinowski, 1923), he dubbed it phatic communion (i.e.
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