Just got a massive lurch of anxiety as I’ve got a confirmation email through for a research trip to Germany with a group of people I’ve never met before. 8 of us on the booking…all on the same flight. I was really really hoping I’d be flying alone and just seeing people out there. Going to need some great tips on how to make business small talk, please!
(We’re going to see playground equipment, any good slide chat?)
I have no actual advice. Sorry. I’ve got to sit in a colleagues car for and hour each way on Wednesday afternoon and thats worrying me enough. And I know them.
I worked with a professional networker who keeps winning international young scmoozer of the year type awards, and I never had an exchange with her that wasn’t dreadful and awkward so I know that I’m a lost networking cause.
Actually, I once asked her, for the sake of pretending to be a normal person, where her dress was from and that seemed to work until I was like FAST FASHION IS FOR NARCS or something like that I guess.
Get that Richard Herring Emergency Questions book and just bombard them all with questions and get them chatting with each other and don’t actually answer any questions or take part in the chat yourself
They won’t notice your absence from the chat. They will think that you were the fount of all the witty repartee plus they will have revealed their innermost selves while you’ll still be an inscrutably charming enigma
When my colleague drove us on a four hour trip to a factory, his tactic was to tell me how much he liked jazz, put on a jazz-heavy playlist, and then proceed to guess literally every artist incorrectly.