The Power of Small Talk

Never underestimate the power of small talk.

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval who are the CEO and President, respectively, of The Kaplan Thaler Group and the co-authors of the national bestsellers, “BANG! Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World” and “THE POWER OF NICE: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness.” Their newest collaboration, “THE POWER OF SMALL: Why Little Things Make All the Difference”, debuted on the bestseller lists of the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Washington Post. You can keep up with them at The Small Blog or follow them on Twitter.

In today’s digital world, we’re Facebooked, LinkedIn, Tweeted, and Skyped; we e-mail, e-vite, and even e-date.  With the click of a mouse we learn what our friends ate for lunch yesterday, browse through their vacation photos, and even find out when they just got engaged or recently broke up. But, while we all take advantage of the wonderful possibilities of sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, we should never forget the amazing power of the ultimate low-tech social networking app: small talk.

When we were writing our book, THE POWER OF SMALL: Why Little Things Make All the Difference, we discovered a truly amazing story that brought our attention to the unexpected ways in which SMALL truly works.  And it all started with a cup of coffee and a little polite conversation.

Every morning, Annamarie Ausnes would head to her local Starbucks, pick up her usual coffee, and make a bit of small talk with the cashier, Sandie Anderson.  What began as a casual, “how is your morning?” or “nice weather, huh?” over the months grew into more personal exchanges about their grandkids, weekend plans, and holiday traditions.  Then one day, Sandie noticed something wasn’t quite right with her favorite customer and instead of ignoring it, she asked one simple question: “Are you okay?”

To her shock, Sandie would discover that the friendly customer, Annamarie, was suffering from kidney failure and could not find a donor.  Without a transplant, Annamarie confided that her future was bleak and without skipping a beat, Sandie announced that she would try to help.

As luck would have it, Sandie turned out to be a match and donated a kidney to Annamarie (talk about great customer service!) and today Annamarie is not only alive and well, the two women are dear friends.