It’s what you know that helps you develop relationships with who you know. – Stephanie Palmer in Good in a Room
When I began working at my current location seven years ago the secretary and I were the only women in an office of fifteen. I started looking at the sports page in the morning before I went to work so I’d know what the guys were, nine times out of ten, going to be discussing in the hallways and made sure I knew how my alma mater was doing when football season rolled around. Otherwise I’d just end up standing there, smiling and nodding and not really being noticed.
It was a common sense response at the time and not a deliberate plan, but when I saw this line in Palmer’s book I realized the truth of it and how it could be used in a more deliberate fashion. It’s a good reason to deliberately pick a handful of varied topics that appeal to you and others are likely to be interested in and follow them.
I am suggesting that you develop your knowledge base so that you can increase the speed at which you find common ground and build rapport. – a few more lines down in the same section…
Then I wondered about the opposite. Does talking about what the other person doesn’t know create distance? I remember bringing up topics and getting a feel that the other person took a mental step back. I know I’ve done it when someone else has initiated a conversation, wondering if we’re going to have anything in common.
As a corollary, when is it worth the risk to bring up something oddball, or at least not mainstream for the region, such as building robots or following the sport of curling or reading about quantum mechanics? As it happens, I did the latter in high school, but only have a touch of familiarity with the other two.
If the other person is also involved it can bring about enthusiastic camaraderie, deeper than a more mundane topic, or it could be one of those distancing moments. Or they might be interested and want to hear all about it but not be able to contribute significantly to the conversation. This is good on the one hand, but on the other it’s probably not helping form much of a connection.
