Last Saturday afternoon, I chose to walk the 30 minutes into town as I needed to visit the shops. Initially, I was planning to jump in the car to make that short journey…but I was suddenly conscious that I could do with some brisk walking in terms of fitness (despite having played an hour’s tennis the morning before) and also that driving that short jaunt was far from ecologically minded.
One stretch of that journey encompasses a walk along a vehicle-free tree-lined lane that runs alongside busy railway lines. As I reached the end of that part of the walk and prepared to head across a railway bridge, an elderly man appeared with a walking frame.
Person to Person
As ever these days, I smiled at him and asked how he was doing. I feel hugely positive about passing the time of day with people in this fashion. This is often sneeringly referred to as small talk, but the crucial aspect is that size is irrelevant, it is rather all about human-to-human conversation.
For me, it represents a human connection but without any implicit long-term expectation. It is a reminder that we are all together in the world and reaching out to one another is vital for the future of humankind.
The old man’s response to my inquiring as to his well-being was intriguing. ‘I’m great,’ he said, beaming a big smile. ‘I’ve just watched my football team win their match!’
I smiled and said, ‘Who’s your team?’ He replied that it was Plymouth…and, off the back of that, we began an unexpected discussion about how long each of us had lived in the town in which we were meeting on this occasion – and also ended up talking about Michael Foot, the late Labour politician, who was a supporter of Plymouth Argyle. I found myself speaking about the teams that I follow – and the aspects and experiences in my life that led to an affiliation with both Charlton Athletic and Bromley Football Club.
We found a way of linking together for around five minutes or so…and then we went on our respective ways. I stepped away with a sense of joy at having briefly connected with another human being, as well as feeling positive about the fact that my interlocutor had found space and time to share a small event in his life with an interested passer-by.
He did not feel to me to be an older person afflicted by loneliness, although regrettably there are a good many people like that in our world. That said, if he did spend most of his time alone, I was pleased that I had taken just a few minutes to connect and to hear about his life for a moment.
Voice in the Workplace
Why am I sharing this story? Simply because it resonates with me in terms of how I think about human agents co-existing in our world – and, in particular, the vital importance of voice and silence, particularly in corporate contexts.
We are surrounded with countless opportunities to connect with one another – and those connections are likely to be founded on our capacity to exchange conversationally in some fashion. In the cultural climate of the socio-economic circumstances in which we find ourselves, defined purpose and productivity are endlessly and unhelpfully fetishised, particularly in managerialist circumstances.
Instead, we should be aware of the inherent value of reaching out to those around us – even those who notionally we might perceive as having a perspective that is seen to be dichotomously contrary to our own – and using our capacity for conversation to create momentary (and possibly longer term) connection.
This involves us actively listening so as to hear those with whom we connect; hearing so as to seek to genuinely understand the experiences of our fellow human beings even if we are momentarily connecting in passing; and acknowledging the nature of those experiences so as to actively create space wherein dialogue has the chance to take place.
Organisational life is chockful of big talk, often delivered by dominant voices. The HIPPO acronym reminds us that formalised conversation in business contexts is often experienced as being unhelpfully hierarchised. It underscores that some voices in structured meetings are privileged and others are deemed subaltern, regardless of whether the workforce are being told to “speak up”.
In Schloeffel & Firth’s (2025) amusing parodic book entitled Wankernomics: A Deep Dive into Workplace Bullshittery, they crack the nonsense joke that,
‘In the 1970s, the average working week in developing countries was 37 hours. By the 2020s, it was 58 hours. Research has found that the extra 21 hours is entirely due to people using unnecessarily complex sentences to impress their colleagues. Consider the extra time it takes to say, “I need to establish visibility on that key document moving forward” versus “Gimme a look”.’ [p20]
These same authors offer a chapter in this title that is critical of small talk in the workplace, not because it is inherently absurd but because it is not authentically experienced in organisational life, in contrast to the richness of my conversation with the Plymouth Argyle supporter! They argue that, ‘Work small talk has its own language – separate from ordinary work talk – which you will need to master if you are to thrive at work.’ [p85]
They focus on how these particular exchanges can – like the vast majority of corporate meetings – be seen to be inflexibly scripted. This is one example that they provide: I might ask what plans you have for the weekend, which leads you to respond, ‘Just a quiet one’. Their view of my subsequent “compulsory response” is that I am expected to say, ‘It’s nice to have those once in a while’.
Taking time to talk is important for human connection and for supporting an environment where people feel comfortable about engaging authentically in dialogue with one another. And human connection alongside honest and open conversation is essential for organisational effectiveness and success.
Our workplaces need to be contexts that are supportive of people engaging in genuine and essentially human small talk – and they need to work to ensure that the big talk and the loud voices are less dominant in corporate life. Such an approach will assist with creating meaningful unity in our community – and generate room for people to hear about the worlds of others and to share their own experiences secure in the knowledge that others will be paying attention.
