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I was sitting in the glorious sun in San Jose, California last week. A day of training was done and I had plopped myself down outside at an In-N-Out Burger right across from my hotel's parking lot.
I was waiting on my "Double-Double" burger when a fellow customer struck up a conversation.
"Nice day, eh?" he began.
"It is," I said. "The sun feels great."
"It really does. Nice breeze too."
"Perfect," I said, "and no humidity."
His number was called and off he was to claim his dinner. "Have a good one," he said, as he parted.
"You too," I replied.
And that was it-our perfectly compact conversation was done.
Ah the weather...mankind's ice breaker. It's the topic that can ease us into most any exchange with someone we are unfamiliar with. You know...
"Woo, it's a hot one!"
"My face froze."
"How's the weather there?"
"Could use some rain."
"Rainin' cats and dogs."
"Hot enough for you?"
"Cold enough for you?
"Bout time we get some spring."
"Well, after the winter we had."
"You know what they say about [insert any geographical location here]; just wait an hour and the weather will change."
"From Alabama? Hot there I guess."
"From Minnesota? Cold there I guess."
"From Chicago? Ah the Windy City. Gotta hold on to your hat there I guess."
By the way, this common use of Chicago's nickname is erroneous. It got the moniker "Windy City" back in the 1930s from a journalist who was referring to the hot air of the politicians not the weather. As a matter of fact, if you Google it you'll find that Chicago is not even in the top 100 windiest cities in the United States. Congratulations Amarillo, Texas or Dodge City, Kansas or Brockington, Massachusetts whichever list you want to read.
But I digress...
The weather is everyone's favorite topic. It doesn't matter the gender, the age, the race, the religion, the economic status. This is especially true when strangers meet.
And why is that?
Certainly weather is an easy subject that offers no objectionable opinion. Most importantly though, weather is what every single human being has in common. Thus it is mankind's easiest conversation.
Weather doesn't always stand alone like it did for me at the In-N-Out Burger. Often it's a warm up for something more to come.
Sales people often use the weather as a lead-in, job interviewers and interviewees do, doctors too. Many times our most tense moments in life are rendered slightly less so with a comment on the weather.
I've begun many of my workshops with a joke about the weather and lots of my coaching sessions have started with one of us doing the same.
When neighbors see each other in the yard and have nothing else to talk about they can always kibitz about the weather, and they do, which frequently leads to other things.
I've often viewed the weather as a trivial topic of conversation, and it usually is. But that's actually the beauty of it. It's weather's very trivialness that makes it effective as a conversation starter.
In the same way, communication exercises can come in handy when you're trying to get your people to discuss something useful at work.
Don't make that face...hear me out.
I use them from time to time in what I do-ice breakers that increase familiarity between people and give them a greater comfort level to discuss more important things. If they are not overdone and are well placed, they work.
Lots of people inwardly groan at the thought of doing group exercises. But most, in fact, resist because they are being forced out of their comfort zones to interact with the people around them. And they resist because it seems so trivial.
Indeed, exercises are trivial if they stand alone. But if they are attached to a larger purpose they can help springboard some really good discussions. They often grease the wheels for the substance that lies ahead.
You use ice breakers every day when you communicate with strangers...the weather remember? They can be an excellent tool for business too.
I see you making that face...
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