Making People Talk

by Barry M Farber

  The hardness I suggest does not call for treating people like tin cans. It demands they be treated more like treasured zucchini to be dusted and petted and placed lovingly upon protective green confetti in the display bin.

  “Smash them and throw them away when they’re through with them!” What rot! What an awful transmogrification of the “hard” doctrine. Skilled hard-hearts realize you’re never through with them! Anyone who can help you once might help you twice!

  Soft-hearts see a difference between personal friends and business associates. Each is clearly enough defined in the “soft” mind to be wearing an armband, and different rules apply to each.

  “Personal” friends are those we like spending time with because we like them. They may do us favors, and big ones, but that’s not usually why they were initially enlisted as friends. Personal friends are the ones we relax with. They’re the ones we rejoice with because we actually like each other, in praiseworthy contrast to those opportunistic dogs who will court anybody, kiss anybody, and spend time with anybody in their remorseless lunge for success. ~

  That’s the soft line, and it’s devastatingly seductive. It engulfs most decent/people for the course of their entire lives.

  It’s the easier philosophy to accept. It seems nicer.

  It just isn’t true.

  Some of the best friendships, some of the best laughs, the” best moments, the most vibrating, pulsating fun takes place at parties where not one single relationship was founded on softhearted “affection”!

  Do you suppose those governors and congressional chair­>men of key committees actually like each other? Or the CEO’s of the eight major firms in an industry having a drink in the penthouse of the convention hotel after the evening’s banquet? Or those rock stars and movie stars relaxing after rehearsal for a big benefit? Or those genial diplomats at the dinner party from countries that were fighting each other last Thursday, or intend to fight each other next Thursday?

  Are they the ones you pity because they don’t have time for their friends? Save your compassion and your energy. They don’t need it.

  Do you think you have what it takes to improve yourself quantumly over where you are now and where your present trajectory is likely to take you? If so, do you want to take that climb?

  If you answered affirmatively both times, there remains only one more question: Does success mean more to you than time with your friends, or does time with your friends mean more to you than your success?

  Put that way, isn’t the answer obvious? And isn’t the individual who opts for success now a little more normal and human, a little less “hard” in your eyes?

  Relax. If you succeed, you can still have friends, dear friends, dear old friends. Your moments with them can be richer. You’ll be able to do a lot more for those friends. You need not abandon friends you like merely because you learn to befriend others for reasons more practical, initially, than affection.

  I have no way of telling how many “arranged” marriages —wind up knit by love. I can testify, though, that many friendships that were motivated initially not by affection but by opportunism wind up richer and more enduring than those with the “good ole boys from down home.”

  When we talk about the facts of life, we mean sex. That’s unfortunate. Those sexual facts may, indeed, be the most sensational facts of life. They may be the most eagerly .anticipated facts of life. They may be the most important facts of life.

  But they’re not the only facts of life!

  I learned another one on active duty in the field of journalism in the 1960’s.

  A convention of medical writers in Arizona was rocked by a report that a team of New York researchers had come up with an injection that could melt—literally melt—breast tumors in mice in less than eight minutes. They were eager to show it off to anybody who would watch.

  I had a local radio show in New York at the time, and I didn’t even try to arrange an interview with those doctors right away. I figured they’d be engulfed by network TV attention for at least a week. I made a note to call them at their New York research center one week after all their publicity.

  When I called, I learned to my amazement that I was the one and only talk show host who’d shown any interest. They invited me down for my own private demonstration.

  They had a specially bred strain of mice (the C3H strain) in which the female obligingly almost always develops breast cancer. They selected a mouse with a particularly large tumor. I was a layman, and they wanted to make sure nothing was lost on me. They invited me to use my own stopwatch. They injected and said “Go.”

  And sure enough, inside of eight minutes the tumor was gone.

  Why wasn’t the whole medical world standing where I was, gasping like I was gasping, thrilling like I was thrilling?

  The three doctors, the senior and his two younger Ph.D. research assistants, politely explained the rivalries that cause big-deal cancer research to “control” their excitement over any accomplishments that look promising inside little-deal cancer research. And, despite their headlines for a day, my new friends were strictly little-deal research.

  I was furious. I went back to my microphones and told the world that rivalry and jealousy should stick to show business where they belong and not endanger our lives by blocking medical research. I invited every M.D. and Ph.D. medical researcher listening to a “rebel” demonstration for the next Saturday morning—no official scientific auspices, just a broadcaster showing doctors what three researchers had come up with.

  A roomful of curious doctors did, indeed, show up.

  The three researchers replicated their experiment, passing the mouse around by the tail so the assembled physicians could palpate (feel) and verify the existence of the tumor, injecting their blessed fluid, waiting the eight minutes, and, finally, satisfying one and all that the tumor was now necrotic (dead) tissue.

  And there wasn’t the slightest hint of any excitement or even interest on the part of the medical personnel present!

  Why?

  Did my doctors do what I said they would?

  Yes.

  Did they do it as totally and quickly as I said they would?

  Definitely.

  Why, then, wasn’t there even a hint of a “Hey, now. What have we here?”

  One of the young doctors present had earlier introduced himself as a regular listener to my radio show. I used that connection to take him off to one side and into my confidenceT I said, “you and your friends don’t seem to be particularly impressed with what you’ve just seen.”

  He seemed relieved that I’d come to that conclusion single-handedly, sparing him the need to tell me.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Did you see that senior doctor?” he said.

  I replied I’d seen him take a mouse, verify the existence of a breast tumor, inject the mouse, and eight minutes later verify that the tumor was gone. What else should I have seen?

  “His white laboratory coat was not only stained,” the doctor said, “but his buttons—not just one—but two whole buttonholes—were out of whack!”

  The most empire-shaking court-martial in British annals concerned the acquittal of a British officer who was apprehended chasing a young woman, completely (he, that is) in the nude, down the corridors of a hotel in Singapore.

  His defense attorney successfully mobilized a long-forgotten clause in the British officers conduct manual that said, “Uniform regulations shall be suspended to allow for officers to dress appropriately for the sport, activity, or pursuit in which they are engaged”!

  Making Them Talk is the neglected tool of achievers. A million words are written on the importance of “appearance” for every one written on what to do and say after you “appear.”

  Appearance is the anthem. Conversation is the ball game.

  Are you sure you are dressed—and groomed and shined and clipped and fragranced and filed-of-nail, erect-of-posture, and pleasant-of-breath—for the sport, activity and p
ursuit in which you are engaged, which is making people think that meeting you is a major event in their day, if not their lives, and making them friendlier and more likely to support your endeavors?

  Only about ten cartoons in American magazines have become classics, and the one to recall here is the cartoon that showed hundreds of thousands of tuxedoed, swallow-tailed penguins sprawled across the Antarctic icecap. A large group of those penguins were clustered around one of their number dressed in an outrageous checkered vest with gold chain, sunglasses, jaunty beret, and a lit cigarette perched in a rhinestone-studded cigarette holder.

  The caption had the stylish penguin saying, “I just got tired of being so goddamn formal all the time!”

  Emotionally, we may side with that daring penguin; but tactically we’ve learned to go along with the anonymous, unimaginative others.

  When you try to make an impression, that, alas, is exactly the impression you make.

  Lincoln would have lost the debates to Douglas if his tie had been trapped outside the collar.

  Once upon a time “gentlemen” out to succeed in commerce had no choice in dress style. They had to surrender to the fashions of the day. All rebellion was mercilessly dealt with. Today there are men and women who want to succeed only if they can do so within dress codes they consider proper. Fine. No written word is likely to undermine your principles. All that’s recommended here is to appear at all times at the pinnacle of your chosen mode, whatever it is.

  If you’re a three-piece-suit man, make sure the vest is properly buttoned, the pants bear a crease, and the jacket doesn’t carry the fallout of yesterday’s egg foo young. If you’re a sweater-and-slacks man, be a good sweater-and-slacks man with attractive sweater and neat slacks. If you’re a suit woman, a dress woman, or a daring none of the above, make sure that, if whatever style you’re exemplifying had rules, you’d be in conformity with them.

  If you’re a T-shirt person, at least be a clean T-shirt person. If that’s too much for you—if your personal commitment calls for a dirty T-shirt—make it the most interesting dirty T-shirt available.

  No dress style calls for sloppy shoes with rundown heels, tom or tacky clothing, or things buttoned the wrong way, things sticking out of the wrong things, or things tucked into the wrong things.

  You do not have to “make a grand impression” with your dress. In fact, doing so might detract from your overall effectiveness. How many people do you know who impress others with their dress who also succeed in impressing in other ways?

  It is enough that your appearance not interfere with all the good things that will go on as you master the art of Making Them Talk.

  Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand, and I will lift the world.”

  I say, give these principles of Making Them Talk a fair chance—meaning don’t dress destructively—and you’ll lift much more of your world than you ever thought was loose and liftable.

  Prepare Your Brief

  Thelma wasn’t exactly devastated, but she weighed in definitely somewhere between distraught and frantic The hostess, her good friend, had called her and told her she had placed Thelma beside the most important guest at the dinner, a nuclear physicist whose name, if not a household word, did appear in the columns of The New York Times whenever the Soviets imprisoned a colleague or some younger professor tried to revise Newton.

  Thelma was a wreck. She came to me wailing that she “didn’t know a thing about physics.”

  I calmed her down and asked her if she ever froze whenever the waiter brought her a salad because she didn’t know a thing about brussels sprouts?

  Thelma indeed didn’t know a thing about physics. The physicist, however, didn’t know much about laymen scared to death about being expected to make conversation with a physicist. I advised her to swallow her reticence and look at the evening as a sort of summit meeting between the two.

  “Why do you suppose, Professor, that your field intimidates people even more than, say surgery, or flying jets?”

  “Do most people you meet outside your field own up to that awe, or do they try to mask it?”

  “What kind of conversation makes you most comfortable when you’re placed with someone who has no idea of what a physicist does day after day?”

  “Was there one outstanding experience in your childhood hat made you want to become a physicist?”

  “What would you want to be if you weren’t a physicist?” “How would you explain Einstein’s theory to a typical fifth-grade class?”

  “ I once asked a magician if he ever saw a trick he couldn’t figure out, and he told me he never did understand how Blackstone got the elephant on stage. Is there any formulation in physics today that you don’t understand?”

  “Are we ahead of the Soviets in physics?”

  “Are there many opportunities for women in physics today? Are women any less logical than men when they’re trying to unlock the secrets of the universe?”

  “What have you changed your mind about most since you first picked up a physics book?”

  “What’s the biggest unsolved problem in physics?”

  “Are there any new weapons physicists talk about that we haven’t read about yet?”

  “If you had an unlimited budget, what breakthrough could you achieve?”

  “Would you want your daughter to marry a physicist?”

  I urged Thelma not to write any of those questions down; just to read them over and slip those she felt comfortable with into the conversation casually and earnestly. I told her to try to enjoy herself and not come across like an aspiring talk show hostess being auditioned before a producer who’s already frowning.

  I instructed her as Napoleon’s Talleyrand instructed his younger diplomats: “Above all, not too much zeal!”

  Thelma told me later it went supremely well. The physicist broke down and confessed he’d dreaded coming that night into what he thought would be another den of fawning laymen fumbling for ways to get a conversation going. He thought he would have to “carry the water.”

  Toscanini knew all about carrying the water. A wealthy matron once called the famous musician and asked what his fee would be to play at her garden party.

  “My fee,” Toscanini replied, “is ten thousand dollars.”

  “That’s outrageous,” said the woman, and hung up.

  The next day she called back, a slight dent in her ego, and said, “All right, I’ll pay you your ten thousand dollars, but you are not allowed to mingle with the guests.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday, madam?” Toscanini replied. “In that case, my fee is only five thousand dollars!”

  The physicist knew how to unlock the forces of nature.

  Thelma knew how to unlock the forces of human nature “I’m going to meet a lot of people in the next twenty-four hours. How can I turn every single one of those contacts to my advantage?”

  It takes some people a lifetime to admit that’s a legitimate question. Many never make it.

  The “soft” side, I fear, has the head start. We’re trained from childhood to look down on pushy people, selfish people, opportunists, social climbers, those who “use” others, and those who are interested in others “only for how much they can get.”

  Those despicable types aren’t the only ones who feel it. They aren’t the only ones who do it. They’re just the only ones who show it!

  Imagine, as you enter that room, everybody freezing, all conversation coming to a halt, and everybody going into deep meditation to determine precisely what he or she could do to make you happy. Theq snap back to the real world, get in there, and see how much of that potential you can harvest.

  Politicians know what it means to “work the room.” No elected official ever worked a room better than the late Senator Jacob Javits of New York. He was awesome.

  Javits understood the unwritten attribute of leadership that warns leaders to Avoid the Ostensible. For example, the worst thing a candidate can do at a cocktail party is have
a cocktail. At coffee breaks the leader neither breaks nor drinks coffee. And political dinners are not for eating; not for the candidate, anyhow. They’re for Working the Room.

  Jake Javits could keep his body from the waist up cocked at a forty-five-degree angle for an hour at a time without ever straightening up as he grasshoppered from table to table, person to person, greeting, chatting, chuckling, shaking hands, and maintaining a practiced stance of exuding-affability-while-never-faking-acquaintanceship (if he really had no idea who the person was).

  We plain ole people, citizens, and invited party goers don’t “work” rooms. Instead we beeline toward those we know and like, those who are or might become important to us, and those who arouse our flirt glands. And we make perfunctory and sometimes grudging conversation with all others as we’re introduced. To us, however, most of those in that room remain “other people at the party.”

  Who are those “other people at the party”? Among them are most likely, if not undoubtedly, your potential employers—or best friends of potential employers, potential custom-ers-clients-buyers of whatever it is you sell, potential supporters for whatever campaign or endeavor you might someday choose to mount, potential desirable hosts, potential desirable guests, potential good buddies who, if met, could make that party live forever as “the day I met so-and-so.”

  That room full of people you instinctively regard as “background” people, no more important to you than background music or wallpaper, may contain precisely the clout and qualifications you need. Or could use. Or may need. Or may be able to use. They may be just the ones to marry you, enrich you, lift and color your life, or at least speak well of you whenever your name comes up.

  They will not bestir themselves to hoist your fortune in any of these capacities, however, if you let them remain as “background" people. Roast pheasants do not fly into mouths merely because they’re hanging there open.

  So why don’t you move out smartly and see how many allies you can enlist—not just by talking to them, but by talking to them in a manner calculated to Make Them Talk.