746: How to Make Small Talk with Executives, with Lorraine K. Lee
Coaching for Leaders
Dave Stachowiak
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lorraine K. Lee is passionate about helping ambitious professionals go from invisible to unforgettable in the modern workplace. She is recognized as a LinkedIn Top Voice in workplace communication and presence and spent over a decade as a founding editor at top tech firms like LinkedIn and Prezi, where she worked on core products including the LinkedIn Daily News module and LinkedIn Newsletters. She is the author of Unforgettable Presence: Get Seen, Gain Influence, and Catapult Your Career.
Small talk. We all love to hate it – and we also know that most of us will end up in small talk with someone who’s got a lot of influence. It may be an executive or an external stakeholder. Either way, handling it well can open up doors. In this conversation, Lorraine and I detail how to make small talk go better.
Key Points
Small talk is the starting point before a deeper relationship.
Most opportunities for executive small talk are predictable. Preparation will help you speak well.
Set the tone with positive energy. Rather than dominating the interaction or passively reacting to it, thread your conversations so each party shares equally.
At the office, be ready with a sentence or two about who you work with and what you’re working on. Relationships and outcomes are more memorable than titles.
At social events, share a hobby or interest and ask about theirs. Keep questions open-ended as you would with a friend.
Have a topic ready to go for quick interactions. Sharing a thought about a book or podcast that relates to your organization is a useful resource to have at the ready.
Review your go-to topics regularly so that you always have a relevant conversation topic.
Resources Mentioned
Unforgettable Presence: Get Seen, Gain Influence, and Catapult Your Career by Lorraine K. Lee
Interview Notes
Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).
Related Episodes
Executive Presence with Your Elevator Speech, with Tom Henschel (episode 316)
How to Talk to People Who Intimidate You, with Shandy Welch (episode 706)
A Key Tactic for Way Better Conversations, with Alison Wood Brooks (episode 717)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ugh, small talk. We all love to hate it. And we also know that most of us are going to end up in |
| 0:06.3 | small talk with someone who's got a lot of influence. It may be an executive or an external |
| 0:11.9 | stakeholder. Either way, handling it well can open up doors. In this episode, How to Make |
| 0:18.5 | Small Talk go better. This is Coaching for Leaders, Episode 746. |
| 0:24.9 | Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential. |
| 0:33.2 | Greetings to you from Orange County, California. |
| 0:36.5 | This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stahoviac. |
| 0:41.2 | Leaders are born. They're made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. |
| 0:49.2 | A conversation that has emerged in my career many times, that is one that has always been a little bit |
| 0:57.2 | uncomfortable until more recently is making small talk, specifically with making small talk |
| 1:03.2 | with executives or other stakeholders or people who are in powerful roles or positions, |
| 1:09.6 | and how to do that effectively a little bit more |
| 1:12.9 | naturally and in a way that supports the visibility, certainly, of ourselves and our own careers, |
| 1:18.8 | but also supports the visibility of our teams and our organizations. And today I'm so glad to |
| 1:23.9 | welcome a guest. It's going to help us to do this just a little bit better. I'm so |
| 1:27.7 | pleased to introduce Lorraine Kay Lee. She is passionate about helping ambitious professionals |
| 1:32.9 | go from invisible to unforgettable in the modern workplace. She's recognized as a LinkedIn |
| 1:39.1 | top voice in workplace communication and presence and spent over a decade as a founding editor at top tech |
| 1:45.0 | firms like LinkedIn and Prezie, where she worked on core products, including LinkedIn Daily News |
| 1:49.9 | and LinkedIn Newsletters. She is the author of Unforgettable Presence, Get Seen, Gain, |
| 1:56.1 | Gain, Inflict Your Career. Lorraine, what a pleasure to have you on. Welcome. |
| 2:02.7 | Thank you, Dave. I am so excited to be chatting with you today. Oh, I'm so excited to talk to you, too. |
... |
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