How to Get ’Em Happily Chatting (So You Can Slip Away if You Want To!)

Every father smiles when his little tyke beseeches him at bedtime,

"Daddy, Daddy, tell me the story again of the three little pigs" (or

the dancing princesses or how you and Mommy met). Daddy

knows Junior enjoyed the story so much the first time, he wants

to hear it again and again.

Junior inspires the following technique called "Encore!" which

serves two purposes. Encore! makes a colleague feel like a happy dad, and it's a great way to give dying conversation a heart

transplant.

I once worked on a ship that had Italian officers and mostly

American passengers. Each week, the deck officers were required

to attend the captain's cocktail party. After the captain's address

in charmingly broken English, the officers invariably clumped

together yakking it up in Italian. Needless to say, most of the passengers' grasp of Italian ended at macaroni, spaghetti, salami, and

pizza.

As cruise director, it fell on my shoulders to get the officers to

mingle with the passengers. My not-so-subtle tactic was to grab

one of the officers' arms and literally drag him over to a smiling

throng of expectant passengers. I would then introduce the officer and pray that either the cat would release his tongue, or a pas82

How to Get 'Em Happily

Chatting (So You Can Slip

Away if You Want To!)

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How to Get 'Em Happily Chatting (So You Can Slip Away if You Want To!) 83

senger would come up with a more original question than "Gee,

if all you officers are here, who is driving the boat?" Never happened. I dreaded the weekly captain's cocktail party.

One night, sleeping in my cabin, I was awakened by the ship

rocking violently from side to side. I listened and the engines were

off. A bad sign. I grabbed my robe and raced up to the deck.

Through the dense fog, I could barely discern another ship not

half a mile from us. Five or six officers were grasping the starboard

guardrail and leaning overboard. I rushed over just in time to see

a man in the moonlight with a bandage over one eye struggling

up our violently rocking ladder. The officers immediately whisked

him off to our ship's hospital. The engines started again and we

were on our way.

The next morning I got the full story. A laborer on the other

ship, a freighter, had been drilling a hole in an engine cylinder.

While he was working, a sharp, needle-thin piece of metal shot

like a missile into his right eye. The freighter had no doctor on

board so the ship broadcast an emergency signal.

International sea laws dictate that any ship hearing a distress

signal must respond. Our ship came to the rescue and the seaman,

clutching his bleeding eye, was lowered into a lifeboat that brought

him to our ship. Dr. Rossi, our ship's doctor, was successfully able

to remove the needle from the workman's eye, thus saving his

eyesight.

"Tell 'Em About the Time You . . ."

Cut to the next captain's cocktail party. Once again I was faced

with the familiar challenge of getting officers to mingle and make

small talk with the passengers. I made my weekly trek to the

laconic officers' throng to drag one or two away and, this time, my

hand fell on the arm of the ship's doctor. I hauled him over to the

nearest group of grinning passengers and introduced him. I then

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said, "Just last week Dr. Rossi saved the eyesight of a seaman on

another ship after a dramatic midnight rescue. Dr. Rossi, I'm sure

these folks would love to hear about it."

It was like a magic wand. To my amazement, it was as though

Dr. Rossi was blessed instantly with the tongues of angels. His previously monosyllabic broken English became thickly accented eloquence. He recounted the entire story for the growing group of

passengers gathering around him. I left the throng that Dr. Rossi

enraptured to pull another officer over to an awaiting audience.

I grabbed the captain's stripe-covered arm, dragged him over

to another pack of smiling passengers and said, "Captain Cafiero,

why don't you tell these folks about the dramatic midnight rescue

you made last week?" The cat released Cafiero's tongue and he was

off and running.

Back to the throng to get the first officer for the next group.

By now I knew I had a winner. "Signor Salvago, why don't you tell

these folks how you awakened the captain at midnight last week

for the dramatic midnight rescue?"

By then it was time to go back to extract the ship's doctor from

the first bevy and take him to his next pack of passengers. It worked

even better the second time. He happily commenced his Encore!

for the second audience. As he chatted away, I raced back to the

captain to pull him away for a second telling with another throng.

I felt like the circus juggler who keeps all the plates spinning on

sticks. Just as I got one conversation spinning, I had to race back

to the first speaker to give him a whirl at another audience.

The captain's cocktail parties were a breeze for me for the rest

of the season. The three officers loved telling the same story of

their heroism to new people every cruise. The only problem was

I noticed the stories getting longer and more elaborate each time.

I had to adjust my timing in getting them to do a repeat performance for the next audience.

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Play It Again, Sam

"Encore!" is what appreciative audiences chant when they want

another song from the singer, another dance from the dancer,

another poem from the poet, and in my case, another storytelling

from the officers. Encore! is the technique you can use to request

a repeat story from a prospect, potential employer, or valued

acquaintance. While the two of you are chatting with a group of

people, simply turn to him and say, "John, I bet everyone would

love to hear about the time you caught that thirty-pound striped

bass." Or, "Susan, tell everyone that story you just told me of how

you rescued the kitten from the tree." He or she will, of course,

demure. Insist! Your conversation partner is secretly loving it. The

subtext of your request is "That story of yours was so terrific, I

want my other friends to hear it." After all, only crowd pleasers

are asked to do an Encore!