What makes you feel most alive? Where do you find peace when times get hard? What are you curious about lately? Who do you need to get in touch with because it’s been too long?
– “Big Talk” moves past small talk to facilitate more meaningful conversations through questions that are open-ended, universal, and elicit stories.
As we emerge from our battle with a global pandemic, we face another set of challenges – one rooted far more deeply in our culture. Division. Alienation. Disconnect. We saw these tensions come to a head in 2020: glued to our screens, we watched as the barriers that divide us — from racial to political, from socioeconomic to generational – forced us further and further apart.
It’s no surprise that people feel lonely and more alienated than ever. But it’s critical to remember that the end of COVID-19 doesn’t mean we’ll resolve those feelings overnight: Many of us grappled with isolation and loneliness even before we were confined to our homes. We’ve all longed for meaningful connection and wrestled with feeling like we don’t belong in our nearest communities.
These feelings are especially prominent in our daily working environments, despite research suggesting that employees care more deeply about their workplace community than ever. Without meaningful relationships built on sincere and substantive communication, employees struggle to feel like they are seen or heard at work. Trust, psychological safety, and belonging, critical features of highly engaged workplaces, are nearly impossible to achieve when people aren’t sharing their authentic selves.
That’s where Big Talk comes in. Although our world has suffered fissures in human connection, relationships aren’t immune to repair. Big Talk is deeply dedicated to helping people in communities move past small talk to build more meaningful relationships.
Big Talk aims to address the following societal needs:
- Belonging and Connection: Big Talk will create programs for employees and members of communities to foster a deeper sense of connection and belonging.
- Division and Empathy: Big Talk’s approach to conversation encourages individuals to relate to each other in ways that celebrate humanity, bridge divides, and foster empathy.
- Loneliness and Isolation: Big Talk helps us share our most vulnerable selves with each another to form authentic, sustainable relationships and eliminate loneliness.
This past year alone, Big Talk led programs for U.S. veterans, prisoners, female entrepreneurs, and university students around the world –
We’re now focused on the workplace.
Leveraging organizational psychology and subject matter expertise, Big Talk embeds behaviors and habits into workplace culture that transform everyday interactions into opportunities for deeper connections. Big Talk provides the tools and resources necessary to strengthen the individual voices of all members of a community, empowering everyone to join the conversation.
The result? A professional environment characterized by trust, belonging, and psychological safety; workplaces where, instead of relying on small talk, employees strive for Big Talk.
Follow us to skip the small talk and make Big Talk instead.
