To avoid 'awkward, superficial' small talk, make one little change, says communication expert

Small talk often gets a bad rap. It can feel awkward, superficial and pointless at times — if you're doing it wrong.

But it's one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal to build relationships, exude a strong presence and even lift your mood. 

The problem with most small talk is that it's happening on autopilot, which means that people are asking questions they can already predict the answers to, such as: 

• "How are you?" 
• "How's the weather?"  
• "How was your weekend?"

When you ask autopilot questions, you can almost guarantee you'll get autopilot responses: 

• "I'm good, thanks. How about you?"
• "It's so cold!"
• "My weekend was good, thanks. How about yours?"

Want the antidote to autopilot small talk? Use conversational threading.

Conversational threading is a technique that leads to more meaningful interactions by creating or pulling on "threads" — or compelling little tidbits that encourage more flowing and interesting conversation. 

It can help you have better conversations in your personal and professional life, whether you're in a job interview, at a networking event, in a team meeting, at a party, or in line at a coffee shop.

Here's how to use it: 

Offer a few threads people can pull on

Let's say you're asked the autopilot question "How was your weekend?" Instead of giving a rote answer, you might say: "My weekend was great! I went hiking and celebrated my niece's birthday." You've now offered two threads: They can ask about your hike or your niece. 

Here are a few more examples to help you improve your replies to common small talk prompts:

Question: "What brings you to [place/event]?"
Autopilot answer: "I'm here for work."
Better answer: "I'm here hoping to learn more about [X topic] to help my team achieve [Y goal]. I'm excited to meet others looking to do similar things. How about yourself?"

Question: "How are you?"
Autopilot answer: "I'm good. Busy as usual, you know how it is!"
Better answer: "I'm good! Work has been keeping me on my toes, but I just started a new project that I'm really excited about. How about you?"

Question: "How's it going?" 
Autopilot answer: "Things are good on my end."
Better answer: "I've been focused on wrapping up [X project], and I'm excited to share it at the all-hands next week. I'd love to hear your thoughts after!"

Pull on other people's threads

Active listening is key if you want to identify threads to pull on. For example, if you ask someone where they're from and they respond with "San Francisco," our natural inclination is to then share where we are from, and then the conversation might fall flat. 

Instead, pull on that thread of information you've been given and ask a follow up question like, "What's your favorite part about living there?" 

You can also share your own experiences with San Francisco to keep the conversation going. When you share more about yourself, it can often prompt the other person to be more open to sharing as well.

If you're stuck on how to continue a conversation because the other person isn't giving you any threads to pull on, make an observation about something you see. This works particularly well in situations like video calls, where you can comment on or ask about something in that person's background, like a piece of art or photo (or the virtual background they've selected). 

Ask better questions to prompt threads

You can encourage more engaging conversation by tweaking your small talk questions to better facilitate conversational threading. For example: 

Common question: "How are you?"
Better question: "What are you excited to be working on?"

Common question: "How was your weekend?
Better question: "What was the highlight of your weekend?"

Common question: "What brought you to this event?"
Better question: "What's been your favorite takeaway so far?"

Having a few go-to questions in your back pocket can be especially helpful if you're still practicing this technique.

Tweaking your small talk questions and responses to use more positive language — words like "excited," "highlight" and "favorite" — primes you and the other person to think about your conversation more positively. 

Try using positive words as you provide and pull on threads next time you talk to someone. I'm excited for you to have deeper, more interesting conversations from here on out.

Lorraine K. Lee is an award-winning virtual keynote speaker and CEO of RISE Learning Solutions. She's also the best-selling author of "Unforgettable Presence: Get Seen, Gain Influencer, and Catapult Your Career," which was named a must-read by the Next Big Idea Club. She teaches popular courses with LinkedIn Learning and Stanford Continuing Studies. Past clients include Zoom, Cisco, LinkedIn, ASICS, McKinsey & Company, and many others.

Want to be a successful, confident communicator? Take CNBC's online course Become an Effective Communicator: Master Public Speaking. We'll teach you how to speak clearly and confidently, calm your nerves, what to say and not say, and body language techniques to make a great first impression. Get started today.