“It was really nice meeting you, but I have to run.” How F1 legendary exec Toto Wolff ruthlessly guards his time and attention

After This is Working wraps, we cajole guests into sticking around for a podcast-exclusive lighting round called This is Quick. This week, we (fittingly) go fast with Formula 1 's Toto Wolff.

I try to be over-prepared for every interview, reading any books, posts, and articles I can get my hands on; listening to podcasts where the guest has guested or watching business-school classes where they’ve lectured; scanning white papers, SEC docs. You get the idea. 

But it was only recently that I realized that I need to be just as diligent about prepping my small talk as my real talk. I’m terrible at small talk and always have been. Yet my hubris about being able to pull it off has never wavered.

That ended a few weeks ago when I found myself asking former President Barack Obama about the Chicago Bulls’ chances next season. It’s a topic I know nothing about. But after our interview had wrapped and with dead air suddenly between us, it was the first thing that came to mind. When he asked me a question back — as people do — I had to admit that I didn’t have any opinions about the Bulls. And that awkward back-and-forth ended our time together. I’m just glad it was all off-camera.

My guest this week, Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team Principal and CEO Toto Wolff, hates small talk more than anyone I’ve ever met. And unlike me, he’s totally at peace with that.

We often think of small talk as being one of the things you have to be good at to get to the top of the business world — but Toto has made it to the top of F1 while unwilling to carry on a conversation at the cocktail hour. “Small talk tires me,” he shrugged. 

He told me about walking out of events if he finds himself engaged in small talk, even once leaving his wife behind. “I remember being at a wedding and I ended up between two people that really annoyed me. One to my left was drunk and complained about Formula 1. The other one to my right was a woman that was in shock that I didn't know her husband, who was a celebrity chef. And I looked at my wife, got up, never came back. I just can't take it. And I just don't want to take it… So I extract myself immediately.”

And it’s not just dinners where Toto refuses to play the game. Toto doesn’t small-text (is that a thing?) or share his personal moments over social. And he's not only disabled all notifications on his phone, but removed all ring tones, too. “I just look at [my phone] when I feel I have the bandwidth to look at it," he explained.

If you’re reading this and thinking that you want to be more like Toto, he offered a simple script that works well for him: “If you end up in a small talk conversation, it’s very easy: ‘It was really nice meeting you, but I’ve got to run now.’”

I’m going to keep trying to get better at small talk. But if I can’t build that skill, expect to hear that line a lot from me in the future.

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Check out the latest episode to hear more from Toto, including wisdom from his mentor, Mercedes-AMG co-founder Hans Werner Aufrecht (he's the A in AMG); why he has no patience for time thieves; how a regimented schedule boosts his productivity; and why making time for the “balcony” when you’re a “dance floor” executive is crucial to attaining success. For a much deeper and longer interview with Toto about his success leading his team, ready my 2022 interview with him here.

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