Supercommunicators
Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection
By: Charles Duhigg
[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2024]
“whether we call it love, or friendship, or simply having a great conversation, achieving connection—authentic, meaningful connection—is the most important thing in life.”
This is a really insightful book on how we can better communicate with others. Duhigg uses lots of research studies and real life examples from places like Netflix, a jury room, The Big Bang Theory, NASA, and the CIA to show the principles in action.
By looking at typically controversial conversations on topics like gun control, vaccines, and race, we can see how employing these principles really changes the dialogue and allows people who normally disagree to understand each other and bring meaningful connection where we desperately need it.
With the increase of internet use we see a decrease in civil discourse. Everywhere you look you see hatred, people talking past each other, and a complete disregard for people’s humanity, values, and experiences. It’s all about winning, shaming, or forcing belief assimilation by threatening social reputation calamity if you don’t.
I think every human should read this book. We may not be able to change the world, but it will do a lot to make our relationships better and stronger and will help us be people who desire and can put into practice peace and consideration in our conversations in a highly polarized environment.
(Plus it’s just really interesting!)
That’s why Duhigg ultimately wrote this book.
“Why was it that, at times, I had so much trouble hearing what someone was trying to tell me? Why was I so quick to get defensive, or to glide past the emotions people were clearly trying to share? Why, sometimes, did I talk so much and listen so little? Why hadn’t I understood when a friend needed comfort rather than advice? How could I put my kids aside when they so clearly wanted to be with me? Why did I struggle to explain what was inside my own head? These struck me as meaningful questions, worthy of exploration, and I wanted answers.”
Research that studied people over decades of time (that has been replicated in other studies) shows that one of the main factors correlated to a long and happy life is deep connections with family and friends.
How do deep connections happen but in meaningful conversations and communications.
The biggest takeaway from this book is to use these principles to make deeper connections and to see the humanity and hear the experiences of those we disagree with.
“Over the past two decades, a body of research has emerged that sheds light on why some of our conversations go so well, while others are so miserable. These insights can help us hear more clearly and speak more persuasively.”
The principles he talks about in this book are not just for familial relationship or just for the workplace. They can be universally applied. Some of them were new to me and others I’ve read in other books or heard from my own therapist and I can attest that they do make a difference when I use them.
The principles can be broken down into three major areas:
What’s This Really About? (practical, decision-making conversations)
How Do We Feel? (emotional conversations)
Who Are We? (social conversations that involve our identities)
Conversations are fluid so these may overlap in a conversation as you get deeper. But if we aren’t ‘in’ the same conversation as the person we’re talking to, we’re not going to make a connection and we’re not going to get very far before things start to devolve.
It’s no surprise that to communicate well requires listening, asking questions, and talking about our feelings.
“to become a supercommunicator, all we need to do is listen closely to what’s said and unsaid, ask the right questions, recognize and match others’ moods, and make our own feelings easy for others to perceive.”
In this book Duhigg gives some guidelines on what kinds of questions are helpful and what kinds aren’t. For example:
“Questions about facts (“Where do you live?” “What college did you attend?”) are conversational dead-ends. They don’t draw out values or experiences. They don’t invite vulnerability. However, those same inquiries, recast slightly (“What do you like about where you live?” “What was your favorite part of college?”), invite others to share their preferences, beliefs, and values”
We may hear ‘share our feelings’ and bristle about what that means or looks like, but when you read the examples in the book it’s not so bad and it turns conversations of small-talk (which no one really likes) into conversations that actually move someplace.
I also liked that after each chapter he included a section called ‘A Guide to Using These Ideas’ that reiterated the points he had made earlier and what it would look like in real conversation. There were often graphs to illustrate as well.
The flow of the book was easy to follow and I thought he used a lot of really interesting research studies and case-studies to exemplify each point which keeps those engaged who don’t typically enjoy psychological concepts.
There are aspects of this topic that feel borderline manipulative, especially when we think of negotiations or persuading someone. One example he uses is about vaccinations (which may put some people off). He talks about a doctor who had patients that were anti-vaxxers and he struggled with communicating to them the reasons and data as to why they should vaccinate their children.
He realized it wasn’t necessarily about the facts, but about their mistrust of doctors or their resistance to government control. He found that when he made personal connections and they were able to see him as a father too, not just a doctor, and when he set aside his tendency to think or talk in a way that says ‘I’m smarter than you’, they were more willing to hear his advice.
I get that, but I also feel like knowing someone is figuring out the best way to persuade you also makes you feel distrustful about their motivations. Which is why, though I’m not anti-vax, I opted not to do the Covid vaccine.
They claimed data, but it was still new and long-term data was not available. Not only was the ‘choice’ framed in a way that made it seem like taking the vaccine was the only choice and the absolute right choice, but that anyone who chose not to didn’t care about humanity.
While I’m willing to consider that the vaccine may have helped, I’m not convinced. And the sheer force and condescension that went along with it does not help someone trust but feels rather like manipulation.
I admit that distrust is often hard to overcome and not all persuasion is manipulation or immoral, but I just think that some of these conversations might start to feel that way. Playing to emotions to convince someone to trust you.
So an essential component to all of this is genuine care and concern and desire to know someone, not creating a good communication as a means to an end.
This labeling of groups of people (as above) is another major component of communication. And I think that comes into play most prominently in political discourse.
I think this tactic has been employed by both right and left-wing groups and only keeps people polarized.
“Over the last decade, the number of Americans who say they are “deeply angry” at the other political party has increased sharply, to almost 70 percent of the electorate. Roughly half the nation believes those with differing political beliefs are “immoral,” “lazy,” “dishonest,” and “unintelligent.””
It goes like this: you think that one thing? Then you are this kind of person and all these other things are true about you.
For example: I saw on a book review Facebook group a person shared the book Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier and commented that they thought it was a thought-provoking and alarming book. I read the book and think the same thing, but I knew the comments section would have some dissenters. I was shocked by the things people were saying about the person who shared it. They called the person hateful, demanded they be blocked, that this person was what was wrong with the world and more of the same vitriol. They placed this person in a group called ‘Hateful, evil bigot’ simply because they shared their opinion of a book that happens to contain beliefs they don’t share. They didn’t know anything about this person’s values, emotions, or experiences.
And to offer an example from ‘the other side’: Someone shares that they believe abortion should be a legal right. You will see people commenting that that person is a murderer and that they hate Jesus and don’t believe in the sanctity of human life. That also puts them in a group without any knowledge of that person’s values, emotions, or experiences.
Good communication is not really about proving yourself right, but about seeing the people you’re talking to as human beings with their own values, emotions, and life experiences that we should seek to understand. It diffuses a controversial conversation and helps you see them as the complex and nuanced person they are, not a one-dimensional caricature or stereotype.
“Identity threats typically emerge because we generalize: We lump people into groups (“Lawyers are all dishonest”) or assign them traits they loathe (“Everyone who voted for that guy is a racist”). These generalizations take us—our unique perspectives and complicated identities—out of the conversation. They make us one-dimensional.”
Tribal mentality and in-group, out-group psychology is proven stuff and hard at work in our cultural climate. We can’t help but group and label people, trusting and thinking highly of those who share our beliefs or look like us and mistrusting and looking down on those who do not.
Duhigg shares an experiment people conducted to see if people on both sides of the gun control debate could be in a room and have civil conversation. Long story short- they could! When they shared about vulnerable parts of their lives and heard and saw each other as human beings, even though they didn’t change their minds, they changed HOW they communicated with one another. The other side was no longer ‘evil’ but were good people just like us that wanted good things too. There was just disagreements on how those good things would come to be.
“They think listening means debating, and if you let someone else make a good point, you’re doing something wrong. But listening means letting someone else tell their story and then, even if you don’t agree with them, trying to understand why they feel that way.”
I do think there are some limitations here. In a lot of conversations decisions have to be made and laws need to be written. At some point we have to come to an agreement. We have to determine what is true or right.
If we’re just making connections with people to gain understanding and learn about them, there are no stakes or decisions. But we still have to make decisions about who can own guns or who can get married and not all viewpoints are equal.
This is where I start to have questions. As I read this book I pondered-
What is ‘understanding’?
I would argue that understanding doesn’t require agreement but I think perhaps we operate out of a different definition of understanding than we think. I think a lot of people don’t feel understood unless someone ends up agreeing with them- ‘They must have misunderstood me or I must have said it wrong if they still don’t agree with me, because if they really understood, they would see why I’m right or why this is true.’
What does it look like to come to an understanding when the topics being discussed are identity conversations and the disagreeing parties are approaching the topic with very different worldviews and standards of morality?
How do we move forward in good conversation if we listen to people’s feelings but their feelings are based on lies?
And I think I’m reaching outside the scope of this book, especially since I am trying to look at this information through a biblical lens which is not what the author was attempting to do. But definitely gives you some things to think about.
A couple things that stood out to me because I’ve used them in my own marriage are looping and narratives.
A woman enrolled at Harvard Law school shared that she realized that the purpose of talking about conflict wasn’t about winning but determining “why this fight has emerged and what is fueling it, as well as the stories they are all telling themselves about why this conflict persists.”
‘The stories they are telling themselves’ is such a big but subtle thing. An example from my personal life- My husband looks at the dinner I made and says ‘is this what it usually looks like?’
The story I tell myself, which is rooted in my own insecurities about being a good wife, is that my husband is criticizing the meal I worked hard to make and doesn’t appreciate what I’ve done and thinks it’s a bad meal. That’s the narrative I tell myself and then respond from. Is that going to go well? No.
I have to realize that I’ve created that narrative and need to evaluate if it’s true or reasonable. Turns out, he was not feeling any type of way about me making a good or bad supper but was genuinely wondering what was different about it. The conversation looks a lot different, right?
Paired with this is the importance of looping which is listening and then proving we have listened by repeating back to them what they just told us but in our own words.
This brings clarity and understanding and gets everyone having the same conversation. It also builds trust because the person won’t feel like the ‘listener’ was just trying to come up with their own rebuttal but was genuinely processing what they were hearing so that they are all dealing with the right information and feelings.
If I had used this method with the above example (which I didn’t), it could have looked like this: “What I’m hearing you say is that you don’t like what I made and you’re frustrated that I don’t make you better meals.” Then he can say, “No, I really appreciate that you’ve made supper and it looks good, I just thought it looked different and wondered if there was a different ingredient in it.”
Hopefully looping looks more accurate then this, but even though I wasn’t hearing what he was really saying, by telling him what I heard, he can correct my understanding. Plus I’ve shared my feelings which alerts him that we’ve moved from a practical conversation to one that deals with both feelings and identities and we need to adapt and address those things because the meal isn’t really what the conversation is about.
While I definitely recommend this book, I think there were some things presented in this book that I don’t agree with (like any sort of evolutionary explanation).
Even though Duhigg was encouraging us to understand others’ views, it seemed like there were certain ‘views’ that still didn’t have a right to exist.
He did not outright say this so I want to be clear that I’m inferring them and it may not actually be his intent. But let me give you a couple examples:
When he talked about Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special and the fallout he says that Chappelle “became a pariah after making homophobic comments.” The term ‘homophobic’ is a charged word. I don’t know what Chappelle’s special said so I don’t know if he was referring to anything specific, but generally this term is applied to any rhetoric that says that homosexuality is wrong. There is no ‘good’ side to the label 'homophobic.’
Plus right after that statement Duhigg mentions GLAAD, “an organization that monitors media for bias against the LGBTQ community…” The word ‘bias’ is also a bit charged here, inferring (to me) that disagreeing with the LGBTQ lifestyle/beliefs is showing bias rather than just having a different worldview. It could be they are just searching for any prejudiced treatment, but from what I’ve seen happening, it’s more than just that that gets attacked.
I guess, to me, it felt like he wasn’t really applying his principles to all viewpoints but somewhat putting people who disagreed with LGBTQ beliefs into a group labeled ‘homophobic and biased’ instead of seeking to understand why someone who disagreed would hold those beliefs.
And then we could get into a conversation about freedom of speech and tolerance. I can’t help but plug the book “The Coddling of the American Mind” which talks about that very subject on university campuses where people were not allowed to come speak on campus because students thought their beliefs were hateful.
If communication requires being heard then we have to allow for freedom of speech. Diversity in thought is a good thing to have healthy and intelligent debate. If we were all homogeneous in our beliefs it would probably mean we were under Communist rule and not allowed to believe anything different.
Understanding does not require agreement in belief. It requires the ability to be heard; it requires a sense of humility; and it requires a tolerance for another’s differing beliefs.
A Couple Other Takeaways
He offers four things to keep in mind when communicating online and these should pop up every time someone opens up a comment box:
Overemphasize politeness.
Underemphasize sarcasm.
Express more gratitude, deference, greetings, apologies, and hedges.
Avoid criticism in public forums.
When conversations start to devolve it is often as a result of one person trying to control it too much by making spoken or unspoken rules about what the other person is allowed to say, feel, do. They tried to control their language and their behavior- ‘don’t use that tone, don’t roll your eyes, don’t walk away, etc.’
“If we focus on controlling the right things in an argument—if we focus on controlling ourselves, our environment, and the conflict itself—fights morph into conversations.”
Self-control and self-awareness are key to good communications.
And lastly, though it’s been said, it bears repeating- ask questions. Good questions. Questions that tap into someone’s values, emotions, or experiences.
Recommendation
I recommend this book for all people.
It will help you have more meaningful conversations and avoid small-talk. It will help you ‘argue’ with your spouse or siblings better. It will help you diffuse controversial conversations. And it will help you start to see people as complex human beings who desire to be heard and considered rather than ignored and talked over or denied entrance altogether.
It’s not going to solve all the disagreements, convince people to change their minds, or establish world peace, but it will hopefully change your perspective of conversations and your part in them.
[I would also recommend this book to authors who write about negotiators because I think it would help flesh out a character study and dialogue options for conversations in the book.]
It’s pretty short so it’s a quick read as well!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
This book just released February 20, 2024. You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.
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