In his book “Supercommunicators,” writer Charles Duhigg argues that people can learn to be better and connect with others.
And that can be achieved through a good conversation. Although the author also accepts that dialogues can lead to meaningless disputes with even close people, where what prevails is the lack of knowledge of the interlocutor.
But how to avoid those misunderstandings and bad moments during an exchange? The BBC spoke to Duhigg about his ideas and his new book Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.
How do you define your supercommunicator?
I have a question: if you are having a bad day and you want to call a friend and you know that talking to that person will make you feel better, who is the person that comes to mind?
Definitely one of my best friends…
Well, for you then she is a super communicator and you probably are for her. You both know how to communicate with each other in a way where you really want to hear what the other person is saying.
And you know how to show that you are listening. You know what the right questions are, the questions that really help clarify situations about yourself, and your friend shows you that she wants to be there for you.
Now, some people do that constantly. They can connect with almost everyone. And those are the consistent supercommunicators.
When I started researching this book I realized that these people would have to be very charismatic or outgoing. But it turns out that it’s a mix of skills that people can learn.
What does neuroscience tell us about the secrets of good communication?
When one of us communicates, our mind and body begin to function in various ways. The pupils of our eyes begin to dilate at the same speed, our breathing patterns tend to coincide with each other.
But most importantly, our neurological activity begins to synchronize, almost as if we think the same way: the great point of communicating is that I can describe a feeling or express an idea and you can feel a version of that.
Our brains become more similar as we communicate.
In your book, you cite research by neuroscientist Beau Sievers, which reveals how supercommunicators change group dynamics.
It’s really fascinating. He puts several people in a group and asks them to discuss a video that is quite confusing. He found that some just met and connected with each other and that their responses were much better. In each of those groups there was at least one person who was a super communicator.
This individual did things like ask more questions, 10 to 20 times more than a normal person. Some of his questions were intended to invite other people to be part of the dialogue and others so that people could express valuable points of view.
But most importantly: they, the supercommunicators, recognized that there are several types of conversations.
Many of us think that arguments are about one thing. We are talking about my day at work or our children’s grades at school. But really every discussion is made up of various types of conversations.
And they can be limited to three classes: there are practical conversations, in which we basically solve problems.
There are emotional conversations, in which I tell you how I feel and I want you to listen and understand me.
And there is a social conversation in which we connect with others with the social identities that we carry with us.
Researchers found that supercommunicators are effective because they pay attention to whatever conversation is happening.
This reminds me of psychologist Anita Williams Woolley and her research on collective intelligence, in which she found that the social sensitivity of team members determines how good they are at solving problems together…
Absolutely. And when we talk about social sensitivity or being empathetic, what it really means is that we are paying attention to what a person tells us and understanding what they need at that moment.
You point out that we should ask “deeper” questions, how do we do it?
Deep questions talk about people’s values, beliefs or experiences. When we talk about this, we talk about how a person really is. And there are easy questions to ask.
For example, if you meet a doctor you can ask him “What made you get into medicine?” or “What is the most beautiful thing about your profession?”
Those are two profound questions, because they invite the other person to say something real and very meaningful about themselves. And it also makes it easier for us to tell them why we decide to do the work we do.
I would then like to ask you a profound question: what personal experience led you to write a book on supercommunicators?
I was working as a manager and realized I wasn’t that good. He did strategy and logistics well, but he did not handle communications well.
And I would bring those problems home and follow the same pattern: I would complain about my boss and my coworkers. And my wife, very reasonably, suggested, “Why don’t you invite your boss to lunch, so you can get to know each other better?”
And instead of listening to her, that made me more uncomfortable. And she was upset because she was suddenly arguing with me for giving me advice.
When I told this to the researchers, they told me that I was having an emotional conversation and my wife was having a practical conversation.
And if people aren’t having the same type of conversation at the same time, they may not be able to understand each other and connect.
This is known in psychology as the correspondence principle: real communication requires that you have the same type of conversation at the same time.
What is the role of non-linguistic communication?
We know that 50% of the way we send signals and receive information in a conversation has nothing to do with the content of the words, but everything to do with everything that surrounds them: the tone of voice, the speed of speaking, the language. body, facial expressions.
Our brains have the ability to detect how a person feels by paying attention to two details: their energy and their mood.
Babies can tell a parent’s mood before they even learn to speak or understand words. As we grow, words become so captivating, so full of information, that we stop paying attention to the rest, and we have to remember sometimes how valuable all that communication is.
In his book he illustrates this with the television comedy “The Big Bang Theory”…
The Big Bang Theory was a total failure at first, and the reason it became successful later was because the producers figured out how to make the characters express their feelings without using words.
These are these physicists who are very bad at conveying their emotions or their feelings. That’s where the humor comes from: they look so uncomfortable it’s funny. But the problem is, how do you write a comedy when the main characters can’t express what they feel or think?
After the failure of the first pilot, the scriptwriters came up with a new recipe in which each of the characters shows what they feel through their mood and energy.
In the new pilot, there’s a scene where two of the physicists meet this beautiful woman, Penny, for the first time, and all they can say is “hello,” “hello,” “hello.” But every time they say “hello,” they say it in a different way. They change the mood, they change the energy and you know exactly what they are feeling.
At first, they are excited, then they feel very embarrassed, and then they feel like they need to leave, even though the words they say don’t change. Just because their mood and energy changes, we as the audience know what they are thinking and feeling. And the same goes for any conversation.
How has writing about supercommunication changed your own life?
Now, at the beginning of virtually every conversation, my wife and I talk about what kind of conversation we want to have. Liz will say something like, “Do you want me to help you solve this problem? Or do you just need to vent?”
And I will do the same with her. And then we’ll show each other that we’re really listening: by asking follow-up questions or repeating what the other person has said.
The most important thing is that we simply show up and say we want to connect. Because once we know that someone wants to connect with us, we want to connect with that person.
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