What is a Supercommunicator? (And Why Do We Want to Be One?) | Pivot

Kara Swisher 0:00 Charles Duhigg is a writer at The New Yorker and author of the new book, Super Communicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. Welcome, Charles. First of all, explain to us, what exactly is a super communicator? You write in this book, actually, came about when you realized you weren't communicating well in your marriage.

Charles Duhigg 0:16 So, I had this problem where I'd come home from work and I would complain to my wife about my day, and she would give me this really good advice like, you know, "Take your boss out to lunch, get to know him better." And instead of being able to hear her, I would s- you know, get upset and say, "Why aren't you supporting me? You're supposed to be on my side." And then she would get upset because I was attacking her for giving me good advice. And, and I wanted to understand what was going on. And so I went out to researchers and I asked them, you know, "Why am I miscommunicating? I'm a professional communicator." And what they said is, "Well, look, we're living through a golden age of understanding communication, and one of the things that we know now

Charles Duhigg 0:46 is that we think of a discussion as being about one thing, but it's actually many different kinds of conversations." And in general, they fall, tend to fall into one of three buckets. There's practical conversations, where we're solving problems, we're making plans together. But then there's emotional conversations, where I tell you what I'm feeling, and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize. And then finally, there are social conversations about how we relate to each other. And if you're not having the r- same kind of conversation at the same moment, that's when you miscommunicate. I was having an emotional conversation, my wife was having a practical conversation, and so we couldn't really hear each other.

Kara Swisher 1:17 I know that, I know that. I'm often in practical c- I'm always like, "What's the solution?" I don't really care-

Charles Duhigg 1:22 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 1:22 ... about the feeling as much as the solution, which is interesting. So, what, h- what do you see is the main reason, I mean, I, of course, it's hard to, like, say one reason that people struggle to communicate effectively, but talk about a few of them.

Charles Duhigg 1:33 It, it's usually because, for a couple of reasons. First of all, that we don't, we're not having the same kind of conversation. Remember that, that wave of, like, tech CEOs doing layoffs over Zoom?

Kara Swisher 1:43 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 1:44 So, obviously when you're laying someone off, that's an emotional conversation.

Kara Swisher 1:48 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 1:48 And yet, they were treating it as a practical conversation.

Kara Swisher 1:51 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 1:51 "This is why we're laying you off, here's the benefits you're gonna get, this is what's best for the company." Somebody hearing that they're being, that they're losing their job, they don't wanna hear about the practicalities. They wanna hear someone who empathizes with them. And so, having the same kind of conversation at the same moment is critical. Another thing that's really important is asking more questions. Super communicators ask t- 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. And as reporters, we know this, right? The power of questions, and, and particularly asking deep questions, questions that ask me about my values or my beliefs or

Charles Duhigg 2:21 my experiences. Like, if you meet someone who's a doctor, instead of saying, "Where do you practice medicine," saying, "Oh, what made you decide to go to medical school?" That's an invitation for them to say something real. And then finally, the thing that super communicators do is they prove that they're listening. They ask follow-up questions that show they're paying attention. They might do this thing called looping for understanding, where they repeat back what they heard you say. And when we feel listened to, that's when we become more likely to listen in return.

Kara Swisher 2:47 Oh, that's an interesting technique. So that's, so, what you've just said to me is... No, um, no, um, uh-

Charles Duhigg 2:53 (laughs) You're very good at it.

Kara Swisher 2:54 Uh, yeah, no, I'm not.

Scott Galloway 2:55 Do you want me to explain it to you, Carol?

Kara Swisher 2:56 Yeah, yeah. Let's, please. Let's-

Charles Duhigg 2:57 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 2:57 Sorry.

Kara Swisher 2:57 Um, Scott, go for it, Mr. Communications.

Scott Galloway 3:01 Uh, my, my, it's, you, you've sort of outlined, my dad said, you know, m- my dad said this to me when he, uh, I was much younger, and I didn't register how important it was or how many subtleties to it, and it sounds like it's a lot of what your themes. He always used to say, "Communication is with the listener." Can you talk about, uh, something I didn't figure out till I was much older is the power of silence. Just looking someone in the eye and make sure that you know that, that you are not waiting to speak, that you're, you're listening to them. Can you talk about the power of silence and sort of acknowledging the point, if you will?

Charles Duhigg 3:38 Absolutely. Absolutely. Creating those spaces for silence is critical. And, and what's interesting is that speaking is such a cognitively intense activity that oftentimes, we don't really pay attention to how people are acting when we're speaking. Right? And so the way that we create that silence or we create that proof of listening is when they stop talking, what we do. For instance, think about how powerful it is if, if you just said something profound and someone says, "Wow, that gives me a lot of, a lot to think about. Let me take a second just to think about what you just said." In that moment, what you're really doing is you're saying, "I am listening to you. I promise I'm listening to you." And then if you ask a follow-up question, or if you say, "He- here's what I hear you saying, and tell me if I'm getting this wrong," what we're doing is we're proving that we're listening, 'cause you're exactly right. Many people, p- particularly in a hard conversation, a conflict conversation, we suspect in the back of our head, "This person isn't listening. They're waiting their turn to speak." And we have to prove that that's not what's happening. And when we do, it transforms a conversation.

Kara Swisher 4:38 So, so, w- one other thing you just talked about, referenced zoom communication. A lot of s- communication happens on text or video or social media, which is a very different level of commu- which is not about listening in any way. Some of the time it is, uh, but usually it isn't. Um, how does technology play into what we're writing about? Because often, when Scott and I get into beefs, it's over a text. You know what I mean? Like, I'm thinking, um, which he takes the wrong way.

Scott Galloway 5:03 No, one of us gets-

Kara Swisher 5:04 No.

Scott Galloway 5:04 ... into a beef.

Charles Duhigg 5:04 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 5:04 The other just sits there and goes, "What the fuck is she texting me for at 3:00 AM?"

Kara Swisher 5:08 No. But then when we talk-

Scott Galloway 5:09 I don't respond, Charles.

Kara Swisher 5:10 When we talk-

Scott Galloway 5:11 I listen. I'm the winner, I'm the super communicator here.

Kara Swisher 5:14 No, he's not. No, no.

Charles Duhigg 5:14 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 5:14 I just listen.

Kara Swisher 5:15 In any case, uh, we always solve it when we talk together, always.

Charles Duhigg 5:20 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 5:20 Even over the phone, even over a phone, which is typical.

Charles Duhigg 5:22 It makes a huge difference, right? It-

Kara Swisher 5:24 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 5:24 I- in the book, there's a story about a CIA officer who, who's, he's a terrible CIA officer.

Scott Galloway 5:29 Hm.

Charles Duhigg 5:29 He's sent over to Europe to try and recruit spies and he's terrible at his job.

Scott Galloway 5:32 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 5:32 And he learns this lesson, which is, different types of communication have different rules and different strengths and weaknesses. And what's interesting is, if you look at 100 years ago when phones became popular, there were all these articles that said no one will ever have a real conversation on a telephone, 'cause you can't see each other face-to-face. And at the time, they were right. If you look at early transcripts, it's people using ph- phones like telegraphs. They're sending stock orders and grocery lists to each other. But of course, by the time we're in middle school and our kids are, we can have phone conversations that are s-... some of the deepest conversations of our life, and it's because we learned how to use phones. And, and when you're talking on the phone, you tend to, without realizing it, overemphasize your words a little bit more. You put more emotion into your voice because you know the person can't see your expressions. And when it comes to digital communications, the same thing is true. There are certain rules. If I say something sarcastic to you, you can hear the sarcasm in my voice. If I type something sarcastic, you're gonna take it seriously and you're gonna be pissed off. And so, we just have to remind ourselves of what those rules are, that there's some conversations that have to be telephone, have to be face-to-face. And if we do them online, then we have to overemphasize politeness, we have to overemphasize emotion. We have to under-emphasize sarcasm.

Scott Galloway 6:45 What you, uh, uh, who are your... So first off, I think storytelling, um, someone asked me, "What is the core competence you would want to give to your kids?" We've been thinking a lot about high school curriculums. And hands down, and, and I am going to buy your book and give it to my two sons. I think the competence that will stand the test of time is storytelling.

Charles Duhigg 7:05 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 7:05 You're, you're on a podcast with two people who've made their livings storytelling. What, i- if, if you buy into that and you have sons or daughters and you want them to become great storytellers, what, what exercises or what hacks would you recommend for, for acquiring that skill?

Charles Duhigg 7:21 Yeah. It's a great question, and the first thing to understand is what happens when we communicate. So, when we're in a conversation, the reason it's powerful... And, and communication is homo sapiens' superpower, right? It is the thing that has set us apart from every other species. When we're talking to each other, our bodies start to match each other, right? During this conversation, without us realizing it, our breath patterns are matching each other. Our heart rates are starting to align. And most importantly, the neural activity that, the brain activity that both of us ha- all of us have are starting to mirror each other. And within that neurology, that's known as neural entrainment. And when you think about it, it makes sense because if I describe an emotion to you, if I, if I describe an idea, you actually experience that idea or that emotion a little bit. That's what makes it powerful, and that's our brains aligning. So, when it comes to storytelling, the thing to keep in mind is, my goal is not necessarily to tell you the most polished story on Earth. My goal is to take you on a journey with me, right? Many people who, when they tell stories, they focus on the beginning and the end, but it's the middle, the journey through the middle, that makes it a story. If you think about the movie Cinderella, the beginning is the parents... her father dies. That's two minutes. The ending, as she lives happily ever after, that's like 45 seconds. The rest of the movie is the middle. And when we bring people on that journey, we invite them to align with us, to en- to entrain neurologically, and that's incredibly powerful.

Kara Swisher 8:46 But when people have less of a- attention, obviously people have less attention now, and especially when they're distracted by a phone or whatever it happens to be, but distraction is certainly... You know, we're in a... P- p- persistent partial attention is where we all live now. Does that affect that? Because it's very hard to have. I've had many fewer longer con- conversations than I used to. I'm starting to talk like I'm starting to text, you know what I mean?

Charles Duhigg 9:09 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 9:09 Like, you have... They're usually more logistical and that kind of thing. What happens in, in, in that space, and can people get... Like you said, if you can adapt to phones, you can adapt to social media too-

Charles Duhigg 9:22 Absolutely.

Kara Swisher 9:22 ... how to communicate well, right?

Charles Duhigg 9:23 Absolutely. Well, a- a- and time is less important than con- than authenticity. So, if I tell you that like, you know, "I had this incident with my wife and we couldn't hear each other, and I went to these researchers and I talked to them," that takes me 40 seconds to explain, but it's a little bit of a story. You get to come with me.

Kara Swisher 9:43 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 9:43 You get to envision-

Kara Swisher 9:44 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 9:44 ... me and my wife not getting along, 'cause that's probably something that happens with you guys and your wives, right?

Kara Swisher 9:48 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 9:48 Never.

Charles Duhigg 9:49 And so... Never, never. And so, what, I think what hap- what happens is that, particularly when we're on social media, if we use social media as a way to simply broadcast, to scream-

Kara Swisher 10:00 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 10:01 ... rather than to interact, we'll fall into that pattern throughout our life because it becomes a habit.

Kara Swisher 10:07 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 10:07 And so, the thing to do is to remind ourselves that the goal of a conversation is not to convince the other person that you are right and they are wrong. It's not to-

Kara Swisher 10:15 What?

Charles Duhigg 10:15 ... impress them. It's not, it's not for them to like you. The goal of a conversation is simply to understand how they see the world and speak in a way that they understand how you see the world.

Kara Swisher 10:24 Uh-huh.

Charles Duhigg 10:24 And when you hold yourself to that standard, "I'm not gonna continue or discontinue this conversation until I can show, try and understand what you're saying and help you understand me," it makes everything healthier.

Kara Swisher 10:37 Can I do a follow-up? We're obviously in election year. It seems like candidates are not that, doing that. It's a dunk, dunk, dunk. No one ever listens, you know? Even more so than anybody else of, of all, of all, all public-facing of people, they're the worst, I think. Is there anyone who's a super communicator that you see on the campaign trail?

Charles Duhigg 10:56 Well, what's really interesting is, if you go to rallies, and, and this is true of both Trump and Biden-

Kara Swisher 11:00 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 11:01 ... and you pay attention to when they get off-script-

Kara Swisher 11:03 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 11:03 ... what they're doing is they're proving that they listen, right?

Kara Swisher 11:06 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 11:07 Trump, Trump, you know, setting aside what he's saying and the craziness coming out of his mouth, when hi- that audience applauds, he leans into the applause. He leans into whatever he's saying. That's why he starts saying all these crazy things. He's proving to them that he's listening to them, and Biden's doing the same thing in his rallies, and he's-

Kara Swisher 11:23 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 11:23 ... trying to do it right now with his public statements.

Kara Swisher 11:25 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 11:25 You're exactly right. One of the reasons I wrote this book is because we have forgotten how to communicate, right?

Kara Swisher 11:31 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 11:31 This used to be taught in schools. Your, your parents took a course called Home Ec or Interpersonal Relations, and as schools got more technical, it fell out of the curriculums. But this is important, and our brain is designed to be amazing at communication. If we teach it the right skills, it makes it into a habit very quickly. And so, Super Communicators is about that handful of skills that we know-

Kara Swisher 11:53 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 11:53 ... helps you connect with other people.

Kara Swisher 11:55 Yeah, it's interesting. I do think you learn to communicate without talking. I, I, something I've learned from having smaller children is we talk a lot, but not speaking, right? You know what I mean? There's a lot of non-communication communication happening.

Charles Duhigg 12:06 Absolutely.

Kara Swisher 12:06 Scott, final question.

Scott Galloway 12:08 Yeah, I just, Charles, I, I know very little b- about you. Do you have kids?

Charles Duhigg 12:12 I do. I have a, uh, 12-year-old and a 15-year-old.

Scott Galloway 12:15 Oh, (laughs) you're, you're, uh, (laughs) you're in the midst of it. You're in your second-

Charles Duhigg 12:18 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 12:18 ... tour of Iraq and Vietnam right now.

Charles Duhigg 12:19 Yes. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 12:19 Anyways, so-

Charles Duhigg 12:20 That's exactly right. (laughs)

Scott Galloway 12:21 ... what, uh ... How has your study of s- being a super communicator and the, the best and worst practices changed the way you interact with your children?

Charles Duhigg 12:30 It's actually transformed it. The, the first thing is that I mentioned that deep questions, and what it, that really is, is it's about asking not about the facts of someone's life, but how they feel about their life. And I used to ask my kids like, "How was your day?" "Fine." "Did you learn anything at school?" "No." "Did you have fun?" "No." Right? You guys had this, like, it's, it's like pulling teeth to have a conversation with them. And then I started asking, instead of about the facts of their day, I started asking, saying things like, "Hey, I know that you hung out with Jasper after school," like, "What do you admire about Jasper? Why do you like him?" And suddenly-

Scott Galloway 12:59 (smacks lips)

Charles Duhigg 12:59 ... it's like opening this book. You know, my kid is like, "Oh, he's very courageous." "What does courage mean?" "Well, he rode his bike off the roof." (laughs)

Scott Galloway 13:06 (laughs)

Charles Duhigg 13:06 I'm like, "Oh, is that courage, or what else has he done?" "Oh, it turns out Jasper can talk to girls." And I prove that I'm listening to them. I ask them these deep questions about how they feel about their life 'cause they're experts in that. And then I repeat back to them, I say, "Oh, that's interesting. What do you mean by courage?" I prove to them that I'm paying attention, that I want to learn from them.

Kara Swisher 13:26 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 13:27 And that's opened-

Kara Swisher 13:27 And they're not annoyed by that?

Charles Duhigg 13:28 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 13:28 They're not annoyed.

Charles Duhigg 13:29 No, they love it.

Kara Swisher 13:31 Yeah, interesting.

Charles Duhigg 13:31 They love it, right? I mean, you, you have older kids, Kara.

Kara Swisher 13:33 Yeah.

Charles Duhigg 13:33 You know, like, when they're teenagers, they, they're, they're just bursting at the seams to be experts on things-

Kara Swisher 13:39 Sure are, yeah.

Charles Duhigg 13:39 ... and to share their expertise with you. And the th- the thing they're an expert on is their own life.

Kara Swisher 13:43 Yeah, that is fair tr- that's true. So, uh, give us a little review here. Are Scott and I super communicators?

Charles Duhigg 13:49 You guys are super communicators par extraordinare. I mean, the thing is, I've been listening to some of the podcasts-

Kara Swisher 13:53 Yeah.

Charles Duhigg 13:53 ... that you've been doing, Kara, about, um, for your book.

Kara Swisher 13:55 Yeah.

Charles Duhigg 13:55 And, and the thing I love about it is that you go in and you have something to say.

Kara Swisher 14:00 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 14:01 Right? You ha- you, you're coming in not just waiting for a question. You're coming in with something you want to share.

Kara Swisher 14:06 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 14:06 But at the same time, you're also listening to that host. You're interacting-

Kara Swisher 14:10 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 14:11 ... with them. And you guys might not walk away completely agreeing with each other.

Kara Swisher 14:15 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 14:15 But you walk away understanding and connecting with each other.

Kara Swisher 14:18 Yeah. Yeah.

Charles Duhigg 14:18 So you guys, you guys are definitely super communicators.

Kara Swisher 14:20 And give us one-

Scott Galloway 14:20 Is that right?

Kara Swisher 14:20 Gi- give everybody one quick tip before we go. What's the one thing you have to do?

Charles Duhigg 14:25 Yeah. The one thing you have to do is today ask a question that you wouldn't have asked otherwise, and make it a question that feels to you like it's personal. Like, you know-

Kara Swisher 14:35 Scott does that well.

Charles Duhigg 14:37 W- w- y- yeah. W- yeah. "Why did, why did you decide to become a journalist?"

Kara Swisher 14:39 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 14:40 Like, "What was it like growing up wherever you grew up?"

Kara Swisher 14:42 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 14:42 "What do you love about your neighborhood?"

Kara Swisher 14:44 Mm-hmm.

Charles Duhigg 14:44 Those questions are g- an invitation to someone else-

Kara Swisher 14:47 Yep.

Charles Duhigg 14:47 ... to tell you who they really are.

Kara Swisher 14:49 Yeah, I think I told Scott this, uh, something Louis does, my son does. He, everyone he asks, and I borrowed it 'cause I think it works really well, he, he looks at someone he doesn't know, and he says, "How is your day going?" And I have to tell you, it changes dynamics constantly where we're at.

Charles Duhigg 15:02 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 15:03 Rather than just rush past them, um, and he actually looks at them, and I think it's one of those really, I was like, "Wow, that was ..." It's, it works. It works.

Charles Duhigg 15:11 It's powerful.

Kara Swisher 15:11 It is, very much so. Anyway, Charles Duhigg, Super Communicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection is out now.