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

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.

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 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.

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-

Yeah.

... 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.

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?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So, obviously when you're laying someone off, that's an emotional conversation.

Mm-hmm.

And yet, they were treating it as a practical conversation.

Mm-hmm.

"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 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.