Podcast
#909 - Charles Duhigg - The Secret Habits of Supercommunicators
Modern Wisdom
- Communication as a Skill
- Many believe communication is inherent, but it’s a skill anyone can learn.
- Practice and mindful communication are key to improvement. Transcript: Chris Williamson What do most people get wrong when it comes to understanding communication, do you think? I think what most people get wrong is they think that it’s something that should just happen naturally, right? Charles Duhigg That it’s something that the best communicators are people who don’t think about communication. But what we’ve discovered is exactly the opposite. If you know someone who is just fantastic at connecting with people, at communicating, and you go up and you ask them, you know, have you always been like this? Inevitably, what they are going to tell you is no. They’ll say something like, when I was in high school, I had real trouble making friends. And so I really had to like study how kids talk to each other or my parents got divorced when I was a kid and I had to be the peacemaker between them. The thing about communication is it’s just a set of skills. It’s not even particularly complicated skills. It It’s a set of skills that anyone can learn. Anyone can become a super communicator, but you have to realize that they’re skills and you have to practice them a little bit and you have to commit to thinking about how you communicate To get better at it. (Time 0:00:00)
- Introversion vs. Extroversion
- Introversion and extroversion are not fixed traits but rather habits.
- Extroverts gain communication advantages through practice. Transcript: Chris Williamson Talk to me about the difference between introverts and extroverts. Are there advantages and disadvantages that each have? It’s sort of off the top of your head, you’d think, well, extroverts have got all of the advantages here because they’re the ones that are more outgoing, they’re going to have more experience, They’re going to find social engagements, less energy sapping. (Time 0:02:30)
- Ask Deep Questions
- Ask more questions, especially deep questions about values and beliefs.
- Deep questions facilitate authentic conversations and connections. Transcript: Chris Williamson Would you consider the component skills of communication if you were to bucket them together? Okay. Charles Duhigg So there’s a couple of them. And we should talk about what a super communicator is, because I think that’ll help people kind of visualize this in their head. So let me ask you a question which is let’s imagine you’re having like a bad day right like just terrible day you come home after work you’re like and you want to call someone because you Know calling this person will make you feel better like you’ll just like it do you know who you would call like does that person pop into your mind yeah yeah probably either luke my tour Manager or george who is a friend and has been on the show 10 times okay okay so luke and george are for you super communicators and you are i guarantee you a super communicator back to them Right you don’t you do it without even thinking about it you just know how to like you know how to ask the right question you know how to show that you’re listening. You know how to show that you care. Each of those things that you’re doing with those two guys are skills. And you might not recognize them as skills right now because they just feel so natural to you, but they are skills. And once we identify them as skills, they become fungible. You can talk to a stranger the same way you talk to Luke. And if you do, it’ll have the same impact that it has on Luke, which is that it feels like you’re the most wonderful person on earth. Okay, so what are those skills? So one of the things that we know about super communicators, and this is the first skill, is that, and as I mentioned, we’re all super communicators one time or another, but consistent Super communicators, people who can connect with almost anyone, is that they tend to ask more questions, like 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. And some of those questions, we don’t even register as questions or things like, oh, you know, what’d you make of that? Or like, oh, did you like that restaurant? Like little things that just invite us into a conversation. But some of the questions are what are known within psychology as deep questions. And a deep question is something that asks us about our values or beliefs or experiences. And that can sound a little bit intimidating, but it’s like as simple as like if you meet someone who’s a doctor, instead of saying, oh, what hospital do you work at? Saying, oh, what made you decide to go to medical school? Right? It’s as easy to ask the second question as the first, but the second question invites them to talk about who they are. It’s a deep question. It doesn’t appear like a deep question, but it allows you to have a real conversation. (Time 0:06:10)
- Prove You’re Listening
- Actively prove you’re listening by summarizing what you heard.
- Ask for confirmation to show you value their perspective. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Second skill is that once we ask those questions, we often think that it’s just our job to listen to people. And that’s a little bit of a misunderstanding of what listening is. So what’s interesting is that most of the time when we think about listening, what we think about is we think about remaining silent, right? Two ears, one mouth, remaining silent, listening to what you’re saying. Maybe we’ll nod our head. Maybe we’ll like look you in the eyes and say like, hmm, that’s interesting. That’s not listening. That’s the first condition of listening. But you need more to actually be a good listener. And in part, it’s because particularly when we’re talking about something that’s really sensitive or really important or really controversial or something we have feel conflict Over that we disagree with each other, there’s always a sneaking suspicion in the back of our heads that you are not actually listening to me. You’re just waiting your turn to speak. So what do I do to overcome that suspicion? Well, there’s actually this technique. Let me give you the answer. The answer is that you have to prove that you’re listening. You have to prove to the person you’re paying attention. And there’s actually this technique that they teach at like Harvard and Stanford and all these other fancy schools that’s called looping for understanding. And this is what it is. There’s three parts to this. When you’re talking to someone and you get to that point in the conversation where like things are getting real. Step one is you should ask a question, right? Preferably a deep question. Try and use that, you know, ask someone, how do you feel about that? What does that mean to you? Why did you decide to do X? And then listen to what they’re saying in response. And when they’re done answering the question, repeat back in your own words, which you heard them say. Now, the key here is it cannot be mimicry, right? This is what bad salespeople do. They just say back what you just said to them or the last thing that you said. What it has to be is you’re trying to prove to them that you’re actually processing this. So it has to be something like, you know, what I hear you saying is this. And that reminds me of something you said last week, because I think they’re connected, right? You’re proving to them that you’re thinking about what they said. And most of us do these first two steps intuitively, right? This is just like, we kind of learned this in school. It’s step three that I always forget, because once you’ve said to them, here’s what I heard you say, am I getting this right? Or you say, did I hear you correctly? You, you ask if you got it right. Because what you’re really doing in that moment is you’re asking for permission to acknowledge that you were listening. And when you acknowledge that I was listening, I become many, many times more likely, likely to listen to you in return. This is basic social reciprocity. So that’s the second skill is prove you are listening. Ask deep questions, prove you are listening through a technique like looping for understanding, or maybe just asking follow-up questions, or maybe saying, oh man, that sounds so Hard. (Time 0:10:41)
- Vulnerability and Trust
- Vulnerability in communication is about sharing something that could be judged.
- Reciprocal vulnerability builds trust and strengthens connections. Transcript: Charles Duhigg That’s, that’s how we connect with each other. What’s the third skill? Okay. So there’s two more. The third skill is that you need to understand vulnerability and the role of vulnerability in a conversation. Because most people misunderstand what vulnerability is. This word has gotten used so much, we tend to think it means like, you know, crying on someone’s shoulder or talking about like when your mom was mean to you. That’s not what vulnerability is. Vulnerability has a very, very specific definition in neuroscience and psychology. And it’s something that our brains have evolved to do, which is that when I tell you something that you could judge, it creates a sense of vulnerability in me. Now, I might tell you something where I don’t care about your judgment. I might tell you that I like Star Trek better than Star Wars. I think it’s a better plot, better acting. And you could be like, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Star Wars is definitely better than Star Trek. I don’t care. I don’t care if you agree with me. It’s not like it’s a high stakes thing. But the act of me telling you something that you could judge, it sets off a neural cascade in my brain that creates a sense of vulnerability. And here’s what we know is that when I do that, if you don’t judge me, if you choose to withhold judgment, and even more powerfully, if you share something about yourself that I could judge, Then it is impossible for us not to trust and like each other a little bit more. Our brains literally have evolved to use vulnerability as a signal as to whether we should trust other people. And that doesn’t mean that I might agree with you. It doesn’t mean that I might think you’d be a good friend. (Time 0:14:30)
- Matching Conversation Types
- Recognize and match the type of conversation (practical, emotional, or social).
- Matching conversation types facilitates neural alignment and connection. Transcript: Chris Williamson The final skill? Charles Duhigg Once you’re asking deep questions, once you’re proving that you’re listening, looping for understanding and sort of showing that once you’re you’re willing to be vulnerable under The correct definition of what vulnerability is. It’s really important that we pay attention to what kind of conversation is happening. I mentioned before that there’s these three kinds of conversations, the the practical, the emotional and the social. And in the book, Supercommunicators, there’s all these stories about like a CIA officer who’s like recruiting overseas spies and why the Big Bang Theory became such a hit because it Was a flop when they made the pilot. And at the core of it is this thing that if I become attuned to diagnosing what kind of mindset you’re in, if I can just ask myself, like, does this seem like he’s in a practical mindset or An emotional mindset or a social mindset? And then I can just do the smallest thing to try and match you there. Right. Like, like you mentioned that you went to your kid’s graduation this weekend. And, and, and I say, instead of saying like, just congratulations, that’s awesome. I say, oh man, what did that feel like to watch your kid walk across that stage? Because clearly you are, you’re, this is kind of an emotional experience for you to go to your kid’s graduation. I’m just going to ask about it. When we can pay attention, just the smallest amount to what kind of conversation is happening, when we can match others and we can invite them to match us, all of a sudden our conversations Get much, much better. And there’s actually a scientific basis to this, which is because of, again, how our brains have evolved, because communication is so important to our species. When you’re in a good conversation, like this conversation we’re having right now, without us realizing it, our bodies start to match each other. So you and I are breathing at basically the same rate. Our heart rates are matching each other. Actually, even the dilation of our pupils is starting to mirror each other. And more importantly, if I could see inside both of our brains, what I would see is our thoughts are becoming more and more similar. Literally, we’re using the same parts of our brain with the same type of energy. We’re moving through similar neural pathways. And that kind of makes sense that our brains would become similar because if you think about it when i tell you about an emotion i’m feeling you actually experience that emotion a little Bit right or if i tell you about an idea you experience that idea so it makes sense that our brains become become aligned but what the neuroscientists that i mentioned earlier have found And there’s a guy named uri hassan at princeton who’s kind of the grandfather of this research, is that the more our brains become aligned, the more we’re thinking the same thoughts At the same time, the better we understand each other, the more we feel connected to each other. And most importantly, the more we like the conversation. Within neuroscience, this is known as neural entrainment. We become neurally entrained. And when we are neurally entrained, it releases this reward sensation, this cascade of neurotransmitters that make us feel good. And in part, this is adaptive because our brains want us to communicate with people. They want us to have real conversations. They want us to connect and bond. And so when we feel good, even if we disagree with each other, we still feel good about the conversation. We still feel like the conversation was a success. Now, the thing is, these three types of conversations that I mentioned, they use different parts of our brains, right? So when I’m talking to my wife and I’m in an an emotional mindset, I’m using the basal ganglia, the interior structures of my brain. And when she responds by giving me some practical advice, she’s having a practical conversation. She’s using her prefrontal cortex. So it’s very hard for her thoughts to become similar if she’s using the front of her brain and I’m using the interior of my brain. That’s why matching each other is so powerful is because literally what I’m doing when I ask you, oh, what did it feel like to watch your kid walk across that stage at graduation? What I’m doing at that moment is I’m activating the same part of my brain that I know is active in your brain. And it’s going to make it so much easier for us to become neurally aligned. And then once we’re aligned, we can move from emotional to practical, to social and back to emotional altogether. (Time 0:27:07)
- NASA’s Emotional Intelligence Test
- NASA used a spilled papers experiment to assess emotional intelligence.
- Candidates who mirrored the interviewer’s laughter proved more emotionally intelligent. Transcript: Chris Williamson There. Didn’t you look at NASA? Did you learn stuff from NASA? What’d you learn? Yeah. Charles Duhigg So, um, so this is one of my favorite stories from the book. So about 15 or 15 years ago, NASA started developing plans to build the international space station. And they realized that in addition to all the technical plans I came up with, there was actually this big problem that they needed to solve, which is up until then, the longest NASA mission Had been about 10 days in space. And they had basically realized, you can send the biggest jerk on Earth up into space for 10 days, and it’s going to be fine. They’re going to pick fights with their co- are going to pick fights with mission control. They’re just going to be like a pain in the ass, but it’s fine. It’s only 10 days. But the thing about a space station is you’re sending astronauts up there for three months or six months or 12 months at a time. And if you send a jerk into space for 12 months, he’s going to drive everyone else crazy. So NASA realizes we need to start choosing astronauts, finding astronauts who have emotional intelligence. This is actually a lot harder than it sounds though, because the problem for NASA is when you make it to the final rounds of an astronaut interview, you are awesome, right? You’re like, you’re handsome or you’re beautiful. You have like two PhDs. And most importantly, you’ve been doing interviews your entire life. Like, you know, the right answers to every question. And what they realized is they couldn’t tell the difference between the people who are faking emotional intelligence from the ones who actually had it. So they turned to this guy, Terry McGuire, the lead psychiatrist for man’s space flight at NASA. And they asked him to come up with, with an interview question that will let them figure out who actually has emotional intelligence. And for nine months, he works on this problem and he can’t come up with anything. He tests a bunch of questions, none of them work. And then one night he’s listening to recordings of old interviews with old candidates. And he knows which of those candidates went on to be really good leaders inside NASA and which kind of like washed out. And as he’s listening, he realizes the really good leaders, they’re laughing differently than everyone else in the interview. So he comes up with this whole new way of doing his interviews. Now what he does is he brings the astronaut candidate into a room. They’re sitting there by themselves. He walks into the room and he’s holding this big stack of papers and he trips as if on accident and he spills the papers all over the floor. And then he laughs his big boisterous laugh. He goes like, I cannot believe I did that. And then he pays attention to how the candidate reacts. Because everyone reacts in one of two ways. Some people go like this. That’s really silly. Let me give you a hand. And some people go, that’s really silly. Let me give you a hand. Everyone knows what’s going on in that moment, right? You made a mistake by dropping the papers, and then you made the mistake even worse by overreacting by laughing this huge kind of like inappropriately big laugh like we’ve all been embarrassed That way and some of the candidates were like oh i’m i’m just going to pretend this didn’t happen i’m going to just help you put this under the carpet and some of the candidates were like You know what i know what you’re feeling right now like i i know that’re embarrassed. And the best way I can remove that embarrassment is I can jump in the boat with you. So I’m going to laugh this big boisterous laugh. I’m going to match you. I’m going to mirror your energy and your affect. (Time 0:46:00)
- Effective Couple Communication
- Avoid “kitchen sinking” where one fight becomes a fight about everything.
- Instead, find areas of control within the conversation itself. Transcript: Chris Williamson That’s drinkag1.com/modern wisdom. What about when it comes to couples, potentially the most fraught, most important communication with the genesis of your story as well? Yeah, no, absolutely. What are the best and worst ways that couples communicate? Charles Duhigg So there’s a lot of, in the book, there’s actually like a whole chapter about the story that involves the growth of marriage therapy as a field of research. And one of the things that marriage therapists have found is that there’s this one pattern that’s basically disastrous. They call it kitchen sinking. So every couple fights, that’s just totally, that’s part of every relationship. Right. There’s always like little like disagreements or tension. Fight, a fight about one thing becomes a fight about everything. Right. So we start talking about like, where are we going to spend Christmas? And like within minutes, it’s like, well, your mom hates me because like, and she’s not nice. And by the way, if we earned more money, we’d be able to go to Hawaii instead of, right. So a fight about one thing becomes a fight about everything. Kitchen sinking. That is disastrous. That will make the fight toxic. And so researchers were trying to figure out why does this happen? Because it happens pretty consistently, even to like couples that like are well matched. And they found that what happens is that when we’re in a conflict, when I feel threatened, I want to control something. Like that’s just a normal response to find something to control. And the easiest thing for me to control is you, like the person I’m talking to. So I’m going to do things like, I’m going to attack you back. I’m going to bring up your mom. I’m going to say things like, I’m not going to talk about that. I’m going to try and control what topics are allowed. If you’re upset, I’ll say things like, you shouldn’t be upset about that. Like, that’s a dumb thing to be upset about. I’m going to try and control your emotions. That’s toxic. That’s where kitchen sinking comes from. So what’s the solution? Well, the solution is not to say you shouldn’t try and control something because everyone feels that impulse for control. That’s very human. But instead of trying to control the other person in the relationship, try and find things you can control together. Like controlling, for instance, the environment. You start fighting at 11 o’clock at night. If one person says, look, I really want to talk about this. Can we wait until nine tomorrow morning when we both wake up and we’re not exhausted? Is that okay? Like now we’re controlling the environment together. Or to say, I want to control the boundaries of this conversation. To say, let’s talk about Christmas. Let’s not talk about moms. Let’s not talk about money, if that’s okay. Let’s just focus on making a decision about Christmas. Now we’re on the same side of the table. We’re controlling the boundaries of this conversation together. And the reason why this is really important, why the best couples, it’s not that they don’t fight. (Time 0:53:42)