Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

by Charles Duhigg

There were lessons that Felix would share with younger agents when they asked for advice: Never pretend you’re anything other than a cop. Never manipulate or threaten. Ask lots of questions, and, when someone becomes emotional, cry or laugh or complain or celebrate with them.

He explained that one reason she felt so at ease was likely because of the environment they had created together, how Felix had listened closely, had asked questions that drew out people’s vulnerabilities, how they had all revealed meaningful details about themselves.

When we “click” with someone, our eyes often start to dilate in tandem; our pulses match; we feel the same emotions and start to complete each other’s sentences within our heads. This is known as neural entrainment, and it feels wonderful. Sometimes it happens and we have no idea why; we just feel lucky that the conversation went so well. Other times, even when we’re desperate to bond with someone, we fail again and again.

“The single biggest problem with communication,”2 said the playwright George Bernard Shaw, “is the illusion it has taken place.”

how we ask a question sometimes matters more than what we ask. We’re better off, it seems, acknowledging social differences, rather than pretending they don’t exist. Every discussion is influenced by emotions, no matter how rational the topic at hand.

When starting a dialogue, it helps to think of the discussion as a negotiation where the prize is figuring out what everyone wants. And, above all, the most important goal of any conversation is to connect.

The first one is that many discussions are actually three different conversations. There are practical, decision-making conversations that focus on What’s This Really About? There are emotional conversations, which ask How Do We Feel? And there are social conversations that explore Who Are We? We are often moving in and out of all three conversations as a dialogue unfolds. However, if we aren’t having the same kind of conversation as our partners, at the same moment, we’re unlikely to connect with each other.

Our goal, for the most meaningful discussions, should be to have a “learning conversation.” Specifically, we want to learn how the people around us see the world and help them understand our perspectives in turn.

Every meaningful conversation is made up of countless small choices. There are fleeting moments when the right question, or a vulnerable admission, or an empathetic word can completely change a dialogue. A silent laugh, a barely audible sigh, a friendly smile during a tense moment: Some people have learned to spot these opportunities, to detect what kind of discussion is occurring, to understand what others really want. They have learned how to hear what’s unsaid and speak so others want to listen.

“Ultimately, the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation,” wrote Oscar Wilde.

To communicate with someone, we must connect with them.11 When we absorb what someone is saying, and they comprehend what we say, it’s because our brains have, to some degree, aligned. At that moment, our bodies—our pulses, facial expressions, the emotions we experience, the prickling sensation on our necks and arms—often start to synchronize as well.12 There is something about neural simultaneity13 that helps us listen more closely and speak more clearly.

Taking part in a conversation—debating what they had seen, discussing plot points—had caused their brains to align.

High centrality participants tended to ask ten to twenty times as many questions as other participants.

The first mindset—the decision-making mindset—is associated with the What’s This Really About? conversation, and it’s active whenever we’re thinking about practical matters, such as making choices or analyzing plans.

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The What’s This Really About? conversation is integral to thinking about the future, negotiating options, discussing intellectual concepts, and determining what we want to discuss, our goals for this conversation, and how we should discuss it.

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The second mindset—the emotional mindset—emerges when we discuss How Do We Feel? and draws on neural structures—the nucleus accumbens, the amygdala, and the hippocampus, among others—that help shape our beliefs, emotions, and memories.

The third conversational mindset—the social mindset—emerges when we discuss our relationships, how we are seen by others and see ourselves, and our social identities. These are Who Are We? discussions.

Miscommunication occurs when people are having different kinds of conversations. If you are speaking emotionally, while I’m talking practically, we are, in essence, using different cognitive languages.

“The underlying mechanism that maintains closeness in marriage is symmetry,” one prominent researcher, John Gottman,29 wrote in the Journal of Communication.

that communication comes from connection and alignment—is so fundamental that it has become known as the matching principle: Effective communication requires recognizing what kind of conversation is occurring, and then matching each other. On a very basic level, if someone seems emotional, allow yourself to become emotional as well. If someone is intent on decision making, match that focus. If they are preoccupied by social implications, reflect their fixation back to them.

When we match someone’s mindset, a permission is granted: To enter another person’s head, to see the world through their eyes, to understand what they care about and need. And we give them permission to understand—and hear—us in return.

The most effective communicators pause before they speak and ask themselves: Why am I opening my mouth?

If we’re not having the same kind of conversation, we’re unlikely to connect. So the first goal in a learning conversation is identifying what kind of dialogue we’re seeking—and then looking for clues about what the other parties want.

Some schools have trained teachers to ask students questions designed to elicit their goals, because it helps everyone communicate what they want and need. When a student comes to a teacher upset, for instance, the teacher might ask: “Do you want to be helped, hugged, or heard?” Different needs require different types of communication, and those different kinds of interaction—helping, hugging, hearing—each correspond to a different kind of conversation.

A learning conversation nudges us to pay better attention, listen more closely, speak more openly, and express what might otherwise go unsaid.

The beginnings of conversations are often awkward and fraught. We need to make decision after decision, at rapid speed (“What tone is appropriate?” “Is it okay to interrupt?” “Should I tell a joke?” “What does this person think of me?”), and there are lots of opportunities to miss something or fail to notice what goes unsaid.

The first goal of this negotiation is determining what everyone wants from a conversation. These desires are often revealed via a series of offers and counteroffers, invitations and refusals, that are nearly subconscious but expose if people are willing to play along. This back-and-forth can take just a few moments, or last as long as the conversation itself. And it serves a crucial purpose: To help us find a set of subjects that we are all willing to embrace.

The second goal in this negotiation is to figure out the rules for how we will speak, listen, and make decisions together.

regardless of how this quiet negotiation unfolds, the goals are the same: First, to decide what we all need from this conversation. Second, to determine how we will speak and make decisions. Or, put differently, to figure out: What does everyone want? And how will we make choices together?

Listening, though, is just the first step. The next task is addressing the second question inherent in a What’s This Really About? conversation: How will we make decisions together? What are the rules for this dialogue?

simply preparing a list, researchers found, made conversations go better. There were fewer awkward pauses, less anxiety, and, afterward, people said they felt more engaged. So, in the moments before a conversation starts, it’s useful to describe for yourself: • What are two topics you might discuss? (Being general is okay: Last night’s game and TV shows you like) • What is one thing you hope to say? • What is one question you will ask?

What are two topics you most want to discuss? • What is one thing you hope to say that shows what you want to talk about? • What is one question you will ask that reveals what others want?

Asking about someone’s beliefs or values (“How’d you decide to become a teacher?”) • Asking someone to make a judgment (“Are you glad you went to law school?”) • Asking about someone’s experiences (“What was it like to visit Europe?”)

perspective taking: We should try to see a situation from the other person’s perspective and show them we empathize. Psychology journals noted4 that “to communicate effectively, we must adopt the perspective of another person both while speaking and listening.” Textbooks taught that “perspective taking not only fosters greater interpersonal understanding”5 but also “constitutes a vital skill for very powerful negotiators.”6

Asking deep questions about feelings, values, beliefs, and experiences creates vulnerability. That vulnerability triggers emotional contagion. And that, in turn, helps us connect.

One of the reasons supercommunicators are so talented at picking up on how others feel is because they have a habit of noticing the energy in others’ gestures, the volume of their voices, how fast they are speaking, their cadence and affect. They pay attention to whether someone’s posture indicates they are feeling down, or if they are so excited they can barely contain it. Supercommunicators allow themselves to match that energy and mood, or at least acknowledge it, and thereby make it clear they want to align. They help us see and hear our feelings via their own bodies and voices. By matching our mood and energy, they make it obvious they are trying to connect.

understanding? The first step is recognizing that within each fight is not just one conflict, but, at a minimum, two: There’s the surface issue causing us to disagree with each other, and then the emotional conflict underneath.

looping for understanding. Here’s how it works: • Ask questions, to make sure you understand what someone has said. • Repeat back, in your own words, what you heard. • Ask if you got it right. • Continue until everyone agrees we understand.