Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

by Charles Duhigg

They’ve learned that paying attention to someone’s body, alongside their voice, helps us hear them better.

They have learned how to hear what’s unsaid and speak so others want to listen.

They subtly reflected shifts in other people’s moods and attitudes. When someone got serious, they matched that seriousness. When a discussion went light, they were the first to play along.

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.

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.

Before we phone a friend or chat with a spouse, we don’t need to write out a sentence about our goals, of course—but, if it’s an important conversation, taking a moment to formulate what we hope to say, and how we hope to say it, is a good idea.

When a student comes to a teacher upset, for instance, the teacher might ask: “Do you want to be helped, hugged, or heard?”

The best negotiators didn’t battle over who should get the biggest slice of pie. Rather, they focused on making the pie itself larger, finding win-win solutions where everyone walked away happier than before.

When someone makes noises as they listen (“Yeah,” “Uh-huh,” “Interesting”), it’s a sign they’re engaged, what linguists call backchanneling.

Humans tend to be cognitively lazy: We rely on stereotypes and assumptions because they let us make judgments without thinking too hard.

Asking deep questions is easier than most people realize, and more rewarding than we expect.

We laugh, in other words, to show someone that we want to connect with them—and our companions laugh back to demonstrate they want to connect with us, as well.

When we match someone’s mood and energy, we are showing them that we want to align.

Researchers noticed that many divorces happened after major life changes, in part because these changes had triggered a sense of losing control.

When you prove to someone you are listening, you are, in effect, giving them some control over the conversation.

But listening means letting someone else tell their story and then, even if you don’t agree with them, trying to understand why they feel that way.”

A deep question asks about someone’s values, beliefs, judgments, or experiences—rather than just facts.

The goal of looping isn’t parroting someone’s words, but rather distilling another person’s thoughts in your own language, showing them that you are working hard to see their perspective, and then repeating the process until everyone is aligned.

Numerous studies have shown that online tensions are lessened if at least one person is consistently polite.