Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

by Charles Duhigg

“The single biggest problem with communication,” 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.

Every discussion is influenced by emotions, no matter how rational the topic at hand.

They had told me they needed empathy, but rather than listen, I replied with solutions.

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?

the right conversation, at the right moment, can change everything.

When a discussion is meaningful, it can feel wonderful, as if something important has been revealed. “Ultimately, the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation,” wrote Oscar Wilde.

“Find ways to connect,”

to recruit someone, you have to convince them that you care about them, which means you have to actually care about them, which means you have to connect in some way.

How do we nudge someone, through a conversation, to take a risk, embrace an adventure, accept a job, or go on a date?

To communicate with someone, we must connect with them. 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.

to become a supercommunicator, all we need to do is listen closely to what’s said and unsaid, ask the right questions, recognize and match others’ moods, and make our own feelings easy for others to perceive.

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.

Happy couples “communicate agreement not with the speaker’s point of view or content, but with the speaker’s affect.”

the matching principle: Effective communication requires recognizing what kind of conversation is occurring, and then matching each other.

They understood each other. She could hear, for the first time, what he had been trying to tell her: This could be important. You could make a difference. And she felt genuinely heard. They agreed to trust each other.

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.

We need to understand which kinds of questions and vulnerabilities are powerful, and how to make our own feelings more visible and easier to read. We need to prove to others that we are listening closely.

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

“Do you want to be helped, hugged, or heard?”

A learning conversation nudges us to pay better attention, listen more closely, speak more openly, and express what might otherwise go unsaid. It elicits alignment by convincing everyone that we all want to genuinely understand one another, and by revealing ways to connect.

within every conversation there is a quiet negotiation, where the prize is not winning, but rather determining what everyone wants,

you don’t want to begin a negotiation assuming you know what the other side wants,”

focused on making the pie itself larger, finding win-win solutions where everyone walked away happier than before.

Negotiation, among its top practitioners, isn’t a battle. It’s an act of creativity.

“If you want the other side to appreciate your interests,” Fisher wrote, “begin by demonstrating that you appreciate theirs.”

in an empathetic mindset we are influenced by narratives. “Stories bypass the brain’s instinct to look for reasons to be suspicious,”

We achieve this in four ways: By preparing ourselves before a conversation; by asking questions; by noticing clues during a conversation; and by experimenting and adding items to the table.

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?

Emotions shape every conversation. They guide what we say and how we hear, often in ways we don’t realize. Every conversation is, in some respect, a discussion about How Do We Feel?

Good listening, when it works, reveals new worlds beneath the surface of people’s words.

why we mishear one another. Why, for instance, were some people incapable of picking up on the emotions in others’ voices?

When we discuss our feelings, something magical happens: Other people can’t help but listen to us. And then they start divulging emotions of their own, which causes us to listen closely in return.

perspective taking: We should try to see a situation from the other person’s perspective and show them we empathize.

His parents had failed to connect with him because they hadn’t understood how he felt. And they didn’t understand because they had never asked.

“Why are you making these choices?” “Is this who you want to be?”

wondered if the psychology textbooks had it wrong. Perhaps the correct approach wasn’t trying to put yourself in “someone else’s shoes.” That, after all, was impossible. Rather, maybe the best you can do is ask questions. Ask about people’s lives, about what they’re feeling, about their hopes and fears, and then listen for their struggles, disappointments, joys, and ambitions.

Hearing people describe their emotional lives is important because when we talk about our feelings, we’re describing not just what has happened to us, but why we made certain choices and how we make sense of the world. “When you describe how you feel, you’re giving someone a map of the things you care about,”

Perhaps, instead of perspective taking, we ought to be focused on perspective getting, on asking people to describe their inner lives, their values and beliefs and feelings, the things they care about most.

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

If someone reveals something devastating, like a scary diagnosis or the death of a parent, it doesn’t bring us together if we use that as an excuse to talk about our own health, or a family member who died long ago. “You don’t want to grab the spotlight,” Clark told me.

reciprocity means thinking about how to show empathy. Sometimes it requires simply acknowledging someone’s emotions and showing them you care. “It’s being responsive to others’ needs,” Clark said.

If you want to connect with someone, ask them what they are feeling, and then reveal your own emotions. If others describe a painful memory or a moment of joy, and we reveal our own disappointments or what makes us proud, it provides a chance to harness the neurochemicals that have evolved to help us feel closer. It creates an opportunity for emotional contagion.

You just have to ask them to describe how they feel about their life—rather than the facts of their life—and then ask lots of follow-ups.

invite others to share their preferences, beliefs, and values, and to describe experiences that caused them to grow or change.

I might ask them, ‘What do you do for a living?’ And then I might say, ‘Do you love that job?’ or ‘Do you have something else you dream of doing?’ And right there, you’re two questions in, and you’ve gotten to somebody’s dreams.”

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

Follow-up questions are particularly powerful. “Follow-ups are a signal that you’re listening, that you want to know more,”

“They’re triggering emotions by asking questions, expressing their own emotions, doing things that prompt the other person to say something real.”

Ask others about their beliefs and values. Ask them about experiences and those moments that caused them to change. Ask how they feel, rather than about facts. Reframe your questions so they are deeper. Ask follow-ups. And as people expose their vulnerabilities, reveal something about yourself. It will be less uncomfortable than you imagine. It will be more fascinating than you think. And it might lead to a moment of true connection.