Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

by Charles Duhigg

“The key to intuiting another’s feelings is in the ability to read nonverbal channels: tone of voice, gesture, facial expressions and the like.”

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.

passions can make it impossible to discuss problems in a productive manner.

This is the real reason why so many conflicts persist: Not because of a lack of solutions or because people are unwilling to compromise, but because combatants don’t understand why they are fighting in the first place. They haven’t discussed the deeper topics—the emotional issues—that are inflaming the dispute. And they’ve avoided that emotional discussion because they don’t want to admit they are furious and sad and worried. In other words, they don’t want to talk about How Do We Feel?, even though it’s the most important conversation to have.

When people believe that others are trying to understand their perspectives, they become more trusting, more willing “to express their thoughts and ideas.” The “sense of safety, value and acceptance” that comes from believing a partner is genuinely listening makes us more willing to reveal our own vulnerabilities and uncertainties.

If you want someone to expose their emotions, the most important step is convincing them you are listening closely to what they say.

If we want to show someone we’re paying attention, we need to prove, once that person has stopped speaking, that we have absorbed what they said. And the best way to do that is by repeating, in our own words, what we just heard them say—and then asking if we got it right.

It’s a formula sometimes called looping for understanding.[*] The goal is not to repeat what someone has said verbatim, but rather to distill the other person’s thoughts in your own words, prove you are working hard to understand and see their perspective—and then repeat the process, again and again, until everyone is satisfied.

Why do some conversations change so abruptly? Why, at times, can it feel like we’ve made a real connection with another person—and then our environment shifts, or a small conflict gets bigger, and suddenly we find ourselves so far apart?

“That’s kind of the minimum for a marriage,” said Stanley. “If you can’t show the other person you’re listening, you probably won’t get married in the first place.”

Among unhappy couples, the impulse for control often expressed itself as an attempt to control the other person.

happy couples tended to focus, instead, on controlling themselves, their environment, and the conflict itself.

Happy couples, for instance, spent a lot of time controlling their own emotions.

“Happy couples slow down the fight,” said Karney. “They exert a lot more self-control and self-awareness.”

happy couples seemed to concentrate more on controlling the boundaries of the conflict itself.

unhappy couples let one area of disagreement spill into everything else. “They start arguing about, ‘Are we spending the holidays with my family or yours?’ and pretty soon it becomes, ‘You’re so selfish, you never do the laundry, this is why we don’t have enough money.’ ” (In marriage therapy, this is called kitchen-sinking, a particularly destructive pattern.)

if, during moments of tension, we focus on things we can control together, conflicts are less likely to emerge. If we focus on controlling ourselves, our environment, and the conflict itself, then a fight often morphs into a conversation, where the goal is understanding, rather than winning points or wounding our foes.

it’s natural to crave control. And sometimes that craving pushes us to want to control the most obvious target: The person we’re arguing with. If we can just force them to listen, they’ll finally hear what we’re saying. If we can force them to see things from our point of view, they’ll agree we’re right. The fact is, though, that approach almost never works.

Trying to force someone to listen, or see our side, only inflames the battle.

Sometimes, when we try to exert control, we don’t realize we’re doing it. We think we’re simply stating our opinion, or offering advice, and don’t understand that others will perceive it as attempting to strong-arm a conversation’s direction.

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.”

Emotions impact every conversation, whether we realize it or not. Even when we don’t acknowledge those feelings, they’re still there—and when they are ignored, they’re likely to become obstacles to connection.

And one of the best ways to start is to ask a deep question.

One of the most important aspects of emotional communication is showing others we hear their emotions, which helps us reciprocate.

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.

There are two benefits to looping: First, it helps us make sure we’re hearing others. Second, it demonstrates we want to hear.

Tell me what you’re feeling,”

We reciprocate vulnerability by… Looping for understanding, until you understand what someone is feeling. Looking for what someone needs: Do they want comfort? Empathy? Advice? Tough love? (If you don’t know the answer, loop more.) Asking permission. “Would it be okay if I told you how your words affect me?” or “Would you mind if I shared something from my own life?” or “Can I share how I’ve seen others handle this?” Giving something in return. This can be as simple as describing how you feel: “It makes me sad to hear you’re in pain,” or “I’m so happy for you,” or “I’m proud to be your friend.”

Reciprocity isn’t about matching vulnerability to vulnerability, or sorrow to sorrow. Rather, it is being emotionally available, listening to how someone feels and what they need, and sharing our own emotional reactions.

When we are in conflict with someone… First, acknowledge understanding. We do this through looping and statements such as “Let me make sure I understand.” Second, find specific points of agreement. Look for places where you can say “I agree with you” or “I think you’re right that…” These remind everyone that, though we may have differences, we want to be aligned. Finally, temper your claims. Don’t make sweeping statements such as “Everyone knows that’s not true” or “Your side always gets this wrong.” Rather, use words like somewhat or “It might be…” and speak about specific experiences (“I want to talk about why you left dishes in the sink last night”) rather than broad generalities (“I want to talk about how you never do your part around the house”). The goal is showing that the aim of this conversation is not winning, but understanding.

When talking online, remember to… Overemphasize politeness. Numerous studies have shown that online tensions are lessened if at least one person is consistently polite. In one study, all it took was adding thanks and please to a series of online arguments—while everything else stayed the same—to reduce tensions. Underemphasize sarcasm. When we say something in a wry tone, it signals an irony our audience usually understands. When we type something sarcastic online, we typically hear these same inflections within our heads—but the people reading our comments do not. Express more gratitude, deference, greetings, apologies, and hedges. Studies demonstrate that when we are grateful (“That comment taught me a lot”), or solicitous (“I would love to hear your thoughts”), or preface comments with a greeting (“Hey!”), or apologize in advance (“I hope you don’t mind…”) or hedge our comments (“I think…”), online communication gets better. Avoid criticism in public forums. In another study, researchers found that giving negative feedback online backfires much more than in real life. It pushes people to write more negative things, and to start criticizing others more frequently. When we criticize others publicly online, we make bad behavior into a digital norm.

Social identities, as one psychology textbook explains, are “that part of our self-concept that comes from our membership in social groups, the value we place on this membership, and what it means to us emotionally.”

All of us have a personal identity, how we think of ourselves apart from society. And all of us have a social identity, how we see ourselves—and believe others see us—as members of various tribes.

experiments have demonstrated that, in social settings, people will lie about their pasts, willingly pay too much for a product, or pretend not to see a crime as it occurs simply to fit in.

Social identities can change how we act, even if we don’t intend them to, even if we wish they didn’t.

In a Who Are We? conversation, we sometimes latch on to a single identity: I am your parent or I am the teacher or I am the boss. In doing so, though, we hobble ourselves, because we start to see the world solely through that one lens. We forget that we are all complex

It’s crucial, in a Who Are We? conversation, to remind ourselves that we all possess multiple identities: We are parents but also siblings; experts in some topics and novices in others; friends and coworkers and people who love dogs but hate to jog. We are all of these simultaneously, so no one stereotype describes us fully. We all contain multitudes that are just waiting to be expressed.

she wasn’t asking them to redefine themselves.

Our similarities become powerful when they are rooted in something meaningful:

Social dialogues—Who Are We? conversations—are gateways to deeper understanding and more meaningful connections. But we need to allow these discussions to become deep, to evoke our many identities and express our shared experiences and beliefs. The Who Are We? conversation is powerful not only because we bond over what we have in common, but because it lets us share who we really are.

our social identities exert such a powerful influence on what we say, how we hear, and what we think, even when we don’t want them to.

When we critique an underperforming employee, criticize a spouse, or tell a boss they aren’t giving us what we need, it can easily come off as a denunciation of who they are, a swipe at their abilities and judgments, or an attack on their sense of identity.

identity threat, and it is deeply corrosive to communication. “When someone says you don’t belong, or they put you in a group you don’t appreciate, it can cause extreme psychological discomfort,”

Identity threats typically emerge because we generalize:

We must not give in to the temptation to minimize someone’s struggles, or try to solve their problems, simply because witnessing their discomfort is so difficult. We must not imply that, because we have not personally experienced their suffering, it therefore is not real.

Establish guidelines and make sure they are clearly communicated. Invite everyone into the dialogue and give everyone a voice—and let everyone know they are expected to examine themselves.

“you’re inviting people to participate and learn, to take responsibility for improving things.”

The goal is to recognize our own biases, “who we might be excluding or including.” Or, as Kiara Sanchez put it, the aim is not to “neutralize the discomfort, but rather give people a framework for persevering through it. It seems like a minor distinction, but the underlying theory is that discomfort can be helpful.”

Discomfort pushes us to think before we speak, to try to understand how others see or hear things differently. Discomfort reminds us to keep going, that the goal is worth the challenge.

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity,” John F. Kennedy told students at American University in 1963, five months before he was assassinated. “In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”