Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

by Charles Duhigg

Whenever someone said something emotional—even when they didn’t realize their emotions were on display—Felix had reciprocated by voicing feelings of his own. All those small choices they had made, he explained, had created an atmosphere of trust.

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.

They have determined that 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.

These people tended to speak less than dominant leaders, and when they did open their mouths, it was usually to ask questions. They repeated others’ ideas and were quick to admit their own confusion or make fun of themselves. They encouraged their groupmates (“That’s really smart! Tell me more about what you think!”) and laughed at others’ jokes. They didn’t stand out as particularly talkative or clever, but when they spoke, everyone listened closely. And, somehow, they made it easier for other people to speak up. They made conversations flow. Sievers began referring to these people as high centrality participants.

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

The importance of this insight—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.

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

Since Getting to Yes was first published, hundreds of studies have found ample evidence to support this idea. Elite diplomats have explained that their goal at a bargaining table isn’t seizing victory, but rather convincing the other side to become collaborators in uncovering new solutions that no one thought of before. Negotiation, among its top practitioners, isn’t a battle. It’s an act of creativity. This approach has become known as interest-based bargaining,

We are applying what psychologists call the logic of similarities. This kind of logic is important because, without it, we wouldn’t feel much compassion when someone describes sadness or disappointment, or know how to defuse a tense situation, or tell if someone is serious or kidding. This logic tells us when to empathize.

When a man cries at work, it is evidence of how much he cares. But when women express emotions such as anger or sadness, “they are more likely to suffer negative social and professional consequences,” found one study from 2016. “Women incur social and economic penalties for expressing masculine-typed emotions…. At the same time, when women express female-typed emotions, they are judged as overly emotional and lacking emotional control, which ultimately undermines women’s competence and professional legitimacy.”

The emotionally intelligent person is often a pleasure to be around and leaves others feeling better. The emotionally intelligent person, however, does not mindlessly seek pleasure, but rather attends to emotion in the path toward growth.”

Laughter might seem like a strange place to look for emotional intelligence, but, in fact, it’s an example of a basic truth of emotional communication: What’s important is not just hearing another person’s feelings but showing that we have heard them.

your brain has evolved to use information on mood and energy to gauge whether someone is a friend or a threat.

She had assumed that the goal of discussing a conflict and engaging in debate was achieving victory, defeating the other side. But that’s not right. Rather, the real goal is figuring out why a conflict exists in the first place.

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

Among happy couples, however, the desire for control emerged quite differently. Rather than trying to control the other person, happy couples tended to focus, instead, on controlling themselves, their environment, and the conflict itself.

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

This explains why looping for understanding is so powerful: When you prove to someone you are listening, you are, in effect, giving them some control over the conversation. This is also why the matching principle is so effective: When we follow someone else’s lead and become emotional when they are emotional, or practical when they have signaled a practical mindset, we are sharing control over how a dialogue flows.

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

A deep question asks people to talk about how they feel.

Asking a deep question should feel like sharing.