Latest / Wellness in Today's World / Ep. 14: The Science of Supercommunication: Building Connection Through Better Conversations

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Ep. 14: The Science of Supercommunication: Building Connection Through Better Conversations · Wellness in Today's World

• 0:05
  Welcome to "Wellness in Today's World," the podcast where we talk about psychology, wellness, and everything in between.
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  I'm your host, Debra Kawahara, and with each episode, we have thoughtful conversations about what it means to live well.
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  Today, I have the distinct pleasure of speaking with Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author
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  who explores human and organizational behavior.
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  His books include "The Power of Habit" and "Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Communications," which we will be focusing on today.
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  Welcome, Charles!
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  It's a pleasure to have you here.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  You're welcome.
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  Let's just get started.
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  You know, I got a chance to read your book and I guess what it, you know, prompted me because you had written about habits and productivity.
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  And then now we get this "Supercommunicators" book.
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  What kind of led you to writing this book?
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  Well, I think that one of the things I realized after writing "The Power of Habit" was that oftentimes some of the most important habits that we have are how we communicate with
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  other people, right?
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  The communication patterns that we fall into when we're talking to our family members or to our coworkers, or even the conversations we have with ourselves.
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  And those habits really matter a lot in how happy we are and how successful we are.
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  In fact, what we know from science is that they influence how healthy we are and how long we live.
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  And so I wanted to understand what we know about the science of communication and how it actually unfolds within our brains.
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  You know, one of the things as I was reading it and I loved about the book is how not only you bring the content or the science behind it, but you have these wonderful, wonderful
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  stories.
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  And I guess it made me think, how do you think you being a journalist helped you in being able to write a book about supercommunication?
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  'Cause I think you go beyond just what most people think about communication as words or
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  how I converse with people to something much bigger than that.
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  So tell me how you think being a journalist really helped you shape this.
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  Well, I think being a journalist is core to it, right?
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  Because when you're a journalist, you learn to report and you learn to figure out how to tell stories and how to find stories and how to find experts and most importantly, how to
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  synthesize the knowledge of many experts who might not see the connections between their work into something that a reader can carry away as a whole.
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  And so I think it's had a huge impact on how I approach writing books and why I enjoy it so much.
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  Yeah.
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  As we think about communication, and I do think that people think it's simply about how do I state something or the verbalization of things, but you go beyond that.
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  You actually talk about connection as being important, and I'm thinking about relationships.
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  So tell us more about what you found in the science and what you found in kind of creating this book around that.
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  Yeah, so connections are really, really important.
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  In fact, there was a study that's been done by, it's called the Harvard Study of Adult Development.
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  That's one of the most famous studies out there because it's been going on for so long, almost 100 years at this point.
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  What they did is they started by looking in the early 1910s and 1920s at
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  young men who were at Harvard trying to determine what were the elements that made them successful and happy and healthy later in life.
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  And because it was Harvard, they had a bunch of initial theories.
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  They thought that if you went to Harvard, you would definitely be happier and healthier and more successful later in life, which turned out not to be true.
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  They thought that if you got married and your marriage was stable, that that would have some impact.
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  And it does a little bit, but not as much as you would think.
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  They thought that eating well,
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  as defined by the 1910s and 20s, which included a lot of steaks, would make you healthy as you got older.
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  And now of course we know that that's not necessarily the best idea.
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  What they did find is that as they looked at people consistently over the span of their lifetimes and they would keep in touch with them every two years and give them a battery
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  of tests to figure out what was going on, what they found was that the best predictor of whether someone was happy and healthy and successful, however they defined success
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  at age 65 is having at least a handful of close relationships at age 45.
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  Because of course, if you have close relationships at age 45, you've had them for a while, right?
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  You didn't just make them that year, and you're probably going to continue to have them.
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  And what this tells us is something that we know is true, which is that being in a social network, being connected to other people, having relationships that matter to you and that
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  you invest in, along with people who invest in you,
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  it's the single greatest determinant as to whether we are happy and healthy, and in fact has a huge impact on whether we're successful because oftentimes it's our community that
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  helps us find new opportunities or recognize what we might otherwise not see.
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  And most of the time when we form these connections we form them through conversations, right?
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  We form them through talking to people.
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  And so understanding what's happening when we have a conversation with someone, why a conversation goes well or doesn't go well, what are the aspects of it that make it feel
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  meaningful or not meaningful, that has a lot to do with influencing how happy and healthy and successful we are as we go through life.
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  Yeah.
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  So, I mean, that was like the broader, more holistic way that I think you talked about communication.
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  So tell me, how did you come up with the title "Supercommunicators"?
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  And what does that mean to you?
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  Well, that's, it was just a phrase that came up when I was talking to researchers that they would refer to folks who were supercommunicators as high-centrality participants, or
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  they had other names for them.
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  But their shorthand was that they would say "supercommunicators." And so I thought it was an evocative phrase.
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  You know, it's interesting because as you're talking about connection and relationship, it's like that Harvard study.
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  We also know the Blue Zone found that connection, social engagement is so important.
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  You know, as you were doing this, you kind of came up with three types of communication that it's really important for people to try and figure out
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  what kind of conversation am I in?
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  I wanted to ask you if you could talk about that a little bit.
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  Yeah, so one of the big things that researchers have found, particularly neuroscientists, is they found that when we're having a discussion, we think we know what that discussion
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  is about, right?
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  We're talking about where to go on vacation next year, next month's budget.
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  But actually, if you look inside people's brains, what you see is that they are having multiple different kinds of conversations all at the same time.
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  And in general, these kinds of conversations, they tend to fall into one of three buckets:
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  There are these practical conversations where we're making plans together or we're solving problems together.
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  But then there's also emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling and I don't want you to solve my feelings.
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  I want you to empathize with me.
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  I want you to show me that you understand what I'm going through.
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  And then finally there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other and how we relate to society, the identities that are important to us that we want to
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  share with other people.
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  And what researchers have found is that all three of these different kinds of conversations are all equally important, right?
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  And in a typical discussion, you might move through all three conversations.
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  You might be in an emotional conversation, then move to a practical, then back to an emotional, and then to a social.
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  But what's interesting is that if two people who are talking to each other aren't having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, then it's very, very difficult for them
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  to hear each other.
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  And it's almost impossible for them to feel genuinely connected to each other.
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  Right?
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  Simply because I'm having an emotional conversation and you're having a practical conversation, we feel like two ships passing in the night.
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  And we've all sort of felt that before.
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  And this has given rise to what psychologists refer to as the "matching principle," which says that successful communication requires having the same kind of conversation at the
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  same moment.
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  So that if I see that you're in an emotional mindset and that you're using emotional words,
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  that I ought to match you and sort of have an emotional conversation myself, or I ought to invite you to match me and say, "Can we move from the emotional to the practical
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  together?" And when we do that, we increase our odds of connecting with each other much, much higher than they would have been otherwise.
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  You know, as you were talking, it makes me think about when couples are missing each other, one's having emotional, like, "I just want you to listen.
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  I don't need you to solve my problem." The other is, "Let's just fix this." And it is like two ships kind of missing each other.
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  That happens a lot.
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  And in fact, you know, when my wife and I, when we have conversations, and we feel like that's happening, my wife will often say to me, "Look, you know, do you want me to help
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  you solve this problem?
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  Or do you just need to complain about it and get it off your chest?" Right?
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  In other words, do you want to have a practical conversation or an emotional conversation?
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  And tactics like that are very, very helpful, because the other person, of course, appreciates that you care enough that you want to help them, you want to have the
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  conversation that they need to have.
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  And so sometimes simply being deliberate about it makes a big difference.
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  So if you're new to trying to figure out what type of conversation are we having or are we mismatched in terms of the type of conversation, how would you say someone could start
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  trying to figure out what type of conversation we're having?
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  Because you're very good at it because you've been doing it, it sounds like, through your research and now through your relationships.
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  But if someone was new to this,
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  how could they go about being able to identify it?
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  Well, I think the best thing to do initially is to start asking questions.
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  One of the things that we know about consistent supercommunicators is that they tend to ask more questions, 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person.
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  And some of those questions are just kind of questions designed to invite you into a conversation, like, "What did you think about that?" Or, "Did you see that movie last
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  night?" But some of them are what psychologists refer to as "deep questions."
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  And a deep question is something that asks about my values or my beliefs or my experiences.
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  And that can sound a little bit intimidating, but it's as simple as if you meet someone who, for instance, is a doctor, instead of asking them, you know, "What hospital do you
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  work at?" You could ask them, "What made you decide to go to medical school?" Right?
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  That second question, that doesn't seem more intrusive or more personal than the first one.
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  But what it does is it invites that person to talk about who they are.
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  Right?
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  It invites them to talk about their values, that they really care about healing people or their experiences, that they saw their own father get sick when they were a kid and they
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  wanted to become a healer.
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  And so the best way for us to determine what kind of conversation is going on is to ask questions, particularly to ask deep questions, because what people say in response will
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  inevitably reveal what kind of mindset they're in.
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  And from there, we know how to either match them or invite them to match us.
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  You know, as you're talking about that matching, it almost seems like really caring and having intellectual curiosity about that other person.
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  Like it's not just whatever the task of the conversation is, but that you really want to know that person or figure out how they're doing or whatever, as opposed to just "let's
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  get this done and over with" kind of thing.
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  Yeah, I think that's right.
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  You also talk about emotional intelligence and empathy as skills that people can learn about.
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  You know, that it's not like an implicit trait that people have.
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  What does emotionally intelligent communication look like?
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  So I think one of the things that emotionally intelligent communication does is it acknowledges that there are emotions that are occurring, right?
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  It's very easy to gloss over emotions.
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  And if somebody is obviously feeling something to, to pretend like we don't see it.
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  But oftentimes, what's much more effective is to acknowledge it and to say like, "That seems like a really hard period for you.
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  Tell me more about that."
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  I think the other thing that's important about emotional intelligence and emotional communication is that at its core is often vulnerability.
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  And we tend to misunderstand what vulnerability is, right?
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  We think of vulnerability as crying on each other's shoulders or talking about our parents.
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  But actually, vulnerability has a very specific definition in neuroscience.
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  Vulnerability is a neural cascade that begins when someone says something that another person could judge.
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  Now, it might not matter what the judgment is.
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  I might tell you that I like Star Trek better than Star Wars.
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  And you might think that's the dumbest thing you've ever heard, because Luke Skywalker is clearly cooler than James Kirk.
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  But what's important there is that I've said something to you that you could judge.
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  And at that moment, there's an inborn instinct that's very deep inside our brains by evolution that I'm going to pay very close attention to how you react.
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  And if you react by judging me, then I will become wary of you and mistrustful.
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  But if instead of judging me, you withhold judgment, or even better, if you share something about yourself that I could judge in return, then we will feel closer to each
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  other, we'll feel more trusting of each other.
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  It doesn't mean that we're going to agree with each other.
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  And we don't have to agree with each other.
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  We might want to vote for different people or believe in different, you know, gods.
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  But the fact that I have shared something that you could judge and you have withheld judgment, and more importantly, that you have shared something with me that I could judge
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  and I've withheld judgment in return, that makes us feel close to each other.
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  And that's at the core of not only emotional communication, but communication in general.
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  So it sounds very much like when you are making yourself vulnerable in terms of the communication by maybe sharing something personal, there's a psychological safety that's
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  created if that other person responds in a way that's maybe nonjudgmental, noncritical, understanding.
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  but it doesn't have to be this overly personal thing that you share.
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  You could say like, you know, I like hot dogs more than hamburgers.
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  And that creates a neural cascade that creates a sense of vulnerability.
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  Not a huge sense of vulnerability, right?
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  I'm not gonna like...
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  but I'm gonna pay close attention to how you respond.
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  It's gonna tell me whether in that sort of very primitive part of my brain that I should see you as a threat or as an ally.
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  So it does communicate something, even though you may not be saying anything at all in terms of the response that you get from that other person.
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  Yeah.
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  So like a non-response could be telling you, they're not tracking or they're not engaging in the way that you may.
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  If it doesn't seem like they're actually listening to me, then it would seem like...
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  I would feel like they're not listening.
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  You know, one of the things I wanted to ask you about, because it does seem like right now, kind of across society, we're having a hard time in communication, in dialogue with
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  people that have different perspectives or opinions.
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  And that seems to be something that we're having right now difficulty in doing dialogue.
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  What would you recommend in terms of engaging with those that may have different opinions or diverse perspectives from us?
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  Because I know you wrote about that in the book, about really difficult topics that people may need to contend with because of the issues that we're currently experiencing.
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  Well, I think what's important is to have those conversations.
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  I mean, let me ask you, do you have a lot of conversations with people whom you disagree with on a sort of fundamental basis?
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  Yeah, yeah, because of the field that I'm in, in psychology, being a professor, having those conversations.
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  I mean, that's kind of part of critical thinking, getting multiple perspectives, trying to understand people so that I understand, well, how are they seeing this?
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  So I do, yeah.
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  And I think that that's valuable, right?
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  I think that probably offers some meaning and some import to the work that you do.
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  You know, it's not hard to have conversations with people we disagree with if we genuinely want to have a conversation with them.
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  And if we're curious about how they see the world.
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  When those conversations fall apart, it's often because I'm not actually curious about how you see the world.
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  I just want to tell you how I see the world and I want you to listen and agree with me.
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  And the other person feels the same way!
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  They don't care how I see the world.
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  They just want to tell me how they see the world and they want me to agree with them.
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  That's clearly not going to work, right?
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  Because we're walking into it with these two intentions that are at odds with each other.
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  But if we enter a conversation where we say, look, the goal of this conversation is not to win.
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  It's not to convince you that I'm right and you're wrong or that I'm smart and you're dumb.
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  The goal of this conversation is actually to understand how you see the world and to speak in such a way that you can understand how I see the world.
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  That conversation is going to go pretty well because both people are going to pick up pretty quickly on the fact that this isn't a contest.
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  This isn't a debate where you're trying to win.
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  This is a dialogue where you're trying to understand.
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  And I think when people enter into those conversations, what they end up finding is that they have a lot in common, right?
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  You know, me and my neighbor might have different signs on our lawns for different candidates, but the truth of the matter is we only spend,
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  you know, 2% of our day thinking about politics and the rest of it we spend thinking about things in common: that we both hate the pothole that's on the street in front of our
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  house, that our kids both go to the local school and we're worried because we heard that the principal's leaving.
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  These are things that we have in common that is kind of a common ground for us to learn to be with each other.
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  And when we do those areas of difference become interesting rather than threatening.
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  And that's an important distinction is that
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  when I see your perspective that's different from mine as something that's interesting that I want to learn about, then suddenly you become more willing to share.
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  And if you can see that I am listening to you, I'm paying attention to what you're saying, you're going to become more likely to listen to me in response.
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  So I would say the best way to have those conversations is to go into them with an attitude of curiosity and with a genuine
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  hope to understand rather than to persuade.
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  It makes me think two things that I remember you talking about active listening, that we're not there to like, "Okay, I just need to let him finish, let Charles finish so that
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  I can make my point." So I enter in debate as opposed to really trying to understand.
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  What are you, what are you thinking?
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  What are you feeling?
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  What is your, why do you think that way?
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  And I know you talk about active listening as a part of communicating, which is really important.
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  Yeah.
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  And so one of the big ideas there is that, listening on itself is not enough, right?
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  We tend to think of listening as, "I'm going to close my mouth and open my ears." And that is a first and important and necessary step to listening, but that's not all that
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  listening entails.
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  There's a second step to listening, which is that I have to prove to you that I'm listening.
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  I have to show you that I'm absorbing what you're saying.
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  I'm processing it.
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  I'm thinking about it.
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  I'm responding to it.
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  And in fact, there's a technique that they teach for this, for conflict conversations, for difficult conversations, that's known as "looping for understanding," and it has three
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  steps.
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  Step one is that I ask you a question, preferably a deep question.
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  Step two is that after you answer that question, I try and repeat back to you in my own words what I heard you say.
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  And the goal here is not mimicry, right?
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  It's not just to like repeat what you said.
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  It's to show you
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  that I actually was paying attention, that I'm thinking about it.
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  You know, "What I heard you say was this, and it made me think of something you said last week about this." Or, "It makes me think of something I saw on the news," right?
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  I'm showing you that I'm processing it.
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  I'm thinking about it.
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  I'm adding to it.
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  So that's step one and step two.
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  And most people learn to do this somewhat intuitively by the time they're mid-career professionals.
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  It's step three that I always forget and that I think other people do as well,
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  which is that once I've repeated back what I've heard you say, I'm going to ask you if I got it right.
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  I'm gonna say something like, you know, "Did I understand you correctly?
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  Am I kind of synopsizing what you said accurately?" Because what I'm actually doing in that moment is I'm asking you for permission to acknowledge that I was listening.
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  And if you acknowledge that I was listening, you become much more likely to listen to me in return.
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  And so,
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  one of the best things that we can do when it comes to having conversations is we can take the extra effort to prove that we are listening to the other person, to prove that we're
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  paying attention to what they're saying and that as a result, that we really value it.
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  I see this reciprocal process that has to happen in order for that communication and connection to take place that you're talking about and how really important that is.
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  For our listeners, what could be one thing they could do today to start these skills that you have so eloquently talked about today?
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  Well, I think one of the best things you can do is you can just ask a deep question that you wouldn't have normally asked, right?
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  And it can feel to people like that's kind of a scary proposition because they haven't done it before, but I think you'll find that it's really simple.
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  So if you're talking to someone and they talk about something, ask them, you know, "Why is that important to you?
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  Tell me a little bit more about how you decided to get in the career that you're in or how you ended up here today."
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  If they bring up something where they're saying like, "This is really bothering me," instead of trying to solve their problem, ask them, "You know, there's a lot of things
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  that could bother you.
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  Why does this one bother you in particular?
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  What's going on that makes this such a pressing issue for you?" And I think when we do that, what we're doing is we're saying to people, "I want to understand you, I want to
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  understand how you see the world.
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  I want to invite you to share something meaningful with me." And that really has a powerful effect on making other people feel seen and heard and making them
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  curious about us in return.
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  So those deep questions that show, "I wanna know about you."
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  Yeah, I think something that folks could do who are listening today is they could ask, in the next conversation you have, ask someone a deep question, see how it goes.
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  Okay, as we end today, I would really recommend people reading the "Supercommunicators" book.
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  What I really liked about it was you are really teaching people.
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  You're like a natural therapist.
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  What is in this book actually makes...
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  it's like, these are all the skills that we learn as therapists.
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  So I just loved it for that
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  aspect of it and it's going to help me communicate a lot better.
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  So What would you hope stays with people long after they finish reading "Supercommunicators"?
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  I think the biggest thing is just the importance of connecting with other people, right?
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  For everyone who's listening, there is someone who you really like, right?
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  Someone who was a friend at one point who you haven't talked to in two or three years.
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  And you've thought about calling them or you've thought about dropping them an email, but you're like, "It's going to be so awkward at the at the start of the conversation.
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  I can't remember how many kids they have and I can't remember their wife's name," right?
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  It's going to be like, and you're right!
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  For the first two or three minutes, it might be a little bit awkward.
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  But that's okay!
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  Because after that, you're going to fall back into this pattern that you once had of learning about each other and sharing with each other and hearing how each other's lives
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  are going.
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  And it's going to make you feel so good.
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  You're going to feel so happy as a result of this conversation and the other person is going to feel happy.
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  And it means that the next time you call them, it's going to be easier and easier and easier.
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  So what I really hope people carry away is understanding the importance of connection with the people around us.
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  That when we invest in other people, we're really investing in ourselves.
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  Wonderful and powerful.
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  So Charles, I just really, really want to thank you for joining us and for sharing your insights.
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  It has really been a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
• 24:04
  Yes, and to the listeners, thank you for being here with us today and as always, remember: Wellness is a journey, not a destination.
• 24:13
  Please take good care of yourself and we'll see you the next time.