Shownotes:
Who are the people in your life who just get you? The ones who ask the right questions, listen deeply, and make every conversation feel effortless? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Charles Duhigg calls them Supercommunicators—and here’s the kicker: it’s not an inborn gift, it’s a skill you can learn.
In this episode, Charles breaks down the science of deep, meaningful communication—how to stop talking past people, truly hear what’s being said, and connect on a level that changes everything. If you’ve ever struggled with miscommunication (who hasn’t?), this one’s for you.
Thrive Global Article:
About Our Guest:
As a journalist, Charles Duhigg has worked at The New York Times, where he won a Pulitzer Prize, and The New Yorker magazine.
He is also the author of The Power of Habit, which spent over three years on bestseller lists, and Smarter Faster Better, which was also a bestseller.
His latest book, Supercommunicators, was published in early 2024 and has remained on bestseller lists since its release.
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing, focusing on community building, emotional intelligence, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn both a post-graduate credential and a master's degree in education. An international keynote speaker, Lainie has presented in 41 states as well as in dozens of countries across 4 continents. As a consultant, Lainie’s client list ranges from Fortune 100 companies like Apple and Google to school districts and independent schools. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Website - LainieRowell.com
Instagram - @LainieRowell
LinkedIn - @LainieRowell
Twitter - @LainieRowell
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Transcript:
Lainie Rowell: Hi, Charles. Thanks for being here.
Charles Duhigg: Thanks for having me.
Lainie Rowell: So excited to talk about your amazing book, Supercommunicatos. I'm going to gush about it a little bit, if you're okay with that.
Charles Duhigg: sure
Lainie Rowell: I really feel like you took this abstract concept of communication and you operationalized it in a way that is so clear, so practical.
Communication is such a huge thing. Like, how do you tackle that topic? And you did it so beautifully. I'm super excited for it. Yeah. I mean, I could go on and on. The stories are really, really helpful. I love how you start a story. You give us some information and then you do a callback to the story to help us see how it fits into real life. So just beautiful job.
Charles Duhigg: Oh, thanks. I appreciate that.
Lainie Rowell: I'd love to hear from you, what made you choose this topic?
Charles Duhigg: Yeah, well, as I explained in the book, a lot of it came out of my own struggles with communication, right?
I'm a journalist. I work at the New Yorker Magazine. And I fell into this bad pattern with my wife where I would come home after a long day and I would start complaining about my day and my boss doesn't appreciate me and my co workers don't realize what a genius I am. And, and my wife would offer me some pretty good advice.
She'd say something like, why don't you take your boss out to lunch and you guys can get to know each other a little bit better. And instead of being able to hear what she was saying, I would get even more upset. And I would say, you know, why aren't you supporting me? You're supposed to be on my side. And she would get upset because I was attacking her for giving me good advice.
And so I went to researchers and I asked them, like, this is a pretty common pattern in relationships, right? Is that we, we kind of talk past each other. And I asked them, what's going on here? Why do I keep making the same mistake again and again? And they said, well, we're glad you came and asked us because we're actually kind of living through this golden age of understanding communication.
And one of the big things that we've figured out is that. When you have a discussion, you tend to think that discussion is about one thing, right? We're talking about my day, or the kids grades, or where to go on vacation. But actually, every discussion is made up of different kinds of conversations, and they tend to fall into one of three buckets.
There's these practical conversations where we're solving problems together or making plans. But then there's also emotional conversations where I might tell you how I'm feeling, and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize and relate. And then finally, there's social conversation, which is about how we relate to each other and society and the identities that are important to us.
And they said, one of the things we figured out is if you're having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, then you hear each other. But if you don't, if I'm having a practical conversation, you're having an emotional conversation, then we literally have trouble hearing what the other person is trying to say, which is, of course, what was happening with me and my wife, right?
And so this has become known in psychology as the matching principle. which says that successful communication requires having the same kind of conversation at the same moment.
Lainie Rowell: So, can we be having more than one type of conversation at the same time? So like, our conversation right now, right, you could say it's a social conversation, because it's like, who are we as communicators?
But could it also delve into emotional and then practical?
Charles Duhigg: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah, discussions shift from, you know, emotional to practical to social back to emotional. What's important is, and no one kind of conversation is better than any other. What is important, though, is that we're having the same kind of conversation at the same moment.
So if I was to bring up something really, really emotional. And you were to say, okay, so tell me how that applies to the book. Like what, what, how did, and we're very practical. We probably would not feel connected to each other. But if on the other hand, you were to say, Oh, I'm so sorry you experienced that.
That sounds so hard. I I've been through something similar myself. Like when you were writing the book, did you think about that experience and how it affected your own communication? What you're doing there is you're basically saying, look, I'm going to meet you with emotional. And then I'm going to ask your permission to move this to a little bit more practical.
And as long as we move together. Then we're aligned.
Lainie Rowell: That matching is so important, right? We, we try to do that. Some people are better at it than others. And then you have what you call Supercommunicatos. That's the title of the book, and that's what you're talking about. And what are some of the things that Supercommunicatos do well in addition to matching? What are some of the things that they do that we can try and, and be like them?
Charles Duhigg: Well, I, I think, you know, it's helpful to describe what a super communicator is, and there's actually a pretty easy way of doing this. Let me ask you a question. If you were having a bad day and you knew that you wanted to call someone who would make you feel better, like just talking to them would sort of improve your, your spirits.
Do you know who you would call? Like, does someone come to mind that you would telephone?
Lainie Rowell: I have a couple people, but yeah, I definitely have one that pops to mind first. Yeah. Okay.
Charles Duhigg: Who's that? Tell me about that person.
Lainie Rowell: So that would be Allyson. She's one of my best friends and she's just, she's a really good listener.
Charles Duhigg: Yeah. So for you, Allyson is a super communicator and you're probably a super communicator back to her. And if I was to study your conversations, what I would find is that you guys have certain skills that you use with each other. As you mentioned, she's a good listener. She's also probably proving to you that she's listening.
She's asking follow up questions. She's repeating back what she heard you say in a slightly different way to give you some, some illumination on it. She's probably asking you the right kinds of questions, what are known as deep questions.
Lainie Rowell: Hmm.
Charles Duhigg: These skills are skills that we use in close relationships, but we don't necessarily recognize them as skills, but what consistent Supercommunicatos do, because we're all Supercommunicatos at one point or another, but people who can connect with almost anyone, what's different is that they recognize that the skills you use with Allyson are the same skills you can use with anyone, right?
You could use it with your kids, your husband, you're on the bus, you know, with your boss. And so what Supercommunicatos do is they just take those skills and they practice them a little bit until they become habits. And our brain is designed to actually make these communication skills into habits very, very quickly.
Lainie Rowell: Interesting. Can you tell us a little bit more about deep questions?
Charles Duhigg: Yeah. Yeah. So deep questions are how we figure out what kind of conversation is occurring. Right? And a deep question is something that asks someone about their values or their beliefs or their experiences.
Okay. And that can sound a little bit intimidating, but it's actually as simple as if you meet someone who's a doctor instead of saying, you know, Oh, what hospital do you work at? Saying, Oh, what made you decide to become a doctor? What made you go to medical school? Right?
That's a very easy question to ask. But when you ask a question like that, what you're doing is you're inviting the other person to tell you who they are. You're inviting them to say something meaningful, say something like, you know, my dad got sick when I was a kid and watching got sick, maybe decided that I wanted to be a healer too.
Cause I saw these doctors that were so impressive. Okay, that's a person who's probably in a much more emotional mindset than a practical mindset, maybe even in a social mindset, because they're talking about other doctors and kind of the role you play in society. I learned so much more about you when I asked you a deep question.
And what's really useful about deep questions is that it's also very easy for me to answer my own question. Oh, you became a doctor because you saw your dad get sick. I became a lawyer because I saw my uncle get arrested when I was a kid. So, these deep questions are really key to building relationships and to building connections with people.
And they're much, much easier to ask than we think they are.
Lainie Rowell: So if I heard you correctly, it's values, beliefs, and experiences.
Charles Duhigg: Yeah, ask about those. Another way of thinking about it is, rather than asking someone about the facts of their life, Ask them how they feel about their life.
So
instead of saying, Oh, you live in the Heights. Where do you live on the Heights? Which street are you on? That's a fact about their life, but saying, Oh, you live in the Heights. Like, do you like it up there? What made you guys decided to move up to the Heights? That's a question about how someone feels about their life, instead of the facts of their life.
And inevitably someone's going to say something like, Oh, you know, like our church is up there. Or you know, we had a big community that was already there. And community is really, really important to us. They're going to tell you something about who they are, about how they see the world and what's important to them.
And that's when you're going to start to understand them. And it'll give you a chance to explain yourself as well.
Lainie Rowell: I love this so much and I feel like people are ready to tell what's important to them, what they value, what they believe about their experiences. We don't usually open it up. I mean, I think about Mark Brackett and he always talks about like, how are you is like the opening question, but people don't really actually expect you to respond to that question, right?
But when you ask these deep questions, you're really like opening the door. Like, no, I actually want to hear, tell me about your values, your beliefs, your experiences.
Charles Duhigg: Absolutely. And a question like, how are you? I mean, if you were to ask it genuinely, if you're like, how are you? You know, I heard that, you know, you were in an accident recently.
I'm just wondering, how are you doing since then? That's a deep question. But if, but so simply saying, how are you? That's not a deep question, right? Because the other person doesn't actually think that you want an answer to it. So it's important when we ask these deep questions to ask questions that, you know, are more than reflective, that are more than, than simply pleasantries, but that actually show there's something we want to learn about this person.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah, can I just be honest and tell you that as I'm preparing for this interview and again, thank you for saying yes to the interview. It's really hard for me to not get super meta and in my head like, Oh my gosh, am I asking him enough deep questions because I'm trying to find this balance of, I want to share you know, important pieces of your content with the listener and the readers.
But it's like, I also want to get to that like matching and the connection with you and really hear about who you, Charles, are. And so I have to say, I know you do interviews too. You're a journalist. Is that, is that something you ever struggle with?
Charles Duhigg: It's not something I think about very much because I, I think that many times an interview is not necessarily conversation, right?
A conversation is about back and forth. The conversation is where we're both kind of contributing equally to the dialogue. The interview tends to be more one sided, right? You're going to ask me more questions than I'm going to ask you. And so I think in those situations, The goal , is a little bit different and it's important to identify what the goal of a conversation is, you know.
The goal of a conversation is not to convince you that you're wrong and I'm right, or to convince you that you should like me, or I'm smart, or, or that we should go with my plan. The goal of a conversation is just to understand each other, for me to ask you questions and listen in such a way that I understand what you're saying, what you're trying to get across, and for me to speak in a way that you can understand me.
And if you have a conversation and you walk away from it still disagreeing with each other, or if you have a conversation and walk away from it and say like, that person, like, they didn't know what they were talking about, but you understood each other, then the conversation has been a success. Right? The goal of a conversation is not to make friends.
The goal of a conversation is to, to understand each other. And I think when you're focused on that, it makes it a lot easier.
Lainie Rowell: I appreciate that. As you're talking, it reminded me of something, the quiet negotiation, so I have to tell you that, and I don't know if I'm telling you this because I just want to prove that I know things, or what, but I, I have known about interest based bargaining for decades.
That was really early in my career. It came into play. I actually didn't even have to do a lot of negotiating over people's contracts, but for some reason I was put into this training and I found it absolutely fascinating. So here comes the embarrassing part. I have known about interest based bargaining for decades, and I never, until I read Supercommunicatos, made the direct line fully realizing how this comes across in every context.
So, especially for communication, so can you tell us a little bit about this quiet negotiation, this, how interesting it kind of plays into it?
Charles Duhigg: So, it's a great question. A quiet negotiation is something that happens at the beginning of every discussion, right? Whether we're aware of it or not.
And a quiet negotiation is different from a normal negotiation, in that a normal negotiation, you're often trying to win something. In a quiet negotiation, your goal is really just to understand what the other person wants to talk about. Right? And so when I sit down and I say, Oh, tell me a little bit about why you came in today.
What brought you in? I'm starting a quiet negotiation. And you might say, well, I came in because, you know, I'd really like you to hand me a million dollars. without me having to do anything for it. Okay, I'm probably not going to accept that negotiation, right? I'm probably going to say, that's not how we work at this bank.
I would suggest to you somewhere else. But if you say, I'd like to learn about different options that you might have for home loan, then what you're doing is you're making a bid. You're, you're making an offer of something that's important to you. And I have at that point, an option to either say no or to say, Oh, tell me more.
Let me tell you a little bit about our loans, but tell me what you want it for. What's going on that you're coming in, that you need a loan. What we're doing there is we're negotiating with each other in the most quiet, softest way about what the goal of this conversation is, what we're going to discuss, the topics we're going to discuss, and more importantly, how we're going to discuss them.
Right? Are we going to be kind of like aggressive towards each other? Are we going to be open and try to understand each other? And these, these negotiations happen without our awareness of them. But what's really important is that when you do become aware of them, it makes you much better at having a productive negotiation, where you decide on things together that you want to talk about, and everyone walks away at least feeling satisfied by the discussion.
Lainie Rowell: I wanted to tell you one of my takeaways from the book is really the point of communication is to be understood. You've said it here a couple times and I think that's so important. Something else that really stood out to me in the book is you talked about how, and I've heard this, I've heard this other places but it really hit home with me when you said it, it's like we often think people don't agree with us because they just don't know what we know.
And we really actually have to accept that there might be people who, even if they knew what we knew, they might have a different opinion about it, right? And so that's why.
Charles Duhigg: Oh, that's almost always true, right? You know, when there was a lot of vaccine resistance during COVID one of the things that the National Institute of Health said was physicians should simply educate their patients about the facts.
If they, if they explain the facts to them, everyone would want to get a vaccine. But of course there's a number of people who are vaccine resistant who, they, they know all the facts, right? They've spent a lot of time researching and they might not prioritize the facts the same way that the physician does, but it's not a case that they're ignorant.
It's a case that they see the world differently. And unless a physician engages with them and says, explain to me how you see the world, that makes a lot of sense. Let me explain how I see the world. They're not going to be able to really hear each other.
Lainie Rowell: So that's called, motivational interviewing.
Charles Duhigg: Yeah. Yeah. So motivational interviewing is a sort of bigger technique. But at the core of it is this activity of trying to get you to explain how you see the world instead of telling you how I think you should see the world instead of challenging you immediately when you say something I don't agree with is rather trying to understand the system of logic that you use, the worldview that informs your decisions, so that I can explain within that worldview why I believe something differently than you.
And at that moment, you'll, you'll be able to hear what I'm saying. You might not agree with me, but you'll be able to hear what I'm saying because you believe that I've heard you.
Lainie Rowell: So the goal in motivational interviewing is to at least be understood. and to ideally come to some, if not agreement, at least understanding.
Is that fair to say?
Charles Duhigg: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. That, that, look, the thing that we've learned is that if someone doesn't want to have their mind changed, it doesn't matter how clever you are. You're not going to change their mind, right? But what you can do is you can find places where they don't mind having their mind changed, right?
Like maybe, maybe they're, they're anti vaccine in general, but you convince them the polio vaccine. You're, you're like, look, the way that you describe your, your suspicion of vaccines is totally, I completely understand what you're saying. Let me just suggest why this polio vaccine falls outside of kind of the criteria that you're using to make this choice.
And what we often find is that people they aren't so married to their opinions as they appear to be. Rather, they're married to a certain way of seeing the world. And if we understand how they see the world, then we gain some leverage over helping them, helping them see how our facts and our beliefs fit into their worldview.
Lainie Rowell: . So you're bringing like a lot of empathy and compassion rather than this kind of like arrogant,, I know what's best and this is what you should just kind of be.
Charles Duhigg: , you know, we describe it sometimes as empathy and compassion. It doesn't have to be. It can literally be just saying, I want to understand how you see things.
Like we see things differently. You voted for your guy. I voted for my guy. And, and, and just explain to me what you saw in your candidate that was so powerful to you. That doesn't necessarily mean that were going to agree with each other. And it doesn't mean that It doesn't mean that I, I have to feel compassion or empathy for your perspective, but once I understand your perspective, it's much more likely that I will feel at least some understanding and solidarity with you, even if we continue to disagree.
Lainie Rowell: Thank you for giving me that nuance. That was really, really helpful. Do you want to share looping for understanding?
Charles Duhigg: Sure. So one of the things that we've discovered is that.
Once you ask deep questions, once you sort of figure out where someone's head is at, what mindset they're in, then at that moment, you have to listen to what they're saying. But, but listening on its own is not enough. Oftentimes what you have to do is you have to prove that you're listening. Because, particularly in difficult conversations, there's always that sneaking suspicion at the back of our head that this person isn't actually listening to me, they're just waiting their turn to speak.
And so, one of the ways that we can prove that we're listening is a technique known as looping for understanding. And they teach it at Harvard, Stanford, a bunch of business and law schools. And it has three steps. The first step is that you should ask a question, preferably a deep question. The second step is that you should repeat back in your own words what you heard the person say.
And the goal here is not mimicry. The goal is to show them that you're processing what they've said. So maybe you're restating what they said in, in a completely different way. Maybe you're adding some, you know, what I heard you say was this, and it reminds me of something you said a couple of weeks ago, which was that you're proving to them that you're thinking about what's going on in what they said.
And most people do that intuitively. That's a pretty easy thing to do. It's the third step, where, at least I often forget, which is, after repeating back what you heard the person say, Ask them if you got it right, because what you're doing is when you say like, Hey, did I hear you? Am I, am I understanding you?
Completely. What you're doing is you're asking them for permission to acknowledge that you were listening. And one of the things that we know about our neurology and how our brains have evolved to communicate is that when I believe you are listening to me, when I acknowledge that you are listening to me, I become much, much more likely to listen to you.
And so if I want to convince someone to listen to me, to hear what I'm saying, the fastest path to do that is to prove to them that I am listening to them. And looping for understanding is a technique that, that makes that easy. There's a secondary benefit, which is if my job for myself is to repeat back what you've said in my own words, I actually have to pay pretty close attention, right?
I have to pay attention to what's going on. I can't let myself get distracted. And so it's a technique that also helps make us better listeners.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. And I would think help remember the conversation too.
Charles Duhigg: Yeah, absolutely.
Lainie Rowell: Okay. I know I got to let you go soon. I'm going to ask you two really quick questions.
Well, one of them depending on you. But, is there something that you just cannot share enough or something that you maybe haven't shared yet, but you think is really important?
Charles Duhigg: I think the most important thing is, Just to recognize that anyone can be a super communicator, right? Sometimes we look at these really charismatic folks or these popular people and we think to ourselves, Oh, they were born that way.
Like they had some experience I didn't have, but it's actually not true. If you talk to consistent Supercommunicatos, what they'll tell you is. There were long periods where they weren't good at communication, and they'll say things like, you know, when I was in high school, I had real trouble making friends, and so I had to really study how kids talk to each other, or, or my parents got divorced when I was young, and I had to be the peacemaker between them.
What they're saying is, they're saying, there were things in my life that forced me to think a little bit more deeply about communication, and that thinking about communication is what made me a great communicator. And the same thing is true for all of us. The more we practice thinking about communication and trying to use these skills in productive ways, the better we get at them, and anyone can become a super communicator.
Lainie Rowell: That's very empowering. Thank you so much. Last question, how can people get in touch with you, stay connected to you?
Charles Duhigg: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I have a website, CharlesDuhigg. com, D U H I G G. Or I'm on X and LinkedIn and all the different social media sites. Or if they just Google Supercommunicatos or The Power of Havoc, the first book I wrote, then I'll definitely come up.
Lainie Rowell: Okay. And I will put that all in the show notes. I really hope people get a chance to read your beautiful book. I keep it very close to me. I literally actually made a looping for understanding sign that I have in my office. It's like so good because I do think, like you said, first, we need to remember to ask the deep questions.
I do think some people are pretty good, or maybe even most people are pretty good at the summarizing, but that magic, did I get that right? That's the one that I need to remind myself. So, oh my goodness.
Charles Duhigg: Thank you for having me. This has been such a treat.
Lainie Rowell: Charles, thank you so much for your time. Can't wait to get this out to the world.
Charles Duhigg: Take care.
Lainie Rowell: thank you all for listening.