The secret to having better conversations – 03/17/2024 – Balance

Rich, deep conversations can be wonderful, but they seem increasingly rare in our daily lives.

Whether with our partner, family or colleagues, we easily start talking about different things or get into meaningless disputes, without ever being able to understand each other.

How can we avoid these pitfalls?

To find out, science writer David Robson spoke to another writer, Charles Duhigg, about his new book, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection (“Supercommunicators: how to unlock the secret language of connection”, in free translation). Check out the interview below.

David Robson: How do you define a super communicator?
Charles Duhigg: I have a question. If you’re having a bad day and want to call a friend, knowing that talking to that person would make you feel better – do any names come to mind?

Of course, I immediately think of one of my best friends.
So for you, she’s a super communicator – and, chances are, you’re a super communicator for her. You both know how to listen to each other so that you actually hear what the other person is saying.

And you know how to prove that you are listening. You know how to ask the right questions, the questions that really make you realize things about yourself, and she offers evidence that she wants to be there for you.

Now, some people do this consistently. They can connect with almost anyone. And these people are consistent super communicators.

When I started writing this book, I imagined that these people must be really charismatic or extroverted. But the bottom line is that it is simply a set of techniques or tools that anyone can learn.

What does neuroscience tell us about the secrets of good communication?
When any of us communicates with another person, our bodies and brains become involved. The pupils of our eyes begin to dilate at basically the same rate and our breathing patterns begin to equalize.

And, most importantly, our neural activity becomes more and more alike as we begin to think alike.

The thing about communication is that I can describe an emotion I’m feeling or an idea I’m experiencing and you feel some version of it. Our brains become more and more similar.

In your book, you mention beautiful research by neuroscientist Beau Sievers, who reveals how supercommunicators alter group dynamics.
It’s really fascinating. He gathered groups of people and asked them to discuss parts of films that were really confusing.

He found that some groups simply came together and connected – and their responses were much better.

Within each of those groups, there was at least one person who was a super communicator. They did things like ask 10-20 times more questions than the average person.

Some of their questions were designed to invite others into dialogue, while others allowed others to share something more meaningful about themselves. And these participants also adapted to the joy or seriousness of the others.

But most importantly, they recognized that there were different types of conversations.

Most of us think an argument is about one issue. We’re talking about my day at work or my son’s grades.

But in reality, every discussion is made up of different types of talk, and most fall into one of three types.

There are practical conversations, when we make plans or solve problems. There are emotional conversations when I tell you how I’m feeling and I want you to listen and sympathize with me.

And there are social conversations, which are how we relate to others and the social identities we carry with us.

Sievers found that supercommunicators are so effective because they pay attention to the type of conversation that is taking place. They adapt to other people in the group and invite those people to adapt as well. So they all have the same type of conversation at the same time.

This reminds me of psychologist Anita Williams Woolley’s research on collective intelligence. She concluded that the individual social sensitivity of team members determines their ability to solve problems together.
Absolutely, and when you think about what we call social sensitivity or having empathy, it really means that you’re simply paying attention to what the other person is saying that they need in the moment and what kind of conversation they want to have.

You argue that we should ask more “deep” questions. Why?
Deep questions ask someone about their values, beliefs, or experiences.

When we talk about these things, we talk about who we really are. And they’re really easy questions to ask, aren’t they?

If you meet someone who is a doctor, you can ask, “what made you decide to attend medical school?” or “What do you enjoy most about practicing medicine?”

These are two deep questions that invite the other person to say something real and meaningful about themselves. And they make it easier for us to respond, telling her why we decided to do our work.

Well, in this interview, I wanted to ask you a profound question. What personal experiences led you to write the book Supercommunicators?
I was working as a manager at the time, and I was actually terrible at that job. I was good at strategy and logistics, but communication was my difficulty.

I fell into the same pattern with my wife. I would come home after a long day of work and start complaining about my boss and my colleagues.

And she, quite rightly, gave some advice, like “why don’t you take your boss to lunch, so you can get to know each other a little better?”

But instead of being able to hear her, I became even more disturbed. And then she would also get upset, because suddenly I would start yelling at her, simply because she gave me some advice.

When I told the researchers, they said I was trying to have an emotional conversation, while my wife was having a practical conversation. If you don’t have the same type of conversation at the same time, you won’t really hear each other and you definitely won’t connect.

This is known in psychology as the combination principle. Real communication requires you to have the same type of conversation at the same time.

What is the role of nonverbal communication?
We know that around 50% of the way we send signals and receive information in a conversation is not linked to the content of the words, but to everything that surrounds us: tone of voice, speed of speech, body language, expressions in the face.

Our brain has this ability to detect what people feel, paying attention to two things: energy and mood.

Babies can sense their parents’ moods, even before they learn to speak or understand words.

But as we get older, words become so captivating, so rich with information, that we tend to stop paying attention to everything else, and sometimes we need to remind ourselves to do that.

In your book, you illustrate this with the series ‘The Big Bang Theory’…
At first, “The Big Bang Theory” was a complete fiasco. It was successful because the writers figured out how to make the characters express their feelings without using words.

The series is about these physicists who are very bad at conveying their emotions or feelings. That’s where the humor comes from — they’re really weird and it’s funny.

But the question is how to write a comedy when your main characters can’t make the viewer understand what they are thinking or feeling.

After the first pilot was rejected, the writers created a new recipe, in which each of the characters demonstrates what they are feeling with their humor and energy.

So in the new pilot, there’s a scene where two physicists meet that beautiful woman, Penny, for the first time and all they say is “hello” and “hello” and “hello.” But every time they say hello, they say it differently.

They change the mood, they change the energy and [subitamente] you know exactly what they are feeling. At first they’re excited, then they feel really embarrassed, then they feel like they need to kind of back off without even changing the words.

With just their mood swings and energy, we, the audience, know what they are thinking and feeling. And the same is true of any conversation that takes place.

How has writing about supercommunication changed your life?
Now, at the beginning of just about any conversation, my wife and I talk about what kind of conversation we want to have.

Liz will say something like “do you want me to help you solve this problem? Or do you need to just breathe and get it off your chest?” And I do the same thing with her.

Then we prove to each other that we are really listening, by asking follow-up questions or repeating what the other said.

The most important thing is that we simply show each other and tell each other that we want to connect. Because when we know someone wants to connect with us, we want to connect with them.

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Charles Duhigg’s book, “Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection”, was published (in English) by Cornerstone Press, in the United Kingdom, and by Random House, in the USA.

David Robson is a science writer and author of the book The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life (in English), published by Canongate, in the United Kingdom, and by Henry Holt, in the USA. You can find him as @d_a_robson on X (old Twitter) and like @davidarobson on Instagram and in Threads.

Read the original version of this report (in English) on the website BBC Future.