Supercommunicators with journalist Charles Duhigg | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

One of the things that I like about you is your books are different.

Oh, thanks.

You know, it's like sometimes writers, they. They write like, here's a book and here's another book that's kind of like the other book, you know, And I. I like that your books are different. I mean, the whole point of. I think a good book, and I think it's what. What's so nice about your work as well, which is you're not like, I'm the expert. Let me tell you. You're like, I'm on this journey. Want to come?

Yeah.

And that's joyous to read.

Bringing people on the journey is actually the most important part of teaching them the idea. Yeah, right. We. I think when people ask me for advice on storytelling.

What I usually say is, a lot of people focus on the beginning and the end of the story.

Yeah.

But the middle is where everything important happens.

Yes. Yeah.

And a lot of people just skip over it.

I've always thought of myself, I never want to be perceived as the expert. I want to be perceived as the guide.

Yeah.

You know, and my. When I write and when I speak, I'm very particular that I want to present enough evidence that my audience or my reader will come to the conclusion right before I do. So that when there's no ta da. There's no, like, wait for it, wait.

For it, wait for it.

Look how smart I am. There's none of that. What I want is when I provide this conclusion, I'm like. And here it is that the audience is going, yeah, yeah, that makes. Yeah, yeah, I saw that.

Yeah. That seems that.

That means enough. Yeah, that seems to make sense. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what I want their attitude to be. It's kind of like, yeah, of course.

You know, and then they carry it away. Yeah. Then they carry.

It's their conclusion, not mine. They just came on the. They came on the learning journey with me.

It's. I wish that there was. Yeah, I wish that there was more. One of the reasons I wrote Super Communicators was because I felt like we were living through this time when people had forgotten how to communicate with each other. And something else happened, which is that in 2017.

Or I guess it was in 2016, the New York Times made me a manager. I went from being a reporter to a manager, and I was terrible. Like, fantastically bad. And I went into it, I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna be so good at this. I've had bosses my whole life, and I got an mba From Harvard. I was like, I'm gonna kill this. And I was there, like. And the thing that would made me crazy was that I was really good at the logistics part. Like, I could, like, plan everything out and do all the diagrams. It was the communication part that I sucked at.

Yeah.

And so badly that, like, I would make other people angry without even understanding why they were angry and, like, get frustrated. My. I was terrible at it. And. But then also is at the same time that Trump got elected. Yeah, Right. And I'm looking around and I'm thinking, like, he's a great communicator. He is a very good communicator. But I looked at all these other people just screaming at each other, Right. Not wanting to have a dialogue at all. And.

One of the things that I thought was like, we've sort of forgotten. There's some lessons here that we've forgotten about how to.

Can we learn. Is it learnable?

Absolutely. I mean, the evidence is like, like completely clear on this. Nobody is born as a great communicator. Nobody's born as a super communicator. There is no personality type that is more likely to be a super communicator. It's literally all just learned skill.

It's fun. I've seen old footage of Steve Jobs and old footage of Ronald Reagan, both considered great communicators. And they sucked.

They're terrible.

They sucked. It's shocking by any standard. They. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bumbling, incoherent. Sucked.

And so what? So what happened there? Like, why. Let's take as a given that, like, actually our brains have evolved to communicate, Right? Communication is humans superpower. That is why we have succeeded as a species. It allows us to form families and societies. So what happened to those two fellows and a bunch of other people is that instead of sucking and being like, oh, gosh, I don't know why that didn't go well. They sat down and they thought hard about how can I make it go better? And there are these very obvious lessons that once you start looking for them, are apparent to you. And in the last decade, science has gotten so good. We're kind of living through this golden age of understanding communication because of advances in neuroimaging and data analytics. So now it's easier for us to describe those ideas. But the truth matter is all of us are prepared to be super communicators. It's just that some people don't think about it.

So define super communicator, first of all. Let's start there.

So the best Way to is if you're having a bad day and you know that there's one person, if you call them, they're gonna make you feel better. Who is that person?

My sister.

That person for you, is a super communicator. And my guess is your sister is actually a super communicator to many people. Yeah, she just knows how to make you feel listened to. She knows what you need. She knows how to, like, she knows how to have a conversation. You're a super communicator, right? You. You establish a flow with everyone who. Who comes on your podcast. So a super communicator is someone who has thought deeply about how to communicate, and as a result, they have the ability to invite others into the conversation. They have the ability to. To break through and make a connection, even in the most unlikely of situations. Yeah. And most importantly, they have the ability and they recognize the importance of achieving what scientists refer to as neural entrainment. Right. Where right now in this conversation, if we had enough machines, we would see that our pupils are actually dilating at the same rate, and our heart rates are starting to match each other and our breath rates and the electrical impulses on our skin. And most importantly, if we could see inside our brains, it's a deep mirroring. It's a deep mirroring inside our brains. We would see that our brain waves started to look similar, our brain activity started to look similar. That's what communication is.

So it's biological connection. Like, we have a connection.

It's literally biological connection.

Wow, that's cool.

And if you think about it, that makes sense, because the goal of communication is I have an idea or I have a feeling, and I want you to understand it. I want you to experience it. So if our brains become aligned, you're actually experiencing what I'm describing, and vice versa.

So tell a story.

Of what you consider a great communicator or what they do.

So.

One of the stories from the book. So one of the stories from the book is the story about this guy, Jim Lawlor, who is a CIA officer, and he had just gotten hired as a CIA officer, and they sent him over to Europe, and they were like, go recruit overseas assets. Go find spies. Basically get them to work for the CIA. And he's terrible at it. Like, he, like, he, like, he told me all these stories. Like, he would go to all these bars and, like, try and, like, chat up attaches, and they'd be like, I don't want anything to do with you. There's this one guy, he finally made friends with this one guy from the Chinese embassy. And, like, he takes him to lunch like, seven or eight times. And eventually he's like, hey, would you consider, you know, telling me some of the gossip you hear? And I could pay you for that? And the guy says, you know, actually, my family is very wealthy, and they kill people in my country for doing that. Let's not meet again.

At this.

It didn't even make a real friend.

No. So he. He's at this point when, like, it's been a year. And basically his bosses are like, we think you're going to get fired. Yeah, you just. You're just bad at this. And this woman comes into town who works for the Foreign Ministry of her home country back in the Middle East.

Yeah.

And he never told me which country, but it'll be pretty obvious which one it is. And so he goes and he introduces himself as an oil speculator. He, like, bumps into her restaurant, they develop a relationship, and he's taking her out to lunch, and he's trying to recruit her. And eventually he says, like, actually, I don't work for an oil. I work for the CIA. Would you consider helping us out? Because she hated what was going on in her home country. It had just been taken over by revolution. Islamic revolutionaries, religious revolutionaries.

She was a woman in approximately 1979.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You're guessing which country that is. And she's opposed to the regime. And he's like, we believe in the same thing. Will you help us out? And she just. She starts crying and she freaks out. She's like, no, I'm absolutely not going to do this. I'm going to get killed for even knowing you. So he goes to his bosses, and he'd already told them that he's trying to recruit her. And they're like, no, we told Washington D.C. you did this. We told Washington D.C. you had your first spy. If you don't deliver her, you're going to get fired. And so Jim. Jim is like, I'm screwed. Like, he doesn't know what to do. And so he basically asked this woman, Fatima, to have one more meal with him. And he goes in and he has all these ideas of how to. And, like, he gets to the meal, and he's like, this is just not going to work. Like, I cannot convince this person to take a suicidal risk.

Right.

So she's kind of down because she's about to go back to her home country, and she's kind of disappointed in herself.

And.

And Jim's trying to, like, cheer her up and make her feel better. And then after a while, like, it's just not working. And she's not really. Like, they're not connecting. And when dessert comes, he, like, he's like, I'm going to be totally honest with you. Like, I'm about to get fired. And the reason I'm about to get fired is I am really bad at this job. Like, everyone else in my class, they had this confidence or this something that I don't have. And I'm not even gonna try and get you to work for me. You've been honest with me. I want to be honest with you. I feel terrible about myself. You keep on saying you're disappointed in yourself. I understand that because I am so disappointed in myself. I've wanted this job my whole life.

Yeah.

And I've screwed it up. And she listens to him, and she starts crying. And he reaches over and he's like, I'm sorry. I did not mean to make you cry. And she goes, no, no, I think I can do this. And he's like. And he was so freaked out. He was like. He actually said, wait, no, no, you don't have to do anything. I don't want you. Like. Like, he's so panicked. And she goes, no, no. I think you. I think what you said before, that we both want the same thing. I think you're right. I. I can help you. And she goes to a safe house. The next day, she gets all this training and, like, covert communications. For the next 20 years, she's the best source in the Middle East. And when I asked Jim why, and Jim became one of the best recruiters in the CIA, he ended up training other officers how to do this. When I asked him, like, what's the secret? You train, you teach people. What he said was.

You have to match people where they're at.

Yeah.

Fatima was upset, and I was trying to cheer her up. Yeah. Or Fatima was scared, and I was trying to convince her she shouldn't be scared. Yeah. Once I just gave up and said, like, look, you're disappointed in yourself, and I'm disappointed in myself. Like, that's when she could hear me for the first time. Yeah. And within. Within the literature, this is known as the matching principle. Right. There's these different kinds of conversations and that you have to match the kind of conversation that's happening in order to connect. But a lot of it comes down to listening to those instincts that. That probably we evolved over millions of years that are sometimes hard to listen to in contemporary society. But you know that if somebody is. Is feeling something, that if you feel it with them, you feel more connected.

But he was honest, right?

Yes. That's a huge part. And so authentic.

And that's part of the problem, which is, you know, how can you fake these things? Can super communicators fake these things?

Not.

Once or twice, perhaps. But what's amazing is. And again, research has shown this our ability to detect inauthenticity is like laser sharp. There was actually one of my favorite experiments is these researchers took a bunch of people, friends laughing together and strangers trying to pretend like they're laughing together. And they would play people a half second of the laughter and ask them which is which, and people could detect it. 92%. Wow. We just know we like. So you're right.

Our survival depends on it.

Our survival, absolutely.

Our ability to form friendship and community means that I can trust you to watch for danger while I'm asleep.

That's exactly right. And if, by the way, you betray me, I will be so much more angry than if you simply did the same thing, but for benign reasons. Yes, it's, it's, it's an evolution. It's. It's grown up as a pro social instinct.

Are you a better communicator now that you've written the book?

Oh, my gosh. So much better.

What? Tell me something. Tell me how you showed up in different circumstances that you show up differently now.

So, okay, so two ways. The first way is I ask just a lot more questions, and I ask what are known as deep questions. And so a deep question is something that asks someone about their values or their beliefs or their experiences. And they usually start with why. So it's. And they can be very easy. It can be like, oh, you're a lawyer. Like, did you always want to be a lawyer? Like, why'd you go to law school? You know what, at what point did you decide that, like, the law was the thing for you? Yeah, those are easy questions to ask, but they're all deep questions because they're asking someone about their values or their experiences. Yeah. And so that's the first thing I do, is that I try and ask more deep questions and I try and just listen more closely. But then the second thing is there's this big insight that, that we think of a discussion as being about one thing, but actually every discussion is made up of multiple conversations, and most of them fall into one of three buckets. There's these practical conversations, right? We're making a decision, we're fixing A problem. There's emotional conversations where the goal is not to fix someone's problem. It's simply to sharehold space. Yeah. Hold space. And then there's social conversations, which is about how do we relate to other people? How do we think society sees us? And so I used to come home, and I would have a bad day at work, and I would be complaining to my wife, and she would respond with practical advice. She'd say, like, look, why don't you take your boss out to lunch and get to know him a little bit better? And instead of hearing her, I would get even more upset. But now I know it's because she was having a practical conversation. I was having an emotional conversation. We couldn't connect with each other. So now one of the first things I do is I try and figure out what kind of conversation are we having? Like, how do I match this other person? How do I invite them to match me? And sometimes it's as simple as just saying, like, my wife says this all the time. Like, do you want me to fix your problem or just listen to your problem? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or it can be as simple as saying, like, you know, we're gonna have a conversation. Like, what's important to you out of this conversation?

I love the idea of labeling the conversation. I've had it happen where I was in a bad place, and I called somebody for advice, and they started fixing, and I said to them, I appreciate your intention of trying to fix it. I need you to not fix it. I need you to just listen to me. So I was able to give instruction to match me at the time.

And they probably appreciated that.

They did.

Yeah.

And they said, sorry. And I've caught myself, too, like, in the middle of trying to fix somebody's problem. Like, do you need me to offer you solutions now? You know.

Right.

I love this idea of labeling. And it's like everybody can remember three things. They're easy. Social, we're having fun. Emotional, how you feeling? Practical, you know, do you want to fix something, or do you want to talk about something intellectual?

That's exactly.

And it's. It's. They're easy to understand. They're easy to remember. And I love the idea that it's not some deep internal skill. You just have to make known the thing that's happening so that we can be on the same wavelength and have that mirroring.

That's exactly right. And I think that that's what Steve Jobs and Ronald Reagan and other people do is they. They walk away from a bad Conversation. And instead of being like, that was a bad conversation.

Yeah.

They think to themselves, what did I miss? Like, what should I look for next time?

Yeah.

And if you start paying attention, what you notice is, like, you're talking to a. To a friend or a colleague, and they'll say something in a practical conversation. Right. Or at work, they'll say something emotional, and it's really easy to gloss over it. They'll say like, my son just graduated. I'm so proud.

Yeah.

Or I. Sorry I didn't reply to your email yesterday. It was like a. I had something going on. And our instinct is to stay on that practical track. Right. Like. But if you say like, that's amazing. Tell me about your son. What was going on yesterday? Is it anything that. Like, it's helpful to talk through?

Yeah.

That person. All of a sudden, we are. We are matching them.

Yeah.

And they're more willing to listen to us. And more importantly, when we say, let's talk through this issue and then let's get back to the budget planning, they're gonna go there with you.

I love that idea also. Which is. It's okay to go off script.

Yeah.

In fact, you have to go off.

Script or the script hardly even exists. It's a falsity that we think that there's a script that we need to hold ourselves to. Yeah.

That's so good. It's so good. What is your hope for the book? I know it's a big question, but, like.

My hope is that is twofold. I'm hoping that people read this book and that they get something as powerful from it, improves their own life, that they can use it. And then secondarily, like, this is very grand aspiration, but I hope that I'm part of encouraging a bigger discussion about how we can, as a nation and as humans, have conversations with people who are different from us.

Where we do connect. Those are the most. If you think about the origin of America, America was born. Born in conversation. The Constitutional Convention were people who hated each other having a conversation until they had a constitution. And our best moments, the best moments for South Africa, the best moments for the UK around the world. Our best moments are moments when we have a hard conversation with someone whom it is hard to have that conversation.

You can't make peace with your friends.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Can you tell me a story of something you wrote, an article, a project you worked on in your professional career? It doesn't matter whether it was commercially successful or not, but that you absolutely loved this project? You absolutely love this thing. And if every project you ever worked on was, like, this one thing, you'd be the happiest person alive.

Yeah. So there's. I wrote this piece for the New Yorker about two years ago about Spax. Do you remember? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was about this guy, Chamath.

Well done.

Yeah, thanks. I think I got a little bit wrong. I loved this piece. I loved writing this piece. I loved writing about Chamath. I loved. Like, it was just so colorful and fun. And I love finance.

Yeah.

Nobody read it. Like, it was, like, one of these things where, like, it was like, oh, the New York audience is not into finance the same way I'm into finance. Or not into this guy who's, like, bombastic and weird the way that I am. But I was just so gloriously happy to have written. I was like, if I read this piece, I would read the shit out of it. Or, like, if I bought this, I would read the shit out of this piece. Like, I love it.

Okay, so you've written some amazing things. You've won a Pulitzer Prize. What specifically was it about this one piece that you light up when you're thinking about it. You light up when you're talking about it.

It's a really good question, because one of the reasons I decided to leave the Times was because that series I wrote about Apple that won the Pulitzer, I couldn't stand to read it. Nobody. Like, it was just boring. It was boring to read. It wasn't fun. And this piece about Chamath and Spax, it was just fun. Like, this guy, like, he, like, drops F bombs all the time. He, like, tries to piss off other people because he thinks it helps him sell things. Like, he says ridiculous things. He left his wife when she had cancer in order to go marry someone younger. Like. Like, it's just this story where you're like, this is ridiculous. I cannot believe that this guy exists. It was just so much fun.

But you've written fun things before.

Yeah.

So what is it about this one that sort of.

I don't know.

You answered this question very quickly.

Honestly. I think it's because it wasn't popular.

Yeah.

Like, it just. It felt like for the first time, it's something I can point to that I'm like, I wrote that for me.

Huh? Huh?

And the thing is, when you're a professional writer and you know this is that you become a professional writer because you love writing, it's easy to fall out of love with writing.

Yeah.

It's. It's hard and it and, like, you get into this place where it doesn't feel. It doesn't feel the way it used to feel, right? It doesn't feel special anymore. And I had felt that way for a long time. And. And then I wrote this piece, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is what. This is what I liked. Like, I. I liked. I like writing things that surprise me by what ends up coming out of my fingers.