Struggling to Be Heard? Learn the Secret of Super Communicators — with Charles Duhigg

Hey, I'm Kwame Christian, and you are about to step into the world of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world, where we teach you how to make difficult conversations easier while getting more of what you want in the process. Each episode is packed with practical tips and strategies from the experts. We delve into negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills that are crucial in both business and and in life. Whether you're closing a deal, managing a team, or navigating personal relationships, Negotiate Anything provides you with the tools you need to succeed. Our conversations are real, relatable, and most importantly, rooted in practicality. So if you're ready to transform your conversations and elevate your negotiation skills, join me on Negotiate Anything. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen to. Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation. Charles, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you for having me. This is really exciting for me.

Yes, likewise, my friend. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Sure. My name is Charles Duhigg. I'm the author, most recently, of Super Communicators, which is a book about the science of connection and conversation. Previously, I wrote a book called the Power of habit about 10 years ago and another book called Smarter, Faster, Better. And right now I'm a reporter at the New Yorker magazine, and I used to be a reporter at the New York Times.

Very nice. We're excited to have you. We at a and I were fans of your work. I've gobbled up your books, so I'm excited to chat with you about this. And when it comes to your most recent book, just tell us about the central thesis of the book. What was it that you had to accomplish with this book?

Absolutely. And let me say, I'm a fan of ANI as well. Like, I think the work you guys do is wonderful. So this book, Super Communicators, kind of started for me a couple years ago when I found myself falling into this. This pattern with my wife that I did not like. And the same thing was happening at work. I would come home from a long day at the office, and I would start complaining to my wife about my boss and my coworkers, and they don't understand me. Nobody appreciates me. And she very practically would give me this good advice. She would say something like, you know, why don't you take your boss out to lunch and you guys can get to know each other a little bit better. It's good advice. Right? But instead of being Able to hear what she was saying to me, I would get even more upset. And I would say, like, you know, you're supposed to be supporting me. You're supposed to be on my side. Why aren't you outraged on my behalf? She would get upset that I was attacking her for giving me good advice. And I think anyone in a relationship, I'm assuming yourself, we all fall into this pattern, right? This is just part of what happens, that the conversation should go well. It's clear how we could make it easy. And instead, it does not go well. And so I started calling up researchers and asking them, like, why my wife and I have been married for 20 years, like, why does this keep happening? And they said, well, look, we're actually glad you called, because we're living through this golden age of understanding communication because of advances in neural imaging and data collection. And they said, one of the big things that we figured out is we tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing, right? We're talking about my day, or we're talking about our kids, or we're talking about next year's next quarter's budget. But actually, every discussion is made up of different kinds of conversations. And those kinds of conversations, they tend to fall into one of three buckets. There's practical conversations, which are about making plans and solving problems. But then there's also emotional conversations where I might tell you what I'm feeling, but. And I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize. And then finally, there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other, how we relate to society, the social identities that are important to us. And they said, what we figured out is if you're not having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, you have real trouble hearing each other, right? That's what was happening with my wife and myself. I was coming home and having an emotional conversation. My wife was responding with a practical conversation. They're both legitimate conversations, but we couldn't hear each other because we were having different kinds of conversations. And this has given rise to what's known as the matching principle in psychology, which says successful communication requires knowing what kind of conversation is happening and matching each other. Me matching you, inviting you to match me. And that when we get aligned, we can move from emotional to practical to social, back to emotional altogether. But that alignment has to occur at some point.

Oh, Charles, there is so much to explore here and the future. Kwame, thanks you for your contribution. This is great. And I think if the listeners are anything like me as they were hearing you say this, they're saying, oh, my gosh, it makes so much sense. And so it's incredibly empowering to be able to see with such specificity why these conversations break down. And now one of the things that I'm hearing as well is responsibility, too. Because if we now have this information, because most people don't, this isn't intuitive. It's our responsibility to be the person who then steers the conversation in the right direction. Because at the end when you said the matching principle, now it's my responsibility to match you and then invite you to match me.

Yeah. And I think it's kind of one of those responsibilities that you're happy to have. Right. Because it's going to make things easier. I mean, particularly for negotiators. Right. I think that the best negotiators know that your goal when you walk into that room is not. Not necessarily to bludgeon the other person, not to convince them. Your goal is to understand what they want and help them understand what you want and see where that zone of possible agreement, that area of alignment exists. Negotiation is an act of creativity. It's an act of art. And I think that what this does is it gives us a new tool or an opportunity to try and understand when we're not connecting with each other why, and a responsibility or a superpower to hopefully make those moments better and easier.

Absolutely. And now for us, as we try to be super communicators, I think one of the things we would need to do is effectively diagnose what the problem is. And I think even before that, recognize that there is a problem. And so in your opinion, what are some of the things that we should pay attention to to be that are signals that there might be an issue.

So I think the best thing to do is that there's a technique for kind of figuring out what's going on. Many of us tend to use without understanding that we're using it or realizing that we're using it. One of the things that we know about super communicators, and we're all super communicators at one time or another, but consistent super communicators, people can. Who can do this in almost any setting and with almost anyone, they tend to ask more questions than the average person. They tend to ask like 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. And some of those questions are questions that are kind of designed to invite us in, like, oh, what'd you think about that? Or oh, what. What would you say next? But some of the questions are what are known as deep questions. And a deep question is something that asks me about my values or my beliefs or my experiences. And that can sound a little intimidating, but it's as simple as if you meet someone who's a doctor, instead of asking, you know, where do you practice medicine? Asking, oh, what made you decide to go to medical school? What do you love about being a doctor? Do you enjoy it? Those are easy questions to ask, but they're actually deep questions. Because what I'm really doing is I'm saying, I'm inviting you to say something more meaningful about how you see the world. Now, I'm not mandating it, but I'm inviting it inevitably. What I'm going to hear is a couple of things I'm going to, first of all, hear. If there is a problem here, if there is some tension, if there is something that we don't recognize, it's going to give you the freedom to put it on the table.

Right?

The second thing that's going to happen is you're going to tell me what kind of mindset you're in, whether you're in a social mindset or an emotional mindset or a social mindset. Because the same person might answer that doctor question, just depending on the setting and the mindset that they're in and how they're feeling that day, they might say, oh, you know, I always wanted to. It was important to me to have a steady job, and I knew there'd always be demand for medicine. Okay, that person's in a practical mindset right now. But that same person in a different setting might say, oh, you know, I saw my dad get sick when I was a kid, and I wanted to be one of those healers. I saw the people help him. And that person is probably in a more emotional mindset, maybe a social mindset. When we ask deep questions, what we're really asking is, tell me how you see the world. Like, tell me what's important about you that you want me to know. When we open it up with a question that'll invite someone to do that, inevitably, if there is a problem, if there is an issue, if there's something that they want to get across, it'll help them get it across, and that helps us diagnose. What are we really talking about here? Why are we having this conversation? What's our goal?

That is powerful, and I love the data that we're bringing this to, asking 10 to 20 more questions or times More questions.

Did you say times more questions? Yeah, times more questions. Super communicators, they're literally asking questions on stop. And you don't even register it most of the time because they're questions that you welcome. You enjoy hearing them.

Yes. That's powerful because that's a skill set. That's a blend of art and science, too. Because I think we've all been in those situations where we're talking to somebody who is just peppering us with questions. And it doesn't feel like an inviting conversation. It feels like an interrogation or a cross examination. And so as we start to embody these new habits of communication, how do we make sure that we don't tip into that. That mode where it feels more like a cross examination?

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think part of it is when we are asking questions, and particularly deep questions, we need to remember to answer our own questions. And the nice thing about a deep question is it's very natural to answer your own question and to create space for the other person to ask questions. So if I ask you, why'd you decide to become a doctor? And you say, oh, I saw my dad get sick, it's very, very natural for me to say, oh, that's so interesting. I became a lawyer because I saw my uncle get arrested, right now instead of me conducting an interview. Now what I'm doing is I'm sharing something about myself. And what's really important in creating a sense of connection is what's known as reciprocal authenticity. That if you say something meaningful, that I should honor that by saying something meaningful myself. Now, that does not mean that I need to mimic you. Right? Matching is not mimicry. So if you say, oh, you know, it's been a tough week because my aunt passed away, it's not appropriate. It's not a good idea for me to say, like, oh, I totally understand what you mean. I had a dog that died seven years ago. And, like, Right. Like, that's not. But also, that's not me trying to match you. That's me trying to steal the spotlight from you. Like, the most matching thing I can do in a situation like that is say, oh, I'm so sorry. I know how hard that is. What was your aunt like? Like, tell me about your aunt. That doesn't feel like an interrogation. That feels like a conversation. Because what I'm trying to do in that case is I'm trying to show you, prove to you that I'm listening, I'm processing. I know that losing someone is Hard. I know that it's top of mind for you. And then I'm gonna invite you to share with me what your aunt was like, what you're feeling. But I'm not going to mandate it. Right. Just saying, what was your aunt like? Gives you a chance to say, oh, let me tell you about her. Or just to say, oh, she was wonderful. I don't really. What you're really saying is I don't want to get into it right now, but I'm inviting you to say something more meaningful. Whereas a question like, did you live with your aunt? Were you financially supporting her? Those are mandates to get deep. But an invitation to get deep feels very different.

This is powerful. The nuance here is just incredible because again, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about my own experiences, conversations I've had that did not feel good, conversations where I did not perform as well as I would have liked. And it's these slight distinctions that can really make or break that connection. And let's, let's go deeper into matching versus one up upping a story. Because this is something that comes up a lot and especially when you're thinking about really sensitive conversations, maybe conversations relating to identity and you talk about a hardship that you experienced because of your ident and somebody that doesn't share that identity says, I know exactly how you feel. One time I didn't get picked for the team. It's like it's not the same. Right. So how do we balance that, showing that reciprocal authenticity and being a generous conversationalist without tipping into one upping them?

Yeah, it's a really, really good question. I think oftentimes when this happens, that instinct to say like, oh, I understand what it's like to be excluded from getting a job because I wasn't chosen for the baseball team. What we're trying to do there is we're trying to focus on our commonalities. I'm trying to find something that I have in common with you, no matter how ham handed or clumsy it is. But what's really important, particularly about a social conversation, a conversation that's about our respective identities, is not only that we acknowledge what we have in common, but also that we acknowledge how we are different. Because it feels disrespectful to ignore the fact that because of your religion or your political beliefs or the color of your skin, you have had different experiences than I have. Right. You, you're aware and I'm aware that this difference exists. And to leave it unacknowledged is to basically say, I don't want to hear this aspect of who you are. Now, what's hard, though, is that it's very easy to do this in a way that feels alienating. I'm white, and you're black. And in a conversation, if I said to you, as a black man, I'm wondering, what do you think about policing? One of the things that I'm doing is I'm kind of backing you into a corner, right? You're suddenly like, okay, I guess I have to represent all black men on the question of policing a very. By choosing just one identity, what I'm doing is I'm trying to kind of push you a little bit into the stereotype that you're supposed to represent. But there's a better way of doing this, which is to recognize the many identities that both you possess and I possess, and instead to ask this question, to say, look, Kwame, I'm wondering, as a black man, you probably see this. This policing issue a little bit differently than I do. But I also know, like, you're an attorney, you're a father, you're a brother, you're a manager, you're a podcast host. By introducing, by bringing all of these different identities to the table and saying, look, with all those different hats on, you probably see policing in a really interesting way. Can you tell me about that? What I'm doing is, instead of trying to push you into a stereotype, push you into a corner, I'm basically saying, look, I recognize you contain multitudes, as do I. Tell me which of those multitudes informs how you think about this topic. And that makes that conversation feel so much better, Right? Because I'm not saying you're black. I'm white. I'm saying you are a thousand things, and I am a thousand things. And some of those things are things we have in common and some of the things that we don't have in common. And it's really interesting to discuss those differences as well as those similarities. How does that feel to you? Would that feel if I asked the question that way, would it feel better?

Well, for the folks who are listening only on audio, you missed the grimace that I had as you framed the first one. Yeah, it felt so much better. So much better. Because I think what we're recognizing here is that in these conversations, what we want to do is respect the complexity of the person in front of us. And it's really reductive to just say, oh, you are this thing and that thing alone. And that's how I see you, because it makes you feel really small, like that's all you see in me. But then the person feels seen and appreciated. When you say no, I recognize you're not just this. You're so many other things. Tell me about that.

And what's interesting is, and a lot of this research comes from conversations around race, watching people have conversations around race. I think oftentimes, particularly today, we avoid mentioning race when we're having a discussion. But if policing came up, the fact that you have lived the life experiences of a black man and I have the life experiences of a white man, it is not something that we are going to forget, Right? It's something both of us are thinking about. But it shouldn't be the thing that defines the entire conversation. It should be an element, an opportunity to share. And the truth is that whether it's policing, whether it's race, whether it's politics, we probably do see some things differently. And understanding that difference does not mean that we can't connect with each other. In fact, everyone we connect with in the most profound way. It's because we recognize what we have in common and what we don't have in common. That's what makes the relationship feel meaningful.

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That's exactly right. And who have the skills to be able to take advantage of that opportunity. Right. The mistake that I think a lot of people make is, and that I made myself, is thinking that communication is this art or it's something we're born with, or we either have the gift of gab or we don't. What we find from the research is anyone can be a super communicator. It's literally just a set of skills that you can learn. And in fact, we are all communicators in fact, I'll ask you a question. So if you were having a bad day and you wanted to call someone who you know would make you feel better, do you know who you would call? Like, does that person pop into your mind?

Oh, yeah, 100%. It would be Paul Balaji. I called him yesterday. Okay. Yeah.

Okay, Paul.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So for you, Paul is a super communicator. And you are super communicator back for Paul, I would imagine. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And what's interesting is that there's a set of skills you guys are using with each other, right? Like, Paul probably knows you how to ask the right question. Like, he knows how to ask you the deep question. Paul probably knows when to listen and when to prove that he's listening. He knows how to give you feedback that maybe you don't want to hear, but you know, you need to hear. Those are all skills that Paul can use with anyone. Right. The same way that we learn to read by reading fiction. That doesn't mean we can't read nonfiction. Reading is a skill that is cross applicable. Communication skills are also cross applicable. And what consistent super communicators do is they recognize the skills that they're using and they say to themselves, okay, I use this with Kwame. It's, you know, because he's a close friend, but actually I can also use the same skill with the guy I see in the bus or with my boss or with a customer. It's just a recognition that these are skills that any of us can learn and practice and make into habits.

I love how you tied it back to habits. That's great.

And now I want to meet Paul. Paul sounds like a great guy.

He's a great guy. He is. He really is. And what I love about this is it's very empowering. When people are having tough conversations. A lot of times they're afraid. They have stress, anxiety, lacking in confidence. That's the key word, the confidence. And what you're showing us here is that from different. In different relationships and different times in our lives, we at different points have shown the skills of super communicators is that we just struggle to bring it into this particular moment, at this particular.

Time, and in particular, because we don't even think of them as skills, right? It's not so much that we struggle to bring those skills in as much as we're. We're saying, like, I don't understand what's going wrong. Why isn't this working? Because we don't even Understand that we have those skills because we don't see them as skills. It's interesting. So people who are consistent super communicators, and there's a lot of these folks, when researchers, you know, when I started writing the book, I figured they'd all be, like, extroverts and really charming. And it turns out that's not true at all. Basically, some are extroverts, some are introverts, some are charming, some are curmudgeonly. One of the things that they tend to have in common is that if you ask them they were. If they were always good at communication, they'll tell you no. They'll say things like, when I was in high school, I had trouble making friends, and so I really had to study how, like, kids talk to each other because it was just totally unnatural for me. Or my parents got divorced, and I had to be the peacemaker between my mom and my dad. What's going on there is that they had something in life that forced them to think about communication just half an inch deeper than the average person. And it's that thinking about communication that makes us good at communication. And so, in a lot of ways, if we want to become super communicators, all we really need to do is just recognize that we have these skills. But then think about them. Think about, like, when I'm talking to Paul, what am I doing with him that I could do with a client or do with a coworker? It's the thinking about it that helps us see the opportunity.

Let me take a quick note here, Kwame. Your origin story is not unique. That's so funny. Yeah. Because I struggled as a people pleaser for a long time, and I had to work hard to study it and figure it out. And now that you mentioned it, I hear this all the time. People struggled for so many different reasons. And now this is an aside, but I'd just be interested to get your thoughts on this hypothesis I just created right now. I think, like you said, when somebody struggles with communication, it forces them to focus on it, and then they get better. What I've noticed is that sometimes when people think very, very highly of their communication skills and think they've always been good at it, a lot of times they have gaps that they can't see, but other people feel.

So it's really interesting. The CIA actually did this study. The CIA is essentially a communication agency.

Right.

Like, when you go to the farm, you're learning how to communicate with others. And so they did this survey where they. They Asked people to rate their own communication ability. And what they found is that people who are bad at communication would put themselves in the, like, 0 to 5 range. They knew that they would actually put themselves in the 0 to 5 range. And they were right. They were bad at communication. But the second worst group of communicators were people who put themselves in the 9 to 10 range. People who thought they were great at communication, who would say, I'm really, really good at this. They were people who had real gaps. The absolute best communicators would rank themselves from five to eight. And I think what's going on there is that exactly to your point, that part of communication, as I mentioned, is thinking about communication. When we think we're really good at something, we stop thinking about it. If I'm great at making layups, I stop thinking about layups. I stopped practicing them. But it's the Michael Jordan who says on a layup, like, I'm a 10 on. On coming from the left side, but only a 7 coming from the right side. And I'm going to work both of them really, really hard. That's what makes him Michael Jordan. Is saying, I'm never going to let myself stop thinking about something. And the only way that I. That I can keep myself focused on it is to be very conscious of when it doesn't go well, my weaknesses. And I need to think about those. So you're exactly right. The first thing to do to become a super communicator is to say, there are places where I am not a super communicator and I want to work on those, and I'm going to get better at those. And once I get better at those, my job is to find the other places where I'm not a super communicator and start working on those as well.

Absolutely. It makes sense. It makes sense. If you think you're perfect, there's no need to improve. And so it just completely shifts your mindset. So I know you're an author and incredible writer, and I know one of the toughest parts of writing a book is the process of writing a book. And then for me, I don't know if it's the same for you. Finishing the book was really hard because your thoughts always develop. And so since publication, since you were done, what is something that you wished you could have gone back and put into the book?

So I wish I had talked more about online communication. And there's some stuff in there about online communication. There's a lot of stuff in there about online Communication. There's a story about this experiment where they brought together gun rights advocates and gun control activists, and they basically taught them how to speak to each other face to face. And it went really, really well. And then they went online, and it, like, fell apart immediately. Like, people started calling each other jackbooted Nazis. And they were able to learn from that, to learn how to make online conversations better. The thing that I think really resonates with me is that I hear from a lot of. Of parents who say, how do I teach my kids to communicate? Should I be worried about my kids communication? And what I would say is this. When our parents were in school, they usually, they probably took a class called like, Home EC or interpersonal communications. We used to practice conversation in schools, and we do less of that now because curriculums have become more technical. And that's fine. But that means that it's up to parents to really spend time. And by parents, I also mean coworkers, and I mean friends to spend time teaching people how to communicate. And the best way we do that is through modeling, right? So I have this thing with my kids where we play this game called the questions game. I ask them a question, and then they have to ask me a question, and they can't ask me the question that I just asked them because otherwise that's what they'll do. And the thing is that they have to ask a question they have to get good at. So we practice asking questions, and then we'll go to a restaurant and I'll tell them after we order the food, you can't come back and eat your food until you have found out one thing about a stranger in this restaurant. So they'll go, and they'll go from table to table and be like, my dad's making me do this thing. Can you tell me something about yourself? And like, and it's. We always say, like, don't bother people who don't seem like they want to be bothered, right? But they're cute kids, so it's easy to do. And what, what I'm really doing is I'm just getting them to practice asking questions, right? Sort of like awkward questions. And so I think the thing is, as parents, as friends, as coworkers, as mentors, as employers, one of the best things we can do is we can model what good communication looks like. And, and when we do that, even if it feels awkward, even if it feels a little bit hard to us at first, we're actually helping those other people learn how to communicate better.

Powerful. Powerful. Also Stealing that from my boys. That's great.

Oh yeah. How old are your boys?

Eight years old and three next, next month.

Okay, so the eight year old could probably do it. The three year old might have a little, might be a little bit more challenging. What do you do with them? Like, how do you, how do you model communication? Like when you're, when you're teaching them how to talk to adults and how to talk to strangers.

What do you think about, man, this. Great question. I love when guests ask questions. Yeah, I think it's. First of all, I've always talked to him just the way I'm talking to you. I'll talk to him kind of like in an adult type of way. And I would recognize when I need to kind of take it down a level and just kind of try to do a little bit of scaffolding in that type of way to pull up his communication skills. Recently, one of the things is just making sure he gets out of the house and start to play with neighborhood kids. Because now even there are times where he's, he's playing a video game and he's like, I'm playing with my friends online. I'm like, they're next door. Just play. And so one day I said, I told him to go and play with his friends. He's like, dad, why do you keep telling me to do this? Like, Kai, because I don't want you to be weird. That's. Why do you need to go out there and talk to people? But it's really just making sure that he is having these conversations. Because I see, I recognize that the studies, and then also just in my experience, experience, children are more likely to connect digitally with each other now than in person. They're opting for that because of its ease. And also encouraging him to talk to adults and encouraging the adults to talk to him in a more mature type of way too.

Absolutely. And it's interesting that this digital thing that you mentioned, because there's a lot of anxiety about this. You know, colleague of mine, Jonathan Haidt has a book out, the Anxious Generation. So one distinction that is important to make is there are many things about digital life that aren't great for kids. Right. If you're watching TikTok, if you're watching, looking at Instagram, if you're not engaged in a conversation but you're just kind of scrolling, that tends to have a fairly negative impact on kids. But there are many things that kids do with their phones or video games that is an act of communication. And those are actually Things that we can encourage now, you're right. If you're playing a video game with someone who's next door, go outside and like, go next door. Right. Even if you're sitting in front of the screen, side by side is better than over the phone. But it is interesting to note that, like, when kids are texting with each other, when they're Snapchatting each other, when they're engaged in conversation, as long as those conversations are positive conversation, it's not bullying, then they're actually learning to communicate. And in some ways, they're learning to communicate in a way that is less intuitive to you and I, their parents. And think back to, like, when you were in middle school, I'm sure your parents. You would be on the phone right? Until like, for like, five hours a night. And your parents are like, get off the phone. Like, that's not. Go have real conversations. Right. Or you're wasting time. But what you were actually doing is you were learning to use a format that's going to be very central to your life because you're growing up in a different environment than your parents did. Our kids are learning to communicate digitally, and we can't let that be the only form of communication. But learning to communicate digitally is an acceptance of the form of communication that they are going to use far more than we do, even if we use it a lot right now.

That's so smart. No, that's great. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Because it's almost. It's somewhat similar to code switching because if you're talking to somebody in a different generation, you have to have to adjust slightly. It makes a lot of sense.

That's absolutely true. And I think that helping our kids be aware of that code switching, which I'm sure you do as a parent, as a. When you're modeling for them, you talk to your mom differently than you talk to other people. We have to be respectful of our elders when we explain code switching. What we're doing is we're helping them think about communication. And in our perfect world, we wouldn't have to think about some type of code switching.

Right.

There's some types of code switching that's kind of burdensome, but we don't live in a perfect world. And so helping our kids think you have control over how you communicate, you have control over a situation that might seem alienating or hard to you. You have a control over making it better. That's really powerful for that kid.

Absolutely. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And that's One thing I haven't explicitly said this is, I've hinted at it, but not that explicit. So I think that's, that's really good coaching for me because that could be really helpful to just bring that to the fore because there's sometimes you. Everybody does it. It's like, okay, I have to turn it on. This is professional mode. This is friend mode. And just making that adjustment consciously can be really helpful.

And also specifying it's not inauthentic, and this is something that I think a of lot trips up a lot of people is that when we talk about these skills and they're practicing these skills, they often say, this feels clumsy, it feels non natural, it feels performative. And that's true. But the thing to keep in mind is communication is a performative activity. And the truth is that when you were learning to read, when we first start learning to read, it feels clumsy, it feels awkward, it feels performative. But then we learn to read and it feels natural. Communication is the same thing. When we practice these skills. Just because it feels a little, like, awkward the first couple of times you do it, that does not mean it's not going to feel natural the fifth and sixth and seventh time. And then eventually it's going to be a habit that you hardly even think about.

Yes, yes. Oh, this is good. And Charles, I could talk to you about this forever, but again, want to be respectful of your time here, so let me wrap up with this last question. So let's say we wave a magic wand and everybody in the world reads your book and adopts all of the principles and puts them into action. If that happens, how does the world change?

I mean, what I hope, and one of the reasons I wrote the book is that it becomes a world where we have more conversations with people who are dissimilar from us. The truth is we're living through this polarizing time, right? There's an election coming up. People feel very passionate about both sides of it. We've lived through the George Floyd era and the racial reckoning, and there's backlash to that now. And it feels like conversations about race or politics or religion feel very dangerous now in a way that they didn't previously. And yet the truth of the matter is we want to connect with the people around us. I want to be friends with my neighbor regardless of what sign he has on his lawn. And if I have the opposite sign, that shouldn't preclude us from having a relationship because the sign on our lawn is about 1% of what we Think about every single day, what we share is much more powerful. The fact that there's potholes on our street and it's driving us crazy, or kids go to the same school, or just that we just want to be able to have a nice relationship with the person living next to us. We want to connect with the people around us. The way that we connect with the people around us is through conversation. And that doesn't mean we have to agree with each other. It doesn't mean we have to have conversations where we both walk away saying, like, oh, we're in alignment. Because the active conversation itself brings us into enough alignment to live side by side. And that's what's important. That's what's meaningful.

That's what I hope the world becomes incredible. Charles, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for writing this book and we appreciate it. Best of luck to you in the future and with all the book sales.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on.

My pleasure. So welcome to the Breakdown. My friends, here in Negotiate Anything Premium, there is a. There is a lot to break down. I took an obscene amount of notes, but I'll try to keep this relatively short. But I love the breakdown of conversations here. So thinking about discussions as one of three things or three types of conversations, we have practical discussions, emotional challenges, or social conversations. So if it's a practical conversation, what we're talking about is solving a problem. There's a problem, there's a challenge, there's an obstacle. We have to figure out a solution for this. And I think he didn't say this in particular, but I think people will typically fall into one of these three modes kind of naturally. There might be that practical person who is just ruthlessly logical, no matter what the circumstances, and just focus on solving the problem. And then if a person like that is talking to somebody who is more emotional in the way that they communicate, they're constantly going to be missing each other, and it's going to be disrespectful for the emotional person that the person who's more practical is not addressing the emotional challenge. Because the emotional challenge is just as real as the tangible challenge for the emotional person. But for the practical person, it might be difficult for them to feel respected and respect the other person if they're approaching it in an emotional type of way. And so being able to make an analysis and a read in the moment of what this person is talking about and where they're coming from, this is really cool because then it allows us to match matching is incredibly powerful. And so if somebody is coming with high levels of emotion, it's counterintuitive. Sometimes you have to match that emotion and then bring it down a little bit, too. And so the matching and then invitation. So if you're somebody who's a practical person, you prefer and feel more comfortable in these practical conversations, this might seem a little bit scary. Like, wait, now I have to be more social. I have to be more emotional with this seems like a waste of time. It seems inefficient and an inappropriate use of my intellect. But the thing is, the practical thing to do is use the science that we know in order to move the conversation forward in a way that makes sense. And so this really ties into my concept of conversational leadership. So with conversational leadership, yes, you are mutual conversationalists in this interaction, but I want you to be the person who leads the conversation. Not in terms of a domineering type of way, forcing people to do this or forcing them to do that, but leading, and the person will follow. So as we go through these conversations, yes, I'm trying to achieve a goal in a negotiation. I might be trying to negotiate in a specific direction, but as I'm doing this, I am also showing you how to communicate. I'm showing you how to negotiate. And so this is another opportunity for us to engage in conversational leadership as we realize that in this conversation, the person might be approaching this in a social way or an emotional way. And, hey, at some point, we need to move from that mode of communication into a practical mode. And then the opposite might be true. Because one of the things I'm recognizing as a leader, as CEO of the American Negotiation Institute, and as a leader in my family, the emotional part is just as legitimate as the practical part. And sometimes you, as the leader of the conversation, need to slow the conversation down and say, hey, no, we need to address the emotional components of this because this is important. We need to address the social components of this, because that's important too, right? But I love the idea of identifying what mode of communication they're in, matching that, and then, if appropriate, trying to lead them to another mode once they feel respected in the mode that they brought to the table. Thought that was really great. Also, talking about asking questions, I'll tell you a bit of an insecurity that I had early on in the podcast, because I knew this was true. I was a negotiation expert. I did mediation and whatnot, so I knew it was true. But for me, as a host, I was concerned so Charles said, hey, the great negotiators, the great Communicators, they ask 10 to 20 times more questions, which is impressive in terms of how many questions that means they're asking, but also disturbing in terms of how few questions the average person is asking in a conversation. Right. I think both of those sides of that data point are very, very instructive. And so for me as a podcaster, I was concerned because I said, are people going to get bored with this show if everybody coming on the podcast says you need to ask questions? I was afraid. But I think it's really important, though, because I cannot think of one episode asking questions leading with curiosity was not a central part of the person's approach to negotiation and difficult conversations. And you cannot be reminded of that enough. And here we are, 1100 episodes later, we did. Okay, so that insecurity was unfounded. But I love the data that we brought to the table with this because it shows, you might say, all right, before I was asking three questions in these negotiations, I'm going to bump it up to six. I'm going to double my output. Not enough, not enough, not enough. There's never been a time, or. Let me, let me rephrase it. Think back on the conversations that you've had that have not gone very well. You might identify why it hasn't gone well. Maybe you weren't at your best, they weren't at their best, whatever it was. But it is rare for us to hear that a conversation didn't go well because we asked too many questions. It's not a legitimate concern. So even if you ask too many questions, it's not going to do that much damage. But then we address that in the episode two. How do we make sure it doesn't become an interrogation or a cross examination? And I love the his response. Answering your own question. So I ask you a question, you give your answer, and I give a little follow up. That is like an answer to the question that I ask. So what was the best thing that happened to you today? Okay, you give your answer. Great. Yeah. No, that's amazing. I'm glad that happened. And then, yeah, for me, something happened, blah, blah, blah. You know, I give my little spiel, whatever it happens to be, but you match whatever it is. I think this is especially important in a negotiation. Let's talk about the transactional type of negotiation too, because people are very mindful of information asymmetries. It doesn't feel good if somebody is asking questions regardless of their tone, and the other side is the only person giving information and the other person is just taking information. At some point, that level of discomfort will manifest itself in a lack of psychological safety, where the length of the question or the length of the response starts to shorten, shorten, shorten, shorten, shorten. Like, yeah, I was giving you a lot of information, but now we're at the 97th question, and you haven't told me anything about yourself. I don't feel very good anymore. So I'm going to be very short with you. And for us as negotiators, we can really calibrate the way that we're being transparent in a meaningful way now. Because in our negotiation preparation, you all should have access to a guide. If you don't, we'll find some way to get it to you all. Probably sent it to you via email at some point. But one of the things is write a list of potential questions that you could ask. And I think one of the things we can keep in mind now is what are the points of vulnerability that we can inject after those questions so the person feels a little bit more secure with the balance and flow of information in the conversation. I thought that was very, very good. So, yeah, I really liked the part about commonality versus difference. When we think about trust, we think about building rapport. We think about finding these opportunities to show similarities. And that psychology is sound, it is true, it is valid. But we can take it too far because there are situations where there are not similarities with anybody in the world. There are going to be certain things where we are similar, and there are other things that are going to be different. And both are okay. Right. So we want to point out those points of similarity to generate a little bit of positive momentum. But we also should feel comfortable acknowledging those differences while at the same time respecting those differences. Hey, you're different in this way. You see things this way, I see things that way. I can understand and appreciate where you're coming from. And there is a level of respect that comes from the acceptance of those differences that can accelerate the relationship in a similar way that identifying similarities can. And I don't think that is something that is discussed enough. And I think it's really, really powerful. Another thing is, no matter who you are, at some point in your life, you have demonstrated very good communication skills at some point. At some point, right. So what we need to do is we need to figure out what those moments are. Where are you typically at your best? Is it when you're talking to your friends, your family, when you're at work in a specific role, what is it like? When do you shine when it comes to communication? Because that's such an empowering realization that you do have communication skills, you do have negotiation skills, but for whatever reason, there might be a performance gap that's manifesting itself in this particular moment with this particular person. So how can we bring those skills that you've already demonstrated and putting them here and just recognizing that you didn't get lucky in those conversations, Whether or not you knew you were utilizing a skill, it is, in fact a skill. Right. If somebody throws a ball at you, can you catch it? You might not think, ah, I utilize the human skill of catching a ball. It doesn't change the fact that you did, in fact, utilize a human skill of catching a ball. Right. Athletically, maybe you could build upon that and say, well, if you can catch this, you can catch that. If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. If you caught that. Can we splice in a little dodgeball reference here so people don't think I'm out of my mind. But anyways, yeah, I thought that was really powerful too. One of the things about Charles's books is that he always does such a great job with data, such an incredible job with Data Man. And it is incredibly powerful and persuasive. And as an author, when you're writing something, you don't only want to be correct, you also want to make sure that you're writing it in a way that the other person is likely to accept. You want to substantiate your points with data so that people can actually feel a little bit more comfortable utilizing the skills that you're suggesting. And I think that CIA survey that he referenced is incredibly powerful as well. So just recognizing that, yeah, if you say you're not a good communicator, most likely you are not a good communicator per this study. But if you say you're perfect at communication, most likely you're not. Most likely or not, you have a blind spot, and that blind spot is holding you back. And one thing he didn't mention, but I want to bring it up here, is the Dunning Kruger effect. So with the Dunning Kruger effect, what this is, is it's the psychological phenomenon that a lot of times experts will rate themselves lower in something, but somebody who is a novice or doesn't know as much will rate themselves higher at that exact same thing, even though they are objectively less skilled or knowledgeable on that particular thing. They're the experts, are Less sure of themselves because they know enough to know what they don't know. But the people who are incredibly secure or believe what it is that they're. What they're saying or something like that in certain circumstances, oftentimes it is the fact that they don't know enough to not recognize what they don't know. Okay, so let me give an example. I gave this example in one of my books for the Dunning Kruger effect. Back when Kai was two, I looked at him out in the backyard and he was standing up on this chair, reaching up into the sky. And I came out, I was like, hey, Kai, what are you doing here, buddy? And he said, daddy, I'm trying to touch the moon. It was adorable. It was not scientifically possible, but he thought that he could do it because he didn't know the science behind it. He didn't know the incredible distance between him and the moon. Right. And so when you don't know things, sometimes it comes with an irrational level of confidence because you don't know enough to know what you don't know. I think that's an example of that in action here too. Online communication is fascinating, endlessly fascinating. And we just need a lot more study and research on this. And the research needs to never stop, because the modes of communication will never stop changing. They'll never stop evolving, and the use will never stop growing. Right? And so communicating via email is different than communicating via text message. Communicating via text is different from video chat. It's different from like Zoom versus like a FaceTime call on your phone. There's a different level of intimacy there too. Right. So we have to understand that different places online will require different kinds of communication too. I remember it was during COVID I believe it was 2020, we put on an international online virtual negotiation summit where we put together this handbook, this virtual negotiation handbook where people could look at it and get an idea of how best to negotiate via text, via email, via video chat, and those type of things. Because we were thrown into this world with COVID where everything was remote instantly. So I gathered globally as many negotiators as I could. I think for that one, we had a few hundred showed up from all over the world and we put them into breakout rooms and they had conversations about how they have these tough conversations using these different mediums. We gathered all of that information, all of that intel, and put it together into a guide. If you're interested in that, just shoot us an email. I'm sure we have a support or admin email associated somewhere on Negotiate Anything Premium. So if you're interested, let us know. We'll send it to you. Yeah, those are the main things that I wanted to hit here. So much more to explore. Could talk to Charles all day, but yes, I hope you found this one helpful. I appreciate all of you. Thank you for being in Premium and I'll catch you in the next one. See you. Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now to up officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you, and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.