# Supercommunicators **Charles Duhigg** | [[Action]]  --- > "To communicate with someone, we must connect with them." Most miscommunication happens because people are having different kinds of conversations. When one person speaks emotionally whilst another responds practically, they're using different cognitive languages. Every discussion contains three distinct types simultaneously: decision-making (What's This Really About?), emotional (How Do We Feel?), and social identity (Who Are We?). We're often moving in and out of all three as a dialogue unfolds, but if we aren't having the same kind of conversation as our partners, at the same moment, we're unlikely to connect. Charles Duhigg's research reveals that communication isn't magic—it's a set of learnable skills. Supercommunicators constantly adjust how they communicate to match their companions. They ask ten to twenty times as many questions as others. They recognise which conversation is happening and align with it. If someone seems emotional, they allow themselves to become emotional. If someone is intent on decision-making, they match that focus. **Matching isn't mimicry.** It's understanding someone's mindset—what logic they find persuasive—and speaking their language. It also requires explaining clearly how you're thinking, so others can match you in return. The goal isn't to win, but to connect. Within every conversation is a quiet negotiation where the prize is figuring out what everyone wants, so that something meaningful can occur. --- ## Core Ideas ### [[The Three Conversations]] Every discussion is composed of three distinct conversations happening simultaneously. Each activates different parts of our brains, and if our minds don't align with our conversational partners, we'll feel like we didn't fully understand one another. **What's This Really About?** is the decision-making conversation. It's active when we're thinking about practical matters—making choices, analysing plans, negotiating options. It determines what topics we want to discuss and how the discussion will unfold. It requires a quiet negotiation at the start: figuring out what everyone wants and how we'll make choices together. **How Do We Feel?** is the emotional conversation. Every discussion is shaped by emotions, even seemingly rational topics. Deep questions ask about values, beliefs, judgments, experiences—not just facts. Vulnerability triggers emotional contagion, which helps us connect. Listening is essential, but so is showing we've heard someone's emotions by matching their mood and energy. **Who Are We?** is the social identity conversation. It's about relationships, how we see ourselves and others, and our various social identities. It emerges when discussing office politics, shared connections, or how background influences us. Social identities become more or less salient as surroundings change. We all possess multiple identities—parent, sibling, expert, novice, friend, colleague. ### [[The Quiet Negotiation]] Every conversation starts with a delicate, almost subconscious dance. Some researchers call this a quiet negotiation: a subtle give-and-take over which topics we'll dive into and which we'll skirt around, the rules for how we'll speak and listen. The first goal is determining what everyone wants from a conversation. Often, what people desire isn't obvious at first. Never assume you know what others want; ask open-ended questions designed to get them talking about their values and what they want. It's a process of people deciding, together, what topics we'll discuss and how we'll discuss them. The second goal is figuring out the rules for how we will speak, listen, and make decisions together. Will this be a rational conversation or an empathetic one? The negotiation determines this. Before difficult conversations, ask: "Do you want to be helped, hugged, or heard?" Different needs require different types of communication, and each corresponds to a different kind of conversation. > "Within every conversation there is a quiet negotiation, where the prize is not winning, but rather determining what everyone wants, so that something meaningful can occur." Negotiation, amongst its top practitioners, isn't a battle. It's an act of creativity. ### [[Matching]] The most important difference between high centrality participants and everyone else is that high centrality participants are constantly adjusting how they communicate to match their companions. Matching means understanding someone's mindset—what kind of logic they find persuasive, what tone and approach makes sense to them—and then speaking their language. When someone describes a personal problem by telling a story, they're signalling they want compassion rather than a solution. When they lay out facts analytically, they're signalling they want a rational conversation, not an emotional one. Effective communication requires recognising what kind of conversation is occurring, and then matching each other. Matching isn't mimicry. On a basic level, if someone seems emotional, allow yourself to become emotional as well. If someone is intent on decision-making, match that focus. If they are preoccupied by social implications, reflect their fixation back to them. Happy couples "communicate agreement not with the speaker's point of view or content, but with the speaker's affect." --- ## Key Insights **High centrality participants asked ten to twenty times as many questions as others.** They tended to speak less than dominant leaders, and when they did open their mouths, it was usually to ask questions. They repeated others' ideas, admitted their own confusion, encouraged groupmates, and laughed at jokes. They made conversations flow. These people had much larger social networks and were more likely to be elected to positions of authority. **Open-ended questions are powerful when they focus on beliefs, values, judgments, and experiences.** Ask how someone decided to become a teacher. Ask if they're glad they went to law school. Ask what it was like to visit Europe. These questions push people to describe meaningful experiences and tend to result in emotional replies, even if the questions themselves don't seem emotional. > "To get deep, we have to make an offering of our vulnerability." **The difference between shallow and deep questions is vulnerability.** Asking deep questions about feelings, values, beliefs, and experiences creates vulnerability. That vulnerability triggers emotional contagion, which helps us connect. The Fast Friends Procedure—a series of thirty-six questions that reliably help strangers form connections—worked only if participants took turns asking each other questions. If you want to connect with someone, ask them what they are feeling, then reveal your own emotions. **Follow-up questions are particularly powerful.** They show you're listening and deepen connection. This is how to ask emotional questions in the real world: ask someone how they feel about something, and then follow up with questions that reveal how you feel. **Most conversational laughter (80%) is not a response to jokes.** Laughter is one way of proving that we hear how someone feels. We exhibit emotional intelligence by showing people we've heard their emotions—by noticing and matching their mood and energy. What's important is not just hearing another person's feelings but showing that we have heard them. > "We've all had the experience of talking to someone whose eyes drifted away. In fact, the cause and effect are often the reverse: a poor listener destroys the tale." **Instead of trying to decipher specific emotions, pay attention to mood and energy level.** Do they seem positive or negative? Are they high energy or low energy? Focus on matching those two attributes. Mood and energy levels often tell us all we need to know to align emotionally. **Simple preparation makes conversations go better.** Before a conversation starts, describe for yourself what two topics you might discuss, what one thing you hope to say, and what one question you will ask. Once this becomes second nature, make it more robust: what topics you most want to discuss, one thing you hope to say that shows what you want to talk about, and one question you will ask that reveals what others want. **Perhaps the best approach isn't "putting yourself in someone else's shoes."** That's impossible. Maybe the best you can do is ask questions. Ask about people's lives, what they're feeling, their hopes and fears, then listen for their struggles, disappointments, joys, and ambitions. Perhaps instead of perspective taking, we ought to be focused on perspective getting. --- ## Connects To - [[The Fifth Discipline]] - Dialogue vs discussion; supercommunication requires both - [[Alchemy]] - Emotional contagion and psycho-logic; people don't think what they feel - [[Better, Simpler Strategy]] - Understanding what customers and employees actually want requires supercommunication skills - [[Dead Companies Walking]] - Leaders who stay connected to employees and customers survive; detachment kills companies --- ## Final Thought Connection doesn't require charisma or natural talent—it requires awareness. By recognising which of the three conversations is happening (practical, emotional, or social), by matching others' moods and mindsets, by asking deep questions and revealing our own vulnerabilities, we can transform everyday exchanges into meaningful connections. Supercommunicators succeed because they are intensely curious about what others want, how others feel, and who others are. They conduct quiet negotiations to figure out what everyone needs from a conversation, then they align—not to manipulate, but to genuinely understand and be understood. They ask ten to twenty times as many questions as others, and most of those questions focus on values, beliefs, judgments, and experiences rather than just facts. The most effective communicators pause before they speak and ask themselves why they're opening their mouths. During the discussion, they observe their companions: Are they emotional? Do they seem practical-minded? Do they keep bringing up other people or social topics? They adjust accordingly. Communication is fundamentally about listening, not speaking. What's important isn't just hearing another person's feelings but showing that we have heard them. Laughter proves we hear how someone feels. Matching mood and energy shows we've absorbed their emotional state. Follow-up questions demonstrate we're listening and want to understand more deeply. In a world where most people talk past each other, the ability to recognise and match the conversation happening in front of you strengthens relationships, resolves conflicts, and builds trust. The real skill isn't talking well—it's making others feel heard.