Supercommunicators Characters

Charles Duhigg is the author of Supercommunicators. An American journalist with an MBA, he decided to write a book on communication after he noticed that he had difficulty addressing his coworkers’ emotions while managing… read analysis of Charles Duhigg

James Lawler graduated from the University of Texas Law School and worked several jobs, including as a steel components’ salesman, before joining the CIA in the early 1980s. The CIA sent him to Europe to… read analysis of James (Jim) Lawler

Dr. Behfar Ehdaie is a urologic surgeon at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. He used to struggle to convince patients with low-risk prostate tumors to choose active surveillance of their tumors instead… read analysis of Dr. Behfar Ehdaie

John Boly, a Marquette University literature professor, was a juror in the 1985 trial of Leroy Reed, an intellectually handicapped man on trial for buying a gun with a previous felony conviction, a charge carrying… read analysis of John Boly

Dr. Terence McGuire, a psychiatrist, worked as a consultant for NASA. In the 1980s, when NASA was trying to hire astronauts who could the psychological pressures of long deployments to a space station, Dr. McGuire… read analysis of Dr. Terence McGuire

Melanie Jeffocat survived a pre-Columbine school shooting as a high-school student in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1982. Decades later, in 2014, she received a text from her 11-year-old daughter, who told Jeffcoat that she had… read analysis of Melanie Jeffcoat

Dr. Jay Rosenbloom, a doctor with an MD/PhD from Oregon Health and Science University, encountered vaccine-hesitant parents as a pediatrics resident in Arizona in the 1990s. He tried to persuade these parents with medical research… read analysis of Dr. Jay Rosenbloom

Verna Myers, a lawyer and diversity consultant, served as the first Vice President of Inclusion at Netflix. She was hired to improve Netflix’s workplace culture around questions of inclusion and diversity, especially (but not limited… read analysis of Verna Myers

The cofounder of giant entertainment company Netflix, Reed Hastings created a PowerPoint called the Netflix Culture Deck to communicate the company’s desired values—including autonomy, high standards, rapidity, and extreme bluntness—to its employees. Though Netflix became… read analysis of Reed Hastings

Felix Sigala (not his real name) is an ordinary-looking but conversationally charismatic FBI agent who specializes in negotiation during crises such as hostage situations. In 2014, a Department of Defense-funded interdisciplinary team of communications researchers… read analysis of Felix Sigala