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Intro
According to author Charles Duhigg, communication, which involves learnable skills, can be divided into practical, emotional, and social types. Practical communication is about how people can solve problems, emotional communication is about how people feel, and social communication is about who people are and how they want to be identified. Communication falters when people try to have different types of conversation at the same time. Also, communication is more effective when all parties try to understand others’ perspectives and make their own perspectives clear.
When people understand one another, their physiological and neurological experiences converge. For instance, after communicating successfully, people’s brain scans are more similar to one another. People who are good at communication that triggers brain convergence tend to know what kind of conversation (practical, emotional, or social) others want to have. Duhigg uses the term supercommunicator to describe this type of person. Supercommunicators figure out others’ conversational goals and make their own clear, ask after others’ emotions and make their own clear, and determine whether people’s identities or social roles are important to the conversation.
Supercommunicators are attuned to their own and others’ goals because when people make their goals explicit in a conversation, the conversation is more likely to be productive. If you are talking to someone who hasn’t made their goals explicit, Duhigg suggests asking open-ended questions to learn about their desires and values. If you are talking to someone who may not know what their goals are, figure out whether the person wants to explore possible goals. This can be done through a straightforward cost-benefit analysis or a more free-flowing, emotional exploration based in personal storytelling.
Emotions influence conversations, even conversations supposedly about rational problem-solving. Duhigg believes that people should notice and share their own emotions when trying to communicate. You should also ask about others’ emotions in a non-intrusive way, posing questions that allow for emotional disclosure without demanding emotional disclosure. To make others feel heard, you should summarize what they tell you in your own words and ask them whether you’ve understood correctly. This communication technique, called “looping for understanding,” both improves your comprehension and defuses conflict by showing others that you are actively trying to grasp their perspective.
People react negatively if you claim they’re a member of a group they don’t identify with—or claim they aren’t a member of a group they do identify with. Duhigg advises avoiding sweeping statements about others’ identities. Instead, figure out which identities are important to a given conversation. Also, encourage others to think about their various identities (for instance, not only “cis woman” but also “small business owner,” “music lover,” “independent voter,” or similar), share your own identities, and try to find identities common to different participants in the conversation. If the conversation needs to focus on differences in people’s identities—a conversation about racial bias in a multiracial workplace, for example—then acknowledge that the conversation may be hard, awkward, or even distressing to make difficult emotions easier to withstand.
People who maintain strong interpersonal relationships tend to feel happier and live longer. Communication is essential to relationships. By learning the skills of supercommunicators, detailed above, you can protect and grow your relationships too.
