3 Habits That Separate Great Communicators from Everyone Else (#266)

Good communication is often listed as a top skill for life and for careers.

But it's more than just getting your perspective across.

The best communicators connect with others, build trust, and turn even difficult conversations into opportunities for understanding.

And yet, many of us still struggle when the stakes are high or even in the simplest daily interactions.

So what actually makes communication succeed where it so often fails?

And how can we become better at both everyday conversations as well as with difficult conversations and those that matter most?

Hi everyone, I'm Lynn Toman and this is Three Takeaways.

On Three Takeaways, I talk with some of the world's best thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, newsmakers, and scientists.

Each episode ends with three key takeaways to help us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better.

Today, I'm excited to welcome back Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the wonderful book, Super Communicators.

In our last conversation, back in episode 201, he shared how great communicators listen, ask, and connect differently.

Today we'll dive deeper into everyday conversations and online conversations, as well as the conversations we tend to avoid, the difficult ones.

I'm excited to learn how we can all get better at navigating the toughest conversation in our work and in our lives.

Welcome back, Charles, and thanks so much for joining Three Takeaways again today.

Thank you for having me.

This is such a treat.

It is my pleasure.

To start, can you briefly describe what you call a super communicator?

We are all super communicators at one point or another.

There is probably a friend that you love to call if you've had a bad day, or there's a time that someone comes in and you know exactly what to say to them to make them feel better or to help them unlock their idea.

And when you call that friend, when you talk to your spouse, you're being a super communicator for them.

And they're probably being a super communicator back for you.

But there are some people who can do this consistently, who can do this with basically anyone.

And these are consistent super communicators.

And what seems to be the difference is not that they're born with the gift of gab or that they are particularly outgoing.

It's that they think about communication a little bit more than the average person.

And they've come to realize that communication is a set of skills that can be practiced, just like we practice to read or wash our hands.

And that as we practice them, they become habits

until we can connect with anyone.

Yes.

And it's not necessarily the smartest person or the most interesting person at all.

No, no, it's oftentimes the person who can listen best or who understands what you're thinking and feeling and can intuit that.

Oftentimes, in fact, when we're in groups, we might not recognize who the super communicator is at first until we look back on it and we say, like, oh, you know, it's just always so much easier to talk in that group whenever Jim's there.

That's because Jim is a super communicator.

He's making it easier for others to connect and to participate.

And that to me is so interesting.

That super communicator is usually not the person that has a strong viewpoint or perspective.

They're trying to get others to buy into.

Well, and what's interesting is there's been studies, particularly done at Dartmouth by this guy named Beau Sivers, who found that oftentimes It's not that super communicators don't have opinions.

They do have opinions.

It's that they are very malleable in their opinions when they hear better ideas.

And so oftentimes if you look at a group and you say like, who had this really good idea?

Everyone will say, oh, it was Jim.

It was the super communicator.

But actually, if you look at a transcript, Jim wasn't the guy who came up with that idea.

He's the person who repeated it best.

So what super communicators do is they're committed, but not doctrinaire.

They have points of view, but they're flexible and look for new perspectives that they think are interesting.

Being a super communicator doesn't mean you have to agree with everyone, but it does mean that you have to make everyone feel listened to.

So interesting.

Many people assume that when a conversation breaks down, it's the other person's fault.

Do you agree?

I think like everything, when a conversation breaks down, it's both of our faults, right?

Or not fault, or it's just part of a conversation.

It's that we both are playing a role.

Now, the truth is, I can't really control how that other person behaves.

I can only control how I behave.

Oftentimes, if I want to get that conversation back on track, if I want to make it easier and better, focusing on myself and what I can do rather than what the other person is doing wrong is a much better tactic.

You tell a fascinating story about a surgeon who specialized in prostate cancer and tried to persuade his patients not to have surgery, but most of them did not follow his advice.

What does that teach us about why communication often fails?

It's really interesting.

This This is a guy named Dr.

Adai Bafar, and he works at Sloan Kettering in New York City.

He's a, he's, as you mentioned, a surgeon.

And what he found is that when patients came into his office, he would give them the same advice.

He would say, like, look, I know it's scary to be told that you have prostate cancer, but prostate tumors grow very slowly.

And so my advice to you is that we do nothing.

We do no treatment whatsoever.

And then they would leave and they would go home and they'd talk it over with their spouse and the patient would come back a couple of days later and they'd say, I've decided I want to have the surgery.

Like I want you to cut me open as fast as humanly possible.

And for Dr.

Adai, this was very, very weird because he couldn't figure out why people were ignoring his advice since they had come to him for advice.

So he went to these professors at Harvard Business School and what they did is they said, look, you're starting this conversation all wrong.

You're starting by telling the person what you think they need to know, but you need to start by asking them a question.

And not all questions are created equal, right?

Some questions are known as deep questions in psychology.

And those are questions that ask us about our values or our beliefs or our experiences.

And that can sound a little bit intimidating, but it's as simple as if you ask someone, you know, what do you do for a living?

They say, oh, I'm a doctor.

Instead of saying, oh, what hospital do you work at?

Asking them, oh, did you always want to be in a doctor?

Was that your dream as a kid?

That second question invites that person to tell me so much more about who they are.

And so Dr.

Dice started his conversations with patients by asking them just one question.

What does this cancer diagnosis mean to you?

And what he would find is that the patients would tell him, I'm really scared.

My dad died when I was a kid, and I don't want to put my own kids through that.

Okay, that person needs to have an emotional conversation.

They can't hear practical advice yet.

Or they might say, I want to remove this risk from my life.

I thought about it and the risks and the rewards.

And okay, that person's in a practical mindset.

I need to approach them differently.

So just asking these questions is really powerful.

And we can all ask deep questions throughout our days.

And the more that we do, the more we actually help people say what they mean.

And it helps us hear what they're trying to say.

We have numerous short interactions every day.

What are some very practical suggestions for how to start those conversations to make them more meaningful?

Start by asking a question.

Very often when you ask a deep question, what you're doing is you're inviting the person to tell you something meaningful.

And then if you ask a follow-up question, you're showing them that you're listening to them.

Charles, instead of, hi, nice to see you.

How are you?

What are some better openers?

Yeah, something like, hey, it's good to see you.

I haven't seen you in a while.

It's been a couple of weeks.

What's the best thing that's happened to you in the last couple of weeks?

Or, hey, you know, it's good to meet you.

I see that you're a new employee here.

Why'd you decide to come join this company?

Those are really easy questions to ask.

But what they do is they actually nudge you into having a real conversation as opposed to just sort of surface chitchat.

those are great conversation openers i really like them of course some conversations are short and light but others are heavier and harder let's talk about those what are the main types of difficult conversations people face I don't know that there is like a main type, but I know that everyone has conversations where your stomach kind of clenches up and you don't want to have it.

Maybe you have an employee and you have to give that employee some disappointing news or some negative feedback.

Maybe you have a friend that you disagree with.

You voted for different people and you feel like you really want to talk about that and hash it out.

We all have conversations where we know going in that that conversation is going to be a challenge.

And within the psychology literature, they actually refer to these as conflict conversations, which doesn't mean that we are in conflict, but it means that there is some type of conflict that is causing us to feel a little bit of stress and anxiety about the upcoming conversation.

And there's a couple of things that we can do to make those conversations better.

The first thing that we can do is it's often really helpful simply to acknowledge that this conversation might be difficult.

To say, like, I want to talk to you about politics.

And I know that like, this is a hard thing to talk about.

I know we disagree with each other and I know that it's really easy to get defensive.

And so I want to apologize in advance.

If I say anything, if it comes out of my mouth the wrong way, I want to just apologize in advance.

I want you to know that if you say something the wrong way, I'm not going to fly off the hook.

I'm going to understand that sometimes it's hard to put our thoughts into words.

We can acknowledge that this is going to be a hard conversation.

Then the next thing we can do, which is really powerful, is we can prove that we are listening to them.

And this is kind of interesting because when we think about listening, we think of it as a passive activity, right?

I close my mouth and I open my ears.

But actually what all the research tells us is that the best listeners are very, very active.

And they're active in a way way that proves that they are listening.

So there's actually a technique for this in conflict conversations known as looping for understanding.

And it has three steps.

The first step is that you ask a question, preferably a deep question.

The second step is that you repeat back what you heard the person say in your own words.

And what's really important here is you're not trying to mimic them.

What you're trying to do is prove to them that you are paying attention.

And more important, that you've been thinking about what they're saying.

Something like, you know, what I hear you saying is that you're really frustrated by the economy.

And I remember a couple of weeks ago, you mentioned that you were worried about your job.

And it occurs to me that those might be related to each other.

So I'm proving to you that I'm paying attention.

I might ask a follow-up question.

And then the third step, the step that I always forget is ask if I got it right.

Did I understand you correctly?

Am I hearing you correct?

Because what we're doing in that moment is we're actually asking them to acknowledge that we were listening.

And when they acknowledge that we were listening, they become much more likely to listen to us us in return.

It also just brings down the temperature of a conversation because one of the things about a hard conversation that gives us anxiety is this feeling that we might not be understood.

And the more that we can get into a pattern where we're repeating back what we're hearing, we're making sure we're double checking, am I understanding you correctly?

The more we're lowering the temperature of that discussion.

Sometimes people enter a conversation with a clear desired outcome, whether it's a surgeon hoping patients change a behavior or a boss addressing a team member's issues.

How should they approach those kinds of conversations?

When you know what your outcome is, I think it's good to start a conversation by saying, I'm talking to you today because I'm hoping that we achieve X.

Seems like you've been struggling at work.

And by the end of this conversation, I hope we have a plan in place that helps you be successful at this job.

Now, that's part of letting you know what my goals are, but it's also important to inquire about your goals.

Does that sound like a good strategy for this conversation?

Or is there other stuff that you want to share with me that maybe doesn't align with getting a plan in place?

A conversation, it should be a two-way street.

Now, if I'm your boss, I might not really want to have a conversation.

I might just want to give you feedback and then say like, look, I'm not looking for a dialogue here.

I'm looking to tell you what you need to do differently if you want to succeed.

And that's fine.

We don't have to have a conversation if we don't want to.

And there's some situations where a conversation isn't the right thing to have but when we do want to have a conversation it's important for us to create space for everyone's goals and oftentimes the easiest way to do that is simply to ask here's my goal for this conversation what's your goal for this conversation

everyone has someone in their lives who just doesn't hear how do you deal with a person who just doesn't hear If you're talking to someone and it seems like they're not hearing what you're trying to tell them, then there's sort of two questions to face.

The first is, do they want to hear?

I can't make someone hear me if they don't want to hear.

If we're talking about politics and this is a person who does not care how I vote, this is not something they want to discuss, I can't force them to listen to me.

I can't force them to hear.

But if it is a situation where it seems like there's some block, something that's in the way, then I think at that moment, it's worth actually trying to figure out what it is and sort of saying, I'm explaining this to you, but it feels like it's not really landing with you.

And it's probably my fault.

It's probably the way that I'm describing it.

Can you tell me which part of this isn't landing for you?

So I can figure out if I'm conveying myself accurately.

One of the things that we know about communication is that the more people think about communication, the better at it they become.

And so when we have conversations about how to communicate, that's oftentimes when we become a super communicator, is that we are trying to convey to someone that understanding is my goal.

And if you're not understanding me, maybe you feel like I'm also not understanding you.

And let's figure out what that blockage is.

You must be an amazing friend, Charles.

I try.

I try.

I try.

I do my best.

So many of our conversations today happen online rather than in person.

What are your top tips for making virtual conversations work?

One of the things that's important to recognize is that different types of communication have different rules.

And we intuitively know this.

We know that if you're talking to someone someone face to face versus sending them an email, you have to be a little bit different.

Because face to face, if you're sarcastic, they'll be able to hear that sarcasm in your voice.

But if I type something sarcastic, you might think I'm being serious.

So we know that there are different rules.

Oftentimes when we end up getting into trouble is when we forget to pay attention to those rules.

We treat sending someone a text just like having a conversation with them.

And then we're confused why they got upset by the text we sent them.

Because if we had said it it to their face, we know that they wouldn't be upset at all.

And so part of it is just taking 10 seconds before you hit send and asking yourself, am I using the right rules for this form of communication?

If I'm texting versus emailing versus a phone call versus face-to-face, am I changing how I communicate just slightly to accommodate that format of communication?

And then the second thing is, particularly when it comes to online, there's been a lot of research done on this.

One of the things that we found is that sarcasm does not work online.

People don't know that you're being sarcastic, but being just a little bit polite actually works even better online than it does in real life.

There was a study that was done of Wikipedia editors, and they found that when Wikipedia editors started fighting with each other, that the temperature of the conversation would go down significantly if one person started saying please and thank you.

So it's worth being polite online even more than you are offline because it's much more powerful in that format.

How about Zoom calls?

To me, at least, they seem mostly informative and don't tend to build connection.

I think that if you make a point of trying to make it something that's personal, I Zoom with a lot of friends now.

It's nice to be able to like see them and see their face, but I make deliberate time to Zoom with friends and to say, hey, I just wanted to catch up.

Like tell me what's going on in your life.

So I think that Zoom calls for work can also be as productive and as meaningful as in-person meetings, which, you know, an in-person meeting is also fairly focused on productivity, right?

Like you're usually getting together and you have an agenda and you want to move through that agenda.

It's just that in an in-person meeting, we have all this like empty space before the meeting starts and afterwards to sort of chit chat with each other while we're waiting for the leader to get there.

And on Zoom calls, oftentimes we don't do that chit chat, but that chit chat is actually very important for companies.

It's how we build culture among a group of people.

And so spending some time during a Zoom meeting chit-chatting with each other, have everyone go around and say like, you know, what they're doing this weekend, it's actually going to pay these dividends.

Charles, I love your ideas on connection, your suggestions on how to start conversations.

I think they're wonderful.

What are the three takeaways, Charles?

First of all, pay attention to what kind of conversation you're having.

If you find that the other person that you're talking to is using emotion words, I feel like this, I'm anxious, I'm X, I'm Y, that probably means that they're in an emotional mindset.

And I need to at least acknowledge that before we can get down to practicalities.

The more that I pay attention to the conversation, the more that I ask them, what's your goal for this conversation, the more that I share my own goals, the better that conversation is going to be.

Number two is to ask more questions, particularly deep questions, because deep questions are what invite someone else to tell us who they really are.

And finally, I want to prove to you that I'm listening to you.

It's not enough just to listen.

I want to show you that I'm paying attention.

I want to ask follow-up questions.

I prove to them that I'm processing mentally what they're saying, and that makes all the difference.

Charles, this has been wonderful.

I really enjoyed your book, Super Communicators, and our earlier conversation on three takeaways, which was episode 201.

Thank you.

Thank you for helping so many people develop deeper and better relationships and connections.

Thanks for having me on.

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I'm Lynn Toman, and this is Three Takeaways.

Thanks for listening.