Mastering the Art of Communication ( w/ Charles Duhigg )

25:34Well, what's interesting, though, is that we see Elon Musk of today. The Elon Musk that built Tesla was actually a great communicator. In fact, if you go back before Tesla to the days of PayPal, right? So Elon Musk had started his own PayPal competitor named X. And then Peter Thiel had PayPal, and they merged them together. And they made Elon Musk the CEO. And he did a terrible job communicating. He was just a terrible CEO, and they basically deposed him. And at that point, he could have taken his marbles and gone home or sort of been bitter. But instead, what he does is he sticks around and he says, I want to get better at communicating.

26:10And he works on it for years and years and years. And when you talk to people about him at Tesla, what they say is, yes, he pushed me. He was hard. But when I came to him with a problem, he could hear exactly what I was saying to him. I knew that he heard the problem. He wasn't blaming me for the problem if it was a real problem. Walter Isaacson, who just wrote the Musk book and is a good friend of mine. He said, Musk has this amazing ability to absorb so much information and more importantly, to show people that he's listening to them. Now, what's happened in the last couple of years since the takeover of Twitter is, I guess he's just decided he doesn't have to do it anymore, right?

26:50I think now he would much rather just have monologues than dialogues. But I think you're right. I think if the Elon Musk of today was the elon musk of 10 years ago tesla wouldn't be what tesla is now the other question you asked though is who are great communicators and and i think there's a lot of them and why yeah like what do they do that makes them great yeah so i think um if i can go into politics i think i think barack obama is an amazing communicator right i think that barack obama manages to hear what people are saying he shows them that he hears what they're saying he he makes you feel listened to um i think can i ask a question yeah is there an argument to say as much as we'd hate it that Donald Trump's actually an incredible communicator.

27:31I think that you can absolutely make that argument. Now, what's important to note is that the reason why anyone can become a super communicator is because it's just a set of tools. It's just a set of skills that anyone can learn, right? If you learn these skills and tools, you can connect with people. And like any tool, it can be used for good or bad. An axe is a tool that I can use to build a house, or it's a tool I can use to cut someone's head off, right? And it's up to me, the person who's carrying that tool, to determine whether it's used for good or bad. And I think when you look at Donald Trump and you go to some of his rallies, what you see is he is listening really closely to those crowds.

28:09He is showing them that he's listening. He's saying, I hear that you're angry and you're right to be angry. And I don't like what he's doing with it. I don't think it's healthy for the nation or the world. But yeah, he embodies a lot of the principles of good communication. That's why he has been successful, unfortunately. Yeah, and I guess the thing that's especially unique to him that increasingly you learn over time how unbelievably powerful his communication style is, is he's the master of keeping things simple. Yes, absolutely. Of keeping things simple, of telling you what you want to hear, which means he has to be listening to you to know what you want to hear.

28:48Right? He is so invested in the conversation as opposed to the monologue. Again, I'm not a Trump fan, but it is why he's been successful. Now, in the business world, I mean, what's interesting, you mentioned Steve Jobs. So there's this image of Steve Jobs as like, you know, the jerk, right? The guy who like, and I wrote a big series about Apple right after Jobs died. If you talk to people who work with Steve Jobs, what they will tell you is he was brusque. He was demanding. He had very high standards. And he listened better than anyone else. He would ask you question after question after question to make sure he understood what you were telling him.

29:28And then he would tell you what he thinks and he would ask you to repeat it back so that he knows that you understand him. Steve Jobs, being a great communicator doesn't mean you're charismatic or you're friendly or you're a good time, Johnny. Being a great communicator means that you understand that the goal of a conversation is to understand what you are saying and to help you understand me. and that if we walk away from a conversation still disagreeing with each other, still thinking each other is wrong or an idiot, but if I understand what you are trying to tell me and I spoke in such a way that you can understand me, then that conversation has been a success.

30:04And that's what Steve Jobs understood is that the goal of conversations at Apple was not to make people feel good. It was not to paper over differences or let people off the hook. The goal of the conversation was for others to understand what he was saying and to make sure he understood what they were saying. There's that famous quote in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which is seek first to understand, then be understood. Yes. I've always, always remembered that it's so helpful in business and dealing with people to know that so long as you demonstrate that you're authentically, genuinely listening to that person and trying to understand their point of view, they will eventually be open to let you have your turn.

30:48That's exactly right. And in fact, we can't help but do that. That's known as reciprocal vulnerability or reciprocal authenticity. As our brains evolved to be so good at communication, as communication became our superpower as a species, we developed all these hardwired instincts. And one of those instincts is, if you show me that you're listening to me, then I have an instinct to listen to you, right? This reciprocation is at the core of the human instinct. And so you're exactly right. If you seek first to understand before being understood, what you're really doing is you're setting the other person up to listen to you.

31:27That's really powerful. So one thing that I am confused by, on listening, I have been told that to be a CEO and truly listen to your colleague who comes to you with a problem. They might be expressing something emotionally. They might be expressing something emotionally in a vulnerable style. And their job is to tell you something. And my job as a CEO, as I've understood, is to not emotionlessly listen to them, but to not try and be so much myself. The way that we've been communicating naturally over this, I've noticed, you know, I'm nodding and I'm getting emotionally excited when you're saying certain things.

32:14So are you, you're doing it right now. And I've been taught that that's actually bad practice in those kinds of conversations as a CEO because what's going on is I'm essentially psychologically trying to encourage my colleague to mirror me and look for my cues of the parts of the things that I do agree with versus the parts that I disagree with and trying to influence essentially how they're talking to me. What's your view on that? Does that make sense? I don't think that's right. I mean, I'll tell you what the science says. Yeah. The science says that you come into a conversation knowing what you want to get across, and I come into a conversation knowing what I want to get across.

32:50We might not have elucidated it to ourself, but we know why we're having a discussion. And once we're aligned, then we can talk about our differences. But until we're aligned, it's very hard for us to hear each other. And so what I would say in a situation like that is when you're having that conversation, reacting honestly and authentically is much more important than any other concern. Because if you're not being authentic, if I know that you're someone who does nod, who does participate, who does interrupt, which is an important part of conversations, if you're not doing that, then it's hard for me to feel like you're authentically in the conversation.

33:30So what's much more important than, you know, one tactic, should you nod your head, should you not nod your head? What's much more important is to try and make both people feel comfortable, make both people feel like they have the ability to say what they need to say. And so that might mean that as you're saying something and I agree with it, I smile. But it's equally important that if there's something that I don't agree with, is to look at you quizzically and to pay attention and say, I want to learn more about this. I want to understand how you see the world. So I think that we can spend a lot of time thinking about things that don't matter with communication.

34:05And underlying it is this basic principle that we should try and connect with each other first. And if we do that, then it solves a lot of problems. So coming back to the point on great CEOs and the different types of communication, again, when we think of great CEOs, we think of the obvious ones. Steve Jobs is a perfect example. What was his major tool? Storytelling. Yeah. So how important is the art of storytelling as a theme within super communication? Oh, it's hugely important. I mean, it's just hugely important in any kind of communication, in part because it's very hard for us to remember ideas unless it's embedded in the story.

34:46Right? I'm sure you learned something really important in college, university, that at the time you thought this was so important that if I was to ask you about it today, you'd be like, well, I kind of remember studying that. But if I asked you to tell me the plot of Cinderella or Snow White, you would know exactly what happened, right? You would remember point by point what happened in those fairy tales. And it's because of that story, because stories are easier to remember. Now, I think what a good CEO does is that they help people understand that we can be the authors of our own stories. So in the book, one of the chapters is about Netflix, right?

35:22And Reed Hastings, the CEO. And they had this crisis within Netflix where one of their senior executives in a meeting used the N-word. And this – To describe a show that used the N-word. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. It wasn't just apropos of nothing. It wasn't calling someone a racial slur. But – It was to describe the complaints they'd had about the show. Exactly. Exactly. But he uses the full word. Yeah. And a lot of people take offense at that. And he ends up getting fired. But inside the company, this sets off a civil war. Because it becomes essentially like a flame to set off a fire that had been building for years.

36:07There's a bunch of people who say, look, what this demonstrates is that we have a problem with race at Netflix. And a lot of other people were saying, we don't have a problem with race. Like, you're calling me a racist. I'm not a racist. It's just that I'm better at my job than you are. So I get the promotion and you don't get the promotion. And so people start going at each other's throats. And Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, he could have done what a lot of other companies done. He could have said, let's shut down this conversation. Like as a communicator, what I want to do is stop us from talking about this and leave politics at home.

36:39We come to business to do work. But instead, he does exactly the opposite. What he does is he says, we need to talk about this. We need to get this out in the open. We don't necessarily have to agree about everything, but we have to understand what each other is saying. And we have to be able to live and work alongside each other without this feeling that something that's important to me is being misunderstood. And so sometimes I think that the best communicators not only are good communicators themselves, but they're also people who create templates for communication, who create space for communication.

37:14And this is one of the things that we know about super communicators is that oftentimes if you look at a group, the person who's the super communicator, it's not obvious at first. They're not the most charismatic person. They're not the most bombastic person. In fact, if you have a really strong leader in a group, it actually tends to decrease the connectivity between people because everyone's pushed into their own corners. But it's the person who makes it easier for other people to speak up. the person who says look let's talk about something that's hard to talk about but it's important to talk about and i really want to hear from you sometimes the best communicators particularly ceos are people who say i don't have the answer but i want to create a space where everyone can bring their answers to the table and we can talk about them yeah it's interesting in that story you have the example of the you know the lady that comes in to help solve the crisis so to speak she sounds very much like a super communicator yes yes she's amazing can you share a little bit more about what she does yeah you know why is it this is a really interesting example because obviously it's inside a business yeah um and the the context i suppose it's important is netflix's culture so what's so confusing there is that they're not uh you know they're a they're a free-for-all culture in every single dimension absolutely and so the The idea that someone got fired for describing the show and a complaint from someone on the show was so completely bizarre at Netflix.

38:46Absolutely. Because the idea was kind of no one can get fired for anything as long as you're being courageous and doing the thing. That's exactly right. And they would encourage people to criticize each other and attack each other. They believed that if you had a marketplace of ideas and everyone came to the marketplace with their razors ready, that that's how you get the best ideas. That's how you figure out what to do. So culturally, what goes on inside an organization like that, when something like this happens, is essentially confusion. Yes. Because it's like, well, what are the rules? I thought these always were the rules.

39:16If that's not the rule, what are the rules? And where there aren't clearly established rules inside organizations, how could there be good communication? That's exactly right. And in this case, it was even more complicated because the executive who used the word, he apologized immediately. In fact, he had meetings where he explained how sorry he was. He reported himself to HR. And so when he was fired, it was bewildering to people. And that was the hardest part about it is suddenly nobody knew what the rules were anymore, like what's allowed and what's not allowed. And so as you mentioned, this woman, Vernee Myers, is hired by Reed Hastings to come in.

39:50And what she says is, she says, look, we've got to talk about this. We've got to have these conversations. But whereas for most conversations we have at Netflix, they can be free-flowing. They can be unstructured. They can be us attacking each other's ideas and radical honesty. For these conversations, we need to structure them a little bit because these conversations are hard for people to have. And so what she did is she said, there's a couple of rules that we're going to use in structuring these conversations. The first one is let's acknowledge that these conversations are going to be awkward.

40:22Like at the outset, conversations about race are hard conversations. And I might say something wrong. I might say something, phrase something in a way that's offensive to you without my intending to, and you might say something wrong. And so let's just acknowledge at the outset that this is going to be hard, this is going to be awkward, and I promise to forgive you if you say something that's not exactly, you don't say it the right way. And I hope you promise to forgive me. And number two, what she said was, everybody has a legitimate seat at this table, right? One of the things that often happens with conversations about race, for instance, is that we default to feeling like someone who is a person of color has a right to speak and talk about their racial experience, and that someone who's white should just listen and not participate.

41:15But that's not actually a conversation. We're not connecting with each other if I'm just listening to you. And the truth of the matter is everyone has had a racial experience. Now, my racial experience is obviously very different from someone who's black or Indian or gay or non-binary. But we all have a seat at this table. You still have a human experience. You still have a human experience. And that sense of belonging is critical if we're going to connect with each other. And so they structured these conversations where they acknowledge that they're going to be hard and they acknowledge that people are going to say the wrong thing, but everyone belonged in that conversation.

41:51And that's how they resolved the issue. That's how they worked through it and came out a much stronger company as a result. All right, one more break. When we return, Charles shares his insights on the toughest part of being a leader, having those make or break conversations. From high stakes negotiations and gut-wrenching layoffs to rallying your team around a shared vision, the way you communicate can be the difference between success and failure. We'll be right back. What you've just described is a great example of how to have difficult conversations. Yeah. The hardest learning curve, probably, as a founder, as a CEO, as a manager, leader of any kind, is how to handle difficult conversations often.

42:36Yeah. And come out well. And by well, I mean, come out with the right outcome, which, you know, Adam Grant has an amazing framing for this, which is, you know, giving you this difficult feedback because I have such high expectations of you and I know you can meet them. Yeah. Which is a lovely framing for it. But, you know, these difficult conversations often go an emotional way as well. So how can we use super communication to handle difficult conversations at work? So it's a great question. And I think the first question that you should ask yourself is, do I want to have a conversation or do I want to just give someone news, let them process it, and then have a conversation, right?

43:17Oftentimes if we come in and we say, you know, I'm going to have to cut your budget or I'm going to have to demote you, we have this instinct to want to have a back and forth. But the truth of the matter is when I get bad news, when I get some feedback that makes me unhappy, I might not be in the right place to have a conversation. And we don't have to have a conversation all the time, right? Sometimes I just want to tell you something and I want you to have some time to process it. When I say to my kids, you know, I want to have a conversation about your rooms. I don't actually want to have a conversation about their rooms.

43:46I want them to go clean their rooms. So the first thing to figure out is, are we going to have a conversation and how do we structure this conversation? Are we going to have it right away or am I going to give you a day or two to process what I've told you and then we sit down with each other. That's the first thing to do. The second thing to do in this difficult conversation is I want to, instead of telling you how I see you, I want to ask you questions, particularly deep questions, about why you think this situation exists, right? So, you know, you haven't hit the sales goals that we set up this year.

44:26And I'm really disappointed that we haven't, before we start talking about that, tell me what it means to you. What does it mean to you that we haven't hit these sales goals? Why do you think we're having problems? Now, the truth of the matter is someone might say, well, it's everyone else's fault. It's not my fault, right? But that's valuable. Then I've heard something about how you see the world. But more likely, if I invite you to tell me how you see things, if I invite you to diagnose, you're actually going to tell me many of the same things I was about to tell you. right? You know what the problem is.

45:00And then if I prove to you that I'm listening, if I do that looping for understanding, if I repeat back what you heard in my own words, I ask your permission, I say, did I get that right? And I ask your permission to acknowledge that I've heard you, then we're in a position where you're much more likely to listen to me and we can actually get aligned. And the truth of the matter is, look, if I'm making you redundant, if I'm laying you off, maybe there isn't a need for a conversation, right? Because beyond sort of our emotional maintenance, it's not necessarily important. But if we are working together, if I want to give you this feedback because I expect that you will be able to succeed, I expect so much from you, then what's critical is to get to a place where you genuinely understand what I'm trying to tell you.

45:54And I genuinely understand how you see the world. I genuinely understand how you're hearing it. That's how we become better. Laying people off is arguably the most difficult conversation you can have at work. Is there a best practice or do you think it totally depends on your understanding of that person's personality, character, resilience, etc.? I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with the person themselves. But I will say this. Oftentimes we treat that conversation as a practical conversation, right? I'm laying you off. Here's all the benefits. Here's your severance. Here's what you're going to want.

46:28Here's the logistics of leaving. But the truth of the matter is that the person who just got told that they're being fired, they're having an emotional conversation, right? They don't care what the benefits package looks like. They're angry or they're sad or they're anxious or they're terrified. and so as a as a ceo as a as your manager as a boss the best thing that i can do if i do want to have a conversation with you if i think we're in a place where we can actually talk to each other or if it's a couple of days later and you've come to me and said you want to you want to follow up on this is to match you and if you are feeling emotional to have that emotional conversation with you not to pretend like this is just a practical thing this is just part of life but rather to say i hear you saying that you're hurt and you're sad and you're frustrated.

47:17And let me explain from my perspective why I felt like this was so necessary. It was because if we didn't have these layoffs, the company would have fallen apart. And I'm terrified. I'm terrified of this company going bankrupt. That I think makes it easier. And not every conversation is going to solve every problem. Not every conversation is going to make everyone walk away happy. But if we can at least hear each other and feel heard, then we feel better about the situation. We at least understand what happened. One of the most powerful ways that we can use communication and presumably super communication is through negotiation.

48:01Yeah. So are there some good examples for how we can utilize those skills to get to yes, as people say? Absolutely. And it's really interesting that when we think of negotiation, what we tend to think of is we tend to think of two people fighting over something, right? And if I win a bigger slice of pie than you, then I'm a winner and you're a loser or you're trying to win a bigger slice of pie. And what's happened in the last 20 years is that there's been this revolution in understanding how negotiations actually work, that there are these zero-sum negotiations. But in almost all of those situations, there's another option, which is rather than fighting over the size of the slice of the pie, can we somehow negotiate to make the pie bigger?

48:41Right? Can we somehow find new creative solutions that allow us to both walk away from this better than we were before? And what's interesting is that if you look at professional negotiators, if you look at, you know, whether it's foreign affairs or whether it's people working in industry, and you ask them, what's the secret to your negotiation? They don't say things like, oh, it's like, you know, my Jedi mind tricks. It's my ability to like box someone and force them into a corner. It's them saying, oh, I'm really creative. I'm an artist. I find solutions nobody thought of before. And not every problem has a solution like that, right?

49:18If you and I, if we're married and I want to have a child and you don't want to have a child, then it does not matter how much we negotiate with each other. We probably are going to have to walk away disappointed. But if we do spend time trying to figure out how to make the pie bigger, then even if it doesn't work, even if we can't resolve the situation, we at least know that we tried everything. And it might very well be that there is a solution out there that neither of us are thinking about. When we think of a negotiation as a cooperative activity, as opposed to a combative activity, what we do is we take advantage of both of our intellect.

50:01I get to benefit from your smarts as a negotiation partner, and you get to benefit from me. And that honestly usually leads to the right solution. Okay, so we've talked about hard conversations. Yeah. I just where I was naturally going to loop back to you. How natural. See, you're so good. You're a natural super communicator. It's almost like I prepared for the interview or something. So we've covered negotiations, hard conversations. I'd like to learn a little bit about how to motivate my team. Yeah. How to make them believe the kind of passion and vision that I've got and to really be heard.

50:38Yeah. To really feel like they're seriously on this mission with me. How do I do that? Okay. So let me ask you a question. to set this up. How do you get motivated? When you think back about a boss you had or someone who helped motivate you, what did they do that got you motivated? Spent time with me. It's actually a great question. It's been a long time since I worked for someone else, by the way. So I'm having to think back over a decade. And I had some terrible bosses. Yeah. Which actually might be really helpful framing for, because it's the opposite, right? Right. But the good ones made me feel like an adult.

51:15Yeah. Made me feel like I had agency over my choices. Made me understand with clarity where we were trying to get to. It's essentially as simple as that. And were they able to do that? Because everyone has a different lock inside their brain, right? It's something that they need to unlock. If you think about those bad bosses you had versus the good ones, what did the bad bosses do that made them ineffective in that respect? Yeah. Very bossy. Yeah. Very direct. One of them was just the archetypal worst boss in the world you could ever, ever have. He would just put me down and would actually play psychological games with me when I was 21.

52:02So, you know, he would sort of build me up throughout the day and then absolutely tear me down in the same day. Oh my gosh. So you would go on like an emotional ride every single day. Yeah. And go to work like dreading the emotional ride that you knew you were going to have. So I think he's unique because I've never, the stories I have of him, I've never met anyone else that has stories of such a bad boss. So that one aside. But I also worked for another boss, you know, who did things. I worked in a sales office and he made us stand up all day until we made a sale. We weren't allowed to sit down.

52:38oh my god it's fine to make someone stand up all day in theory if that's like a health thing or whatever if that's your culture but this was just about punishing made a sale so like visibly you all look like you're bad at your job until you see you know stuff like that right nuts we and from his perspective he was probably like this is a great way to motivate everyone because like you feel the shame it's motivating out of fear isn't it yeah yeah it's motivating out of fear what i hear you saying and tell me if you think i'm getting this wrong is that the bad bosses actually did not engage in conversations with you.

53:06The bad bosses came and they basically monologued. They said like, this is the right way to motivate you, make you stand up until you make a sale. This is the right way to motivate you is to play these psychological games. And every time you give them information about yourself, it feels like you're giving them something that they can weaponize against you, right? It feels like you don't wanna be open with them because you know that they're gonna use it against you. Correct, vulnerability was a weakness there. Exactly. So the good managers, my guess is, and tell me if I'm getting this right, is that when they're asking you questions, what they're actually asking you is, what motivates you?

53:42Like what do you like about this job? What do you care about in this job? And once I know, oh, I'm here because I want to earn a lot of money or I'm here because I want to have a community or I believe in the mission or I like this job because it lets me get home and take care of my kids. once I know what matters to you, then motivating you is really easy. But if I don't listen to you, if I don't create a culture where you feel comfortable to share with me, to be vulnerable with me, to tell me what's going on inside your head, if you don't trust me, you're not going to tell me how to motivate you.

54:19And so by having these conversations, my guess is that what your boss was doing, and I'm curious if you think this is right, that what those good bosses were doing is they were just giving you what you asked for. And they were smart enough to know to ask you what you want. Is that fair? Does that sound right? Yeah, I think it sounds, it resonates a lot. But I also think, you know, looking back, I only really had one boss, one good boss. Yeah. Honestly, I had three horrific ones and some very average ones, but one good one. And that good one just made me believe in myself. It was really that simple.

54:58you know he headhunted me from the bad place and told me i was great and i was like it can't be great i've been told every day that i'm terrible yeah he's like well come work here and it was all a trap because you know you've had a few bad bosses and so you feel like actually that's what work is meant to be like and actually this guy continued to tell me i was doing great and how can we do even more great and so after time you start to believe in yourself which starts to improve your performance exponentially right yeah no absolutely you believe that you're worth listening to. This person is clearly listening to me.

55:29I must be worth listening to. This person believes that I have the ability to get this job done. And I admire them. I trust their judgment. So I think I have the ability to do the job. It's really, really powerful. But the only way that we can do that is by communicating with each other, right? I can't tell you, if I tell you how to do your job, if I just give you written instructions, you're not necessarily going to believe you can do it. It's me coming down and sitting with you and making a real connection and saying, I think you're doing a wonderful job. Like, I know that this is hard. I know that it's new, but I see that you can do this.

56:04That connection feels amazing. And we build so much of our self-worth on that. It's really powerful. So what do you think are like the pitfalls? so i guess frame i've just also finished just before i read super communicators i finished an old classic the psychopath test oh right yeah yeah by john ronson yeah you ever read that i love it i love it i love ronson he's just a wonderful person really funny um and so i read this afterwards it was really great two books to read back to back because actually you You know, the thing is in the book when you learn, you know, maybe 1 % of all the world's leaders and CEOs are probably psychopaths.

56:50And especially at the top, top level. And you read that book and you can totally see how. And actually this would be their like absolute toolkit. Yes. To master their skills. Yeah. So I suppose it's a leading question. What are the pitfalls? Are you just creating a toolkit to create more maniacs to enslave us all? No. Discuss. I think that any time that we learn tools that are available to us, as I mentioned, you can use an axe to build a house or you can use an axe to cut someone's head off. What matters is not – Which one are you choosing? I'm choosing to build the house. I'm going to build the house, yeah.

57:25And what matters here is not whether the tool is good or bad. It's whether you want to use it responsibly. And hopefully in super communicators, one of the things that we're teaching you is there are real values, there are real upsides to having these authentic conversations, to having real conversations, to not acting like a psychopath or like a narcissist. But rather if you want to be happy and successful and healthy, we should do the opposite. We should try and connect with people in honest ways. But I'll also say this other thing, which is our brains have evolved to be excellent at communication, right?

58:01This is our superpowers, homo sapiens. And as our brains have evolved, they've also developed this hair trigger to detect inauthenticity. And this makes sense in a state of nature, right? Because on the plains of wherever we came from, if someone comes to our village or our tribe and they're inauthentic, they pose a real risk. If we think they're a friend and they turn out to be an enemy, we need to be aware of that. And in fact, one of my favorite studies showing how good we are at detecting an authenticity is that a bunch of researchers made tape recordings of friends laughing together, but then also strangers laughing together.

58:41And then they would bring in listeners and they would play them one second clips of the laughter, just one second. And with 90 % accuracy, people could tell the difference between the friends and the strangers. we have something in our head that is so well-tuned that when someone is trying to use these tools but they're using them to manipulate us or they're using them in a way that's inauthentic or they're using them in a way that they're not really listening but they're just pretending they're listening we can detect that right and you've had this experience I've had everyone listening has had this experience that you're five minutes into a conversation and you're like oh this guy's a jerk like he asked me where I went to on vacation because he wants to tell me all about his vacation, right?

59:23He's not really interested in me. And psychopaths, psychopaths can get away with it for a little bit. And if they're really, really talented, if they're really talented, I actually think what they do - Then they'll build Tesla. Yeah, then they'll build Tesla. I actually think if they're really talented, what they do is they become genuine communicators. It's just not natural for them. But they recognize like, if I'm going to succeed, I need to be able to really communicate with people. And so I think the key is we're better off knowing the tools. We're better off having the tools in our toolbox, particularly because these tools are tools that if you use them wisely, make your life innumerably better.

1:00:03There's a story in your book about the NRA. Yeah. Now, obviously, anyone that understands even the most basic thing about America knows how divided the gun situation is. Yeah. And obviously, won't surprise you, the outside world just does not understand America. Not at all. About that one thing. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense to anyone else outside of America at all. But what we do know is it's a very complicated conversation to be had as sort of the never-ending unsolvable problem. Yeah. And so you had this really interesting story of how people behaved in person and then on social media afterwards.

1:00:44Yeah. There was a lot of ground made between the two groups who had completely opposing views on a topic that no one can ever get closer to. And the reason I'm sort of summarizing the story is I'd love to know what you learned from that research, that study, that story, which people can find in the book if they want to understand it more. It's a really great, really great story, a really great chapter. Oh, thanks. But the disappointment, the experience of the social media side. Yeah. How much harder is it to be a super communicator on social media? So just for folks that haven't read the book, so you're exactly right.

1:01:20There was this experiment where they brought together people who are gun rights advocates and people who are gun control activists. And these are people who normally scream at each other at protests, right? And they teach them this looping for understanding. They teach them to prove that they're listening to each other. And after two days, the group say things like, this is some of the best conversations I've ever had. They didn't change each other's minds, but they felt like they connected. They felt like they understood the other side better. And people walked away saying, you know, we don't agree, but I want to keep in touch with you.

1:01:48I want to learn from you. I want to understand. And then they go home and they get on Facebook for a private Facebook group. And within 45 minutes, they're calling each other jackbooted Nazis, right? It all falls apart. Now, I think what happened there, and in fact, what studies show, is that the breakdown was that they assumed that discussing online is the same thing as discussing something face-to-face. And what we know is that different channels of communication, they have different rules. One of my favorite examples of this is about 100 years ago, when telephones first became popular, there were all these studies saying no one will ever be able to have a real conversation on a telephone, right?

1:02:29Because you can't see each other, no one will be able to really connect. and at the time they were actually right. If you look at early transcripts of telephone conversations, what you see is people using them like telegrams saying like, here's my grocery list order. I want to buy this stock. But by the time you and I and everyone listening were as a teenager, we could talk on the phone for seven hours a night and they were real conversations. They were some of the most meaningful conversations of our teenage life. And the reason why they became real conversations is because we learned the rules of speaking on the telephone.

1:03:02And we learned that it's different from speaking face to face. Without recognizing it, when you speak on the telephone, you will inevitably overemphasize your words just a little bit. You'll put more emotion into your voice because you know that the person can't see you. And so you need to signal what you're feeling. We don't think about this at all. We're totally unaware of the fact that we do it. But we recognize that there are these special rules for speaking on the phone. now in the last we've had telephones for over 100 years right some forms of social media we've had for like five years now these they're such new forms of communication and i have a i have a 12 year old and a 15 year old when i see them online speaking online it's almost as if they speak a different language sometimes they'll send their friends just a list of emojis and what they're doing is they're sending them an emotional an emotional communication right a smiling face and then a sad face.

1:03:55And they recognize that there are different rules for different forms of communication. They know that a Snapchat is different from a text, is different from sending emojis, is different from a phone conversation, is different from face-to-face. But we as adults, sometimes we're moving so fast and we're not paying attention to what's going on and we just want to get the... We sometimes forget that different forms of communication have different rules. And so when I'm writing, if I was talking to you and I said something sarcastic, you would hear the sarcasm in my voice. But when I'm typing to you, I hear the sarcasm in my head.

1:04:25But when you get the email, you don't realize I'm being sarcastic and you get upset. And if we take a second and before we engage in digital communication, if we just say to ourselves for half a second, what's the rule that I need to follow here? How is this different from other forms of communication? Oftentimes all those problems get resolved. Okay. So I also, by the way, if you were receiving any form of communication as an American from an English person, you would just assume sarcasm, right? default make it a lot easier for you. So we talked a lot about the dialogue, the conversation, you know, back and forth with people.

1:05:04Sometimes when you're a founder, a leader, a CEO, a manager, you're speaking into a room. Sometimes it's an auditorium. And oftentimes it's actually a room designed to petrify you with investors who have all the power and all the money. So You put yourself into these different situations, but you're still on show. And you're really, you're not asked necessarily to deliver a conversation, but a monologue, a speech, a one-way message. How do you become a super communicator in those moments? So I think the people who are really good at this, if you look closely, maybe when they're on that stage, it looks like a monologue.

1:05:41But they're actually making it a conversation. Before they get on that stage, they're talking to people and they're saying, what matters to this group? What do you care about? What's the thing that I can talk about that's really meaningful to you? And they're paying attention while they're on the stage about how the crowd is reacting. This is what we see about good politicians. We think of politicians as getting up on a stage and just saying whatever the politician wants. But actually, the best politicians, they change their speech as they're giving it based on how the crowd is reacting to them.

1:06:08They make it into a conversation. And it's not as easy and it's not as perfect as being able to sit down face to face. but if I've spent a little bit of time trying to figure out what is going on in your head if instead of just saying oh I'm going to write this boring speech and I'm going to tell you what my strategy is if instead of thought about you I try and have a conversation with you in my head I know that I need to tell you a little bit of a story because you like stories and I need to make a little bit of a joke because it makes it easier to listen to and I know that as soon as I announce this new strategy you're going to be feeling anxious because I've talked to some of you and you already feel anxious.

1:06:47And I'm going to respond to that anxiety. I'm going to talk about that anxiety. We tend to think of a speech as being just this one thing in and of itself, but it's just a moment in time. It's oftentimes a moment in a larger conversation that's taking place over many, many days or hours. And the best public speakers are the ones who make it feel like a conversation. And maybe you can't speak up right now. Maybe you can only talk to me in your head and I need to wait until afterwards. But it feels like a conversation and that's what makes it feel so good. I was about to ask you to do a wrap up, but I suppose what would only be correct is for me to loop back some of the points.

1:07:30Absolutely. Absolutely. we've talked a lot about the art of negotiation the art of storytelling the art of having difficult conversations and of course also being a super communicator where you need to motivate and inspire other people yeah so these to me from what I've heard seem to be the core pillars of how to be a super communicator at work anyway in this kind of dynamic in this kind of setting um my my question to you is what do you want listeners to take away from what is the key thing that you believe they need to understand take one thing away to be a super communicator tomorrow here's the whole toolkit yeah what's the simplicity what's the simple answer so i um let me just say for the record that was a wonderful i feel so listened to you did a wonderful job of looping for understanding i feel like we're married lovely thank you But I would say the number one thing, and then I'm curious, I might ask you a question if it's okay.

1:08:28The number one thing that I want people to carry away from this is to emphasize we can all be super communicators. We can all – super communicators aren't people who are super charismatic. They're not people who are really outgoing or extroverts. There's no personality type that makes you a great communicator. Rather, super communicators are just people who think a little bit more about how to communicate and who show you that they want to connect with you. Because oftentimes, we all want to connect with each other. We go into a conversation and we're dreading it or we're looking forward to it.

1:09:05What we really want is we just want it to be fun and easy or satisfying. And what super communicators do is they signal to you, they show you that they want to listen to you, that they want to connect with you. And it's just a set of skills. It's not something that you have to have a special degree or a personality type in order to do. It's just a set of tools, looping for understanding, asking deep questions, showing you want to connect. If you grab onto those tools and you make them into habits, then you can connect with anyone. Okay, so here's my question for you, if it's okay. So you've been doing this show for a while.

1:09:43how have you changed as a communicator by virtue of doing this show

1:09:53i think the thing that is awesome about interviewing getting into a situation like this where there's a lot of pressure on you as the interviewer is you you do learn how to uh deeply listen and process information and figure out where you want to take the question because your curiosity starts to spike at various different things you'll be saying. So the way that I think about this is trying to hold space in my head for the various things that might be interesting whilst absolutely making sure that I'm definitely completely listening. Because it can be quite an unnatural thing to have this level of attention over such a long period of time, often 60, 90 minutes.

1:10:39It's just not natural. It's not the way that people typically communicate. Yeah. It's just the reality. So it takes a lot of headspace. I think it's something that I constantly feel like I'm on a learning curve of discipline with. That's interesting. Because it's not as simple as just listening. The perfect answer to give you is like, I've become an incredible listener. But it's not true, right? I think everyone's on a journey with listening. Some people are naturally amazing at it. I'm naturally curious. So the problem that I have that I try to get better at is not interrupting, not asking the questions that I'm personally so fascinated by and trying to also hold some understanding of what the audience would be interested in, trying to pick up on your cues.

1:11:18What are the things you're more interested in? A good interview is more about the stuff, sort of 50 % of the things that I'm interested in, 50 % of the stuff that you're interested in, and maybe more so the stuff that you're really interested in. You're going to give better answers. So a lot of it's sort of just about paying attention. That's right. What I hear you saying, and tell me if I'm getting this wrong, is that you spend a lot more time thinking about how the conversation ought to go. You think about the conversation as opposed to just have the conversation. Is that right? Yeah, annoyingly.

1:11:49Yeah. Yeah. And you're right. It's a habit we learn and it can feel sometimes very meta, right? Only in this setting. I don't do that outside of this setting. But in this setting, there's a lot of pressure to make sure that it works really well. But the things that you pick up from interviewing in general is the ability to process a lot of information and try to distill and succinctly understand where you need to take that. And that's a really valuable skill just in any kind of conversation. I totally agree. Well, you do a marvelous job of it. That's very kind. So what I think I've heard is you approve.

1:12:22I totally approve. And you've enjoyed this interview. 100%. Okay. Charles, thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Awesome.

1:12:33That was my conversation with Charles Duhigg. It was so good to have the chance to sit down and speak with him because I've been a fan of his work for some time now. And I love how he's able to break down the complex dynamics of communication and give us clear actionable steps to actually become super communicators. If you enjoyed the episode and found it useful, please take a second to share it with someone you like. and do me a favor. Check us out on YouTube at Secret Leaders Podcast and give us a follow, please. Thanks a lot. See you next time.

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