Charles Duhigg

From the Globe and Mail and New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit, an investigation of what makes conversations work, and how we can all learn to be supercommunicators at work and in our lives. We all know people who seem capable of connecting with almost anyone. They are the ones we turn to for advice, the ones who ask deep questions but who also seem to hear what we are trying to say. What do they know about conversation that makes them so special? And what can they tell us about how communication really works? Supercommunicators, Charles Duhigg argues, understand—some by intuition, some by hard-won experience—that there is a science to how human beings connect through words. They understand that whenever we speak, we're actually participating in three distinct conversations: What is this really about? How do we feel? And who are we? They know the importance of recognizing—and then matching—each kind of conversation, and how to hear the complex emotions, subtle negotiations and hidden beliefs that color and inform everything we say. Our pasts, our values, our affiliations—our identities—shape every discussion we have, from who will pick up the kids to how we want to be treated at work. With his trademark insight and clarity, Duhigg shows readers how to recognize these three conversations—and teaches us the skills we need to navigate them more successfully. Communication, he argues, is a superpower. By bringing readers into jury deliberations and fraught CIA recruitments, into Netflix's company-wide conversations about equity and the writers' room of The Big Bang Theory, we learn why some people are able to make themselves heard—and to hear others—so clearly. We learn how to recognize and leverage the hidden layers that lurk beneath every conversation. In the end, we learn a simple but powerful lesson: We can connect with anyone, as long as we understand how conversations work.

How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

Supercommunicators

Kristina Bonitz

When starting a dialogue, it helps to think of the discussion as a negotiation where the prize is figuring out what everybody wants. 

Cassandra Tang

Miscommunication occurs when people are having different kinds of conversations. If you are speaking emotionally, while I’m talking practically, we are, in essence, using different cognitive languages.

The best negotiators didn’t battle over who should get the biggest slice of pie. Rather, they focused on making the pie itself larger, finding win-win solutions where everyone walked away happier than before. 

Perfection can’t be the goal, because if you’re trying to say the perfect things, nothing authentic is going to happen. The goal is staying in the conversation, finding space for messy learning and supporting each other.

Discomfort pushes us to think before we speak, to try to understand how others see or hear things differently. Discomfort reminds us to keep going, that the goal is worth the challenge.

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