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Charles doig is a writer at the New Yorker and author of the new book super communicators how to unlock the secret
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language of connection welcome Charles first of all explain to us what exactly is a super Communicator you write in
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this book actually came about when you realized you weren't communicating well in your marriage so I had this problem
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where I'd come home from work and I would complain to my wife about my day and she would give me this really good
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advice like you know take your boss out to lunch get to know him better and instead of being able to hear her I
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would you know get upset and say why aren't you supporting me you're supposed to be on my side then she would get
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upset cuz I was attacking her for giving me good advice and and I wanted to understand what was going on and so I
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went out to researchers and I asked them you know why am I miscommunicating I'm a
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professional communicator and what they said is well look we're living through a
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golden age of understanding communication and one of the things that we know now is that we think of a
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discussion as being about one thing but it's actually many different kinds of conversations and in general they tend
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to fall into one or three buckets there's practical conversations where we're solving problems we're making
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plans together but then there's emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling and I don't want you to
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solve my feelings I want you to empathize and then finally there's social conversations about how we relate
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to each other and if you're not having the same kind of conversation at the same moment that's when you
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miscommunicate I was having an emotional conversation my wife was having a practical conversation and so we
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couldn't really hear each other I know that I know that I'm often in Practical I'm always like what's the solution I
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don't really care about the feeling as much as the solution which is interesting so what how what do you see
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as the main reason I mean of course it's hard to like say one reason that people
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people struggle to communicate effectively but talk about a few of them it it's usually because for a couple of
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reasons first of all that we don't we're not having the same kind of conversation
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remember that that wave of like Tech CEOs doing layoffs over Zoom so obviously when you're laying someone off
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that's an emotional conversation and yet they were treating it as a practical conversation this is why we're laying
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you off here's the benefits you're going to get this is what's best for the company somebody hearing that they're
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being that they're losing their job they don't want to hear about the practicalities they want to hear
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someone who empathizes with them and so having the same kind of conversation at the same moment is critical another
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thing that's really important is asking more questions super communicators ask 10 to 20 times as many questions as the
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average person and as reporters we know this right the power of questions and in
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particularly asking deep questions questions that ask me about my values or my beliefs or my experiences like if you
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meet someone who's a doctor instead of saying where do you practice medicine saying oh what made you decide to go to
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medical school that's an invitation for them to say something real and then finally the thing that super
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communicators do is they prove that they're listening they ask follow-up questions that show they're paying
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attention they might do this thing called looping for understanding where they repeat back what they heard you say
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and when we feel listened to that's when we become more likely to listen in return oh that's an interesting
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technique so that's so what you've just said to me is no um no um you're very good at it yeah no I'm not do you want
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me to explain it to car yeah yeah that's um Scott go for it Mr communic ation uh my my you've sort of outlined
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my dad said you know my dad said this to me when he uh I was much younger and I didn't
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register how important it was or how many subtleties to it and it sounds like it's a lot of what your themes you was
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used to say communication is with the listener can you talk about I something I didn't figure out till I was much
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older is the power of Silence just looking someone in the eye and make sure that you know that that you are not
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waiting to speak that you're you're listening to them can you talk about the power of silence and sort of
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acknowledging the point if you will absolutely creating those spaces for silence is critical and and what's
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interesting is that speaking is such a cognitively intense activity that often times we don't really pay attention to
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how people are acting when we're speaking right and so the way that we create that silence or we create that
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proof of listening is when they stop talking what we do for instance think about how powerful it is if if you just
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said something profound and someone says wow that gives me a lot of a lot to think about let me take a second just to
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think about what you just said in that moment what you're really doing is you're saying I am listening to
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you I promise I'm listening to you and then if you ask a follow-up question or if you say here's what I hear you saying
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and tell me if I'm getting this wrong what we're doing is we're proving that we're listening because you're exactly
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right many people particularly in a hard conversation a conflict conversation we
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suspect in the back of our head this person isn't listening they're waiting their turn to
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speak and we have to prove that that's not what's happening and when we do it transforms a conversation so so one of
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the thing you just talked about reference Zoom communication a lot of communication happens on text or video
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or social media which is a very different level of Comm which is not about listening in any way some of the
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time it is uh but usually it isn't um how does technology play into what we're writing about because often when Scott
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and I get into Beast it's over as text you you know what I mean like I'm thinking um which she takes the wrong
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way no one of us gets into a beef the other just sits there and what the is she Tex me for 3:00 a.m. no but then
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respond Charles I listen I'm the winner I'm the super Communicator here I just listen in any case uh we always solve it
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when we talk together always even over the phone even over a phone which it makes a huge difference right it in the
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book there's a story about a CIA officer who who's he's a terrible CIA officer over to Europe to try and recruit spies
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and he's terrible at his job and he learns this lesson which is different types of communication have different
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rules and different strengths and weaknesses and what's interesting is if you look at a hundred years ago when
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phones became popular there were all these articles that said no one will ever have a real conversation on
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Telephone because you can't see each other face to face and at the time they were right if you look at early
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transcripts it's people using phones like telegraphs or sending stock orders and grocery lists to each other but of
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course by the time we're in middle school and our kids are we can have phone conversations that are some of the
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deepest conversations of our life and it's because we learned how to use phones and and when you're talking on
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the phone you tend to without realizing it overemphasize your words a little bit
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more you put more emotion into your voice because you know the person can't see your
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expressions and when it comes to digital Communications the same thing is true there are certain rules if I say
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something sarcastic to you you can hear the sarcasm in my voice if I type something sarcastic you're going to take
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it seriously and you're going to be pissed off and so we just have to remind ourselves
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of what those rules are that there's some conversations that have to be telephone have to be face to face and if
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we do them online then we have to overemphasize politeness we have to overemphasize emotion we have to
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underemphasize sarcasm what do you who are your so first off I think storytelling someone asked me what is
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the core confidence you would want to give to your kids thinking a lot about high school crcs and hands down and I am
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going to buy your book and give it to my two sons I think the competence that will stand the test of time is
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storytelling you're you're on a podcast with two people who made their livings storytelling what if if you buy into
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that and you have sons or daughters and you want them to become great storytellers what what exercises or what
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hacks would you recommend for for acquiring it's a great question and the first thing to understand is what
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happens when we communicate so when we're in a conversation the reason it's powerful and and communication is home
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Homo sapiens superpower right it is the thing that has set us apart from every other species when we're talking to each
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other our bodies start to match each other right during this conversation without us realizing it our breath
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patterns are matching each other our heart rates are starting to align and most importantly the neural activity
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that the brain activity that both of us have all of us have are starting to mirror each other and within neurology
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that's known as neural entrainment and when you think about it it makes sense because if I describe an emotion to you
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if I if I describe an idea you actually experience that idea or that emotion a little bit that's what makes it powerful
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and that's our brains aligning so when it comes to storytelling the thing to keep in mind is my goal is not
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necessarily to tell you the most polished story on Earth my goal is to take you on a journey with me right many
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people who when they tell stories they focus on the beginning and the end but it's the middle the journey through the
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middle that makes it a story if you think about the movie Cinderella the beginning is the parents her father dies
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that's 2 minutes the ending as she lives happily ever after that's like 45 seconds the rest of the movie is the
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middle and when we bring people on that Journey we invite them to align with us to in to entrain neurologically and
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that's incredibly powerful but when people have less of attention obviously people have less attention now and
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especially when they're distracted by a phone or whatever it happens to be but distraction is certainly you know we're
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in a persistent partial attention is where we all live now does that affect that because it's very hard to have I've
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had many fewer longer C conversations than I used to I'm starting to talk like I'm starting to Tech you know what I
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mean yeah like you have they're usually more logistical and that kind of thing what happens in in in that space and can
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people get like you said if you can adapt to phones you can adapt to social media too how Absol communicate well
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absolutely well and time is less important than than authen icity so if I tell you that like you know I had this
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incident with my wife and we couldn't hear each other and I went to these researchers and I talk to them that
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takes me 40 seconds to explain but it's a little bit of a story you get to come with me you get to Envision me and my
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wife not getting along because that's probably something that happens with you guys and your wives right never and so
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never never and so what I think what hap what happens is that particularly when we're on social media if we use social
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media as a way to Simply broadcast to scream rather than to interact we'll fall into that pattern throughout our
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life because it becomes a habit and so the thing to do is to remind ourselves that the goal of a conversation is not
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to convince the other person that you are right and they are wrong it's not to what impress them it's not it's not for
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them to like you the goal of a conversation is simply to understand how they see the world and speak in a way
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that they understand how you see the world and when you hold yourself to that standard I'm not going to continue or
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discontinue this conversation until I can show try and understand what you're saying and help you understand me it
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makes everything healthier can I do a followup we're obviously an election year it seems like candidates are not
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that doing that it's a Dunk Dunk Dunk no one ever listens you know even more so than anybody else of of all of all all
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public facing of people they're the worst I think is there anyone who's a super Communicator that you see on the
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campaign Trail well what's really interesting is if you go to rallies and and this is true of both Trump and Biden
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and you pay attention to when they get off script what they're doing is they're proving that they're listen right Trump
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trump you know setting aside what he's saying and the craziness coming out of his mouth when that audience applauds he
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leans into the Applause he leans into whatever he's saying that's why he starts saying all these crazy things
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he's proving to them that he's listening to them and Biden's doing the same thing
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in his rallies and he's trying to do it right now with his public statements you're exactly right one of the reasons
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I wrote this book is because we have forgotten how to communicate right this used to be taught in schools your your
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parents took a course called homech or interpersonal relations and as schools got more technical it fell out of the
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curriculums but this is important and our brain is designed to be amazing at communication if we teach it the right
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skills it makes it into a habit very quickly and so super communicators is about that handful of skills that we
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know helps you connect with other people yeah it's interesting I do think you learned to communicate without talking I
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I something I've learned of having smaller children is we talk a lot but not speaking right you know what I mean
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there's a lot of non-communication communication happening Scott final question yeah just Charles I know very
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little about you do you have kids I do I have a a 12-y old and a 15y old oh you're you're you're in the midst of it
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you're in your second tour of Iraq in Vietnam right anyway so that's exactly right what uh how has your study of
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being a super communicator and the best and worst practices Chang the way you interact with your children it's
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actually transformed it the the first thing is that I mentioned that deep questions and what that really is is
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it's about asking not about the facts of someone's life but how they feel about their life and I used to ask my kids
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like how was your day fine did you learn anything at school no did you have fun no right you guys had this like it's
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it's like pulling teeth to have a conversation with them and then I started asking instead about the facts
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other day I started ask saying things like hey I know that you hung up with Jasper after school like what do you
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admire about Jasper why do you like him and Suddenly It's like opening this book
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you know my kid is like oh he's very courageous what does courage mean well he rode his bike off the roof like is
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that courage or what else has he done oh it turns out Jasper can talk to girls and I prove that I'm listening to them I
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ask them these deep questions about how they feel about their life because they're experts in that and then I
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repeat back to them I say oh that's interesting what do you mean by courage I prove to them that I'm paying
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attention that I want to learn from them and they're not annoyed by that they're
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not no they love it they love it right I mean you have older kids K you know like
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when they're teenagers they they're they're just bursting at the seems to be experts on
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things and to share their expertise with you and the the thing they're an expert
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on is their own life yeah that is fair true that's true so give us a little review here are Scott and I super
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communicators you guys are super communicators Park stord and are I mean the thing is I've been listening to some
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of the podcasts that you've been doing car about um for your book and and the thing I love about it is that you go in
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and you have something to say right you H you you're coming in not just waiting for a question you're coming in with
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something you want to share but at the same time you're also listening to that host you're interacting with them and
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you guys might not walk away completely agreeing with each other but you walk away understanding and connecting with
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each other so you guys you guys are definitely super and give us one give give everybody one quick tip before we
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go what's the one thing you have to do the one thing you have to do is today ask a question that you wouldn't have
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asked otherwise and make it a question that feels to you like it's personal like Scott does that well yeah yeah why
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why did you decide to become a journalist like what was it like growing up wherever you grew up what do you love
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about your neighborhood those questions are an invitation to someone else to tell you
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who they really are yeah I think I told Scott this something Louie does my son does he everyone he asks and I've
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borrowed it because I think it works really well he he looks at someone he doesn't know and he says how's your day
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going and I have to tell you it changes Dynamics constantly where we're at rather than just rush past them um and
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he actually looks at them and I think it's one of those really I was like wow that was it works it works it's powerful
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it is very much so anyway Charles doig super communicators how do unlock the secret language of connection is out now