The Art of Manliness - The Secrets of Supercommunicators

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:11.080 have you ever known one of those people who seem to be able to connect with anyone

00:00:14.940 the kind of person who had the ability to make others feel understood

00:00:18.400 and smoothly navigate even the trickiest of conversations

00:00:21.620 charles dohead calls these folks super communicators and he's the author of a

00:00:26.120 new book by the same name today in the show charles explains that what underlies super

00:00:30.180 communicator skill and connection is something called the matching principle

00:00:33.320 and he unpacks how it works and how you can put it to use in your own conversations

00:00:37.280 we discuss several techniques for how to figure out what kind of conversation you're having

00:00:40.940 so you can align your language and energy with the other person and because emotional

00:00:45.040 conversations can be particularly difficult we dig into tactics for successfully navigating them

00:00:49.800 even when they contain a high degree of conflict we also get into how to carry the skills of

00:00:54.180 connection into your digital conversations after the show's over check out our show notes at

00:00:58.180 aom.is slash super communicator all right charles dohead welcome back to the show thanks for having

00:01:16.880 me on so last time we had you on was back in 2016 to talk about your book smarter faster better it's all

00:01:23.600 about the secrets of being more productive in life and business we've also had you on to talk about

00:01:27.880 the power of habit and the habit loop you got a new book out though called super communicator

00:01:32.780 how to unlock the secret language of connection i mean this is all about how to have better more

00:01:38.640 meaningful conversations what led you take a deep dive into this topic well when i wrote the power of

00:01:44.300 habit and smarter faster better you know it's very much focused on the self and and it's about how

00:01:49.600 we succeed as as individuals what do we need to do to be successful but the thing i realized is that

00:01:55.940 a huge amount of our happiness and our productivity and our success it depends on other people right like

00:02:03.420 we work in teams we we have partners or spouses and kids and and parents and so i realized that at the

00:02:12.520 core of dealing with other people coordinating with other people is communication it's conversations right

00:02:18.560 and then when i started doing the research i learned that we're living through this golden age

00:02:22.760 of understanding communication actually for the first time in ways we never have before because

00:02:27.680 of advances in neural imaging and data collection and i just thought it was fascinating and more

00:02:33.020 importantly i thought it could help a lot of people including myself was there a moment you had in

00:02:38.420 your own personal life where you realized boy i really need to get better at talking because i'm not

00:02:42.800 good at it oh oh yeah there was more than one moment right i think i think we've all had that

00:02:48.740 experience for me it was i i fell into this pattern with my wife where i would come home after like a 0.98

00:02:54.360 long and hard day and i would start complaining to her like my boss is a jerk or my co-workers don't 0.96

00:02:58.920 appreciate me and she very rationally it would say oh here's a solution why don't you take your boss 0.96

00:03:05.880 out to lunch and you guys can get to know each other a little bit better but instead of being able to hear

00:03:10.920 what she was saying i would get even more upset and i'd be like why aren't you supporting me

00:03:14.960 you're supposed to be outraged on my behalf and then she would get upset because i was you know

00:03:18.640 reacting very poorly to this advice she had given and so i started going to these researchers and

00:03:24.300 asking them why does this happen because it's not just me right this is a pretty common pattern

00:03:28.140 and they said well actually here's what we've learned and this is one of the biggest insight

00:03:32.780 from the last decade is we tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing right we're

00:03:38.120 talking about my day or we're talking about you know the kids grades or the pets but actually

00:03:43.940 every single discussion is made up of multiple different kinds of conversations and in general

00:03:49.880 those conversations fall into one of three buckets there's there's practical discussions like where

00:03:54.040 we're solving problems we're making plans then there's emotional conversations where i want to tell

00:04:00.400 you how i feel and i don't want you to solve my problem i i want you to empathize and i want you to

00:04:05.380 to listen and then there's social conversations which is about how we relate to each other and to

00:04:10.700 society and they said the thing that we figured out is if people are having different kinds of

00:04:17.100 conversations at the same moment then they won't really hear each other they won't really connect

00:04:22.160 with each other and so the key is what's become known as the matching principle within psychology

00:04:27.500 that in order to communicate with someone we need to be having the same kind of conversation

00:04:32.640 at the same time because that actually causes our brains to align okay there's a lot to unpack here

00:04:40.080 and i hope we can do that throughout this conversation and to get into this idea of the matching principle

00:04:44.500 you start out the book talking about this guy named felix segala who worked for the fbi's crisis

00:04:50.560 negotiation team uh he's a master communicator but from the outside he looks pretty unremarkable he just

00:04:57.220 looks like a middle-aged dude you know mustache maybe wear a sweater vest i don't know and so you'd

00:05:02.780 see like how does this guy people just relate to him they connect with him that he doesn't look

00:05:06.600 charismatic and so a team of researchers went in to study felix to figure out what made him so good

00:05:12.440 at communicating what did these researchers learn about communication from felix so if felix is a

00:05:19.760 really interesting test case because you're exactly right if you met him he would not stand out for you

00:05:24.780 at all until he opened his mouth and what's really really interesting is that he is very

00:05:30.720 typical of super communicators super communicators are not necessarily the most charismatic people

00:05:36.140 they are not extroverts who they are they're people who think just a little bit like half an inch deeper

00:05:42.340 about how to have conversations and as a result they can connect with almost anyone and the thing is

00:05:48.660 it's just a set of skills anyone can learn any of us can become super communicators and so in felix's

00:05:53.680 case what happened was these researchers sat down with him and they were like look tell us what you

00:05:58.080 do that's so special why did so many people tell us that we had to be in in touch with you and he

00:06:02.680 said well well let me demonstrate it might be better and he just starts asking them questions like you

00:06:07.340 know tell me about like what's going on in your life now what's interesting is the questions he

00:06:11.320 asking are a special kind of questions but they don't appear that special they're what's known as deep

00:06:16.240 questions and a deep question asks us about our values or beliefs or experiences but it doesn't

00:06:22.740 appear to be that deep at first it doesn't seem really probing or intrusive it doesn't force someone

00:06:28.520 to reveal something but it's as easy like if you bump into someone and you ask them like what do you

00:06:33.240 do for a living and they say i'm a lawyer a deep question would be to say like oh how did you decide to

00:06:37.640 go to law school or you know what do you love about practicing the law both those questions are

00:06:43.500 pretty easy to ask but what they do is they ask the other person provide an opportunity for the other

00:06:48.100 person to tell us about their experiences why they went to law school to tell us about their beliefs

00:06:52.360 what it is about you know justice in the law that gets them excited every day and when they share

00:06:58.320 that with us then it provides an opportunity for us to engage in what's known as reciprocal authenticity

00:07:03.400 where we can share something about ourselves and we'll feel closer to each other and that's exactly

00:07:08.140 what felix would do he would ask these questions that were deep questions that didn't appear that deep

00:07:12.220 and then somebody would bring up something meaningful you know they became a researcher because their

00:07:17.280 parents were researchers or they the thing that they love about about teaching is to see how

00:07:22.260 students develop and then he would share something about himself he said oh that's really really

00:07:25.700 interesting because what i hear you saying is that you love to help other people and and actually

00:07:30.440 that's why i joined the fbi because i love to help people too and i found this way right so what's

00:07:35.380 happening there is that almost invisibly felix is letting people inviting people to bring their full self to

00:07:42.940 the to the conversation he's proving to them that he's listening to them he's sharing his own life

00:07:51.160 with them and as a result they feel connected they believe that he wants to connect with them and that's

00:07:58.560 the most important thing that super communicators do they prove to us they want to connect so these

00:08:04.320 questions that he asks is this what allows felix to match up so he's able to sync up with the person

00:08:10.240 he's talking to so he they're on the same page and the person feels like they're communicating

00:08:14.600 that's exactly right so so these deep questions and and i will say so people who are consistent

00:08:19.920 super communicators because we're all super communicators at one time or another but but

00:08:23.340 people who can do it all the time on demand they tend to ask 10 to 20 times as many questions as the

00:08:28.820 average person and some of those questions are like throwaway questions they're like oh what'd you

00:08:32.900 think of that or oh what'd you say next we don't even register them as questions but they invite us into

00:08:37.160 the conversation but then about half of them are these deep questions and the reason why those

00:08:43.040 questions are so powerful is exactly what you just said is that it allows you to say something

00:08:48.940 meaningful like something that's true and authentic about yourself and it allows me as the listener to

00:08:54.940 engage in reciprocal authenticity without it seeming like i'm trying to steal the spotlight from you or

00:09:00.180 or i i asked where you went on vacation just because i really want to talk about where i went on

00:09:03.760 vacation they're really powerful so the matching principle is figure out what kind of conversation

00:09:10.340 you're having and then match the other person or invite them to match you and by asking deep

00:09:16.400 questions felix was able to create this matching and we're going to talk more about how to create this

00:09:21.940 kind of alignment throughout our conversation today but besides asking deep questions how else can you

00:09:29.400 tell what kind of conversation someone wants to have well you just listen to what they're saying

00:09:34.340 right because they're going to tell you i mean they might not say i want to have an emotional

00:09:38.060 conversation but if they bring up things like feelings if they mention something that feels vulnerable

00:09:44.820 to you or feels kind of emotionally authentic then they're having an emotional conversation right the 0.99

00:09:51.180 same way that when i get home and i talk about you know my boss is a jerk and he doesn't he 0.97

00:09:55.820 doesn't appreciate me it's not really about what my boss did it's about how i feel about it and that's 0.97

00:10:02.040 obvious right just from listening on the other hand if i'm talking to my wife and i say like look 0.95

00:10:06.120 let's figure out the budget for our vacation next year because i really want to like you know go

00:10:10.400 someplace exciting but i don't want it to be too expensive well that's clear that that's a much more

00:10:14.480 practical frame of mind right so it's not hard to figure out what kind of conversation is happening

00:10:20.200 it's just a matter of listening for it and understanding that there's these different

00:10:25.520 kinds of conversations another way you suggest creating alignment is to share your goals for the

00:10:31.340 conversation and then ask others what their goals are so instead of you know being opaque and each

00:10:37.280 person has to decipher what kind of conversation is going on and what it's about you're just up front

00:10:42.280 about that oh absolutely absolutely and and think about how helpful that is i mean sometimes this

00:10:47.260 happens really naturally right like we have an agenda we're in a business meeting and like we're

00:10:51.500 like look we're here to discuss the budget so we know we know what everyone ostensibly wants out of

00:10:56.540 it but if you even just take half a beat and you start by just saying like look and again this is a great

00:11:02.280 deep question tell me what the budget means to you what's important to you about this budget

00:11:08.400 then what i'm really doing is i'm opening it up because you might say what's really important to me is

00:11:13.440 that we hit our numbers right practical conversation or someone might say what's really important to me

00:11:18.760 is that i'm worried we're gonna have to do layoffs and like i i don't i don't want to do that to people

00:11:25.180 and their families okay now you're signaling that's a much more emotional conversation and so simply by

00:11:30.980 asking someone what their goals are and the easiest way to do that is a to share your own goals and b

00:11:36.360 to simply ask them what does this mean to you why is this important to you okay so ask people what

00:11:41.880 their goals are for a conversation and tell people your goals another suggestion you make in the book

00:11:46.480 that i really like is to come prepared internally for a conversation like mentally prepare you know

00:11:52.820 think beforehand about what you want to get out of the conversation and what you want to talk about

00:11:57.700 with someone and that can help you get more out of the conversation there was this study that was

00:12:03.140 done by some researchers who went into an investment bank and this was a place where like people

00:12:07.880 screamed at each other all day long we just got in fights constantly and they told everyone for the

00:12:13.040 next week before each meeting write one sentence where you describe what you want to accomplish in

00:12:18.240 this meeting and the mood you want to establish it took about 10 seconds for people to do this right

00:12:24.220 they would literally like scribble down one sentence about the upcoming meeting and then they'd usually

00:12:28.720 just stick the paper into their pocket and walk into the meeting and people didn't even usually

00:12:33.360 announce what their goal was they didn't announce what they had written down but the incidence of

00:12:38.880 conflict in those meetings went down by 80 percent and the reason why is because everyone knew what

00:12:44.720 they wanted and so they were able to express that to others knowing what we want just taking like

00:12:51.180 literally two or three seconds before we start a conversation to figure out why we're having the

00:12:56.180 conversation it pays enormous dividends no that's something that my wife and i do whenever we get

00:13:02.300 together with friends before they come over or before we meet them for dinner on the drive over

00:13:06.820 we might say what are the things we want to talk to these people about like what do we want to catch

00:13:10.800 up on so we make like a list so that whenever we see a friend we haven't seen a long time it's like

00:13:14.540 i want to follow up with this and our friends do the same thing with some really good friends of

00:13:18.840 ours we have uh we called uh quality conversation so qcs um and we only see each other maybe once or

00:13:25.760 twice a year because they've they moved away from us but we we each come with our list of like here's the

00:13:29.700 things we want to talk about and we don't get to all of them but because both of us have an idea of

00:13:34.480 what we want to talk about like we can we can go really deep with uh our conversations yeah that's

00:13:38.780 really really smart and in fact there was an experiment done at harvard business school by

00:13:42.440 allison wood brooks who's a professor there where what she did is she had all of her students she told 0.99

00:13:46.840 her students you're going to have a conversation with a stranger and what i want you to do is i want

00:13:50.740 you to write down three topics you might discuss and again this was like 10 seconds of thought

00:13:55.580 right like people would write down like you know last night's tv show and the game this weekend and

00:14:00.160 you know where are you going on vacation and then they would just stick that list in their pocket

00:14:04.240 and most of the people never discussed one of the topics that they had written down but almost all of

00:14:11.360 them reported feeling much less anxious during the conversation and that the conversation went much

00:14:16.940 much better than they expected because they had this this list to fall back on just like you and

00:14:21.960 your wife and and my guess is that because you guys are creating a list of stuff you really want

00:14:25.280 to discuss you do get to a lot of it because it's it's stuff that's important to you but just having

00:14:31.160 that list it makes the entire conversation easier and it probably doesn't take you guys long on the

00:14:37.040 car ride over to come up with what you want to talk about yeah yes just a few minutes another useful

00:14:41.860 tip you provide to help people figure out what the conversation is about because again everyone can be

00:14:47.260 going into conversation with a different agenda you might be thinking i'm just going to focus on

00:14:50.600 just practical things this person wants to have a more of an emotional conversation you talk about

00:14:55.900 thinking of every conversation as a negotiation yeah how can thinking of conversation as a negotiation

00:15:01.960 help you get that matching principle going so this is really interesting and there's a lot of

00:15:07.680 research on this and and the word negotiation might be a little off putting or misleading to people

00:15:12.940 because within psychology this is referred to as a quiet negotiation where the goal is not to win

00:15:19.300 anything the goal is to figure out what each person wants so think about how most of your

00:15:26.340 conversations start is subconsciously you actually probably conduct a couple of experiments at the

00:15:32.160 beginning of every conversation without even realizing it right like sometimes when you start talking to

00:15:36.740 someone at the beginning of a conversation you might try you might interrupt them just to sort of see

00:15:41.380 like you know and then you you pay close attention to their reaction to try and figure out like are the rules of

00:15:47.880 this conversation that we can interrupt each other or is it like no we each have to wait our turn

00:15:51.400 you might make a joke and and then you'll pay close attention to see if the other person laughs

00:15:56.180 to try and figure out is this a casual fun conversation or is this a little bit more serious

00:16:01.020 like we need to be a little bit more formal we already engage in this quiet negotiation when we conduct

00:16:06.340 those experiments the difference is that for super communicators they just pay a little bit more

00:16:11.100 attention to how other people react and they take lessons from them and most importantly if they tell a joke

00:16:17.140 and the other person doesn't laugh they don't assume that that means that the other person doesn't

00:16:21.800 like them they don't assume that that means that they made a mistake rather what they just did was

00:16:26.520 conduct an experiment and they got data from it and the thing about experiments is they're not all

00:16:32.080 supposed to work right like my wife is actually a scientist and if every experiment she did was a 1.00

00:16:36.960 success she'd be the worst scientist on earth like the reason you do experiments is to learn things 0.99

00:16:42.900 and so super communicators treat the beginnings of conversations just a little bit more like a

00:16:48.540 series of experiments to figure out what does this person want so you could okay so you're going to

00:16:53.480 throw out a question maybe throw out one of those deep values questions we'll talk more about that

00:16:58.060 and the person doesn't bite on it they don't really talk about what drove them to become a lawyer

00:17:03.040 it's just like well it's more of the practicality they paid a lot of money so you can understand well

00:17:06.620 this person might want to talk about how to finance a 401k or something

00:17:10.220 totally or maybe they don't even play along at all maybe you say like oh what made you decide

00:17:14.820 go to law school and they just say ah it just seemed fun seemed like a good idea okay i just

00:17:20.100 conducted an experiment to figure out is is talking about careers a way for us to connect and the answer

00:17:26.500 the results you just gave me are no so then i might try a completely different topic and say

00:17:31.040 something like oh you know the super bowl is coming up are you who you're rooting for in the game

00:17:35.460 and then when someone says oh you know i'm rooting for the niners oh yeah what do you love

00:17:39.900 about the niners like why the niners instead of the instead of you know kansas by conducting these

00:17:44.900 little experiments and just paying attention to how people react a little bit more we figure out

00:17:50.580 how they want to connect with us okay so to figure out what kind of conversation you're having and what

00:17:56.320 it's about you listen you ask questions you tell the person what your goals are for the conversation

00:18:01.720 you ask them what their goals are you think of the conversation like a negotiation you throw things

00:18:07.440 out there maybe you throw in a joke and see how they respond to that if they respond to the joke

00:18:11.600 maybe they just want to connect absolutely so you're gonna or or sometimes you don't even have

00:18:16.200 to throw out a joke you could just laugh right 80 of the time when we laugh in conversations it is

00:18:21.200 not in response to something funny it's to show the other person we want to connect with them

00:18:26.060 and then the most natural thing to do is to laugh back right they're showing us that they want to

00:18:30.780 connect with us so i mean think think like i'm laughing right now think about how many times

00:18:36.800 in a conversation you laugh but nobody's told a joke that's a little experiment okay so we've talked

00:18:43.080 about how to tell what kind of conversation you're having and i think emotional conversations are some

00:18:48.180 of the hardest i'd like to dig in more into that if you're having an emotional conversation

00:18:52.660 your advice is to ask about others feelings and share your own yeah so once we're in emotional

00:18:59.260 conversation once i've said like you've brought up something that seems clearly to have to do with

00:19:03.680 feelings and the most natural thing for me to do is empathize oftentimes people are very scared of

00:19:10.000 asking about this question i mean the best example of this in my life was that about six years ago my dad

00:19:16.580 passed away and i came back to i was living in new york at the time i came back to new york from the

00:19:21.500 funeral and like this was the most meaningful thing that had happened in a long time right like the most

00:19:27.680 profound experiences of many people's lives and i would tell people i bumped into they'd say like

00:19:33.420 oh how are you doing i said oh you know my dad passed away i was there last week for the funeral and

00:19:38.480 they would usually they would almost always say like oh i'm so sorry or oh my condolences and then

00:19:45.540 because it felt uncomfortable to them they would go on to something else they would be like i'm so sorry

00:19:52.100 to hear that um but thank you for coming in today because i really wanted to talk about the budget

00:19:56.180 but for me this was the most profound thing i had been through like i was desperate to talk about it

00:20:02.360 i didn't want to talk about anything else and if somebody had said to me like i'm so sorry to hear

00:20:06.620 that tell me about your dad what was he like i would have appreciated that so much and exactly what

00:20:13.760 you just said when we're having emotional conversations oftentimes instead of asking about

00:20:17.540 people's feelings we avoid asking and as a result we deny ourselves that opportunity to connect on an

00:20:24.780 emotional level which often is one of the most profound connections we can have i'm curious do

00:20:30.500 all conversations have an emotional emotional undercurrent even when it's brass tacks you know

00:20:35.680 where we're going to go for vacation or who's doing who's taking the kids where is there typically

00:20:40.740 absolutely yeah absolutely they it from the second you open your mouth emotions in some

00:20:47.300 small way are shaping what you say and how you hear other people going on vacation right like i say

00:20:52.980 to my wife i'd really like to go to hawaii and she says i'd really like to go to japan and suddenly

00:20:57.940 i'm like well japan's twice in my head i'm like japan's twice as expensive as hawaii and that makes

00:21:02.760 me kind of anxious and also we went where you wanted last time so it seems like fairness would

00:21:07.320 dictate i get to choose this time right those emotions are all there now that doesn't mean that we

00:21:12.360 have to make this into an emotional conversation but it does mean that if we're having

00:21:16.120 problems connecting with each other on this practical discussion of where to go on vacation

00:21:20.600 it might be because actually we want to have an emotional conversation and we need to recognize

00:21:26.200 that and let that out well i think sometimes too people don't even know when there's emotion tied

00:21:32.160 to something they they're saying right like they think it's yeah they think it's completely

00:21:36.160 practical you might see this in i don't know it could be a business meeting or a meeting that you

00:21:40.880 have with a group you belong to and you're trying to make a decision that's seemed on the surface

00:21:45.620 seems very brass tacks what are we gonna do for the budget uh who are we gonna assign to this task

00:21:50.280 whatever and whenever you see people coming out of just loggerheads it's just butting heads

00:21:55.280 in my experience there's always been there's some emotional hang-up there like someone's

00:22:00.400 feels strongly about this it's not even logic it's just you have to dig deep like why is this

00:22:05.760 person so stubborn about this thing or why am i so stubborn about this thing and then once you get

00:22:12.120 that on the table things it might not resolve right away but at least you know where everyone's coming

00:22:18.340 from that's exactly right and and one of the things you just said is really important is listen for

00:22:24.760 conflict listen for this isn't going the way i planned it going listen for i just feel like we're not

00:22:31.920 connecting with each other we all know when that happens right when we're in that meeting and we're

00:22:36.080 discussing something that seems practical and you can just feel at the table like like we're not on

00:22:41.380 the same page something's happening here we're not agreeing with each other we're not building on each

00:22:45.340 other's ideas that is a great great clue that you're having a practical conversation and there's

00:22:52.520 something emotional that you need to discuss that you need to shift a little bit so that you can get

00:22:57.100 those emotions on the table because oftentimes once we simply acknowledge them they become much

00:23:02.060 less powerful right once i say like look i know that you are worried i hear you saying that you are

00:23:07.500 worried that we're gonna have to lay people off and that's going to be incredibly stressful and so i

00:23:11.960 just want to say if it comes to that you and i will be in this together we will do this shoulder

00:23:17.640 to shoulder now all of a sudden that anxiety is gone now we can talk about plans but if we don't even

00:23:24.320 acknowledge the anxiety then it's it's hopeless right and the reason why people don't acknowledge

00:23:28.820 it because they feel uncomfortable about talking about emotions yeah or or they simply don't recognize

00:23:34.680 that like that this is an important part of conversations we're gonna take a quick break

00:23:40.080 for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show we'll go back to this idea that you know

00:23:50.040 you gave that example your father died um you get back and people are like oh i'm sorry and then they

00:23:55.480 just moved on to business as usual and you talk about people do that because they just yeah they

00:24:00.140 don't know what to say they feel uncomfortable they feel awkward and a technique that i really i found

00:24:06.300 really useful i got from your book and we you mentioned it earlier this idea of deep questions

00:24:10.740 is turning what are typical shallow questions into deep questions i want to go into this deeper okay so

00:24:18.340 what are some more examples of turning shallow questions into deep questions so the the basic

00:24:24.160 principle of a deep question is instead of asking someone about the facts of their life ask them how

00:24:30.740 they feel about their life and and anyone who's listening who has kids knows how true this is right

00:24:35.640 i have kids myself if when my son comes home from school and i'm like what'd you do today that's a

00:24:40.780 facts question he'll be like nothing what did you learn today nothing right it's like pulling teeth

00:24:46.720 whereas when he comes home and i'm like hey i was just wondering what was the best part of your day

00:24:52.360 or oh you know i saw that you hung out with jasper after school what do you like about jasper what do

00:24:57.140 you think is cool about him suddenly it's like opening the floodgates because instead of asking him

00:25:02.360 about facts i asked him how he felt and this is the principle that underlies every deep question

00:25:08.500 the question doesn't have to be very profound and the question doesn't have to be very specific

00:25:12.600 it just has to be some version of tell me what you make of that what does this mean to you

00:25:18.320 why is that important so instead of asking someone like you know hey where'd you go to college

00:25:24.020 you can ask them like what was the best part of college for you what you're really asking them

00:25:29.180 there is what was important to you about college and it's really easy once you shift your brain a little

00:25:35.960 bit to look for these opportunities deep questions are incredibly easy to find and there's so much more

00:25:41.420 fun to talk about yeah you talk about you have some other examples instead of asking where are you

00:25:45.820 from like what's the best thing about where you grew up and yeah someone might talk about their

00:25:50.520 friends and playing in the fields and memories with barbecues and some people might say well you know

00:25:57.000 i had a i don't know a really nice park system i mean you'll be able to figure out what people value

00:26:02.420 with their answer that's exactly right what they will tell you is they'll tell you what actually

00:26:07.420 matters to them you know i actually grew up in albuquerque new mexico so if someone says what's

00:26:11.840 the best part of growing up in albuquerque what i'd say is oh you know it's just i had a lot of

00:26:15.420 family around me and and it was really easy to see them you know it's not a fast-paced high-pressure

00:26:20.280 place and so what i just told this person is i told them family is important to me and so that's

00:26:25.920 something we can dive into i told them that like i i was born into a place where it was a slower

00:26:31.840 pace which also implies that maybe i've lived other places that are faster paced like i just

00:26:37.360 told you so much about myself simply by telling you what i liked about growing up in albuquerque

00:26:41.440 and it gives you a chance to tell me about yourself to be like oh i grew up in in boise and like

00:26:47.700 same thing it was like sort of slow paced and and now i live in new york it's a little bit more

00:26:52.200 fast-paced and i kind of like that too now we're having a conversation where we can get real with each

00:26:56.780 other and get deep so you didn't value blake's lot of burger green chili burger oh wait so you

00:27:01.880 know albuquerque yeah i will say a blake's green chili cheeseburger is a pretty good way to go it's

00:27:08.720 a good one yeah okay so ask those deep questions you figure out what they value and you can even do

00:27:13.080 this with things that are practical based if you feel like there's an emotional undercurrent here

00:27:17.040 you can turn these shallow questions into deep questions i've been doing this with my kids

00:27:20.840 before we go to bed at night we lie down next to them we kind of talk about the day with each of

00:27:25.020 them and i've been trying to ask these sort of deeper questions instead of asking like what'd

00:27:28.680 you do today what was i asked what was the best thing you did today or what'd you like about that

00:27:32.540 yeah yeah and it opens up opens up some great conversations another part of having these

00:27:37.060 emotional conversations is we need to start paying attention to like how the other person feels during

00:27:43.040 this conversation we got to pay attention to their mood and energy what do you mean by paying

00:27:47.640 attention to mood and energy and the other person so okay when we're kids we do this almost

00:27:52.520 automatically right actually babies almost from birth if you smile at a baby they'll smile back

00:27:57.160 at you but as we get older instead of paying attention to nonverbal communication we start

00:28:03.020 focusing on people's words so we ask someone like hey how you doing and they say i'm fine but their

00:28:09.320 arms are crossed and their voice sounds really like lethargic and their eyes are kind of downcast

00:28:14.260 but we pay attention to their words rather than how they look to us the signals they're sending us

00:28:19.540 and so a big part of this is just just making ourselves a little bit more open to noticing

00:28:24.180 what's going on beyond the words coming out of someone's mouth are they leaning in towards us

00:28:30.240 are they interrupting us interruption we think of interruption as being a bad thing but oftentimes

00:28:35.200 when we're interrupting each other it shows that it's a good conversation because it means that both of

00:28:40.540 us really like what we're talking about we really want to connect here or are they someone who's just

00:28:45.840 sitting there listening are they kind of like looking away it's really easy to ignore all of

00:28:50.880 those signals but once we just train ourselves and again this isn't hard it's a habit that we can

00:28:56.120 develop really easily once we train ourselves to notice how people are behaving how much energy is in

00:29:01.800 their voice are they high energy or low energy do they seem upbeat or glum that tells us almost

00:29:08.720 everything we need to know about what's going on inside their emotional mind even without them saying a word

00:29:14.460 about their emotions and should we match them so if they're high energy should we respond by being

00:29:19.720 high energy as well it would feel pretty good if we do right think about how you know again going back

00:29:25.560 to laughter so and in fact nasa uses this to figure out which of their astronaut candidates or applicants

00:29:32.300 have high emotional intelligence think about if you tell a joke and then you go and you laugh really

00:29:38.620 big at it and the other person goes yeah it's funny you don't feel like you're connected right

00:29:44.000 like the fact that you're high energy and they're low energy they're laughing back they're doing the

00:29:48.900 same thing you are they're matching you but because our energy levels don't match we know that we're not

00:29:54.020 connecting whereas if we chuckle a little bit and the other person chuckles with us then we're

00:30:01.380 basically telling each other oh we're on the same wavelength yeah that story about nasa there's this guy it

00:30:06.800 was uh terence mcguire right yeah and that started putting astronauts up into space stations and so

00:30:12.540 they're gonna be up there for months even years a year at a time and said to figure out how can we

00:30:17.000 make sure these people don't kill each other while they're up there and like because they're annoyed

00:30:20.660 and the thing they found he started studying their conversations looking at psychological profiles

00:30:25.780 and the thing he found that determined it wasn't the determining factor but a sign that someone

00:30:31.620 had emotional intelligence and could get along with other people was was laughing was laughing when other

00:30:37.140 people laughed and laughing the same way they laughed right so so what's really interesting is when you

00:30:43.000 make it to the final rounds of like astronaut you know interviews everybody there knows how to fake

00:30:48.360 into emotional intelligence really really well like these are the people who have the right stuff right

00:30:52.820 they've practiced this for years but the difference between someone who can fake emotional

00:30:57.320 intelligence and someone who actually has emotional intelligence is pretty big when you're like nine

00:31:01.500 months into a mission and you've been living in a tin can for the with five other people and so

00:31:07.240 you're exactly right what mcguire did was he changed how he interviewed people so he'd walk into these

00:31:11.840 interviews carrying a bunch of papers and he would spill the papers as if on on accident but he would

00:31:17.000 actually do it on purpose and he would always wear this yellow garish tie and he would turn to the

00:31:22.460 person who he hasn't even met yet who's about to interview and he'd say oh my gosh my son made me

00:31:26.980 wear this tie today and i just dropped all these papers like i kind of look like a clown

00:31:31.640 and he would laugh at himself in this big kind of energetic laugh and then without the applicant

00:31:38.880 realizing he would pay close attention did the person laugh back politely or did they match his

00:31:46.000 energy and his intensity of laughter because if they're matching him that's someone who takes emotional

00:31:52.120 intelligence seriously that's someone who has thought about how to connect with other people

00:31:56.900 and and to that person it just feels like a habit right like they're just doing what feels natural

00:32:00.980 but we develop those natural instincts by thinking at some point in our past about how we want to be in

00:32:07.760 a conversation so some of the most emotionally laden conversations are high conflict conversations

00:32:14.720 yeah and you talk about this tool that can help you navigate these high emotion high conflict

00:32:21.020 conversation is the loop of understanding what is the loop of understanding yeah and it's actually

00:32:26.520 looping for understanding is like when we talk about how people do it so one of the interesting

00:32:31.020 things is that when we are in a conversation that has any kind of tension or conflict in it even if

00:32:36.220 it's small like we're disagreeing about something we hold different political opinions there's this

00:32:40.900 thing in our head that immediately makes us suspect that the other person is not listening to us

00:32:45.560 but they're just waiting their turn to speak and that can be really frustrating and that makes us less

00:32:50.580 likely to listen to them so the way we overcome this is this technique known as looping for understanding

00:32:55.860 and there's three steps to it the first step is ask a question preferably a deep question

00:33:00.520 the second step is once a person has answered the question repeat back what you just heard them say

00:33:06.340 in your own words and then the third step and this is the one most people forget is ask if you got it

00:33:13.460 right and the reason why this is so powerful is because what we're trying to do is prove that we're

00:33:18.880 listening we want to prove to the other person that we're hearing what they said that we actually

00:33:24.820 want to understand what they say that we're not just waiting our turn to speak and this list looping

00:33:30.420 for understanding it becomes real it's like a second nature i do it all the time now i'm like

00:33:34.340 like oh what i hear you saying is and tell me if i'm getting this wrong you know and then i just

00:33:38.400 repeat what they said in my own words and it's important that it's in my own words i'm not just

00:33:42.400 mimicking them i'm proving to them that i've heard what they said and processed it a little bit

00:33:47.280 and study after study shows if you do this in a tough conversation in a tension-filled conversation

00:33:53.800 or just discussing politics with like your uncle it changes the entire dialogue for the better

00:34:00.140 another idea you talk about to navigate high conflict conversations is trying not to control

00:34:07.780 the other person because that just ratchets up the tension why do we have a tendency to want to control

00:34:11.960 the conversation and the other person and what can we do to counter that so a lot of this research

00:34:18.660 and insights comes from looking at marriage counseling and how married couples talk to each

00:34:23.760 other everybody fights every married couple has arguments some of those arguments almost seem not

00:34:30.120 to matter at all like people just like they have an argument and then the next you know 10 minutes

00:34:34.180 later they're fine some of those arguments become toxic every single time and so researchers

00:34:39.740 started looking trying to figure out what's the difference between these two groups and what

00:34:43.000 they found is that in the toxic conversations the toxic fights what happens is that we're trying to

00:34:48.860 control each other and and when we're when we're feeling attacked or when we're discussing something

00:34:54.500 that's kind of you know tense it's very natural to want to control something like we actually have

00:35:00.440 inborn instincts to try and control a situation when we feel anxious and the most obvious thing to

00:35:05.700 control is the person i'm talking to and that control can be like if i can just get you to listen

00:35:11.840 to me then you'll agree with me if i can just get you to see things from my perspective or or i can try

00:35:17.480 and control your emotions you i might say oh you shouldn't feel that way like that's not such a big

00:35:21.820 deal you're making too big a deal of this when people try to control each other it becomes toxic

00:35:27.960 but we have this instinct for control and we can't just repress it so what we should do instead

00:35:33.900 is we find things we can control together and there's three things in general that even if we

00:35:38.920 are in a fight with each other we can control together the first is the environment if this

00:35:44.840 fight starts at two o'clock in the morning we can agree like okay let's wait until tomorrow when we're

00:35:49.640 both well rested and we've gotten a chance to think on this a little bit let's not talk about this

00:35:54.180 until 10 that's controlling your environment together and that's really really positive the second

00:35:59.620 thing you can control is yourself and you can make this obvious you can say things like look

00:36:03.800 i hear what you're saying i just want to take like 10 seconds to think about what you said before i

00:36:08.220 respond that's something that shows that we're trying to control ourselves instead of the other

00:36:12.580 person and the third thing we can control is the boundaries of the fight itself there's this pattern

00:36:18.440 in a lot of marriages called kitchen sinking that's like one of the most toxic things that can happen 1.00

00:36:23.720 which is like we'll start by arguing about where we're gonna you know spend thanksgiving and it becomes

00:36:29.660 your mom hates me and we don't have enough money right like a fight about one thing becomes a fight 1.00

00:36:34.260 about everything that's terrible so oftentimes you see what the best couples do is they say okay look

00:36:40.600 we got to figure out where we're spending thanksgiving let's just focus on the thanksgiving

00:36:44.540 question like i don't want to talk about your mom i don't want to talk about money we can talk about

00:36:47.720 that stuff but that's a different conversation and what happens is when we try and control our

00:36:51.660 environment and ourselves and the boundaries of the fight itself what we're doing is we're

00:36:56.300 introducing control that we can share places where we can cooperate with each other and instead of

00:37:01.940 controlling each other we're controlling these things together and again that doesn't mean that

00:37:06.580 the fight disappears but it makes it so much easier for us to get through it no you mentioned earlier i've

00:37:12.800 i got to watch myself for that because i've i've done that a few times i do that a few times is where

00:37:16.980 you're having a conversation and someone's saying someone says something and i'm like you're not

00:37:21.840 listening to me but they are listening to me they just don't want to do what i they don't agree

00:37:25.980 with me but i project on them and say well you're actually not listening well no and there's times

00:37:30.160 where like people will tell me something and like i understand completely what you want i just don't

00:37:34.540 agree with it so and think about how good it would feel if you're in that conversation and that person

00:37:38.920 says okay look i might disagree with you but i want to repeat back what you just said to me to make

00:37:44.120 sure i understand it and and tell me if i'm getting this right and that takes like 30 seconds to

00:37:48.800 repeat that back right if they did that then you would not say you're not listening to me

00:37:54.060 you would actually say like oh no you heard what i'm saying and and we might disagree with each

00:37:58.520 other but you heard me and actually and this is hardwired into our brains that would make you more

00:38:03.860 more likely to listen to them when we prove that we are listening through looping for understanding

00:38:09.720 we make the other person more likely to listen to us a lot of this looping for understanding it's

00:38:15.560 easy to do in person because you can do it real time right yeah but it gets hard when you take that

00:38:20.660 conversation online and so online conversations can become just really fraught just you know dumpster

00:38:26.660 fires as people say immediately right there's a story in the book about um this experiment that

00:38:31.560 was done where they brought together gun control enthusiasts and then gun rights activists and the

00:38:36.440 goal was just to have like teach them how to have a civil conversation and so they taught them looping for

00:38:40.600 understanding and a couple of other skills and it worked really well face to face and then they go home

00:38:45.680 and they had actually created a private facebook group for them and like within 45 minutes people

00:38:50.400 were calling each other jackbooted nazis right it just it just fell apart immediately why why is that

00:38:56.340 what's going on well i think what's happening there and and this gets to everything else we've been

00:39:00.920 talking about because you can do looping for understanding online you just have to think about how to do it a

00:39:05.140 little bit differently one of my favorite examples of how technology changes these conversations

00:39:09.460 is if you look at when telephones first became popular about 100 years ago there were all these

00:39:15.140 studies that were written that basically said no one will ever use a telephone for a real conversation

00:39:20.460 because because we can't see each other we're not going to be able to discuss real things

00:39:25.040 and in fact the researchers were right at that at that time there were all these studies where they

00:39:31.180 would transcribe people's phone conversations and they're like stilted and weird basically people used

00:39:36.640 phones as telegraphs just to send like grocery lists or stock you know news of the day but of

00:39:43.120 course by the time you and i and everyone listening were teenagers we could talk for like seven hours a

00:39:48.180 night and they were the most meaningful conversations of our lives and the reason why is because we learned

00:39:53.520 how to speak on the telephone differently than we learned how to speak face to face and in fact one of

00:39:57.920 the things we know is that without realizing it when you talk on the phone you tend to enunciate a

00:40:04.040 little bit more than you would face to face and because you know the person can't see you we tend

00:40:09.360 to put a little bit more emotional signals into our voices we do this unthinkingly now when it comes

00:40:16.120 to online communication most people have only been emailing for like 25 years at the most right like

00:40:23.800 slack we've been slacking for four or five years texting each other using emojis to text each other

00:40:30.480 i still don't know how to do that and so we make this mistake when we go online which is that we

00:40:35.440 assume online conversations are like offline conversations but they're not they have their

00:40:41.620 own rules and we know those rules we actually intuit those rules but sometimes we just have to remind

00:40:47.500 ourselves that if i'm talking to you over the phone and i say something sarcastic you will hear the

00:40:52.560 sarcasm in my voice but if i email you and i can still when i'm writing the email i can hear the

00:40:58.380 sarcasm in my head you can't hear it and so you're going to read that as being serious and you're going

00:41:03.500 to get upset so i need to use a different way to signal to you i'm being sarcastic either not be

00:41:08.440 sarcastic or maybe i put like one of those little winking emojis at the end something to show you that

00:41:14.340 i'm being sarcastic which i don't have to do when we're talking to each other and if we just take a

00:41:19.460 second before we hit send to say like what are what are the rules of email what are the rules of

00:41:24.800 texting how are they different from the rules of making a phone conversation then we tend to

00:41:30.160 communicate much much better online yeah you have some other rules over emphasize politeness

00:41:35.300 yeah express more gratitude deference greetings apologies and hedges and studies back all that

00:41:40.820 stuff up study after study shows that like in fact there was this really interesting study of

00:41:44.420 wikipedia editors where the you know people would be fighting with each other all day long online

00:41:50.140 and they just asked they told one person to start saying please and thank you every other comment

00:41:55.280 and like everyone else stopped fighting it's just like we start mirroring each other we start

00:42:00.180 matching each other and just being a little bit more polite online it has these totally outsized

00:42:05.280 impacts and you can use looping for understanding to de-escalate these high conflict online

00:42:10.420 conversations if you see someone throw something out there just a total flame they knew it was like a

00:42:15.560 grenade is going to cause everyone to get angry you can ask you can get curious and be like

00:42:20.060 it sounds like you're really you feel passionately about this tell me why why is that instead of

00:42:24.860 responding with an immediate barb yeah and you might find that it just it forces the person to get out

00:42:30.220 of their own limbic system their yeah reptile brain and start thinking like a homo sapien that's exactly

00:42:38.180 right yeah right it takes advantage of those parts of our brains that have evolved to be good at

00:42:42.700 communication well charles where can people go to learn more about the book in your work

00:42:46.300 yeah absolutely so so the name of the book is super communicators you can buy it at amazon or

00:42:51.100 anywhere else that you uh you get books if you want to reach out to me or learn about me if you

00:42:56.240 just google my name charles dohig i'm the only charles dohig on earth d-u-h-i-g-g or if you google

00:43:02.500 like power of habit or smarter faster better my website will come up and i'll mention on my website

00:43:08.100 is my email address which is charles at charles dohig.com and i read and reply to every single email i get

00:43:16.300 so it you know it might take me a couple of days but i want to connect with you and have a

00:43:21.280 conversation and so if you send me a note i will read it and i will reply well charles dohig thanks

00:43:26.920 for time it's been a pleasure thanks for having me on this has been so much fun my guest today was

00:43:31.980 charles dohig he's the author of the book super communicators it's available on amazon.com and

00:43:36.000 bookstores everywhere you can find more information about his work at his website charles dohig.com

00:43:40.420 also check out our show notes at aom.is super communicator where you find links to resources

00:43:45.160 where you delve deeper into this topic

00:43:46.580 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

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00:44:22.320 mckay reminding you to listen to aom podcast put what you've heard into action

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The Art of Manliness - February 21, 2024

The Secrets of Supercommunicators

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