I read this 2024 book after hearing an interview with Charles Duhigg. His main points were (a) he was embarrassed that he was not as good a communicator as he thought he was and (b) that there are techniques to improve communication.
Somewhat coincidentally, I’ve recently decided to put more time into promoting communication among people (e.g., getting my students/colleagues to talk with each other), so this book is even more interesting to me now than when I started to read it 🙂
Here are my notes:
- One key idea is that “many discussions are actually three different conversations. There are practical, decision-making conversations that focus on What’s This Really About? There are emotional conversations, which ask How Do We Feel? And there are social conversations that explore Who Are We? We are often moving in and out of all three conversations as a dialogue unfolds.” A lot of communication failures come from two sides talking past each other because one person is having an emotional conversation while the other focuses on their identity (or deciding what’s for dinner!)
- Effective communication requires recognizing what kind of conversation is occurring, and then matching each other. On a very basic level, if someone seems emotional, allow yourself to become emotional as well. If someone is intent on decision making, match that focus. If they are preoccupied by social implications, reflect their fixation back to them.
- …high centrality participants were constantly adjusting how they communicated, in order to match their companions. They subtly reflected shifts in other people’s moods and attitudes. When someone got serious, they matched that seriousness. When a discussion went light, they were the first to play along. They changed their minds frequently and let themselves be swayed by their groupmates.
- Our goal, for the most meaningful discussions, should be to have a “learning conversation.” Specifically, we want to learn how the people around us see the world and help them understand our perspectives in turn.
- Here are four rules to a learning conversation:
Rule One: Pay attention to what kind of conversation is occurring.
Rule Two: Share your goals, and ask what others are seeking.
Rule Three: Ask about others’ feelings, and share your own.
Rule Four: Explore if identities are important to this discussion. - One: When a student comes to a teacher upset, for instance, the teacher might ask: “Do you want to be helped, hugged, or heard?”
- Two: How are we going to make choices together… Are we going to make decisions through analysis and reason, or through empathy and narratives?
- Here are four rules to a learning conversation:
- The correct approach isn’t trying to put yourself in “someone else’s shoes.” That, after all, is impossible. Rather, maybe the best you can do is ask questions.
- Ask about people’s lives, about what they’re feeling, about their hopes and fears, and then listen for their struggles, disappointments, joys, and ambitions.
- Asking about someone’s beliefs or values (“How’d you decide to become a teacher?”).
- Asking someone to make a judgment (“Are you glad you went to law school?”).
- Asking about someone’s experiences (“What was it like to visit Europe?”)
- These kinds of questions don’t feel intrusive—asking “How’d you decide to become a teacher?” doesn’t seem overly personal—but it’s an invitation for someone to share their beliefs about education, or what they value in a job. “Are you glad you went to law school?” invites someone to reflect on their choices, rather than simply describing their work.Â
- The difference between a shallow question and one that sparks an opportunity for emotional connection is vulnerability. And vulnerability is what makes How Do We Feel? so powerful.
- Questions about facts (“Where do you live?” “What college did you attend?”) are often conversational dead-ends. They don’t draw out values or experiences. They don’t invite vulnerability. However, those same inquiries, recast slightly (“What do you like about where you live?” “What was your favorite part of college?”), invite others to share their preferences, beliefs, and values, and to describe experiences that caused them to grow or change. Those questions make emotional replies easier, and they practically beg the questioner to reciprocate—to divulge, in return, why they live in this neighborhood, what they enjoyed about college—until everyone is drawn in, asking and answering back and forth.
- The researchers found that “questioners assumed that asking sensitive questions would make their conversation partners uncomfortable and would damage their relationships. But in fact, we consistently found that askers were wrong on both fronts.” Asking deep questions is easier than most people realize, and more rewarding than we expect.
- Try 36 Questions for Increasing Closeness with a friend or family member.
- When someone proves they’re listening it creates “a sense of psychological safety because [the listener] instills a confidence in the speaker that at least their arguments will receive full consideration and will, thus, be evaluated based on their real worth.” When people believe that others are trying to understand their perspectives, they become more trusting, more willing “to express their thoughts and ideas.” The “sense of safety, value and acceptance” that comes from believing a partner is genuinely listening makes us more willing to reveal our own vulnerabilities and uncertainties. If you want someone to expose their emotions, the most important step is convincing them you are listening closely to what they say.
- So if a listener wants to prove they’re listening, they need to demonstrate it after the speaker finishes talking. If we want to show someone we’re paying attention, we need to prove, once that person has stopped speaking, that we have absorbed what they said. And the best way to do that is by repeating, in our own words, what we just heard them say—and then asking if we got it right.
- We all crave control, of course. And while there are many factors that determine if a romantic relationship succeeds or flounders, one is whether the relationship makes us feel more in control of our happiness, or less. It is natural for couples to wrestle over control in a relationship; it’s part of working out how to balance each person’s needs, wants, roles, and responsibilities. But as the researchers watched their videotapes, they noticed a previously overlooked dynamic: During fights, happy and unhappy couples seemed to approach control very differently.
- Among happy couples, however, the desire for control emerged quite differently. Rather than trying to control the other person, happy couples tended to focus, instead, on controlling themselves, their environment, and the conflict itself.
- One advantage of focusing on these three things—controlling oneself, the environment, and the boundaries of the conflict—is that it allowed happy spouses to find things they could control together. They were still fighting. They still disagreed. But, when it came to control, they were on the same side of the table.
This explains why looping for understanding is so powerful: When you prove to someone you are listening, you are, in effect, giving them some control over the conversation. This is also why the matching principle is so effective: When we follow someone else’s lead and become emotional when they are emotional, or practical when they have signaled a practical mindset, we are sharing control over how a dialogue flows.- On Facebook, people kept trying to control one another. These struggles for control weren’t the only thing disrupting conversations—but when they emerged, they tore dialogues apart. Some Facebook participants, for instance, tried to control what others were allowed to say, which opinions were permitted, what emotions could be expressed: “It’s ridiculous to say you’re scared because your neighbor owns a gun,” one person told another. “There’s no way you should feel that way.”
- Sometimes people don’t know how to listen. They think listening means debating, and if you let someone else make a good point, you’re doing something wrong. But listening means letting someone else tell their story and then, even if you don’t agree with them, trying to understand why they feel that way
- The desire for belonging is at the core of the Who Are We? conversation, which occurs whenever we talk about our connections within society. When we discuss the latest organizational gossip (“I hear everyone in accounting is going to get laid off”) or signal an affiliation (“We’re Knicks fans in this family”) or figure out social linkages (“You went to Berkeley? Do you know Troy?”) or emphasize social dissimilarities (“As a Black woman, I see this differently than you”), we’re engaging in a Who Are We? conversation.
- It’s crucial, in a Who Are We? conversation, to remind ourselves that we all possess multiple identities: We are parents but also siblings; experts in some topics and novices in others; friends and coworkers and people who love dogs but hate to jog. We are all of these simultaneously, so no one stereotype describes us fully. We all contain multitudes that are just waiting to be expressed. This means that a Who Are We? discussion might need to be more meandering and exploratory. Or it might need to go deep and invite others to talk about where they come from, how they see themselves, how the prejudices they confront—racism, sexism, the expectations of parents and communities—have impacted their lives.
- First, try to draw out your conversational partners’ multiple identities. It’s important to remind everyone that we all contain multitudes; none of us is one-dimensional. Acknowledging those complexities during a conversation helps disrupt the stereotypes within our heads. Second, try to ensure everyone is on equal footing. Don’t offer unsolicited advice or trumpet your wealth or connections. Seek out topics where everyone has some experience and knowledge, or everyone is a novice. Encourage the quiet to speak and the talkative to listen, so everyone is participating. Finally, look for social similarities that already exist. We do this naturally when we meet someone new and start searching for people we know in common. But it is important to take those connections a step further and make our commonalities more salient. Our similarities become powerful when they are rooted in something meaningful: We may both be friends with Jim, but that’s not much of a connection—until we start talking about what his friendship means to us, how Jim is an important part of both our lives.
- These kinds of comments sparked irritation because the listeners had been assigned to a group (the wealthy snobs, the selfish Republicans, the undeserving college students) they didn’t identify with. Or, they were denied membership in a group (people who understand how the law works, people who sympathize with children) where they felt they rightfully belonged. So the listener, offended, would become defensive as their sense of self—their identity—was attacked. In psychology, this is known as identity threat, and it is deeply corrosive to communication.
- Put differently, the researchers hypothesized that nudging participants to think, just a little harder, about how a Who Are We? conversation will unfold, before it starts, might make identity threats a bit less threatening. Who will speak first? (Studies suggest the person with the least power should begin.) What kinds of emotions should we anticipate? (If we prepare for discomfort and tension, we make them easier to withstand.) What obstacles should we expect? When they emerge, what will we do? Most important, what benefits do we expect will emerge from this dialogue, and are they worth the risks?
- When conversations focus on creating belonging for everyone, as well as diversity and inclusion, “you’re inviting people to participate and learn, to take responsibility for improving things.” It is important to note that these kinds of discussions will almost never be perfect. But perfection is not the goal. “Most of the work is about gaining awareness of yourself, your culture, and the culture of others”… to recognize our own biases.
These notes are not nearly as useful as reading the book and its many examples. FIVE STARS.