Supercommunicators, an Interview with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Charles Duhigg

It’s tempting to call communication a lost art. But it wouldn’t be accurate. We’ve always been bad at it, these days it’s just more obvious.

The reality is, the science behind good communication is clear, proving it is indeed possible, but getting people to actually listen? This question is fast becoming too critical to ignore.

According to an ongoing study tracking several thousand people over the past four years, political polarization tops the list of life’s most stressful experiences. It ranks even higher than the COVID pandemic, mass shootings, police brutality and climate change. This finding comes from Roxane Cohen Silver, a professor of psychological science, medicine, and public health at the University of California, Irvine.

What does political polarization have to do with communication? A lot, according to one local writer. Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, a book that transformed our understanding of change, says his latest subject is just as groundbreaking.

During our recent interview Duhigg said “People have been good and bad communicators throughout history. One thing is the channels have increased dramatically – there are so many more ways to do it now.

This makes it really challenging. The nature of communication changes among the different channels. As new ways of communicating emerge, different versions have their own set of rules”

And if you don’t know the rules, you’re more likely to mis-communicate. Yet he says, the basic principles are the same no matter the channel, and they’re rooted in emotion. No wonder a simple sleight of words or tone can send a charged conversation into a tailspin.

That said, communication is a skill that can be learned. And our resident Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist’s latest book Supercommunicators, offers a series of formulas for upskilling even the most easily tongue-tied.

And upskill we must, as we move into another seminal election season, tensions are rising and the landscape is grim, as you may have learned from John Honig’s recent Street Talk question on the topic. Discussions about politics can easily devolve into shouting matches and put downs. Or more common in polite society, people self-select into like-minded groups, forming biased generations about those on the other side.

But that approach is dangerous to democracy. If we can’t talk through our differences, we can’t make decisions that benefit the whole. Intimidating as it sounds for us non-confrontationists, it’s the one pathway to unified progress our country sorely needs right now.

Duhigg believes each of us the capacity to be a great communicator.

In the book he cites Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw’s famous line, “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place”. Yet according to Duhigg, this is a set of skills anyone can learn, we’ve evolved to be supercommunicators.

So let’s start with some basics. First off, conversations generally fall into one of three categories. Skilled communicators Duhigg explains, have learned how to recognize, and align with, the type of conversation at play.

There is the practical or What’s This Really About? conversation best approached by understand what participants are looking to gain. Then there’s the emotional, or How do we feel? conversation, where addressing feeling states is essential, and finally the Who Are We? conversation, when understanding group or social identity is a must.

Skilled communicators know the importance of recognizing, then matching each kind of conversation and listening for the subtle emotions, complex needs and hidden beliefs that color so much of not only what we say, but also what we hear in any discussion.

In short, there is always more to the story than the words being said, and when we understand the other person’s motivation behind the conversation, we’re much more likely to hear and be heard.

The book breaks down each of the three conversations into actionable steps for understanding. But space is limited here so we’ll skip to the piece most relevant to the topic at hand; the who are we? conversation leading to rising tensions around political polarization.

First, a question. How do you think about people with political beliefs that don’t align with yours? The Pew Research Center’s 2022 poll shows that both Republicans and Democrats are increasingly critical of people in the opposing party.

And it’s not just the die-hards, even those who lean to the Republican and Democratic parties are more likely to describe those in the opposing party as more immoral, closed-minded, unintelligent, dishonest and lazy than they were in 2016.

Duhigg writes “The Who Are We conversation is critical because our social identities exert such a powerful influence on what we say, how we hard and what we think, even then we don’t want them to. Our identities can help us find values we share or can push us into stereotypes. Sometimes, simply reminding ourselves that we all belong to multiple in-groups can shift how we speak and listen.

The Who Are We? conversation can help us understand how the identities we choose and those imposed on us by society make us who we are.

Yet in a footnote, the author explains that in a heated discussion involving identities, finding common ground isn’t enough.

According to another Pew Research poll, but parties agree that the top problems facing the country are inflation, health costs and get this, partisan cooperation.

And on some issues, like gun control, the parties share more in common than most people think. Members of both parties believe in keeping the second amendment in tact with some caveats around things like assault rifles and background checks.

Yet the sweeping rhetoric used to incite voters leads most of us to believe otherwise. Many of our issues have solutions based in science that are somehow twisted into a values conversation. The science is overwhelmingly clear on issues like climate change, yet somehow this has become a point of debate, as if lumping it into a stereotype of uber liberalism makes it any less true.

We get entrenched in beliefs that create assumptions, including that we, or our candidate, knows and will do what’s best for our country, and that the opposition is fundamentally flawed in their morals or reasoning.

If each party is right, we’re really in trouble. And if both assumptions are wrong, how can we learn to communicate in spite of our differences? It’s the lack of communication, the finger pointing, the objectifying that keeps both parties clinging to partisan rhetoric that hurts society and undermines the ability to tackle the most difficult issues with any level of nuance.

Instead it’s all or nothing, my way or the highway, and the American people suffer as a result. We don’t need a dictator, we need inclusivity and equality in a nation built on these principles.

So how do you overcome the fear of approaching a hot topic with someone you know has an opposing opinion?

Duhigg lays it all out for us in this latest, and highly engaging work but I’ll do my best to summarize here.

First, prepare in advance. Know what you want to accomplish as a result of the discussion. Take time to recognize the likely obstacles to a calm conversation, and have a plan to manage them. Then decide if the benefits are worth the risk. If you’re Uncle Joe starts shouting every time he hears the name Kamala, he’s not ready for constructive dialogue and you’re unlikely to change his mind.

When you’re ready, start the conversation by acknowledging the difficulty of the issue. Knowing that someone wants to connect in a positive way can be more important than the substance. If both parties are interested in a productive conversation, establish guidelines so everyone feels heard, validated and respected. Be prepared to truly listen, a lost art Duhigg covers in detail in the book.

I ended my enlightening conversation with Charles Duhigg with a question of my own. Since relocating from Brooklyn to Santa Cruz several years ago, I wondered how the communications cultures differed.

He says things are faster in New York; people are busier and faster moving – which is one thing he loves about Santa Cruz, it’s a welcoming and easy place to make friends. Community is important. And by learning to improve our communications skills, we’re on track to keep it that way.