Ever since reading The Power of Habit, I have always looked forward with undisguised enthusiasm towards the impending release of any Charles Duhigg book. Hence it was with a great degree of excitement and anticipation that I procured my copy of Supercommunicators. However, and surprisingly so, the latest offering by Duhigg turns out to be a staid and sedate read, offering nuggets of precocious wisdom, otherwise packaged along with tried and tested ways and means.
Supercommunicators, as Duhigg himself confesses quite early in the book, is an attempt to right some of the author’s own shortcomings. Duhigg reveals in an uninhibited manner his failings at work in the capacity of a manager, lack of impactful and influential communication, sparse empathy towards his co-workers and being inattentive towards his children. This bout of introspection seems to have spurred Duhigg into taking some telling rectification methods, the outcome of which is a book offering guidelines for his readers to improve in all the spheres where Duhigg found himself wanting.
According to Duhigg, the one most reliable panacea for addressing and redressing negative habits and anti-social tendencies is ‘connection.’ For example, the essence of every purposeful conversation lies in developing a meaningful connection. In fact, Duhigg contends that every relevant conversation has at its bedrock three fundamental and almost elemental questions: What is this really about? How do we feel? Who are we? Understanding and implementing these three basic questions can transform an individual from a mundane purveyor of information into a literal ‘supercommunicator.’
How does one establish such a connection? Duhigg writes, “we simply need to ask people how they feel and reciprocate the vulnerability they share with us.” Supercommunicators take pains to strike the right notes of empathy while conversing with those who need it the most. In New York, an oncology surgeon educated his patients by reeling off immaculate data in terms of consequences associated to surgery as against non-surgical treatments. Much to his chagrin and surprise, he found that people rarely respond to the findings of science. The surgeon slowly realised that what his patients wanted was not precision perfect statistical revelations, but liberal doses of empathy. The surgeon changed his conversational mode and began posing a plethora of open-ended questions. He began asking what meant most to a patient. This approach resulted in a tangible difference in choices and patients began taking decisions which were more sound, rational, logical, and voluntary.
Duhigg also gives sobering instances of good intentions gone awry. In a noble endeavour to bring people on both sides of the gun control debate together and hear opposing views with respect and without being judgmental, people from both the warring factions were invited to express their views. Astonishingly, a great deal of empathy was generated by each side for the other. However, all the good that was done and could have continued to be done went down the drain when a single participant took to Facebook on her return and all hell broke loose!
Supercommunicators – an engrossing read, notwithstanding the fact that Duhigg falls short of his vintage form.