Ep. 361: David Allen and Charles Duhigg  🔗 **Source:** [Ep. 361: David Allen and Charles Duhigg](https://share.snipd.com/episode/dbd4a48e-1007-4644-bea2-a8e4bf040ee2) ## Highlights - **Match The Type Of Conversation** - Conversation success requires matching the kind of conversation happening rather than just exchanging information. - Charles Duhigg groups talks into practical, emotional, and social types and says effective communicators first identify and then match or invite matching. Transcript: Charles Duhigg So I think the first question is, what is a super, super communicator? And the answer is everyone actually knows this answer without realizing it. Because if I was to ask, say you, if I was to ask you after a long, tough day, when you really just want to call someone who you just know is going to make you feel better, does the person you Call, do you know who that is? David Allen Frankly, it'd be my wife. But I've got another couple of people that I could probably talk to in that way. Charles Duhigg Yeah. And I've met your wife and she is wonderful. And so for you, your wife is a super communicator and you're probably a super communicator back to her. David Allen I just heard, by the way, I heard somebody in our neighborhood say, Catherine, my wife, she said, she's so great. She knows how to relate to everybody in the neighborhood. She does. She makes them all feel great in terms of what they're doing. And, yeah, and these are all elements, think, that you've identified, right? Absolutely. Charles Duhigg Absolutely. And so what super communicators do, particularly people like Catherine, who are consistent super communicators, who are like you, is they tend to ask more questions, right? They tend to ask 10 to 20 times as many questions. And they ask a special kind of question that's known as a deep question, which is easier to ask than you think. They tend to, they tend to notice your nonverbal or non-linguistic cue. So if you laugh, they laugh back and they laugh in the same similar way that you've laughed because that makes you feel connected to each other. And most importantly, okay. David Allen Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There you go. Charles Duhigg There we go. You laughed and I laughed, right? I can't even like, but think about how terrible it is when you're like, you laugh really big. You're like, and the other person goes, huh? Yeah, it's funny. Like if their energy is different, if their mood is different, then you're like, we're not really connecting with each other. This is not, this is not the right conversation. And in the book, we talk about how NASA, when they started looking for new astronauts for longer space missions, they needed people who had more emotional intelligence. And they started paying attention to how the candidates to become astronauts laughed, because that was one of the best ways to figure out who actually could connect with other people. It's make sense. It does. But you, you would ask, so the biggest idea, I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say the biggest idea is that we tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing, but actually every conversation is actually made up of multiple different kinds of conversations. And most of them fall into one of three buckets. There's these practical discussions where we're talking about making plans or solving problems. There's emotional conversations where I want to tell you what I'm feeling and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize. And then there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other and our social identities. And what happens is if we're having the different kinds of conversations at the same moment, it's really hard to connect. It's really hard, in fact, to hear each other. So part of what we've learned in the last decade, and we're living through this golden age of understanding the psychology and the neurology of communication really the first time, One of the big things that we've learned is what's known as the matching principle, that in order to effectively communicate, I need to figure out what kind of conversation is happening Here. And then I need to match you or invite you to match me. ([Time 0:04:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2e1a3dc5-1e0a-4666-a7f8-5e4f811cedb4)) - **Ask Deep Questions And Notice Cues** - Ask many more questions, especially deep questions that invite values, beliefs, or experiences instead of mere facts. - Super communicators ask 10–20x more questions and mirror nonverbal cues like laughter to build connection. Transcript: Charles Duhigg And so what super communicators do, particularly people like Catherine, who are consistent super communicators, who are like you, is they tend to ask more questions, right? They tend to ask 10 to 20 times as many questions. And they ask a special kind of question that's known as a deep question, which is easier to ask than you think. They tend to, they tend to notice your nonverbal or non-linguistic cue. So if you laugh, they laugh back and they laugh in the same similar way that you've laughed because that makes you feel connected to each other. And most importantly, okay. David Allen Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There you go. Charles Duhigg There we go. You laughed and I laughed, right? ([Time 0:05:05](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eb5e9a18-1c25-40a7-b275-884d31a733d4)) - **Communication Literally Aligns Brains** - Communication creates neural entrainment where listeners' brains begin to mirror the speaker's activity, producing shared feelings and ideas. - Duhigg cites research showing aligned brainwaves and physiological changes like synchronized breathing and pupil dilation during strong connection. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Our bodies start to change. So even though you and I are separated by thousands of miles, although we don't notice it, our eyes are probably dilated. David Allen By the way, you're in Santa Cruz, right? Charles Duhigg Oh, actually New York today. New York today. Oh, you're in New York? Okay. David Allen Just for our audience to know a little context here. Yes, exactly. Charles Duhigg And our breathing patterns are probably becoming more similar. But most importantly, what's happening in our brains, our neural activity is starting to look more and more alike. And this is known within neurology as neural entrainment. And it's the goal of communication. Because if I describe to you a feeling, an emotion that I felt, or an idea I experienced, if I do a good job describing it to you, you actually feel that same emotion yourself. You experience that same idea. Your brain and my brain become increasingly similar. In fact, if we were looked at brainwaves, we'd see that they start moving together. ([Time 0:08:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5e9e4c1f-e71a-4613-aafb-5d03f165dcf2)) - **Reciprocal Authenticity Beats Mimicry** - Authentic reciprocal vulnerability, not mimicry, is what deepens connection and trust between people. - Sharing genuine feelings invites the other person to respond authentically, enabling closeness even without agreement. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Are using that to help you connect with other people. But real connection isn't just mimicry. Real connection is actually recognizing you've said something authentic. And so I'm going to engage in reciprocal authenticity. I'm not necessarily going to tell you the same kind of story you just told me, but I'm going to, I'm going to be authentic back with you. If you say something vulnerable, I understand that it's okay for me to be vulnerable with you in return. ([Time 0:09:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6148648c-71dd-4f3b-b83e-3cecfabeaa29)) - **CIA Recruit Succeeds After Honest Vulnerability** - CIA officer Jim Lawler became successful when he stopped pressuring a recruit and instead shared his own disappointment and vulnerability. - After he authentically admitted his failures she responded honestly and later became a top asset for 20 years. Transcript: Charles Duhigg And he's just terrible at the job. Like, guys keep on saying to him, like, look, man, you got to quit bugging me or else I'm going to report you to the authorities and you'll get deported. Like, you're not good at this job. And eventually he finds this one woman who he wants to recruit, and he takes her to dinner, and she freaks out when he asks her to work for the CIA. But he convinces her to come one last dinner, and he just kind of gives up and he is authentic. He's just honest. He says, look, I understand what you're feeling right now about going home to this middle Eastern country. Cause they're going to send me back to Texas because I'm so bad at this job. I'm going to lose it. And like, I just, I'm so disappointed in myself. And as soon as he was honest with her, she was honest back and they could hear each other. And that's, that's when she decided to work for him and she became the best, the best asset in the middle East over the next 20 years. ([Time 0:12:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5bf9e70b-40f2-4b81-ac5f-2ff8051af0bc)) - **Write A Short Meeting Intention** - Before meetings, write one sentence about what you hope to accomplish and the mood you want to establish to reduce conflict and increase clarity. - An investment bank trial where participants did this for a week cut meeting conflicts by 80 percent. Transcript: Charles Duhigg About what he hopes to accomplish in this conversation and the mood he hopes to establish. And then just basically putting it in his back pocket and forgetting that, that idea. And I think in a lot of ways, GTD does the same thing. Like when I have that, my Sunday review, my review on Sunday, and I think about the past week and then look forward to the next week when I'm, when I'm looking at my list and I'm trying to Figure out what's essential and what isn't. It's that same act of reflection, and it's the reflection that really makes us powerful. David Allen True. It's really true. Most people think that weekly review is some sort of a, you know, mundane sort of just recalibration of stuff, but it's not. It's like, it's thinking time. It's reflection time. It's like, wow, how important is that? Oh, geez, that reminds me. You know, here's something I could do. And that's the kind of process, I think, that reflection, you know, creates, certainly in the GTD context anyway. Charles Duhigg I think you're – and I think that's so valuable. There was one experiment that was done where they went into this investment bank where people were fighting with each other all the time. And they told everyone for one week before you go into a meeting, just write down a sentence. And it's what I just said. It was, what do I hope to accomplish in this meeting? What mood do I hope to establish? And then basically it took like seven seconds. ([Time 0:13:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/07a24c9c-a254-43ba-bcf8-ab11cc92a747)) - **Ask About Feelings Not Just Facts** - When someone shares a personal event, ask about the feeling (e.g., 'What did it feel like watching your kid walk across that stage?') rather than moving immediately to facts. - Acknowledging emotions prevents hidden anxieties from derailing practical discussions like budgets or layoffs. Transcript: Charles Duhigg I certainly have where you're waiting for a meeting to start and you turn to the person next to you and you say, how was your weekend? And they say something like, oh, I went to my kid's graduation. It was great. Now what they're doing is they're telling us kind of an emotional experience that they had. And it's very easy for us to just say, oh, congratulations. Okay, now let's get down to the agenda. But if you were to stop for a minute and just say to the person like, oh, what did it feel like watching your kid walk across that stage? Was that amazing? Now we're actually engaging with these emotions that we know are there. This guy is proud. He wants to share something meaningful that happened in his life. Emotions don't have to be treckly. They often are very practical, but they're there. And if we don't acknowledge them, sometimes then a conflict starts to emerge because people think they're talking about practicalities. ([Time 0:16:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6e2ba6f1-5491-410d-97ba-c01937646b7c)) - **Replace Fact Questions With Story Prompts** - Replace fact questions with questions that invite meaning, e.g., 'What's your story?' or 'What made you decide to go to law school?'. - Such prompts reveal values and identity, enabling deeper connection and understanding. Transcript: Charles Duhigg And I've actually noticed since we've known each other for a while and we've gone to dinner before, you're very good at asking deep questions. And a deep question is something that just asks the other person, invites the other person to talk about their values or their beliefs or their experience. David Allen I just like stories. So most people, I just go, I just go, give me your story. What's your story? So that's one of my favorite questions. But I guess what that does is then that elicits what you're talking about. Charles Duhigg Exactly. Exactly. And oftentimes deep questions don't appear deep. It can be as simple as saying, what's your story? Or you meet someone who's a lawyer and you say, oh, what made you decide to go to law school? Or what do you love about practicing the law? When you ask me, what's your story? What you're really asking me is, tell me how you see yourself and how you hope other people see you and the experiences that have led you to today. ([Time 0:18:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5f29b5c5-215c-4390-82b0-d6f43a8c21f6)) - **Take Inner Change Outward Through Communication** - Supercommunicators extends habit-change inward work (Power of Habit) outward to improve relationships and teamwork. - Duhigg frames the book as teaching skills to bring personal change into the world via better interaction and listening. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Right. And I know that there's so many people who feel that way about GTD and I'm sure have reached out to you. And so that was kind of my goal is that power of habit is really about looking inward. It's about how do I change myself? Super communicators is about how do I work with other people? How do I bring that same change that I love about myself to the world by being able to interact with other people, by being able to connect with them, by being able to share who I am and listen To who they are. ([Time 0:22:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c9c36acf-9eed-4946-8409-6c9fe7c5aa96))