Something to readWorking with others
Supercommunicators
A book on practical, emotional and social conversations, and how to meet someone in theirs
Why it’s worth your time
Charles Duhigg's Supercommunicators offers a quick way to work out why a conversation at work misfired: you and the other person may have been having different kinds of conversation. He sorts talk into practical, emotional and social, and argues that connection comes from noticing which one is under way and joining it. That can make the next tense 1:1 or team meeting something you can read while it's happening.
Telling which kind of conversation you're in
The book · About 6 hours of reading · Buy or borrow
How to get it
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- Start with the three kinds of conversation.
Read first for how Duhigg sorts conversations and what he means by matching. Then follow the stories that sound most like your work, such as Netflix's company-wide conversations about race and equity. His site offers a chapter free to newsletter subscribers.
- Name the conversation one person didn't get.
After the next meeting where people seemed to talk past each other, write down which of Duhigg's three kinds each person seemed to be in, knowing it can shift partway through: what's this really about, how do we feel, or who are we. Pick one person whose kind of conversation went unanswered, and follow up with them on that one.
You“It sounded like the deadline change hit your side hard. Do you want to talk through how it's going before we get back to the plan?”
Good moments for this: after a decision meeting where someone went quietbefore a 1:1 that might get tensewhen a quick reply from a colleague lands oddly
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Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
A status meeting with a tight agenda tends to leave room only for the practical kind, so feelings and questions about the team can come out later, in side chats or in silence. A few open minutes at the end can give them somewhere to go.
What might make this harder
Go back to how they spoke: talk about how a day or a decision felt often points to the emotional kind, and questions about what it means for their team to the social one. If you still can't tell, ask them which would help more.
Questions people ask
What is Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg about?
Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, argues that most talk is one of three kinds, practical, emotional or social, and that people connect best when they notice which one they're in and match it. He builds the case from research and stories, from jury rooms to Netflix.
What is the matching principle in Supercommunicators?
Duhigg's name for recognizing the kind of conversation the other person is having and meeting them in it, or inviting them into the one you need. If a colleague wants to vent, matching means listening before you solve.
How do I communicate better with coworkers?
Listen first for what a colleague wants from the exchange: a decision, a hearing, or a sense of where they stand. Asking outright is fine, and it tends to save a round of talking past each other.
What it says, and how it holds up
Duhigg tells a story against himself that sets up the idea. After a rough day at work he'd vent to his wife about his coworkers, wanting mostly to be heard, and she would answer with sensible suggestions, such as inviting his boss to lunch; both would walk away frustrated, as Richard Batts retells it for Ohio State's Fisher College of Business. The two of them, as Duhigg tells it, were having different kinds of conversation at the same time. He sorts talk into the practical (what's this really about?), the emotional (how do we feel?) and the social (who are we?), and calls the fix matching: notice which one the other person is in and meet them there, or invite them into yours.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, Duhigg builds the book from research and stories, as he did The Power of Habit, ranging from jury deliberations and CIA recruitments to the Big Bang Theory writers' room and Netflix's company-wide conversations about equity. In Ayesha Anna Ninan's summary for Stanford Social Innovation Review, the people he calls supercommunicators aren't the most charismatic in a group; they ask far more questions than others and admit what they don't know. That can be good news if you're the quiet one in meetings.
Ninan found the book practical, its tools commonly known, and she presses on one point worth keeping in mind as you read. In several stories, she argues, the measure of success slides from understanding someone toward persuading them, and Duhigg leaves out cases where a skilled communicator uses that power to do harm. She saw them working best between two people or inside an organization willing to keep at it. She found the methods weakest in large, anonymous arguments. If you've read Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen, Duhigg's three kinds may look familiar next to their three layers of a hard conversation: what happened, the feelings, and what it says about who you are.
That last limit has a version at work. A company-wide thread where dozens of people are upset about a policy change sits closer to Ninan's large, anonymous argument than to a 1:1, and matching one person at a time may not hold it. A smaller room tends to help more there, such as the person who made the decision sitting down with the few people most affected.
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Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.