Supercommunicators

Supercommunicators book summary

Each conversation can be categorised into the following types, with the flow of conversation continuously moving between each type:
- What's this really about? - practical, decision-making conversations
- How do we feel? - emotional conversations
- Who are we? - social conversations
The matching principle states that communication comes from connection and alignment. Effective communication requires recognising what kind of conversation is occuring and then matching.

The way to connect during a "What's this really about" conversation is:
1. Recognise that this is a negotiation.
2. Determine what everyone wants and work out how to give it to them.
3. Decide how we will make choices together.
The matching principle is important for this, to understanding their mindset and determine what tone and logic speaks to them.
To put this into practice:
- Prepare to have a conversation, e.g. by having a set of predetermined questions you can fall-back on.
- Ask meaningful, deep questions by asking about someone's beliefs or values, asking someone to make a judgment and asking about someone's experiences. Asking a deep question should feel like sharing.
- Acknowledge others' vulnerability and become vulnerable in return to build trust and connection.
- In other words ask others to describe feelings rather than facts. Remember to hear what a person is saying, by paying attention to nonlinguistic emotional expressions.
Practice reciprocity.

Supercommunicators allow themselves to match the energy and mood, or at least acknowledge them, making it clear they want to align with others.
In a conflict, we draw out emotions by proving we are listening. We prove we are listening by looping for understanding.
Looping for understanding:
1. Ask questions.
2. Summarise what you heard. Reflect back what you just heard. The goal is not to repeat verbatim, but to distil the other person's thoughts in your own words.
3. Ask if you got it right.
4. Repeat until everyone agrees we understand.
In a conflict, everyone craves control, but trying to control someone is destructive. We should instead focus on controlling:
1. Yourself.
2. Your environment.
3. The conflict's boundaries (don't kitchen-sink it).
When in conflict with someone:
- Acknowledge understanding (through looping for understanding).
- Find specific points of agreement to show we want to be aligned.
- Temper your claims. Don't make sweeping statements.

We all possess social identities that shape how we speak and hear.
How to talk about Who We Are:
1. Draw out multiple identities. e.g. "Where did you grow up? What was that like?"
2. Put everyone on equal footing. e.g. "I don't know anything about cars either."
3. Create new groups by building on existing identities. e.g. "You're a lawyer? So am I!"
4. Manage your environment. e.g. "Shall we move somewhere quieter?"
How do we make the hardest conversations safer?
- Explore if identities are important to the conversation.
- Before a discussion, ask yourself:
  - What are your hopes?
  - How will you start?
  - What obstacles might emerge?
  - If those obstacles appear, what's the plan?
  - What are the benefits of this dialogue?
At the beginning of the discussion:
- Establish the guidelines.
- A moderator can encourage everyone to speak, people to tell their stories and not diminish others' problems, everyone to listen.
- Draw out everyone's emotional, practical and any ephemeral goals.
- Acknowledge this will be uncomfortable.

Putting it all together, the learning conversation can be summarised as follows: