Supercommunicators

To me this book is the final nail in the coffin of the idea that buying books written by general writers & journalists (vs domain experts) is worth the time & money. Its boring & uninsightful & poorly constructed & I'm 99% sure I'll never remember anything I read in this book.

If someone had asked twenty-year-old me what I thought the most difficult challenges of my life would be I probably would’ve replied with something about technology, career, financial stability, something banal like that. By thirty I knew better: communicating with others is by far the hardest part of my life. And by forty I had a fair inkling that the effort was going to be a lifelong one.

I was lucky. Sure, I wish I’d known all that earlier, had more time to learn and practice and connect, but I’m still thankful to have learned it at all: not everyone does. Since I was late to the game, I’ve relied on books for my ramping up and ever-continuing education: most notably Nasty People and Nonviolent Communication. And now—did you think I’d forgotten that this was supposed to be a book review?—possibly Supercommunicators, too. Too early to tell, but judging from my notes and page markers I think it has a good chance.

Duhigg’s principal focus is on recognizing three overall types of high-stakes conversations, which he memorably sums up as: Do you want to be Helped, Hugged, or Heard? From that starting point he elaborates fairly effectively, diving deeper into each, offering research, examples, and useful insights. Occasional tangents, such as advice for communicating online, were germane and welcome. My one quibble is hard to describe, maybe a chemistry thing: I occasionally found myself unable to relate. And I’ll leave it at that.

Four stars IMO, but five in importance. I found much new and thoughtful material in here despite my occasional disconnects. Your experience will differ from mine, you may get more out of it, or less, but I urge you to read it because we’re all works in progress, and we all have room for improvement in how we relate to each other. And because, despite it being the most challenging element of my life, communicating is also the most rewarding.

Good book with lots of good advice on how to communicate better.

Could be a series of blog posts though, and about 20% the size and you'd still get the same value out of it.

Interesting information. I wasn't entirely sold on the premise, but it turned out good.

This isn’t the first book I’d recommend if you’re wanting a handbook to better communication, although it’s worth reading once if you like the interesting-stories-woven-into-scientific-studies-plus-practical-insights modern pop-psych way. I’d recommend books written by deep experts before this though, i.e. don’t read Duhigg to get his take on John Gottman, just read John Gottman.

Grab a copy of Nonviolent Communication and/or Difficult Conversations for books in a similar vein that are worth reading more than once and will go much more in-depth.

I had high hopes for this book and although I learned a few things, generally it felt like a lot of fabricated stories to substantiate a predefined communication strategy. I like the portion of “helped, hugged, or heard” but how it relates to the different types of conversations seemed brittle. A person that wants helped doesn't necessarily want to have a “what are we talking about” conversation. They want helped. It felt like so much substantiation through story and hardly any pragmatic tactics.