769: How to Connect Better with Remote Colleagues, with Charles Duhigg

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Management, Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2026

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Charles Duhigg: Supercommunicators

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist and the author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better. He is a winner of the National Academies of Sciences, National Journalism, and George Polk awards. He writes for The New Yorker and other publications and is the author of Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

A lot of us grew up in a world where most of our relationships started in person. That means many of us are beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists. In this conversation, Charles and I discuss how to get better at connecting in a remote-first world.

Key Points

When the telephone first became popular, people had to learn how to communicate with it. We’re at a similar inflection point with digital communication.
We all have three kinds of conversations: (1) What’s this really about? (practical/decision-making), (2) How do we feel? (emotional), and (3) Who are we? (identity).
Many of us tend to default to practical/decision-making conversations online and miss conversations about emotion and identity.
Ask questions that invite an emotional or identity response. Instead of, “Where do you live?” consider a shift like, “What do you love about where you live?”
Notice when people bring elements into a conversation that aren’t related to the topic. These clues, especially online, can point to entry points for emotional connection.
Supercommunicators pay just a bit more attention to how people communicate than the rest of us. A slight shift can make a big difference.

Resources Mentioned

Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection by Charles Duhigg (Amazon, Bookshop)*

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

The Way to Get People Talking, with Andrew Warner (episode 560)
How to Lead Engaging Meetings, with Jess Britt (episode 721)
How to Show Up Authentically in Tough Situations, with Andrew Brodsky (episode 727)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	A lot of us grew up in a world where most of our relationships started in person.
0:05.4	That means many of us are beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists.
0:11.4	In this episode, How to Get Better at Connecting in a Remote First World.
0:16.3	This is Coaching for Leaders, Episode 769.
0:20.8	Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.
0:29.1	Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host,
0:35.2	Dave Stahoviac. Leaders aren't born. They're made. And this weekly
0:40.5	show helps leaders thrive at key inflection points. An inflection point we have all been through
0:46.9	in recent years is doing so much more in communication, leading, managing, building sometimes
0:53.1	entire relationships online and
0:55.6	remote. How can we get better at being able to connect well with remote colleagues? Today,
1:02.2	I'm so glad to welcome back a guest who's an expert on communication will help us to look at this
1:07.5	in new ways. I'm so pleased to welcome back to the show, Charles Duhigg.
1:11.3	He's a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and the author of the power of habit
1:15.9	and smarter, faster, better. He's the winner of the National Academies of Sciences, National
1:21.7	Journalism, and George Polk Awards. He writes for The New Yorker and other publications and is the author of Super Communicators,
1:30.5	How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, now available in paperback.
1:35.9	Charles, good to have you back.
1:37.8	Thanks for having me on, Dave.
1:38.9	It's good to visit with you again.
1:40.6	It's good to see you too.
1:41.8	And we both grew up in a world where people mostly
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dave Stachowiak, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dave Stachowiak and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.