We've all been in meetings with somebody who dominates the conversation, weighing in at length on pretty much everything, so we all know how smart they are.

But the person who is always ready to share what's on their mind rarely

wields the most influence in the room because the best communicators are genuinely interested

in what other people are thinking. From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris Boyd. The people

known to social science researchers as high centrality participants in a group

conversation may not be the most talkative or clever or persuasive. In fact, they are often more

open than average to the views of other speakers. They find ways to draw different people into the

discussion, and while they don't necessarily say what they think others want to hear,

they do adjust their own manner of speaking to fit the mood of the group. Even if they don't say

much, these humble conversationalists are often the most effective speakers of all. My guest, Charles

Duhigg, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who studied this phenomenon for his new book,

Super Communicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. Charles, welcome back to think.

Thank you for having me. So you open the book by telling us about this guy named Felix Sigala,

who works with the FBI's Crisis Negotiation Unit and has really some remarkable successes on his

record. You note, though, that the first thing people tend to notice about him is that he looks

and sounds pretty unremarkable. Yeah, in fact, a couple of people told me they thought that he

sounded and looked like a middle-aged dad. Someone, someone, which has a middle-aged dad myself.

Yeah, I'm not sure what they're saying.

But I think what they meant was, you know, he's someone who just kind of, you don't look at

him and think, oh, my gosh, this guy is so charismatic or this guy is such an extrovert.

You just think, oh, that's just a nice, normal guy.

So what is his job?

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