Talking to Strangers is an intriguing book about communication by Malcolm Gladwell. Along with the two other books of his that I’ve read, this one is engaging, thorough, captivating, and easy to read. Gladwell once again discusses complicated ideas in ways that are easy to understand and connects seemingly unrelated notions that soon reveal their importance to one another. Here are some of the things that most stood out to me from the book.
Gladwell discusses some of the many ways that communication can break down or fail to occur in the first place. One of those is by assuming that everyone we encounter can be trusted, also known as “defaulting to truth”. Gladwell purports this to be the reason that Bernie Madoff’s infamous Ponzi scheme lasted as long as it did. Even financial experts who suspected something fishy was going on behind the scenes got the impression that Madoff was an upstanding person, so they either failed to look carefully at what he was doing or chalked up their suspicions to some other cause.
On the subject of trust, this line stood out to me more than almost any other in the book:
“You believe someone not because you have no doubts about them. Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe them because you don’t have enough doubts about them.”
That blew my mind and gave me a whole new way to think about trust. It also reminded me of the cheap hotel I booked for my recent road trip. Despite many warning signs, I didn’t decide to check out and get my money back until I had enough doubts about the quality and safety of the hotel. Once I hit that threshold, I was gone and grateful to have gotten a full refund (and I stayed in a much better hotel for that leg of my journey). This is a good illustration of another of Gladwell’s points: our tendency to trust other people is good because it means we can work together effectively and only rarely get burned by a dishonest person. We’d all be much worse off if our default approach toward others was distrust rather than trust as we’d be constantly on edge and paranoid about everyone.
Another communication issue is the assumption that everyone wears their emotions on their sleeve. Unlike the show Friends, in which internal sensations perfectly match facial expressions and body language, actual people don’t always act the way they’re feeling, and not even for deceptive purposes. Real emotions are more complex than they’re portrayed in fiction, multiple emotions can be experienced simultaneously, and everyone shows those emotions differently. Facial expressions that people from some cultures would regard as scared are regarded as angry or intimidating by people in other cultures. This section of the book provided further reinforcement for my thoughts regarding the difficulty in accurately reading facial expressions and body language. I was glad to see this isn’t just a problem for me. It would be easier to navigate the world if everyone was as outwardly expressive as actors and if outward expressions always matched inner sensations. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it is, hence the importance of, among other things, asking clarifying questions, pausing to think before speaking, and taking the time to understand people rather than making snap judgments of them.
Talking to Strangers was more difficult for me to get through than the other Gladwell books that I’ve read. The concepts in this one were well within my grasp and Gladwell’s typical writing style that I find both easy to understand and incredibly enjoyable to read was well on display here. What made it difficult at times were the subjects it covered and the examples used to illustrate certain points. Lots of dark, heavy subjects that brought up a lot of unpleasant feelings. I do most of my reading at night before going to bed and that was no exception with this book but I made sure to give myself plenty of time to enjoy some lighter subjects and pleasant activities after I finished reading so I wouldn’t dwell on those darker subjects as I fell asleep.
Additionally, I initially thought that Talking to Strangers would have some recommendations on communication. I was expecting something closer to several other communication books I’ve read but this one was different. This focused almost exclusively on what can go wrong in communication while giving few, if any suggestions on how to avoid those pitfalls. Once I realized and accepted that, I was able to enjoy the book for what it is. It’s good to have reminders of what can happen when things go south and I have several other books that focus on what to do to improve communication, so I’m satisfied with what I got out of this book. In conclusion, I recommend checking this one out, especially if you’re already a fan of Malcolm Gladwell. It’s thought-provoking, insightful, and might make you rethink some things. Just be aware that it covers some heavy subjects and can be difficult to read at times for that reason. If you check it out, let me know what you think about it and I’ll see you in the next post.