Creating a Climate of Respect
How to Build Rapport with Others
Rapport is the ability to relate to others in a way that creates respect
and trust. Rapport is derived from the French verb, rapporter, which means to
bring back. In the English dictionary, it is synonymous with harmony,
oneness, mutual trust, and, affinity. In essence, it refers to communion or
common grounds between two individuals.
Without rapport, you can’t achieve many of your personal goals – you will
have few friends, your career will remain stagnant and you can be deprived of
privileged information. Rapport, then, is the ability to see the other
person’s point of view – seeing the world through the person’s eyes, hearing
sounds from his/her ears and experiencing similar heartbeats. You don’t have
to loose your individuality by agreeing with the other person. You just have
to see it from their reference point. I have always been astounded by
people who try to change someone else’s mind by convincing them of their
own logic or data. People will always insist that they are right even
though they may be wrong to others. To win the person over, to build
rapport, you need to see reality from the other person’s world. Not
surprisingly, they will then try to
accommodate you as well.
Respecting others or building rapport comes from living out this
principle:
AGREEMENT to AGREEMENT, rather than NON-AGREEMENT to AGREEMENT. What this
means simply is that we look for common grounds (and it’s not too hard to find
them) to agree with the other person. For example, if your subordinate tells
you that she is mad because you have assigned her so many tasks
lately, you may validate her frustrations: “Yes, I understand that being
asked to do so many tasks all at once is very frustrating, especially when you
want to be home early to look after your three-year-old. Once we get over
this project, things should be more manageable around the office.” If you had
started to yell at your subordinate for being incompetent, then chances are
she will build up a wall of resistance towards you.
People like people who are like themselves. Have you ever observed people
dining in restaurants? Are you able to tell those who are new lovers over
those who have been married for years? People who are in love or in deep
rapport will typically adopt the same posture. Their bodies are symmetrically
arched towards each other. They would laugh together, move and gesture in
similar ways. In other words, they match one another. I was having lunch one
day with my colleague, a HR manager and a polytechnic lecturer. Half way
through the conversation, the lecturer quipped: “Do you guys from HR put your
elbows like an arch on the table all the time?” At that point, I glanced at
my colleague and noticed that our postures were identical. Yes, we were in
deep rapport!
Other ways to build rapport include:
1. Match the person’s tempo. If the person speaks fast, then speak at
that rate initially. Those of us who speak fast tend to find slow speakers
annoying and wonder when they will get to the point.
2. Match the person’s mood. If the person is a morning person, then it would
be wise of you to discuss important issues in the morning. By 4 p.m., when
the person is tired, you might get a brush off. This does not mean that your
ideas were wrong or bad, it could mean that you just caught the person “at
the wrong time” or “in the wrong mood”.
3. Match the person’s language system. According to Neuro Linguistics
Programming, there are three basic representational systems: visual,
auditory, and kinesthetic. If your partner is visual (e.g.: “I see what
you mean; Show me your plans; I don’t notice a problem here), then use
visual words.
Visuals respond best to graphs, flowcharts and graphic examples. Auditory
individuals would like to listen to what you have to say. They prefer that
you describe how the event went instead of showing them photographs.
Kinesthetics are individuals who talk more about their feelings. They use
words like “I feel; my gut instinct tells me; I sense that…” To build
rapport
with Kinesthetics, you need to use feeling words too, “Do you feel comfortable
about this?”
The food on my plate is quite different from the next person in line at
the buffet table. Respecting one another and building rapport means
emphasizing similarities and matching our world with the other person.
– Raymond Soh