"Woman plus..."Raissa Maximovna's Club

Rapport

By Genie Z.Laborde «Influencing with Integrity»: Management Skills for Communication and Negotiation.

Rapport is a somewhat exotic English word derived from the French verb rapporter, meaning to bring back or refer. The English meaning-a relation of harmony, conformity, accord, or affinity-indicates the importance of rapport to communication, it is the most important process in any interaction. (You thought rapport was a state, right? No. it is a process.) Without rapport, you will not get what you want-not money, not promotions, not friends. You may not even be able to get a letter typed correctly, unless you do it yourself. Rapport is like money: it increases in importance when you do not have it, and when you do have it, a lot of opportunities appear. How do you know when you have rapport? Different people have different ways of ascertaining rapport. Personally, I know that I have it by a certain level of comfort - a sense of shared understanding. You may have another way to sense it. If rapport is present, proceed toward your outcome, if it is missing, then you can be assured neither of you will gain your outcome until rapport is present.

How can you create rapport? Actually, you have done it many times. Establishing rapport seems to be a natural tendency among most people when they get together. When it is not, you can use certain skills to create rapport consciously. First, check your trust in the competence of the other person to complete the task at hand. in the preceding chapter, for example, a lack of confidence began the cycle of dissatisfaction between Marianne and her boss. He was not necessarily a male chauvinist. He simply did not trust Marianne's competence. Her resentment reinforced his distrust. The cycle escalated with each interaction. if either one had known how to establish rapport, the ending could have been quite different. Suppose your secretary has retyped the same letter three times and has made typos each time. Now what? You need, at this point, to find out the typist's outcome, is s/he trying to create a business letter? is s/he trying to drive you crazy? is s/he always producing typos? Does s/he have a polarity response (i.e" knowing what you want and doing the opposite)? Do you need an automatic eraser on the typewriter, or do you need a new employee whose outcome dovetails with yours? You can ask such questions belligerently or simply to find out more information. The greatest part of establishing rapport is often accomplished nonverbally. (Techniques are explained below.) if you are empathetic or sympatico, you may turn up information that you can use for establishing trust, and rapport may follow. You may discover, say, that the typist's boyfriend moved out last night, and her outcome is to survive the day so she can cry herself to eleep. Her keys may be sticking together and her typewriter needs overhauling. Or she may be looking for another job and wants to get fired so she can look full time. Human beings and their moment-to-moment outcomes are a constant source of surprise or disaster, depending on your point of view. By finding out her outcome for the next thirty minutes and giving her your outcome, you may get a matching set of outcomes. By focusing on outcomes instead of problems, you may also achieve trust, rapport, and a few correct paragraphs. Liking the other party is not a prerequisite for rapport. Mutual confidence in competence for the task at hand is. If credibility cannot be established, consider changing the task. This book deals with 95 percent of the situations you will face. For that 95 percent, you can establish rapport in many ways. in fact, there are as many different ways to establish rapport as there are individuals. Most of us already have many ways that work most of the time. But there are times when these intuitive ways do not work. What can you do then? A process called mirroring works extraordinarily well to gain rapport if mutual trust in competence is already established. Mirroring is the matching of certain behaviors of the other person. The four mirroring techniques are: matching voice tone or tempo or both: matching breathing; matching rhythms of movements with a different movement: and matching body postures. These mirroring events often occur naturally as a result of rapport. Mirroring can also be used to establish and increase rapport. However, these techniques may not work unless both or all parties have already established trust in each other's competence.

MATCHING VOICE TONE OR TEMPO

Matching the other person's voice tone or tempo is the best way to establish rapport in the business world. Some voices coo. Some voices gravel at you. Some voices sing their words. Some voices squeak. Tones are high or low, loud or soft. Tempos are fast or slow, with pauses or without pauses. Most people are completely unaware of their own vocal tones or tempos, and they will not notice that you are matching them. Also, voice matching does not have to be exact, just close enough to encourage the other person to feel understood.

Usually overlooked, this is the obvious way to establish rapport over the telephone. One manager acknowledged this information with the statement, "So that's why our department reports so many disgruntled responses from customers in the deep South. We thought Southerners were just difficult to deal with. The personnel in my department phone our customers all over the States to remind them to send in their payments. Our telephone personnel are from New York City. Southerners speak at vastly different rates from New Yorkers. Our policy is to be courteous, but we need to do more than that." Another executive received an insurance settlement shortly after he learned about matching tempo. His car had been stolen during the night from in front of his apartment on Staten island. After weeks of negotiation and nonpayment by the insurance company, he phoned their head office in Dallas, Texas. He was immediately aware that the woman on the other end of the line had a very different tone and tempo from his. His lifelong love of music gave him a discriminating ear. and he was able to match her tempo, even though his tone was a great deal lower. According to him, not only did he get a larger cash settlement than he had expected but his check was mailed the very next day. A word of caution is needed here.

If your tempo is extremely different from that of the other person, go easy on your voice adjustment, if you are a native New Yorker and you suddenly shift to a Southern drawl, you may be in trouble, instead of a sudden dramatic change, make a small move in the direction of the other's tempo. Slowing your tempo down slightly is not likely to be noticed. In fact, none of the techniques you learn here for developing rapport should ever be noticed. Be elegant in using these skills: use the least number of moves necessary to solve your problem. Ë slight adjustment in tempo is probably all you need if you know what you want and are focused on determining another's real outcome. Being truly interested in what the other person wants in an interaction is the most powerful way to produce rapport. Matching tempo can be learned. The first step is to become aware of different rates of speech, then practice matching in a safe environment. Later, matching tones will increase your ability to establish rapport.

MATCHING BREATHING

The second way to establish rapport is to match the other person's breathing rate. Most people's breathing rate can be perceived easily with a little practice. However, if the person is wearing several layers of clothing, such as a shirt, vest, and jacket, you may have difficulty picking up the movement in his chest or abdomen. Some people have shallow breathing with little outside movement, in these more difficult cases, the edge of the person's shoulder silhouetted against any background will usually show a discernible rise and fall. One thing you can count on: the other person is breathing, if they have been unsuccessful in the business world for a long time, s/he may be barely breathing, but if you persist in watching, you can find the breathing rhythm. Once you have this rhythm, you can pace yourself to it. You may need practice, but this will not take long to learn.

MATCHING MOVEMENT RHYTHMS

Matching movement rhythms, or crossover mirroring is a more complex matching, identify some movement that the other person displays repeatedly and match it with a different movement of your own. For example, each time the other person scratches his chin, you might tap a pencil on the desk.

One of our students used crossover mirroring for the first time on one of her firm's senior vice-presidents (something I would not recommend). Just after our threeday seminar, Trudy faced a meeting for budget approval of a project she wanted very much. The problem was that the vice-president who had to give budget approval was known to be very cool on this type of project. She phoned my partner in New York and said she knew she needed rapport but could think of no way to establish it with this man. He was nervous and full of energy, whereas she is relaxed and has naturally slow movements. They were a complete mismatch. My partner reminded her of crossover mirroring. During the subsequent meeting, she minimally tapped her foot as he paced up and down. On each of his turns, she changed the foot tapping, it worked. She established rapport and proceeded to get her project approved.

"But maybe it wasn't the crossover mirroring" say the skeptics. Maybe it was her warm personality. Maybe it was the negative ions in the air that day. Each of us has a unique map of reality, and the name of any given locale varies from map to map, just as explanations of or rationales behind a given behavior vary from person to person. Syntonic techniques are significant not necessarily per se, but because using them with integrity seems to correspond with attaining one's outcome. And Trudy got her outcome.

Crossover mirroring is almost never noticed, because most of us are unaware of our habitual movements, such as pushing back our eyeglasses, patting our hair, or rubbing our noses, if the other person repeats movements such as these, you can match his or her rhythm by tapping a pencil, jiggling a foot, or drumming your finger. Once you create rapport, you can move on toward your outcome.

Why does matching build rapport? Good question. We are not sure we have all the answers. Rapport seems to be similar to rhythm entrainment, a natural phenomenon described by ltzhak Bentov in Stalking the Wild Pendulum. Different sized clocks with the same sized pendulums, when placed together on a wall, will gradually synchronize their swings. Discussing this phenomenon in machines and in man, Bentov concludes, "Nature finds it more economical in terms of energy to have periodic events that are close enough in frequency to occur in phase or in step with each other"

MATCHING BODY POSTURES

The last matching technique is the easiest but also the most obvious: simple mirroring of body postures. "Mimicry?" you may ask. "is that really a good idea, to mimic someone else's movement?" Only if you want to establish rapport and do not already have it. There is a fine line between mimicry and emulation. Lean toward emulation and you will do fine. Matching postures must be done with subtlety, if at all. Otherwise, it is embarrassing to you and irritating to others. People may think you are making fun of them. While simple mirroring may occur spontaneously in rapport situations, it can be a booby trap for the novice. if you decide to check out simple mirroring for yourself, do so in a no-risk situation. Do not test it on your supervisors. It can be great fun on a bus or a plane, though. Do not be surprised if strangers begin talking to you in a friendly way.

Another test of this premise is to watch people mirror each other unknowingly in restaurants, airports, and other places. You may be surprised nor to have noticed natural mirroring occurring all around you. Maintaining rapport is a way to synchronize the different experiences, values, and meanings of human beings. External matching accentuates similarities and plays down differences so that understanding and rapport between the people seem to increase. You may feel it is unfair to utilize a natural phenomenon such as this to gain an outcome. Remember. though, that you will not gain and retain your own outcome unless you keep the other's outcome in mind. Rapport thus becomes a tool for both of you.

To review the rapport skills: first, check out whether you have it. If so, proceed with your outcome. If not, check out your own trust in the other person's competence for the task at hand. if you trust the person, proceed. If not, find a way to establish trust or to suspend judgment. Another possible obstacle is that the other person does not trust you. This is where establishing rapport becomes interesting. Rapport is not mechanical. Nor is it as simple as it seems to those of us who have always set it up intuitively. if you gather that the other person does not trust you, you need to find a way to establish personal credibility for the task at hand, or change the task at hand to one for which you can gain credibility. You can always say, "You look busy. I'll come back another day," and trust the person's competence to show you the door. Use the interim time to improve your credibility with letters of recommendation, well-written brochures, or phone calls from satisfied customers. You may need to be creative in establishing your competence if the other person is in doubt. You can even be direct and say something such as, "You seem to have doubts about my ability to produce results. What, specifically, would you like to see (or hear) that would convince you I can do exactly what I promise?" The skeptic may be willing to give you criteria, and you will know whether you can meet those requirements. if not, a handshake and a goodbye are in order.

There are times when rapport can be and even should be deliberately broken. How do you do this? Look at your watch. This almost always works, increase your distance from the other person until you are too far away for easy hearing. Or make an abrupt, unexpected movement. Why would you want to break rapport? To breathe at your own rate, for one. When I first learned of rapport and how it worked, I realized why I was often short of breath. I naturally breathe deep in my abdomen and slowly. When l was in rapport with upper-chest fast breathers, I was uncomfortable. And I seemed to be in rapport with everyone automatically, without knowing it. The week I recognized this, I went around breaking rapport right and left.

Another time to break rapport is when you are about to sign a binding contract. Some levels of rapport set up such a cooperative pull that you may find you have made agreements that you later regret. TO avoid this "buyer's remorse," you might break rapport by saying, "We've been moving along fairly rapidly, and we seem to have an agreement. Now lefs step back and each take a moment to review what our agreement sounds like, looks like, and how we both feel about it so that we can be sure we are making a good arrangement for both of us."

Then you may literally step back, increasing spatial distance, while you check out your own see/hear/feel information about the contract. Then and only then would you reestablish rapport.

The power of the rapport techniques became apparent to me when I was brought in as a communication consultant in a delicate negotiation. I received a call one Saturday morning from a distraught stranger, Dave, whose attorney had recommended he learn some negotiation skills from me. Dave explained that he desperately needed to learn these skills over the weekend because he was to negotiate for fees owed him by his former boss. I explained two days would hardly give me enough time to teach him what he needed. Besides, I was conducting a seminar all weekend. Dave then insisted that I accompany him to the meeting on Monday. A large sum of money was at stake, and he felt he had the right to bring along a communication consultant. The negotiation concerned Dave's commissions from land leases agreed to but not finalized before his boss, Mr. Smith, removed him from a project. Dave had not been fired, but he had been transferred to another subsidiary. His contract read that if he were removed from the project, commissions for any lease agreements without final signatures were to be paid or withheld at the discretion of the firm. Smith would make the final decision about Dave's percentages. Animosity had existed between Dave and Smith for some time. but now it was worse. Dave was justifiably concerned that Smith's animosity would affect how much money Dave received for the leases. Dave had worked on some of these leases for as long as two years and was afraid he would not get any commission.

I met Dave half an hour early on Monday and calmed him down by having him recall resource stares (memories of times he had felt a sense of confidence). Then it was time to meet with Smith. Four of us assembled in Smith's office: Dave, Smith, Gail (Dave's former assistant, who was due some split commissions), and I. The office was a square fishbowl: two of the glass walls looked out over forests, the other two surveyed fifty cubicles where other employees were at work.

When Smith learned Dave had brought a "professional communicator," he threw a temper tantrum. He yelled, stomped around, and threw papers. He shouted that we would not negotiate while I was in the room. Dave, Gail, and I watched quietly. The people in the cubicles did not look up from their work. After about five minutes, Smith calmed down enough to say I could stay, but I could not say anything. He was still agitated but had stopped yelling and pacing. He dropped into a swivel chair. I thought about his proposal for a moment, nodded my agreement, then moved to a chair beside Dave. Gail sat on a sofa to one side. I began to match Smith's breathing rate. He was still slightly agitated. Tipping back in his chair, he hooked his heels over its pedestal supports. His legs were akimbo. I was wearing a slim skirt, so I could match only his upper body posture. A few minutes later, I slowed my breathing to a more comfortable rate. Smith followed. At this point, I checked Dave and found that all three of us were breathing with similar rhythms, a sign of rapport among us. And that is all I did. By that time, Dave and Smith had negotiated the first contract. Dave got the entire percentage he felt he deserved on all forty leases-a total of almost $100,000. in fact, Gail renegotiated some percentages when she thought Smith was being "too fair" to Dave. On the last few leases, Smith just asked what Dave had been promised, Dave told him, and Smith said, "OK." At the end of the hour, I shook hands with Smith and said, "I really enjoyed the negotiation, even though I didn't say anything" He consoled me, saying, "Well, listening is an important part of negotiation."

At this point, you know how to set your own outcomes, elicit outcomes from others, and establish rapport while you explore ways to satisfy both outcomes. You will find mundane conversation becomes an art form as you try out these process-oriented skills. Once you have practiced these new ways to communicate and find they do work, you will be ready for the next level of communication virtuosity. To help you reach this next level, the next chapter briefly explores connections the brain uses to perceive and organize its perceptions. All of us have some facility with rapport skills and sensory acuity, but often we use them randomly. By acquiring new skills and focusing on process rather than content, we can substantially increase our effectiveness in communicating.