Rapport – used in English to imply harmony, a feeling of shared understanding, and of being at one – is the most important process in any interaction. Without it, two people will not trust each other and probably will not even hear each other correctly.
We have all created rapport many times – when we’re with an old friend, or when we meet someone and it feels like we’ve known them all our lives. People tend to think it just happens, but we can establish rapport deliberately.
- Rapport is a process, not a thing. It’s something we do with another person.
- There are things we can do to establish rapport.
- Rapport is responsiveness – you don’t have to ‘like’ the other person.
- The non-verbal aspects of communication known as paralanguage (voice tone, body language) convey information about our relationship with the listener. This forms the context in which the content of the words is understood. (e.g. “That was really good!” conveys the opposite meaning if the voice tone is sarcastic and the body language dismissive.
- Psychologists have discovered three elements to rapport (according to Daniel Goleman’s book Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships):
- mutual attention, where each person is tuning in to the other
- shared positive feeling – mostly conveyed by non-verbal messages
- synchrony – people unconsciously respond to each others’ movements and gestures
- If you don’t have rapport, you won’t get your outcome. In any conversation, neither of you will get anywhere until you have established rapport.
You may also be interested in the longer article “What ‘Classic’ NLP Doesn’t Tell You About Rapport“, and these episodes of the Practical NLP Podcast: Rapport, Crossover Matching and Pacing and Leading, and Applying Pacing And Leading
© 2012 – 2019, Andy Smith. All rights reserved.
Coaching Leaders - Emotional Intelligence, NLP, Appreciative Inquiry and Coaching Skills for leaders
[…] navigation ← What is Rapport in NLP? How do you know when you have rapport? Posted on June 27, 2012 by Andy Smith Hello […]
The CRAFT Model - How To Influence People
[…] rapport – responsiveness, understanding, friendliness, matching, positive body language/voice tone. Notice […]
Katherine Gordy Levine
NLP uses potent tools to sell things. Don’t mind that, but wish we would to the same to repair our world and end oppression.
Andy Smith
This does happen Katherine – see for example these NLP community projects:
http://www.transformations.net.nz/community-service.html
http://www.nlpu.com/nlp97/confer.htm
http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/116/1/The-NLP-Group-Building-community-with-NLP/Page1.html
Rapport 101 in NLP
[…] Note: this is an expansion of an earlier article, What is Rapport in NLP? […]