Prepared by Simon Young - Based on the original work of Richard Bandler and John Grinder
Introduction
What is the skills set of a Successful sales professional? This is, of course, a question asked by Sales and Human Resources Managers alike. If only we could extract the key skills from our most successful individuals and make a drug of it. We could have:-
- “Great presentation skills”
- “Questioning Techniques”
- “Objection handling”
- “Financial analysis”
- “Chairing meetings”
- “Influencing skills”
- “Team leadership”
- “Team dynamics”
- “Active listening”
- “Proposal writing”
- “Rapport creation”
How wonderful, take two tablets twice a day for a week and you too will be able to present like Martin Luther King, listen like Claire Raynor and lead like John Major! Well okay, maybe not the best of examples. Unfortunately these skills have to be learned, either formally through training courses or experientially on the journey through life.
Out of all of the above courses, if you were to tick the ones which you may have attended in the past, would you tick “Rapport creation”? Well after all, you’ve either got it or you haven’t, or maybe not!
There is no doubt that without rapport it is difficult to develop a close relationship with a customer and that without this close relationship it is difficult to be successful. So can we improve our communication skills? Can we build on our natural ability to build rapport? When we have this wonderful state of rapport, can we use it better?
By the time you have finished reading this paper, (as long as you actively read it, not just skim it), your natural communication ability will have improved. Your ability to create, maintain and build rapport will have been tuned. You will be able to recognise different representational systems in your own communication and others. (What? Read on).
Framing
In much the same way as photographers “Frame” their pictures by deciding where to place the subject and with which background, so the meaning of everything in our lives depends upon our point of view, our perspective, our frame of perception.
One of the ways to create “Meaning”, is by the frames that you choose to use, there is no fixed meaning. Let us use the example of the famous glass of water which is either half full or half empty, depending upon your personal frame of perception. The actual state of the glass of water is irrelevant but what it means to you is important.
This ability to look at situations in different ways and then communicate a particular perspective to somebody else is a powerful skill, think of Advertisers and the budgets they have to do just this. If we can get our clients to reframe their views so that they wish to do business with us then we have won the battle, if not the War.
This is effectively how successful Salespeople, Advertisers, Poliicians, Teachers and Therapists operate. In themselves they do not see dead-ends, they are always looking for alternative perspectives, different points of view and then reframing ideas in such a way that the client “Sees the light”, or finds it easy to agree with this perception.
Next time you see a politician being interviewed, listen to the care taken to “Frame” the answer, typically with a non-specific meaning, allowing you, the listener, to agree or otherwise depending upon your own frame of perception.
Here is one final example of framing. It comes in the form of a letter from a college student to her parents.
Dear Mum and Dad,
Apologies for taking so long to write, but my writing utensils were destroyed in the fire in my flat. I am out of the hospital and the doctor says that I should be able to lead a normal healthy life. A handsome young man called Pete saved me from the fire and kindly offered to share his flat with me. He is very kind and polite and from a good family, so I think you’ll approve when I tell you we got married last week. I know you’ll be even more excited when I tell you that you are going to be Grandparents very soon.
Actually there wasn’t a fire, I haven’t been to hospital, I’m not married and I’m not pregnant, but I did fail my math’s exam and I just wanted to make sure that when I told you, you would put it in a proper perspective.
Love, Your daughter.
So, if we can share alternative ways of looking at things with other people, we are in a position to influence them and learn from them. If we use reframing techniques whilst enjoying a deep rapport, then these new perspectives will be shared with more consideration and the chances of getting a particular point of view across will be much improved. So, how do we create this marvellous state of Rapport? Initially we need to pace the other person.
Pacing
Pacing is establishing the bridge through rapport and respect. Rapport is when two people, normally, seem to be in a trance state of multi-level communication, or perhaps they can be considered linked at a subconscious level. Rapport or empathy is essential to establish the feelings of trust, confidence and participation within which people can respond freely; the desired situation in a Manager/Subordinate relationship, a partnership and a seller/buyer relationship.
Communication seems to flow when two people are in rapport; their bodies as well as their words seem to match each other. What we say can create or destroy rapport, but that is only 7% of the communication. Body language and tonality or how we say it is more important. You have probably noticed that people in rapport tend to mirror and match each other in posture, gesture and eye contact; the “Dance” of rapport if you like, where partners in rapport follow each others’ movements with movements of their own. They are engaged in a dance of mutual responsiveness, their body language is complimentary and they are quite often so focused (entranced) that they are unaware of this dance.
Have you ever noticed yourself enjoying a conversation and subconsciously matching body language? Leaning backwards/forwards, matching posture! The deeper the rapport (trance) the closer the match will tend to be. This skill would seem to be inborn, for newborn babies move in rhythm with the voices of the people around them. Conversely when people are not in rapport their bodies reflect it, they are not engaged in the dance and this can be seen immediately.
Successful people create rapport, and rapport builds trust! You can create rapport with anyone by consciously refining the natural rapport skills that you use every day, namely matching body language and tonality. Eye contact is an obvious rapport skill and usually the only one that is consciously taught in English culture, which has a strong taboo against noticing body language consciously, and responding to it.
To create rapport it is a good idea to start by joining the other person’s dance with respect and sensitivity. This builds a bridge between you and their version of the world in which we live. Be careful of mimicry, this can be counter-productive, start off with small, subtle and gentle matches. You can match an arm movement with a small hand movement, and body movements with a subtle head movement. This is called “Cross-over mirroring”. You can match distribution of body weight and the basic posture very quickly with no risk but immediate benefits. One of the most powerful ways of gaining a deep rapport is by matching breathing posture and rate. If you observe couples in deep rapport they breathe in unison and from the same part of their chests!! Observation of the rapport phenomenon is the best way to become familiar with it. With familiarity you can improve your existing skills and make rapport building a conscious choice rather than an accident.
Please note that mis-matching has its uses, there is no better way of curtailing a conversation than to mismatch breathing, eye-contact, crossed legs etc.
Voice matching is another way of creating and deepening rapport. You can match tonality, speed, rhythm and volume of speech, “the song” of rapport. Mismatching here is a great way to end a telephone conversation, simply speed up your voice!! Hypnotherapists use “the song” to create and deepen rapport (trance) with their patients. This leads to activation of the para-sympathetic nervous system and greater access to the subconscious mind. You can see this deep rapport (trance) take place every day in Pubs and clubs typically between loving couples, who are clearly oblivious to their surroundings!!
There are only two limiting factors in your ability to create and deepen rapport: the degree to which you can perceive other people’s gestures, posture and speech patterns, and the skill with which you can match this “song and dance”. The relationship will be a harmonious song and dance between your integrity, what you can do and believe wholeheartedly, and how far you are willing to build a bridge to another person’s model of the World.
Notice how you feel when you match; you may well feel uncomfortable with some people and you don’t have to like them. When a deep rapport (trance) exists the brain’s perception of time passing changes. Do you remember Bus Stop time, when you keep looking at your watch and it’s only moved a minute which seemed like an hour and the reverse when you are in deep rapport and all of a sudden an hour has passed! Time distortions are good indicators of trance states.
So rapport is the total context around the verbal message. If the meaning of the communication is the response it elicits, gaining rapport is the ability to elicit responses. With this paced rapport it is then possible to “Lead” the communication both at a conscious and subconscious level. Remember, influence is for the good of all parties concerned; manipulation is for the sole benefit of the practitioner!
LEADING
So, we have now gained a level of Rapport with our client what shall we do with it? Well, as long as you do it subtly and slowly you can now take him/her through all of the different representational systems, namely Visual (sight), Auditory (sound) and Kinaesthetic (feeling). Why would I want to do that? The more senses that are used in “thinking” about something, say a new idea, the more interesting and challenging it will be to the client, (assuming that this new idea could be of interest in the first place), and the stronger an impression will be left by that idea. This stronger memory/concept/thought process can then be fed back to us to deepen rapport and gain agreement, which is ultimately what we are after.
This technique of leading should be used with care, try it on a friend in the pub; if you lead they will follow. Be careful with clients who are strongly visual, for example, they may be uncomfortable (subconsciously) talking in auditory terms; you will actually find it difficult maintaining a state of auditory thinking with a strongly visual person.
Remember, people enjoy rapport, with good rapport the client will enjoy meeting with you and will read correspondence from you with the same attention that he/she gives you face to face. Therefore if a client is strongly visual make your letter and proposals predominately visual in content.
Proposals which will be circulated should therefore be well balanced in terms of their “sensory” content as a highly visual proposal would potentially alienate a strongly auditory person!
THE “EYES HAVE IT”
REPRESENTATIONAL SYSTEMS
Communication starts with our thoughts, and we use words, tonality and body language to convey them to the other person. And what are thoughts? There are many different scientific answers, yet everyone knows intimately what thinking is for themselves. One useful way of thinking about thinking is that we are using our senses internally.
When we think about what we see, hear and feel, we recreate these sights, sounds, and feelings inwardly. We re-experience information in the sensory form in which we first perceived it. Sometimes we are aware of doing this, sometime not. Can you remember where you went on your last holiday?
Now, how do you remember it? Maybe pictures of the place come into your mind. Perhaps you say the name or hear sounds. Or maybe you recall what you felt. Thinking is such an obvious, commonplace activity, we never give it a second thought. We tend to think about what we think about, not how we think about it. Also we assume that other people think in the same way as we do.
So one way we think is consciously or subconsciously remembering the sights, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells we have experienced.
Through the medium of language we can even create varieties of sense experience without having had the actual experiences. Read the next paragraph as slowly as you comfortably can.
Take a moment to think about walking in a forest of pine trees as the trees tower above you, rising up on every side and you see the colours of the forest all around you and the sun makes leafy shadows and mosaics on the forest floor while you walk through a patch of sunlight that has broken through the cool ceiling of leaves above you. Now as you walk, you become aware of the stillness, broken only by the birds calling and the crunching sound of your feet as you tread on the debris of the forest floor and there is the occasional sharp crack as you snap a dried twig underfoot now you reach out and touch a tree trunk, feeling the roughness of the bark under your hand as you gradually become aware of a gentle breeze stroking your face, you notice the aromatic smell of pine mingling with the more earthy smells of the forest. Wandering on, you remember that dinner will be ready soon and it is one of your favourite meals. You can almost taste the food in your mouth in anticipation....
To make sense of the last paragraph, you went through those experiences in your mind, using your senses inwardly to represent the experience that was conjured up by the words. You probably created the scene sufficiently strongly to imagine the taste of food in an already imaginary situation. If you have ever walked in a pine forest, you may have remembered specific experiences from that occasion.
If you have not, you may have constructed the experience from other similar experiences, or used material from television, films, books or similar sources. Your experience was a mosaic of memories and imagination. Much of our thinking is typically a mixture of these remembered and constructed sense impressions.
We use the same neurological pathways (brain circuits) to represent experience inwardly as we do to experience it directly. The same neurons generate electrochemical charges which can be measured by electromyographic readings. Thought has direct physical effects; mind and body are one system. Take a moment to imagine eating your favourite fruit. The fruit may be imaginary, but the salivation is not!
We use our senses outwardly to perceive the world, and inwardly to ‘re-present’ experience to ourselves, visual, auditory, kinaesthetic are the primary representation systems used in Western cultures. The senses of taste, gustatory, and smell, olfactory, are not so important and are often included in the kinaesthetic sense. They often serve as powerful and immediate links to the sights, sound and pictures associated with them.
We use all three of the primary systems all the time although we are not equally aware of them all, and we tend to favour some over others. For example many people have an inner voice that runs in the auditory system creating an internal dialogue. They rehearse arguments, rehearse speeches, make up replies and generally talk things over with themselves. This is, however, only one way of thinking.
Representational systems are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to visualise a scene, have the associated feelings and hear the sounds simultaneously, although it may be difficult to pay attention to all three at the same time. Some parts of the thought process will be subconscious.
The more a person is absorbed in their inner world of sights, sounds and feelings, the less he or she will be able to pay attention to the external world. Being ‘lost in thought’ (trance) is a very apt description. People experiencing strong inner emotions are also less vulnerable to external stimuli, such as pain.
Our behaviour is generated from a mixture of internal and external sense experience. At any time we will be paying attention to different parts of our experience. While you read this you will be focusing on the page and probably not aware of the feeling in your left foot ......... until I mentioned it! Determining, therefore being able to match somebody’s current or preferred thinking mode is easily achieved. “The eyes have it”!
Most people respond like this, however it is easy to calibrate individuals by asking them to re-experience sensory memories. That person will always move their eyes the same way to re-experience the same sense.
Examples of “Sensory Based” words and phrases
VISUAL
Look, Picture, Focus, Imagination, Insight, Scene, Blank, Visualize, Perspective, Shine, Reflect, Clarify, Examine, Eye, Focus, Foresee, Illusion, Notice, Outlook, Reveal, Preview, See, Show, Survey, Vision, Watch, Reveal, Hazy, Dark.
I see what you mean.
I am looking closely at the idea.
We see eye to eye.
I have a hazy notion.
He has a blind spot.
Show me what you mean.
You’ll look back on this and laugh.
This will shed some light on the matter.
It colours his view of life.
It appears to me.
Kinaesthetic examples
Touch, Handle, contact, push, rub, solid, warm, cold, rough, tackle, push, pressure, sensitive, stress, tangible, tension, concrete, gentle, grasp, hold, scrape, solid, suffer, heavy, smooth.
I will be in touch.
I can grasp that idea.
Hold on a second.
I feel it in my bones.
A warm hearted man.
A cool customer.
Thick skinned.
Scratch the surface.
I can’t put my finger on it.
Going to pieces.
Control yourself.
Firm foundation.
Heated argument.
Not following the discussion.
Smooth operator.
Auditory examples
Say, Accent, Rhythm, loud, tone, resonate, sound, monotonous, deaf, ring, ask, audible, clear, discuss, proclaim, remark, listen, shout, speechless, vocal, tell, silence, dissonant, harmonious, shrill, quiet, dumb.
On the same wavelength.
Living in harmony.
That’s all Greek to me.
A lot of mumbo jumbo.
Turn a deaf ear.
Rings a bell.
Calling the tune.
Music to my ears.
Word for word.
Unheard of.
Clearly expressed.
Give an audience.
Hold your tongue.
In a manner of speaking.
Loud and clear.
Other sensory based words and phrases.
Olfactory
Scented, stale, fishy, nosy, fragrant, smoky, fresh.
Gustatory
Sour, flavour, bitter, taste, salty, juicy, sweet.
Smell a rat.
A fishy situation.
A bitter pill.
Fresh as a daisy.
A taste for the good life.
A sweet person.
An acid comment.
Neutral
Decide, think, remember, know, meditate, recognise, attend, understand, evaluate, process, learn, motivate, change, conscious, consider.
Other accessing cues
Eye movements are not the only cues, although they are probably the easiest to notice. As the body and mind are inseparable, how we think always shows somewhere, if you know where to look, we all automatically respond to some of these cues in a rapport situation, even if we only recognise a discomfort and apparent difficulty in understanding/ getting our point across.
Visual
A person who is thinking in visual images will generally speak more quickly and at a higher pitch than someone who is not. Images happen fast in the brain and you have to speak fast to keep up with them. Breathing will be higher in the chest and shallower. There is often an increase in muscle tension, particularly in the shoulders, the head will be up and the face will be paler than it is normally.
Auditory
People who are thinking in sounds breathe evenly over the whole chest area. There are often small rhythmic movements of the body and the voice tonality is clear, expressive and resonant. The head is usually well balanced on the shoulders or at a slight angle as if listening to something.
People who are talking to themselves will often lean their head to one side, resting it on their hand or fist, the telephone position. Some people will repeat what they have just heard under their breath and you will be able to see their lips move.
Kinaesthetic
Kinaesthetic accessing is characterised by deep breathing low in the stomach area, often accompanied by muscle relaxation (activation of the parasympathetic nervous system). With the head down, the voice will have a deeper tonality and the person will typically speak slowly with long pauses. Rodin’s “the Thinker” is definitely thinking kinaesthetically.
General cues
Movements and gestures will also tell you how people are thinking. Many people will point to the sensory organ that they are using internally: they will point to their ears while listening to sounds inside their heads, point to their eyes if visualising or to their abdomen if feeling something strongly.
This is body language at a much more refined and subtle level than it is normally interpreted.
Conclusions
Reading a short paper on Rapport in itself will rekindle some old knowledge and put models on techniques that you use naturally. Simply reading it has already improved your recognition and matching skills. To get the maximum benefit you need to watch people. Watch people in rapport and others struggling to attain it. Practice with friends in non-threatening situations or with a partner. Practice it with your boss, be subtle and you’ll be fine. Try rephrasing statements in a different thinking mode, “I see what you mean”, “That rings a bell”, “I’m getting closer” and don’t forget the neutral thinking phrases, “Consider............” etc. If you have found this paper interesting further reading is available look under “Neuro-Linguistic Programming” in the library. Most of all enjoy the knowledge next time you watch people in action, you know what’s going on!
