Rapport – it’s the secret to connecting well with people, with your colleagues, your customers, your family.
It’s how you get people to trust you.
Want to improve your rapport?
Well, you can do some training…
The trainer will show you how to ‘body match’ – you build rapport by copying the other person’s body posture…they sit forward, you sit forward, and so on.
Then you’ll learn how to match someone’s language, the kind of words the use;
And the pace, pitch and volume of their speech.
Next you notice how they’re breathing, so you can breathe at the same rate as they do…
STOP!!!!!
Why is this kind of training so widely accepted?
And how come people with integrity not only take this training, but teach it?
You don’t get rapport by doing those things, rather…
You do those things naturally when you are in rapport
Rapport produces a kind of entrainment.
It’s like when pendulums in a room full of grandfather clocks gradually swing together in time.
Or oscillators adjust themselves to pulse in unison.
Or musicians ‘lock in’ together, to improvise, to play as an ensemble.
Rapport is genuine, human connection
It’s when communication moves beyond words, into an authentic state of empathy.
And from this state certain side effects emerge.
But to fake this state by mimicking leg movements, breathing in unison, parroting words…that’s about something else entirely.
It’s called manipulation.
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