Understanding What Rapport Is

So in a nutshell, rapport may be defined in the best way that most people might define it; it is the quality of synchronization, congruency, and harmony of communication between two people. Additionally, the main goal of rapport also is to elicit better communication between persons.

The establishment of it in many individuals may vary depending on their cognitive maps. NLP, however, teaches “mirroring” into which the body movements, tonal quality, posture, breathing, gestures, predicates are carefully matched to achieve rapport. “Pacing” and “leading” are both facets of rapport.

The former being defined as the tuning of an NLP practitioner into the “world” of an individual, while the latter is used to “lead” the individual into achieving the desired behavior.

One must, however, be very careful in mirroring to establish rapport. If you are not cautious, the other you are mirroring might mistake this to just plain mimicry. NLP experts’ advice across lateral form of mirroring and a five-second delay (O’Conner & Seymour, 2002).

The Essential Ingredients of Rapport

Paul wrote to the Corinthians and revealed the importance of building rapport, it is to win people to Christ. One of the most important ingredients of building it is commonality.

Paul depicted how he built rapport with people he wanted to minister too. As he said, to the Jews, he became like a Jew to win them; to those under the law, he became like one under the law.

The Bible emphasizes a very important principle for building rapport. Paul said, he became all things to all people in order to achieve his purpose, which is to bring the good news of salvation to them. Thus, in order to build one, the person’s intention could be accomplished by adjusting one’s self in order to connect with the person, especially during the initial interaction.

Thus, on a physiological level, it can be through matching the appearance of another person, such as facial expressions and posture. The tone of voice, rhythm or the use of words can also enhance the feeling of commonality.

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Another part of building rapport is through match multiple modalities. Moreover, it is also important to build mutual confidence and trust.

You can pace the other’s reality by describing her ongoing sensory experience. NLP skills can help an individual to build rapport in an effective and fulfilling manner. Thus, in order to achieve feelings of commonality, mutual confidence, and trust, the ingredients that achieve rapport in the NLP practice includes the following:

•Being other-oriented

•Staying in uptime

•Calibrating

•Backtracking

•Matching predicates

•Matching eye

•Accessing cues

•Matching tone, tempo, volume, etc.

•Synchronizing breathing

•Matching posture

•Similar criteria and other keywords and phrases

•Using the other person’s analog markings

•Using direct or crossover mirroring

•Perceiving responses as feedback, not as a failure

You need rapport to achieve successful communication. Establishing a sense of commonality is essential in building it between two people. Higher levels of it include feelings of mutual trust and confidence. Furthermore, there are different ways to establish it from the NLP practice. These include matching, mirroring, pacing, and the like. You conduct all these to establish a connection between two people meeting or communicating for the first time.