Building Rapport
In order to communicate effectively with others, it really helps if you have rapport with them. This means that you are ‘on the same wavelength’, that you just click with them. Sometimes, we have natural rapport with people; think of your friends or partner. Other times, we have to work on building it and there are a number of things that we can do.When we communicate, any message is made up of three parts: - • the words we use (verbal) • how we say it, our tone of voice (vocal) • what our body is doing, our body language (visual or non-verbal) Research has shown that the greatest part of a message is passed on by our body language, then our tone and then the actual words themselves. Imagine asking someone how their day was and they reply with a one word answer, “fine.” If they said this through clenched teeth whilst slamming their keys on the table, this would have a very different meaning from someone saying it whilst nodding and smiling. It is for this reason that a lot of rapport building is done around the non-verbal side of communication. If we watch others’ body language and listen to their tone of voice and aim to mirror this, we can start to build rapport. Watch people who are getting on well and see how they mirror or match each others body language. Having said that, you can also build rapport by looking for common ground with someone; • Do you support the same football team or enjoy the same hobby? • Have you been on holiday to the same place?
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