3“There’s Something About This Person I Really Like!”
3Whether you’re trying to make a sale, get a date or wangle out of a traffic ticket, you need to establish rapport. Sometimes rapport just happens naturally and you’ve no clue why. The job gets done, the conversation flows, the cop tears up the ticket. But how often have you found yourself in a situation where, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to connect with another person—and it makes no sense? After all, you know you’re a fine, decent human being. Maybe you’re even a fabulous, wildly attractive human being. But no matter what you say or do, you don’t establish rapport and you can’t connect.
You’re not alone. Being a decent sort is not enough to guarantee good rapport with another person. In the dictionary, “rapport” is defined as “harmonious or sympathetic communication.” In our interpersonal communications, we go through certain routines when we first meet a new person. If these routines work out and rapport is established, we can begin to deliver our communication with some certainty that it will be accepted and given serious consideration. Serious consideration is vital because the fundamental outcome of rapport is the perception of credibility, which in turn will lead to mutual trust. If credibility is not established, the messenger and not the message may become the focus of attention, and that attention will harbor discomfort.
But when we experience the world through the same eyes, ears and feelings as others, we are so bonded, or synchronized, with them that they can’t help but know we understand them. This means being so much like them that they trust us and feel comfortable with us—that they say to themselves subconsciously, “I don’t know what it is about this person, but there’s something I really like.”
Research has shown that we have approximately 90 seconds to make a favorable impression when we first meet someone. What happens in those 90 seconds can determine whether we succeed or fail at achieving rapport. In fact, frequently we have even less than 90 seconds!
Attraction is present everywhere in the universe. Whether you want to call it magnetism, polarity, electricity, thought, intelligence or charisma, it’s still attraction, and it invests everything—animal, vegetable or mineral. We form synchronized partnerships naturally, and although they are hardly noticeable to some, they are quite tangible to others.
We have always relied on emotional contact and signals from our parents, peers, teachers and friends to guide us through our lives. We are influenced by their emotional feedback, their gestures and their way of doing things. When your mother or father sat a certain way, you would do the same; if a cool friend or a movie star walks a certain way, you might adopt a similar gait. We learn by aligning ourselves with the signals other people send us. They impress their way of being on us. We synchronize what we like about them.
People with common interests have natural rapport. The reason you get along so well with your close friends is that you have similar interests, similar opinions and maybe even similar ways of doing things. Sure, you will often find plenty to differ on and argue about, but essentially you are very much like each other.
We human beings are social animals. We live in communities. It’s far more “normal” and even logical for people to get along with one another than it is for them to argue, fight and not get along. The irony is that society has conditioned us to be afraid of each other—to set up boundaries between ourselves and others. We live in a society that pretends to find its unity through love but in actuality finds it through fear. The media scare us half to death with headlines and advertisements continually telling us of earthquakes and airplane crashes and asking us if we have enough insurance, are we too fat, too thin, does the smoke detector work and what about those high funeral expenses? Natural rapport is a prime requirement for our sanity, our evolution and, indeed, our survival.
Perhaps you have traveled abroad to a country where people don’t speak your language and you don’t understand theirs. You feel a little uncomfortable—even suspicious—when you can’t be understood. Then suddenly you meet someone from your own country, maybe your own state. This person speaks your language, and whammo, you have a new best friend—for your vacation at least. You might share experiences, opinions, insights, where to find the best restaurants and bargains. You will doubtless exchange personal information about family and work. All this and much more because you share a language. That’s rapport by chance. Maybe your enthusiasm will lead you to continue that friendship after returning home, only to discover that apart from language and location the two of you have nothing in common and the relationship fizzles out all by itself.
This isn’t limited to language and geography. Chance encounters happen on almost a daily basis to all of us—at work, in the supermarket, at the Laundromat or the bus stop.
The key to establishing rapport with strangers is to learn how to become like them. Fortunately, this is both very simple and a lot of fun to do. It allows you to look on each new encounter as a puzzle, a game, a joy.
When the interests or the behavior of two or more people are synchronized, these people are said to be in rapport. As we already know, rapport can happen in response to a shared interest or when you find yourself in certain situations or circumstances. But when none of these conditions is present, there is a way to establish rapport “by design”—and that’s what this book is about.
When we set out to establish rapport by design, we purposely reduce the distance and differences between another person and ourselves by finding common ground. When this happens, we feel a natural connection with the person, or persons, because we are akin—we have become like each other.
As rapport develops between Mark and Tanya in the story box above, there is a lot more going on than meets the eye. The average person would perhaps not notice, but to the trained eye and ear there is plenty happening. As their shared interest in stamps emerges, so does a similarity in their behavior toward each other. Body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, eye contact, breathing patterns, body rhythms and many more physiological activities come into alignment. Simply put, they unconsciously start to behave in a like manner. They start synchronizing their actions.
Rapport by design is established by deliberately altering your behavior, just for a short time, in order to become like the other person. You become an adapter, just long enough to establish a connection. Precisely what you can adapt and how to do it is what you are about to learn in the chapters that follow.
All you will need at your disposal is your attitude, your appearance, your body, your facial expressions, your eyes, the tone and rhythms of your voice, your talent for structuring words into engaging conversation and your about-to-be-revealed gift for discovering another person’s favorite sense. Add to this an ability to listen to and observe other people and a very large helping of curiosity. No gadgets, no appliances, no aphrodisiacs, no pills, no checkbook, no big stick. Just the wonderful gifts you were born with—and your heart-warming desire for the company of other people.
Mark is attending a formal dinner, eight to a table. He hates coming to these events and as usual is stuck for words. He’s beginning to get that squirmy feeling. He doesn’t know anyone except for his accountant, who’s sitting at the other end of the banquet hall and making everyone laugh. Suddenly the guest across from him, a young woman in a shiny blue dress who caught his eye a few moments ago even though they hadn’t spoken, tells the man on her left that she is an avid stamp collector. Just like Mark!
Mark is relieved and overjoyed because chance has given him an excuse to talk to her. They have something in common—stamps. Mark speaks up and tells Tanya all about his rare 1948 Poached Egg stamp and how he found it when his Pontiac broke down in Cortlandville in upstate New York. With both elbows on the edge of the table and a finger poised gently on her cheek, close to her ear, Tanya leans toward Mark; her pupils dilate slightly as her shoulders become softer and more relaxed. Mark too leans forward on his elbows, smiling as Tanya smiles, nodding as she nods. She sips her water; he finds himself doing the same …
Mark and Tanya have established rapport. They connected and initiated a relationship through a common interest. Their rapport is evident on many levels—the cues and rhythms they are taking from and sending to each other, the imperceptible modifications of behavior they are making without thinking. The shared interest has given them proximity, and they are adjusting to one another. Who knows where it will lead? They like each other because they are like each other, and the dance of rapport has begun to calibrate itself. They have made a favorable connection in 90 seconds or less.