You know when you just click with someone you meet and you can t quite explain it?
Or maybe you have a friend with whom you ve formed an unbreakable bond, but you can t
put your finger on how that happened. This sense of connection we develop with people
is an incredible phenomenon, right? But sometimes the opposite happens. Within
minutes of interacting with someone, we decide we re just not on the same wavelength, even
if we can t point to exactly why that is. Both of these scenarios seem inexplicable,
but guess what? There is a science to it. Today, I m teaching you how to build rapport
with anyone you meet, so that you can greatly improve the odds of connecting positively
with the people you interact with. Ready to learn how to get along with anybody?
Let s get into it.
What s up Explearners. Mary Daphne here of explearning.co where we believe social skills
are the key to the Good Life. What s the Good Life? It s where you call the shots, you have
a crew you can count on, and you re on a mission you care about.
Before I jump in, I encourage you to check out our comprehensive small talk guide. Click
the link in the description box below to get the free downloadable delivered straight to
your inbox. So let s first talk about this inexplicable
sense of connection we form with some people, but not others. What causes this?
I ve got two words for you: affinity bias. In psychology, the affinity bias is the subconscious
tendency to gravitate toward people who we think are like us, be it physically or philosophically.
In a physical sense, they might have a similar appearance, or speak with a familiar accent.
In a philosophical sense, they might share similar beliefs or cultural practices.
You know that saying like attracts like ? That s the affinity bias in a nutshell.
As with most biases, affinity bias is sneaky. It activates without us even realizing it.
And that s a problem. After all, if we only hang out with the people
we instantly click with, we re significantly limiting the size of our social network. We
also risk creating a monolithic echo chamber where all we hear are the opinions and perspectives
that we already agree with. Talk about boring! Think of how much more multidimensional and
dynamic our worldview and relationships could be if we conquered the affinity bias?
Right? Right. I feel like we re clicking here So the challenge now is to conquer the affinity
bias. This is where it gets fun. Where do we start? We build rapport.
Rapport is a sense of comfort and familiarity with someone.
We have rapport with our family, friends, colleagues pretty much anyone we interact
with regularly. The more freely we can speak with someone, the deeper our rapport with
them is. When we click with someone instantly, that
s because we ve managed to establish rapport with them right off the bat. More often, it
takes time and multiple interactions to build rapport.
Creating rapport from scratch is like planting a tree. You plant the seed, give it sunshine
and water, and watch it gradually grow. In our world of instant gratification, that process
can feel frustratingly slow, but the payoff is totally worth it.
With patience, soon enough you ll be enjoying the tree s delicious fruits and soothing shade.
So how do we plant that seed of rapport? We ve got five strategies at our disposal.
1) Have the Right Attitude The right attitude in this case, is to adopt
what author Nicholas Boothman calls a really useful attitude , which we ll refer to as
RUA. In his book How to Make People Like You in
90 Seconds or Less, Boothman describes an RUA as projecting a positive and welcoming
disposition. If the person we re speaking with is describing a problem, we re helping
them find solutions. If they are expressing an emotion, we re expressing empathy and solidarity.
According to Boothman, an RUA is one of the major delivery vehicles of the likability
factor. We show genuine curiosity and concern for other people. We encourage them to talk
about their interests and we work to find common ground. Because if we dig deep enough,
we can almost always find common ground. 2) Get in Sync
No, I don t mean go find the 90 s boy band. They re long gone.
What I mean is to get into synchrony with your conversation partner, almost as if you
were dancing with them. Mirror their body language. Match their tone
of voice and tempo of speech. Follow the fluctuations of their energy levels.
If they put their elbow in their hand and strike a pensive pose, do the same. If they
re laughing, laugh with them. If they re whispering, lower your voice as well.
You might be surprised to learn that we already do this subconsciously. And the person we're
speaking with subconsciously interprets this as us being on the same page, which is what
we want. But don t go crazy with this. If you are too
overt about it, you re gonna weird them out. A good rule of thumb is to mirror them about
80% of the time. That s 4 out of 5 times. Start slow and work your way up.
3) Ask Open-Ended Questions In contrast to close-ended questions, open-ended
questions can t be answered with a simple yes or no . Instead, open-ended questions
invite discussion and elaboration. They invite the speaker to share their opinions and perspectives.
The more they share with us, the closer they feel to us, and the closer we feel to them.
Thus open-ended questions steer us away from the typical cul de sac of pleasantries to
a place of exploration and discovery. One way to do this is to phrase your questions
with How? and Why?. Seek clarification with prompts like that s fascinating, can you tell
me more about that [experience/person/place]? Your goal is to show that you care about their
point of view. 4) Practice Active Listening
Communication is a two-way street. We talk, but we also listen. And when you re building
rapport, you want to speak less and listen more. Listen with all five senses. Pay attention
to what they say and how they say it. This goes hand-in-hand with the previous step because
active listening will allow you to respond thoughtfully and ask the right follow-up questions.
One of the best ways to practice active listening is to attempt to rephrase what the other person
says after they say it, using your own words. Paraphrasing forces you to internalize what
they are saying and it demonstrates to the speaker that you are on the same page as they.
If you find you arent able to do this, then that s a perfect opportunity to ask a clarifying
question! 5) Discover Sensory Preferences
We each have a primary, secondary, and tertiary sensory preference that influences our communication.
When we establish rapport with someone, we have at least one preference that overlaps
with theirs. For example, if one person is Visual, Auditory,
and Kinesthetic, and their friend is Kinesthetic, Auditory and Visual, then they overlap in
the middle with Auditory. It s helpful to figure out someone s sensory
preferences because it enables us to communicate on the same wavelength.
Visuals tend to talk fast. They use picture words to paint a scene or describe a scenario.
They ll use big sweeping gestures when talking, and they usually tend to sit and stand up
straight. Visuals often look up to the left and right when they talk.
Auditories or Audis tend to place higher importance on tones and sounds. They tend to have melodic
and expressive voices themselves. Audis tend to look side to side as they speak and keep
gestures to a minimum. Words and sound are their currency.
Kinesthetics or Kinos tend to speak the slowest sometimes so slowly that the listener gets
impatient! This is because it takes more time to put feelings into words than it does to
translate sounds or visual images to words, so this makes sense. They tend to use lower
vocal tones and relaxed gestures. When speaking, they tend to look down, almost into their
feelings. Not everyone is just one of these sensory
types. We are a combination of all three, but everyone has a dominant or primary sensory
preference. So figure out what yours are, and then try
to do the same with your conversation partner. Once you identify the overlap, focus on communicating
in that style. ***
Woo that s a lot of information! Feel free to take another pass at this to make sure
you internalized it ?? Either way, let s quickly recap:
Our ability to connect with someone is heavily influenced by our affinity bias, i.e., how
familiar, and relatable they feel to us. We can overcome the affinity bias by actively
building rapport with people. And when it comes to building rapport, we
have five ways to do that: 1. Adopt a really useful attitude to establish
common ground 2. Synchronize with person s nonverbals, energy
levels, and tonalities during your conversation 3. Use open questions to keep the conversation
going 4. Actively listen to the person s responses
5. Adapt to the person s sensory preferences Remember, it s easy to talk to people who
look and think like you. And there s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But you re more likely
to learn new ways of seeing the world, and to uncover unexpected opportunities, by interacting
with people whom you don t immediately relate to.
So make it your job to connect with those people. More often than not, you ll be glad
you did. So now that I've shared our thoughts, I d
love to hear how you like to build rapport. What works for you? What challenges have you
encountered? How have you been rewarded for your efforts?
Share that with me and the Explearning community in the comments down below.
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With that, have an awesome week, Explearners. Thank you so much for joining me and I ll
see you next time for your next Explearning lesson.
Happy Explearning