NLP Success – A little taste of the material from Lesson 2 of the Modern Jedi NLP On-Line/Hands-On Training:
One of the contributions of NLP to the world of communication excellence is the process I call “Magical Rapport”.
You know that feeling you get when you “click” with another person or you just met them but you feel like you’ve known them forever? That’s rapport. We all do it all the time unconsciously when we are connecting with another person. The most typical way we approach it is to talk and find things in common. “so, where are you from?” “How many children do you have” etc. But the founders of NLP discovered that we do tons of other things that we don’t have the foggiest notion we’re doing, like matching and mirroring physiology and tonality (among other secret stuff)…
So NLP didn’t invent rapport, it just brought the unconscious process up into conscious awareness so that we could do it more often and with greater effectiveness. It would take me hours to share all the stories of how I’ve been able to build deep and lasting business and personal friendships rapidly. Suffice it to say that people like to do business with people they like.
We cover rapid rapport building fully in the Modern Jedi NLP On-Line/Hands-On Training. If you’re business or relationships could use a boost you might want to join us (there’s still time)
One of my NLP students who is a law enforcement professional asked a really good question and I wanted to answer it here on my blog so that all my students as well as those of you who are passionate about NLP could have a chance to hear my answer as well as to make a comment or share an experience you might have had with Rapport building.
Question:
I had a question regarding rapport. When someone is displaying negative emotions such as defensive, angry or some other type of negative behavior, would mirroring or matching be counterproductive because of how the other person may interpret their behavior being matched or mirrored?My concern was that because so much of communication is non-verbal this may only inflame an already negative situation. Or would mirroring and matching help to “sync” in with that person and once rapport is established you are now able to more effectively move the person away from those negative behaviors. I could see both being applicable but on a case by case situation. I would like to get your take on this as well as if it is a case by case situation what would be examples of when each would be appropriate.
Also are there more subtle rapport techniques within mirroring/matching that could be used such as only eye blinks or other less noticeable techniques like cross matching, etc…– Mike L.
Answer:
When someone is angry or depressed we want to connect with them in a way that will enable them to feel heard and understood without getting pulled into their state. If you use the typical rapport skills of matching and mirroring words, tonality, and physiology with an angry person you will almost be guaranteed to get angry..However there is nothing more infuriating to an angry person than dealing with someone who remains totally calm in the face of his/her anger. What we found in NLP was that if you mirror back the angry person’s tonality but say concilatory words, you will be able to connect enough so that the person can begin to hear you. Then once you’ve estabilished rapport, you can begin to gradually change your tonality and lead them into a calmer state..With someone who is depressed you could also match their typically softer quieter tonality while beginning to use words of more positive and hopeful outlook..Once we establish rapport we can test it to make sure we maintain it. Whenever we encounter resistance we need to go back and develop more rapport..We can also use a technique called Crossover matching and mirroring, using one body part like a finger, to match the upset person’s eye blinks or foot tapping..