By modeling people who have deep levels of rapport we
discover that they adopt the same or a similar style of:
❏ Posture.
❏ Movement and gestures.
❏ Breathing levels.
❏ Voice tone and quality.
❏ Language content: visual/auditory/feelings, and key words.
They also hold similar or in some cases identical:
❏ Beliefs.
❏ Values.
❏ Sense of identity.
❏ Purpose in work and life
When people demonstrate a similarity in any of these, we say
that they are matching that characteristic.
Bill was a software developer who headed up a technical team.
He dealt with many other departments in the company and
frequently accompanied members of the sales team in meetings
with clients. Technically he was highly skilled, but he didn’t feel
at ease in the company of others. He had attended many
training courses on the techniques of running effective meetings,
making presentations, and communicating confidently, but he
still didn’t enjoy most situations that involved talking to other
people, especially if it meant meeting people for the first time.
He found these initial meetings extremely stressful.
Consequently, the clients in these meetings tended to direct
their conversations away from Bill. Occasionally he met with
someone with whom he seemed to “click” straight away, but this
wasn’t often. The emphasis in his role was changing. As his
department grew he was expected to represent it more often, not
only in sales meetings but in internal meetings with senior
managers.
Rapport is essential for any meaningful communication to take
place. You need rapport to be able to conduct a productive
conversation, to engage someone’s attention with a message,
DEVELOP A CLIMATE OF TRUST: RAPPORT 293