Building Rapport Creating a Working Alliance Acknowledge Attend Connect Copyright 2003, Lou Chang

Acknowledge  Greet, welcome and engage  Appropriate closeness  Use appropriate titles and honorifics  Observe & possibly acknowledge emotion or concern  Show respect

Attend  Welcome, seat and personally serve each and every party, if possible. Pour tea.  Attend promptly and equally  Use collaborative language  Open, warm, relaxed body language, slight lean forward, attentiveness  Attentive, reflective listening to substance, feelings, needs and interests. Show you understand  Mirroring

Connect  Share commonalities (special food, community, culture, sports, prayer, etc.)  Soft eye contact, appropriate to the culture, age and gender  The power of touch, a handshake, hug, gentle guiding touch  Show sincere caring

Collaborative Language  “We” & “Us”, not “you” and “them”  By agreeing to participate, we all agreed to come with good intentions  Options and packages, not positions and bottom lines  Colleague, not adversary or opponent  Needs, hopes and dreams, not positions, money & principles  Goal: Create environment where “we” are all looking for possible solutions

Importance of Congruity  Words, body language & tone  Respectful, inclusive treatment  Professional dress  Calm, professional, unflappable demeanor  Sincere interest and desire to help  Your deeds and actions

Components of Persuasive Communication  Percentage communicated through: –Words (content of dialogue): 7% –Vocal (tone and inflection) : 38% –Body language (comfort, integrity, sincerity of belief): 55%

Trust building - 1  Demonstrated impartiality/neutrality/concern  Acknowledge and honor confidentiality commitment  Dependability, responsiveness & promptness  Even-handed and fair treatment  Collaborative and neutral language  Command knowledge of field/facts. Demonstrate thorough preparation.  Develop an appropriate mediation strategy. Agenda. Project sense of confidence  Project energy that encompasses all in the room

Trust building-2  Active listening  Reflective listening (content & feeling)  Pacing  Start where the party is at, guide, don’t pull  Explain what you are doing/not doing and why. Bring party along with you.  Review and check back with party. We’ve addressed …, have we addressed …? Is this something you can live with?

The Power of Touch  U. Philadelphia study  Video of telephone booth with coin in return slot  When phone user is asked by actor who says I think I left a coin, did you find it? 92%: no  With one variable changed, actor comes by with a gentle touch to shoulder or elbow, with same question- 88%: yes

Touch & Negotiation 2010 study in the journal Science. Researchers from MIT (Joshua Ackerman), Yale (John Bargh) & Harvard (Christopher Nocera)  Negotiators sitting in hard chairs were less flexible, showing less movement between successive offers. They also judged their adversary in the negotiations as more stable and less emotional.  Passers by asked to evaluate job candidate resumes attached to a heavier clipboard (4 ½ #) gave overall better and more serious evaluations than persons holding resumes attached to a light clipboard (3/4 #)  Persons handling smooth jigsaw puzzle pieces interpreted a written passage more positively than persons who handled puzzle pieces wrapped with sandpaper

 Participants were greeted in different ways: by a female or male experimenter and with a light, comforting touch on the shoulder, a handshake, or no physical contact at all.  The researchers found that participants who were touched felt more secure and took bigger risks than those who weren't - but only if they were touched by a woman. The effect was stronger for a touch on the back than for a handshake, but went away entirely for participants who were touched by a man.

Psychological Science May 2010  "Our work suggests that greetings involving touch, such as handshakes and cheek kisses, may in fact have critical influences on our social interactions, in an unconscious fashion.“ (Nocera)  “…subjects handled either a soft blanket or a hard wooden block before being told an ambiguous story about a workplace interaction between a supervisor and an employee. Those who touched the block judged the employee as more rigid and strict.”

The Value of Positive Emotions Barbara L. Fredrickson, American Scientist, July-August 2003  Doctors are faster to integrate case information, more open minded, less inclined to jump to premature closure in diagnosis when they felt good  Negotiators are more likely to discover integrative solutions when they feel positive & happy  People experiencing good feelings think more creatively, are more resilient, flexible and open to information

Ways to create positive and happy feelings  Appreciative inquiry  Recognize in your own self. Subjectively appreciative  Discuss tangible positive memory of event  Share info on vacations  Music  Food, ice cream, chocolate  Prize, gift, memento, flower in a balloon  Humor  Positive shared experiences  Happy/positive images & photos

Working with someone who doesn’t want to be there

Working with someone who is different from you

Working with someone who is _____________________

Building Rapport & Earning Trust  Consistency  Continuity  Congruity  Always a factor & at risk  Build upon with active listening and respectful care & concern