Coping Techniques

An assertive, self-confident person uses a variety of coping techniques to deal with the challenges of interpersonal communication. Many of these techniques come from the school of neuro-linguistic programming. NLP began in California in the mid-1970s, when graduate Richard Bandler joined a group at the University of Santa Cruz headed by linguistics professor John Grinder. NLP is defined as models and techniques to help understand and improve communication — and to enhance influencing behavior.

Building Rapport

Rapport is the relation of harmony, conformity, accord, or affinity to support an outcome. The intended outcome is more likely with rapport than if it is not present. There is a sense of a shared understanding with another person. 

Mirroring – matching certain behaviors of a person with whom you are interacting — is the process used to establish rapport. There are four techniques for mirroring to build rapport.

1. Voice tone or tempo
2. Matching breathing rate
3. Matching movement rhythms
4. Matching body postures

Levels of rapport range on a continuum from a low of tolerance to a high of seduction. For business, strive for levels of neutral, lukewarm, understanding, identification, or warm, all in the center of the continuum.

Expressing Disagreement

Representations systems determine by the brain give us cues about how individuals process information. People can be classified as predominantly:

• Visual  (The things we see)
• Auditory  (The things we hear)
• Kinesthetic  (The things we feel, touch, taste, or smell)

Both the type of words used, and the speaker’s eye movement provide indicators of the system type. In a conversation, once we understand which type our conversation partner is, we can use the same system language to match the person’s type, helping to ensure more reception to our message.

Coming to Consensus

Whether there is a disagreement on a particular issue, or you simply need to get a group to agree, neuro-linguistics offers a solution. To plan, make the following decisions:

1. What do you want your outcome to be?
2. How will you know when the outcome is achieved?
3. Who will attend the meeting? (Important: Each person invited to the meeting must have information needed for two out of three agenda items.) 

Then, establish rapport as participants come into the meeting. 

Now you are ready to use the PEGASUS model to achieve your desired outcomes.

Present outcomes

Explain evidence

Gain agreement on outcomes

Activate sensory acuity

Summarize each major decision

Use the relevancy challenge

Summarize the next step.

Case Study

A successful business meeting requires all of the participants to speak and showcase their point of view on a certain matter. Chris was a confident person and this helped him demonstrate the benefits of his company to potential investors. With some successful presentations Chris was able to line up a number of great investors and new partners.

Building rapport was easy for Chris. He had the great ability to recognize and overcome prospects objections. With this skill he was one of the top performers in the company. However, as he knew his goals well, he managed to track everything the investors spoke about and finally came to an agreement which was successful for Chris.