Professional Manager

Building Rapport
-Establishing Strong 2-way Connections-

Department of International Business

Professor, Ph.D. Hiro Nagai
 What Is Rapport?
• Basis of meaningful, close and harmonious relationships
between people.

• It's the sense of connection that you get when you meet
someone you like and trust.

• It's the bond that forms when you discover that you share
one another's values and priorities in life.
 Why is rapport important for you?
• It doesn't matter what industry you're in or what position
you hold – knowing how to build rapport can bring you
countless opportunities that help you to succeed.
ex. being interviewed for a job, selling something, or trying
to improve a relationship
 How can you develop rapport?
Rapport can develop naturally (personality), but anyone
can develop and improve rapport by using skill.
1. Basics
2. Find Common Ground
3. Create Shared Experiences
4. Be Empathic
5. Mirror and Match
 1. Basics
✓Eye contact
✓Smiling on your face
✓Relax atmosphere
✓Call your counterpart by his/her first names
✓Hold your head up and maintain a good posture
✓Listen carefully and attentively

• Tips: Open your heart first!

 2. Find Common Ground
Identifying common ground something that you and your
counterpart both share (ex. attended the same college,
share the same hobbies, grew up in the same city, or
support the same sports team, friends in common, etc.).

• Tips: Use open-ended questions instead of “Y/N”

questions.
 3. Create Shared Experiences
• Rapport can't grow without human interaction, and a great
way to interact is to create new, shared experiences.

• Shared experiences can be as simple as attending the

same class, working collaboratively, and think solution plans
together.

• Tips: Don’t be afraid to be rejected, take an initial action for

invitation.
 4. Be Empathic

Empathy is about understanding other people by seeing

things from their perspective and recognizing their
emotions. So, it's important to be a good listener to
understand and share another person’s feelings.

• Tips: Give responses at a good timing in the

conversation like, “I see”, “Uh-huh”, “Um-hum” to
encourage speaker to speak more.
 5. Mirror and Match
• We prefer people just like ourselves as a human psychology.
• Mirroring and matching are the techniques for building rapport
by making yourself more like the other person.
• Watch the other person's body language , including gesture,
posture and expression (rephrasing). If, for example, he rests
his chin on his hand, consider mirroring him by doing the
same with your hand.

• Tips: Act to be natural!

 Today’s Exercise
• Using the 5 techniques (1. Basics, 2. Find Common Ground, 3. Create
Shared Experiences, 4. Be Empathic, 5. Mirror and Match), develop
rapport with your interviewer.
• A: Interviewer, B: Interviewee,
Others: Observe the conversation between A & B, and record what
technics 1-5 were used by A to develop rapport with B.
• Topics can be anything likes, ex. “How did you spend this summer
vacation?”, “What courses have you been taking this semester and how
do you like them?”, “What kind of job do you want in the future?”
• Observers report the finding in class.
• Rotate the roles among participants.