What is Rapport?
High Growth Enterprise Coaches establish rapport with clients. Rapport is one of those things that when you do not have it, you know!
High Growth Enterprise Coaches need to be able to:
- Show genuine interest in clients
- Demonstrate empathy and understanding
- Respect the needs, values and opinions of clients
- Respect client communication methods
- Build on common ground with clients
To be effective and influential, coaches need to have rapport with clients and know how to build and maintain rapport. Everyone knows when they are in rapport with another person, but defining and building rapport can be more difficult. When there is a ‘disconnect’ during a coaching session, rapport has been lost: regaining it quickly can be difficult.
What do you understand by the term ‘rapport’?
Rapport can be described as an affinity, understanding or bonding between two people. In a coaching relationship, it is important that the coach develops a High level of rapport with clients: rapport provides the foundation on which the coaching relationship is built. Just as a house built on poor foundations will be unsafe, a coaching relationship built on low levels of rapport is likely to be ineffective.
| Rapport, like the concept of trust, is not an absolute: there are degrees of rapport.
Rapport can be viewed as an indicator of the quality of a relationship. The deeper the level of rapport the stronger the relationship. In order to build rapport, clients need to feel that coaches are genuinely interested in them and what they are trying to achieve: the interest must be authentic. It is not possible to fake authentic interest. |
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Rapport is not manipulation
To be effective, coaches need to be able to influence clients. To build rapport with clients, coaches must also be willing to be influenced because rapport is a two-way, interactive process.
Rapport is not the same thing as being friends
Although being in rapport is usually enjoyable, it is possible to have rapport and mutual respect whilst not liking or getting on personally.
Rapport is not about agreeing
It is possible to agree with a client or vice versa and not have rapport. It is also possible to have rapport with a client and not agree with them.
Building and sustaining rapport with clients before and during the coaching relationship enables coaches to ask more demanding, challenging and searching questions. Where there is only a limited level of rapport, clients often feel uncomfortable or reticent about answering sensitive or challenging questions fully and openly.
Coaches build High levels of rapport by:
- Showing genuine interest in their clients
- Demonstrating empathy and understanding
- Respecting the needs, values and opinions of clients
- Respecting client communication methods
- Building common ground with clients
Coaches need to be able to able to view and understand the world from the point of their clients.
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