Nigel Buxton Update
Communication: Words used = 7% November 2005

 
  Dear Nigel,

Most of you who know me will be aware that I have been bashing away for sometime that the company is no more than the people working in it – change the people and you change the company (often when a new Chief Executive takes over, the company makes a dramatic change).

The company is a group of individuals who form a collective, which has an identity of its own (like another person) – each one of us has a company of people/identities inside of us (the manager – the subordinate - the father – the lover – the teacher – the boy – etc.). And to make any difference to the company, the individuals must decide to change.

In particular this week let's look at people to people. Business is about people and business skills, which ultimately come down to people skills: getting others to do what you want. You will already see the need for a way of focusing everyone to go in the same direction!

On this theme I have been speaking to some fellow coaches recently about coaching skills and creating rapport with clients.

Which is more important skills or rapport?

And how important is the creation of rapport?

The consensus was that coaching skills are nothing compared to the ability to create rapport. In a business like coaching (highly inter-personal) it is suggested if you have excellent people skills, you do not need the techniques!

 
 
How much importance do you place on people skills?

What does this rapport and people skills mean? A defintion of rapport is: "Your ability to enter into another's model of the world so that you can give the feeling of being totally understood".

What is the effect of having rapport?

Basically people like people who are like them; having rapport makes you feel like you and the other are the same (understand things in the same way). What would you do in such cases; would you go along with what the other says and asks; would you look together for great solutions?

Humans naturally have these rapport skills. And importantly people naturally like to be among people who are like them. It is often apparent in offices, without a formal dress code people will tend to dress in a similar style, to adopt similar behaviour patterns and to use a common language.

Rapport is also about effective comunication. Research has found that 55% of your meaning is communicated by your physiology (posture and the way you feel when interacting), 38% from your tone of voice and only 7% from the words you use.

Are you communicating what you want the other to understand?

The test is, "are you getting the response that you want?"

 
 

What could improve in your work and in your company through a greater attention to creating rapport?

And let's not forget our place in the world: what could also improve with our customers, our service- providers and our suppliers if we invested in enhancing our people skills?

A thought for the week: If 93% of the meaning of the communication does not come through the words used, what does that tell us about what we want to "hear"?

Nigel works with people in business who want to do more with less – to make a greater contribution with less effort – to be more themselves with less holding them back.

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Kind regards,


nigel
phone: +386-1-420-1524: +386-31-674-924