A brief snapshot on the conference if you missed it: The Brisbane Playback Theatre Troupe opened the conference and quickly enabled participants to arrive , get present and purposeful for the two days. Stories were dramatically enacted by the troupe about people’s leadership journey to get to the conference and their expectations and questions they were looking at answering during the conference. Bernard Salt then took the group into a future focused pre-flective examination of where we’ve been and what to look forward to re some significant Aussie demographics and the impact of this on leadership.

Participants then chose from one of the three streams created for the two days for the first of the 1/2 day depth workshops – Personal, Organisational and Community Leadership. Hilary Langford, Chris Patty and Bernadette Rutyna and Denise Hagan workshopped current areas of interest with their groups. The participants reconvened in the afternoon for a “speakers corner” – networking with intent. A number of the workshop leaders and participants engaged with each other in informal but highly energetic conversations over drinks.

Day two started with Margaret Smith’s challenge to create your own purposeful leadership journey. This was well met with the participants in this highly interactive session. We then entered into the second and third round of choosing for participants in each of the conference streams. We’ll name all the workshop leaders here as they each, within their own stream, continued to create a productive and joyful conference experience with participants: Margaret Smith, Barry Brewster, Howard Nielsen, Greg Latemore, Emma Thomas and Nette Griggs.

We reconvened briefly for sharing with participants before rounding our the conference at 4.30. We’re looking at follow up experiential conferences which build on the themes eleborated in this conference. Additional comments and feedback from participants will follow in later posts.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.We are social animals and thus are impacted by and impact on the pack.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard. Males in particular missed their children’s growing up and partner’s companionship. This also underwrites some of the common social role expectations current in our western world which reward some behaviours at the expense of others.
3. I wish I has the courage to express my feelings. People hold on to feelings in order for others to feel OK. Keep the peace at all costs. This is also part of the way we give away our power to others.
4. I wish I’d stayed in touch with friends. The benefits of friendship became apparent when they stop calling. Loneliness is one of the most reported impacts of being in an aged care facility. It’s also true that if your haven’t maintained a social network, as you age more and more of your peers are probably dying around you.
5. I wish I’d let myself be happier. The power of past habits tend to become a barrier for present and future happiness. It’s better the devil you know, even when it’s painful.

When tribes understand the value of welcoming differences, they enhance the synergistic possibilities inherent in their relationships. Teams can achieve more of their full potential.

“It’s possible that my whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.”

Ashleigh Brilliant

Rapport is one of the most important elements in effective communication.  Good communication stems from good rapport and appreciating the unique reality of each person.  Rapport at its simplest is the ability to influence, and the openness to be influenced, on many different levels.  Rapport builds realtionships. The better the relationship the easier the task.  By building rapport you can quickly build trust and understanding.  Rapport may exist naturally in some situations and with some people.  When it doesn’t it requires skill to generate it.  We are far more likely to agree to decisions with someone we have rapport with.

The ability to take on the same communication style as someone else is known as matching.  There are four main things that can be mirrored/matched – body language, voice quality, verbal language and beliefs and values.  Among the things that can be matched (but not mimmicked) include: posture, movement and gestures, breathing, eye movements, voice tone and quality, language patterns and key words, beliefs and values. We can observe and match these things to build rapport.  This process is called calibration, it works from the premise that the mind and body are an integrated system.  What occurs in one part of the whole will affect all the other parts.  As well we can  read how successful or otherwise our communication is by observing these things in the other person as they respond to us.  Once we are able to read these cues we need the flexibility to keep changing what we do or say until we get the results we want.  This is called pacing.

Pacing is another skill in rapport building.As you observe and match you are then able to adjust your whole body and  pace the other person to a better and better levels of rapport and thus lead towards the outcomes/purpose of your communication.  Matching, pacing and leading are tools to create rapport and influence the outcomes of the communication.

Matching, mirroring and pacing values. Respecting and pacing values is a way of building a deep level of rapport.  The more your develop your sensory acuity – your awareness to notice even the smallest of changes in the person with whom you are dealing, the more you will begin to be able to determine when their state changes realted to core values held by that person, such as fairness, value for money, security, being on time etc..  Eventually you will be able to ‘calibrate’ signs that indicate you are moving towards or away from values held and match them in you communication.

A word though – rapport is not the simple application of a series of technique. You can learn techniques much like a mechanic learns to tune a car and become a very skillful mechanic, but unless you have a good intent to build a mutual relationship with the other person – and this includes yourself being “in” the relationship, your authenticity will be challenged. Others may also notice that you may at times appear absent or disconnected even though you are working at building a connection. Remember “ground hog day” – rapport building is not data mining. At times your own vulnerability or ability to be influenced by others will say more than your words can convey.

• be aware of your own phenomenology (and the client’s) – it helps to know thyself.
• watch how you manage your allegiances – you never know who knows what in the system
• negotiate a vehicle for ‘truth-telling’ – early ! – remember the people you are talking to probably know where the bodies are buried

Bell and Madler have suggested 5 useful questions to frame your engagement as you enter and contract with the client. They are:

1. Who are you (both you and the client)
2. Why are you here?
3. What’s likely to happen?
4. How will you procede? and
5. How will you add value?

I’ll elaborate more on these in the next posting. Go well

Lance Secretan, Industry Week, 10/12/98