Rapport is about being able to put yourself in the shoes of your coachee – understand who they are, where they are coming from, their feelings and emotions. It is about being on the same wavelength.
You have achieved rapport when conversations flow easier, when you are both more comfortable, and it feels like you are talking to a friend or a sibling.
<aside> 💡 Building rapport in coaching is firstly about genuinely wanting to be there with your coachee and vice versa. This enables you to enter their world, you can talk their language and help them move forward.
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1. Make it a top priority 🥇
Without it, you cannot have a sustainable coaching relationship. It will take as long as it needs to take, but it is the essences of a successful coaching journey. Truly sustainable results will only come if true rapport is developed.
2. Listen at levels 2 and 3 👂🏽
Listening is the top skill as a coach trying to establish a trusting ground. There are 3 levels of listening.
To establish trust and rapport, you want to listen at level 2 and 3.
Level 1: Internal listening 🧘🏽 : You focus on yourself and your thoughts such as in normal everyday conversations
Level 2: Listening to understand ⚙️ : Focused on the speaker, their body language, their tone of voice. The coachee feels understood and the coach’s own thoughts are not in play.
Level 3: Global listening 🐱 : Picking up more than what is being said, using intuition and sensing signals.
3. Get permission to give feedback 💬
Building rapport includes using your intuition to pick up on observations and building up on them. But you need to ensure you ask permission to be able to give feedback on what you pick on for the feedback to truly be constructive.
4. Talk your coachee's language 🗣️