Top Ten Tips for Building Rapport 1.2 - Rob Pearson
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The document outlines 10 techniques for building rapport quickly by focusing on the other person and validating their viewpoint. The techniques include setting time constraints, showing accommodating body language, slowing down speech, asking for help, suspending ego, validating others through listening, asking open-ended questions, connecting through reciprocity, gift giving, and managing expectations with the goal of meeting the other person's needs.
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Top Ten Tips for Building Rapport 1.2 - Rob Pearson
- 1. 3 ROB PEARSON / @robotperson TOP TEN TECHNIQUES FOR BUILDING RAPPORT ROB PEARSON @robotperson
- 3. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson
- 4. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson “Few, if any, cases are solved without confidential human sources.” ROBIN DREEKE
- 5. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson GOAL QUICKLY FORM TRUSTING RELATIONSHIPS
- 6. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
- 7. 9 ROB PEARSON / @robotperson THE 10 TECHNIQUES
- 8. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 1 SET ARTIFICAL TIME CONSTRAINTS
- 9. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 2 SHOW ACCOMODATING NONVERBALS
- 10. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 3 SLOW DOWN YOUR TALKING
- 11. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 4 ASK FOR HELP
- 12. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson EXAMPLE INVITES https://goo.gl/dFBBAV
- 13. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson
- 14. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 5 SUSPEND YOUR EGO
- 15. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 6 VALIDATE OTHERS
- 16. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 6 LISTENING VALIDATE OTHERS
- 17. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 6 LISTENING THOUGHTFULNESS VALIDATE OTHERS
- 18. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 6 VALIDATE OTHERS LISTENING THOUGHTFULNESS VALIDATE THOUGHTS AND OPINONS
- 19. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 7 ASK WHEN? HOW? WHY?
- 20. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 7 ASK WHEN? HOW? WHY? MINIMAL ENCOURAGERS REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS EMOTIONAL LABELLING PARAPHRASING PAUSES SUMMARISE
- 21. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 7 ASK WHEN? HOW? WHY? STAKEHOLDER DISCUSSION GUIDE: https://goo.gl/pJ9Ze3 INTERVIEW SOFT QUESTIONS: https://goo.gl/QzsMGf
- 22. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 8 CONNECT WITH QUID PRO QUO
- 23. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 9 GIFT GIVING
- 24. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson 10 MANAGE YOUR EXPECTATIONS
- 25. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson ETHICS
- 26. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson ETHICS THINK ONLY IN TERMS OF THEIR NEEDS AND WANTS THEY MUST FEEL BETTER FOR HAVING MET YOU
- 27. 29 ROB PEARSON / @robotperson SUMMARY
- 28. ROB PEARSON / @robotperson SUMMARY FOCUS ON THE NEEDS OF THE OTHER PERSON VALIDATE THEIR VIEWPOINT LISTEN
- 29. 31 ROB PEARSON / @robotperson THANKS ROB PEARSON @robotperson DIRECTOR, AMIDO
Editor's Notes
- 1) Hi everyone My name is Rob Pearson, I’m a director at Amido, we’re a technical consultancy I started out as a front-end guy before the millennium, I worked out that I wanted to be what was then called an information architect in about 2002 after reading the polar bear book and I guess I’ve been doing UX work since then, I’ve worked for agencies, a consultancy, I’ve freelanced for 5 years and now I’m a director at Amido, where we do all kinds of interesting software projects for the likes of ASOS, HSBC, London City Airport. Right now I’m working on something for the Notting Hill Housing Trust And over all of that time I’ve been lucky to work with clients predominantly in the charity or public sector where they were selling ideas rather than things And in doing so I’ve come to believe that how we handle the people that are involved in our projects, our users, our stakeholders and our colleagues on the team, how we handle them is critical to the success of these projects. In previous years at UX camp I’ve spoken about my UX interpretation of how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie, I’ve talked about my ideal process for managing stakeholders, and last year I talked about a lean approach I took to developing a new digital product for Macmillan, the cancer charity, And in that talk I made a throwaway comment about a book I’d read about tips for developing rapport
- Hi everyone Top ten techniques for building rapport What is this going to be about and why is it relevant to UX? What do we even mean by rapport? Well Rapport is that sense of connection, of warmth, friendliness and trust between two people And trust is really what this talk is about because if empathy is the foundation of being a good UX practitioner, Trust is the bedrock of successful projects In this talk I’m going to tell you 10 things you can do to build rapport, build trust with your teams, your stakeholders and your users
- My name is Rob Pearson I’m a director at Amido and currently I’m designing a dashboard for residents of the Notting Hill Housing Trust to manage their tenancies Whilst the team I’m working with are glueing together all the back end systems
- 4) This book: top 10 techniques for building rapport And there was a bit of interest around that, and I’ve found many of the other tips to be useful in other areas of UX so here it is, my review with a UX slant What we all do on a day to day basis is talk to other human beings and ultimately what we’re trying to do is develop trust We might want help, this is about focusing on other peoples needs One core technique – ego suspension
- 5) Bit of history Dreeke: FBI agent running informants and spies. Currently programme manager of behavioural analysis programme, counterintelligence programme: What he learned with his interactions was that in order for your target to tell you anything, they had to like you. He developed a set of techniques over the years to more effectively form relationships and so get information out of the targets
- 6) So here’s my goal Hopefully by the end of the talk you’ll know a little more about how to quickly form trusting relationships
- 7) So, our projects are complex situations with a lot of humans, with lots of different needs, goals and agendas Our goal What we’re doing in virtually all of our interactions with these humans (and, indeed with humans across all of our lives) is to establish trust If we can form positive relationships with the people in our projects – our users, our stakeholders, our fellow team members, Then we’re much more likely to be able to bring about positive outcomes for the project If your participants in a usability session trust you they’ll be less inhibited, more relaxed, more natural and the results will be more representative If you have a good rapport with your stakeholders then they’ll be more open to collaboration, less likely to criticise, more likely to be constructive If your team has a harmonious working environment then they’ll do better work with less drama and conflict. And yet we very rarely think consciously or about how to form these kind of relationships, let alone act deliberately to do so But this is something I think we’re quite bad at – we’re quite introverted as a discipline Think about the qualities that make a good Uxer: natural empathy, sensitivity to needs, being a good listener – these are naturally introverted traits How many of us recoil in horror at the thought of standing on the street with a clipboard trying to get participants for a guerrilla test? So I’m here to tell you that if those skills – empathy, sensitivity – make a good Uxer, then what you need to become a really good Uxer is having the people managing skills Which is lucky because that’s what I’m going to talk about And that’s why this is important Building rapport with your users, your stakeholders and your team will help to bring about positive outcomes for your projects.
- 9) So it turns out when someone new talks to us the three things we really want to know are Who are you What do you want And how long are you going to be bothering me And it’s really this last one that people have a problem with No one wants to be trapped in a conversation with a stranger It’s not the conversation that causes the discomfort, it’s because you don’t know when it’s going to end! So the first step in building a rapport is letting the other person know it’s going to end, and that end is not far away I’m sorry to bother you Excuse me, can you spare two minutes to help us out I’m on my way out but… UX: survey invites – it wouldn’t be ethical to outright lie on a survey invite that it will only take two mins to complete, so I recommend completing the survey yourself as quickly as you can and posting that time as how long it should take Similarly, interviews – say it’s for half and hour, schedule a slot for an hour and when the half hour comes up ask if they wouldn’t mind continuing to talk In usability studies stick to your timings, pay people upfront and tell them how long it’s going to take
- 10) So this one is about body language. To build a rapport with someone you have to be perceived as non-threatening Keep your elbows down, tucked in, in a non threatening way Plenty of eye contact Tuck your legs under your chair, leaning forward. The opposite of the dominant chimp posturing Tilt your head to the side, expose your neck – this is a canine submissive gesture! Low chin angle! High chin angle gives the impression you’re looking down your nose Blade your body away from someone slightly, also gives the impression you’re preparing to go Handshake – palm up, not dominant Of course smiling is the most powerful nonverbal technique Practice it in the mirror! UX: In workshops, smile, Try not to sit across the table from people you’re interviewing – across the corner if you must Keep your body open
- 11) People tend to talk quickly when they are nervous so if you slow down you come across as more confident, relaxed and credible than someone saying exactly the same thing quickly Quick talkers can come across as overselling The bad used car salesman factor. Slow it down and you’ll be more convincing We all have client presentations (or we should have) where this is obviously relevant, but we interview users and try and bring stakeholders around to our way of thinking The first step is for you to become consciously aware of your tempo of speech. Just record yourself in a presentation Then purposefully slow it down and take time for the audience to absorb what you’re telling them
- 12) We are hard wired as humans to want to give help So when we make a request that is simple, non threatening and of limited duration our target will be inclined to meet it This has strong evolutionary grounding: our ancestors knew that if we didn’t help when asked, we wouldn’t get it when we needed it in return So each of us carries the genes for this survival mechanism – all except the psychopaths that is We as practitioners can help to build rapport with our users, stakeholders and team members simply by asking for help, and I most obviously leverage this in my research activity invites…
- 13) Sample invite text for various research activities – available on Google docs
- 14) Warning! It’s worth saying in all of the guerrilla style or even stakeholder interactions, it’s vitally important you make it absolutely clear there’s no romantic intent behind your approach. That scuppers rapport instantly. For that reason if you’re trying to build trust with a stakeholder or participant it might be worth dropping your husband, wife, partner into the conversation “My daughter really likes that” as a theme to initiate on, which immediately sets this out
- 15) The book is titled “It’s not all about me” – all the other points could boil down to this: Suspend your own needs, focus on theirs Value their wants above yours, likewise their perceptions of reality This is difficult! Again, we have evolved to look after our own needs – we wouldn’t get very far as a species without this innate selfishness But we can suspend it, at least for a little while (the duration of a usability interview hopefully) Overlook their mistakes (we really like pointing out when someone’s wrong!) Give away credit for your ideas to stakeholders – sketching workshops so they own it, the good ideas are theirs Apologise / do your best to make them look good Never blame We naturally see conversations as a sort of tennis match with each of us taking turns, your goal should be to keep the other person talking, draw out their responses, to constantly be thinking where are the hooks in their conversation to ask deeper questions, rather than simply waiting for them to stop flapping their jaw before we get a chance to speak. People that do this are generally regarded as the best conversationalists To listen in this way, deeply, consciously and without judgement, will build a lasting rapport, and frankly it’s a life skill
- 16) We all want to be accepted and liked. All of us We are all seeking approval for our actions and thoughts This is an essential part of childhood as we learn right from wrong, and it continues as we become adults Dreek says there are three types of validation:
- 17) Listening Validation releases dopamine so by listening you’re literally making the person feel good and they’re going to want to continue feeling good by spending time with you The difficulty most of us have is in NOT interjecting our own thoughts, feelings and ideas TRUE validation (coupled with ego suspension) means you HAVE NO STORY TO OFFER, that you are simply there to hear theirs. If that feel like you’re going to seem BORING to the other person, don’t worry, no-one left to talk ever thinks this Can be a problem when two people attempt this technique (“you tell me…”, “yes, but first you tell me…”). It’s vanishingly unlikely and has only ever happened to me once And this is what therapy is like: pure being listened to, the entire focus on one side, which gives you a sense of the value that humans place on being listened to: they’re prepared to pay £80/hour for exactly this service Dreeke points out never to get your phone out in this process…
- 18) Thoughtfulness This is about putting the needs of the other person in front of your own Make sure they’re comfortable Offer a drink, have some biscuits Have chewing gum, offer it to them first Have bathroom breaks Teams – have they got the equipment they need I note down my colleagues’ partners names so I can ask how they are If a client tells me about her cat, I’ll note it and ask next time
- 19) Validating thoughts and opinions This can be difficult because of our urge to correct and the difficulty we have supressing our egos Validating thoughts and opinions means saying yes! – that’s good idea – in workshops, interviews In workshops if someone suggests a dreadful idea I usually say something like “that’s really interesting, why do you think that…”, and I continue to ask questions until the participant sees the problems with it that I had seen OR I build on the idea using the improv “Yes, and” technique until we get somewhere interesting
- 20) Asking open ended questions like these is a key interviewing technique – any question where the answer requires more words and thought than yes or no. During the answer, all the time listen and hold in memory further questions that arise from their answers. This way you can keep the conversation on their side of the tennis net Interviews – record the audio, keep a notebook where I might scribble a single word down as something interesting comes up that would cover the next question Why is an amazing question, to me the most powerful of the three (How come is a good substitute) Why did you structure the site like this? How come your process is like this?
- 21) More ways of showing you’re paying attention and drawing out conversation Head nods, grunts of affirmation, yes, I understand Reflective: restate what they’ve said as a question: “so you don’t like the navigation?” Emotional labelling: Simply to put an emotion to what they’re saying: “It sounds really frustrating” stressful, that’s incredibly annoying, anxious Paraphrasing – repeating back what they have said to you to confirm you’ve got it right “So you’re saying that…” Pausing – classic therapist technique to leave empty space in a conversation. We don’t like it and will fill it Summarise – bit like paraphrasing, but you include any commitments, any actions – keeps misunderstanding and potential hurt feelings to a minimum Most people like things concrete!
- 22) Two resources Stakeholder interview discussion guide – lots of how, when, why Candidate interview soft questions - job
- 23) The art of giving a little information about you to get a lot back Counter to a lot I’ve been talking about so far: the idea that it’s all about them, and that your goal is to not talk about yourself at all Two situations where this is useful – Introverted and guarded individuals Moments when people; suddenly become self aware that they’ve done all the talking, feel like they’ve overshared By sharing something of your own opinions or feelings you help to reassure them that it’s okay for them to behave in the way you want – to share in an uninhibited way Sometime a participant might be uncertain of what’s expected of them – give examples Rare technique
- 24) Reciprocal altruism If someone gives you a gift we are hardwired to reciprocate – evolutionary survival strategy Two types of gift giving – material, non material Non material – focus and attention are the two greatest gists Workshops – bring the M&S chocolate roll mini bites, seriously. Never show up empty handed If you share then people are more likely to share with you
- 25) This might be better labelled as frame the agenda of your interaction positively for your target All interactions have an agenda: a desired outcome – I’m passing on information, growing my own status, enjoying the process of articulating these ideas The agenda may be altruistic, it may not be. Amazon gives you helpful information about what others have bought to make you give them more money If you can shift your agenda to something altruistic you’ll be more likely to build rapport In your interactions with your clients, your users and your team you have an agenda If you can reframe that agenda in terms of what is helpful or useful to that person then you’ll have more success An example might be stakeholder interviews: you are taking their time, the most precious resource most people have – if you frame that time as an opportunity for the person to shape and influence the new website for instance
- 26) Manipulation vs. influence We want the interaction to be a Win win: we both come out with what we want. The person you’re approaching must feel better for having met you
- And that’s how to bring about successful project outcomes