Leave them feeling better for having met you
Have we lost the ability to build rapport with other people?
When I asked this question of social engineering expert Christopher Hadnagy on episode 30 of The Follow-Up Question, I was certain Chris would confirm my assumption that we as a society have indeed forgotten the art and skill of rapport building.
However, while Chris initially agreed with my assertion, his answer provided a subtle deviation.
We haven’t lost the ability. What we've lost is the awareness that building rapport is a critical piece of our daily interactions.
“We seem to have lost this concept of ‘I need to enter this conversation with rapport in mind,’ so in that way I can leave you feeling better for having met me and not leave you feeling worse for having met me,” Chris said.
Hmmmm. Very interesting.
Let's apply this to everyone's favorite societal petri dish: social media.
If you think about the last time you dared to venture into the comments of a news story — it doesn't even have to be a particularly divisive story — how much rapport building did you see?
Consider one of the biggest news stories of the past year — which you might have forgotten about by now.
Pro golfer Tiger Woods was in a car accident in February 2021 that left his legs severely injured.
Sure enough, in the comments of an Instagram post about this story, vitriol and anger reigned supreme, and rapport building was non-existent. Here's an exchange between two people I came across:
Poster #1: He should have been cited at the very least like any other non-celebrity would have. It was only due to luck that he didn’t hit anyone else.
Poster #2: So let me get this straight. He’s fighting for his life when he was in the accident, the jaws of life had to help him get out and your concern is him getting a ticket. Hahahah wow. Ya okay. How about just staying positive.
Poster #1: You feel better and more superior now? 1000% you change your tune for being cited and fined for something bc you’re not a celebrity.
Poster #2: Naw it’s just the furthest from my mind when someone is injured and didn’t hurt others, and when someone’s life is on the line. I don’t want to be one [a celebrity]. I want to be me, my true authentic self. That’s all I care about being. And kind.
Poster #1: So your authentic self extends to virtue signaling bc—gasp—I have the audacity to believe a celebrity should face the same consequences hat anybody else would? Accidents like this happen every day to ordinary ppl. Are you scanning the news so you can post and express your sympathy for them? No, you're doing it bc celebrities make the news. Give me a f#$&ing break.
My guess is you knew that’s how the conversation would go even before you read those posts, poor grammar and spelling and all. Absolutely zero rapport. Just two people arguing who’s paths had never crossed before (that we know of).
And we can assume that these two posters certainly did not leave their back-and-forth exchange having felt better for interacting with each other.
But why? Why do we skip over such a critical part of communication with others?
Guard your thoughts
It is important to become an observer of what’s going on around you rather than always feeling the pressure to be an active participant.
One reason to be an observer instead of an active participant: to guard your thoughts.
It’s OK to keep your thoughts to yourself. And in fact, it is important to do so.
Just because you can let the world know how you feel and what you believe doesn’t mean you always should.
Not everyone should get that level of access to your soul, because it is so difficult to build the level of trust and context and rapport required to be truly understood.
But we too often get short-circuited by the desire to immediately respond, to immediately confront, and to immediately refute thanks to the siren song of the almighty dopamine hit with which social media tantalizes us.
When examined through the lens of building rapport, as well as Chris Hadnagy’s advice to leave people feeling better for having met you, how many of us can look at our lives and our interactions and say we lead with these intentions in mind?
You certainly could not conclude that Poster #1 and Poster #2 from above had any intention of building rapport and leaving the other one feeling good about their communication.
They both jumped straight to trying to correct each other’s behavior and change the other one’s mind.
So, what are we to do?
We ask ourselves three very important questions as we enter into new conversations and interactions:
Have I invested time to build the level of rapport with this person that this conversation requires?
Is my intention to leave them better for having had this conversation with me?
Do I want to give this person this level of access to me, or would I be better off guarding my thoughts?
