The topic for this post and other future posts is congruence<\/i><\/b>.\u00a0 It is perhaps the most content-filled of the twelve tips. (And maybe this is why my posting on this topic has been a while in coming!) On our way to discussing this area, it is probably worth a sharing a short synopsis of some of the research that may, or indeed may not, apply to the area. Because this area has extensive content, I will be posting several blog posts to cover the topic.<\/p>\n
History and Science<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Richard Bandler<\/p><\/div>\n <\/i><\/b>The underlying research to support whether there is indeed a physiological\/psychological link between language and behavior is unsettled and controversial, and at times has even been tumultuous. Linking language to behavior was the focus of much study in the 1960\u2019s and 1970s.[1]<\/a> \u00a0During this period, Richard Bandler, a writer and MA psychologist, and John Grinder, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, collaborated on a series of books touting a new form of psychotherapy that they named Neural Linguistic Programming or \u201cNLP.\u201d\u00a0 NLP gained wide acceptance in the 1980s and 1990s even though its scientific basis was never clearly established.\u00a0 Initially NLP was applied in the context of psychotherapy, where Bandler and Grinder strongly asserted its effectiveness. By the early 1980\u2019s Bandler and Grinder were embroiled in intellectual property disputes over ownership rights to \u201cNLP\u201d and, meanwhile, scientific studies failed to find any empirical correlation between the claimed underlying science for NLP and its alleged results and the scientific community largely dismissed NLP as a counseling or behavioral modification protocol.<\/p>\n John Grinder<\/p><\/div>\n While NLP as a counseling and behavior modification tool remained controversial and, at this juncture seems largely rejected by scientists for that <\/i>purpose, others focused on word choice for managing interactions and conflict[2]<\/a> and on non-verbal communication for persuasion, and the 1980\u2019s and 1990\u2019s were awash with books on \u201cbody language,\u201d \u201cactive listening,\u201d \u201cproxemics (the effect of and use of space in communication),\u201d the use of touch \u201chaptics,\u201d and many other techniques aimed at managing relationships using verbal and non-verbal approaches. During this window, the \u201csales\u201d community adapted many of these techniques as tools for increasing a sales person\u2019s likability and trust index.\u00a0 By the mid-1990s individuals like Paul Lisnek, then Assistant Dean and Professor of Law at Loyola University in Chicago, had incorporated many of these concepts into training programs for lawyers to help them increase their persuasiveness to judges and jurors,[3]<\/a> and the concept of managing subconscious rapport in important situations gained wide acceptance in many professions.<\/p>\n Practical Application and First Hand Experience<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n During this timeframe, in the late 1980s through the mid-1990\u2019s, I held a variety of positions where building effective rapport and connections with individuals was very important.\u00a0 In this window, I worked as the \u201cSection Leader\u201d for the Employee Relations Section for Los Alamos National Laboratory, and later also managed the Employee Counseling Section as its \u201cSection Leader.\u201d Later, I served as the Laboratory\u2019s Hearing Officer and coordinated formal employee complaint reviews as well as employee disciplinary \u201cdue process\u201d hearings.\u00a0 In all of these contexts, my teammates and I worked with a wide variety of people under stress or deeply embroiled in conflicts, including among many others, victims of sexual harassment and their alleged harassers, people who were accused of workplace fraud, and people accused of breaches of scientific integrity. For us to be effective in our positions, we had<\/i> to have the ability to connect with a wide range of people and to develop basic trust.\u00a0 While we weren\u2019t always successful, we did have the opportunity to test and apply the wide range of techniques and approaches that were in the popular literature and to see what really worked or what we couldn\u2019t make work for us in our setting. Below, I review some of my conclusions, which are based now on over twenty years of practical application.<\/p>\n \u00a0There ARE things that we can do that allow us to test and to enhance rapport and influence with others.\u00a0 Essentially, these can be boiled down to communicating congruently<\/span> with others. <\/i><\/b>\u00a0Here are some examples of how I applied these in a workplace context.<\/p>\n What are the person’s non-verbal messages?<\/p><\/div>\n 1. Body Language \u2013<\/i><\/strong> much has been researched and written about body language in communication. As early as the 1980s, research established that humans are capable of producing an estimated 700,000 distinct non-verbal physical gestures.[4]<\/a> \u00a0Clearly, a blog post can not do justice to this subject, but when all is said and done, based on my own<\/i> experience and practical application, for purposes of \u201ccongruent communication,\u201d one concept emerges as really important: People who are in comfortable rapport with one another often tend to maintain similar body positions, use similar gestures and non-verbal styles, walk and even move similarly to the group with which they closely associate.\u00a0 One time I attended a training program on rapport and influence where this concept was discussed.\u00a0 To past the time on the flight home, I decided to try something.\u00a0 I was on an airplane that was configured with the first two rows facing one another.\u00a0 I decided to mirror the body position of a gentleman sitting a few seats diagonally from me to see if it had any affect.\u00a0 I did not rigidly mimic the person.\u00a0 I simply sat in a similar posture as his and did more or less the same activities as he did for the duration of the flight.\u00a0 This seemed to have no impact during the flight. However, after exiting the gate on arrival as I was walking in the airport, the gentleman approached me and said, \u201cYou look so familiar.\u00a0 Do I know you?\u201d\u00a0 We had honestly never met, but, even though this was purely an anecdotal experience, after that I did gain an appreciation for the power of congruence in body language.<\/p>\n Adopting similar body postures and using body language that is familiar and feels safe and comfortable to the listener is a key tool to congruent communication. Observing appropriate distance while communicating \u2013 which is highly variable depending on gender and familiarity \u2013 and generally using similar postures, pace of speech, inflection, and other approaches to make our body language similar to the other\u2019s eliminates a \u201ctranslation step\u201d for that person.\u00a0\u00a0 A \u201ctranslation step\u201d is that micro step that the brain needs to process something that is outside our comfortable subconscious communication process.<\/p>\n 2. Communication Style: Mirroring, Matching, Pacing, Leading \u2013 <\/i><\/strong>Have you ever experienced a time when you tried to raise what was a very important issue to you to another important person in your life \u2013 for example, a boss, a spouse, or a parent \u2013 and felt totally \u201cblown off\u201d or not taken seriously?\u00a0 If you think back to that situation, there were indeed probably words that conveyed an attitude that made you feel diminished, but more than likely more of the frustrating aspects of the communication inthat encounter was non-verbal.\u00a0 For example, the very excited person who runs into a room and exclaims \u201cOh my goodness, it\u2019s just awful!\u201d only to be met with another who doesn\u2019t bother to stand, and who simply says \u201cNow just calm down and tell me what happened.\u201d Here we have a total disconnect. One person\u2019s pace of speech is rapid, their voice is high pitched and tense, their shoulders are drawn up high as if being pulled towards their ears. Their heart rate is fast and their emotions high.\u00a0 The other person is sitting, slouched in their chair, literally looking down their nose at the other (as with many idioms, there is a behavioral basis for that expression). Their pace of speech is slower; their heart rate is normal.\u00a0 In short \u2013 they are completely out of sync.\u00a0 They are out of congruence with one another.\u00a0 If the person who is receiving the communication is in a position where trust and rapport with others matters (for example an HR representative, a law enforcement officer, or a counselor), then it matters how they react.<\/p>\n Note the raised shoulders!<\/p><\/div>\n Here the skill of mirroring and matching the initial communication style enables the recipient of the communication to establish an initial linkage with the excited individual.\u00a0 The recipient may consciously mirror the other person\u2019s unconscious body language by literally lifting their shoulders, raising the pitch (not the volume) of their voice, increasing the speaking pace of their response and standing to match the person\u2019s body posture.\u00a0 So, for example instead of calmly responding \u201cJust relax and tell me what happened,\u201d they may instead rise to their feet, lift their shoulders and reply in a style that somewhat matches the initial communication with a response such as \u201cOh gosh!\u00a0 Tell me what has happened!\u201d<\/p>\n Once this initial congruence is established by mirroring and pacing with the other\u2019s subconscious style, and as the communication progresses, the person seeking to restore calm to the situation, can slowly lead the other out of this zone of excited communication, but gradually interjecting some deep breaths, pauses, and gradually slowing the communication down and adopting more relaxed body postures.\u00a0 This is the process of \u201cmirroring\u2014matching\u2014pacing\u2014leading.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n For me, in my professional practice, where connecting with a wide range of people is really important, I always try to be observant of the person\u2019s body language, their pace of speech, the tension inherent in their non-verbal cues, and tried to subtly and respectfully bring my own style into a closer match to theirs, so that I can gain that initial connection and trust.\u00a0 Later I can relax, sip my tea, breathe, and send them from my office feeling calmer and feeling that they have really been listened to.<\/i> It is not a rote thing, nor is it remotely something like \u201cmonkey see \u2013 monkey do.\u201d\u00a0 It is always subtle and if I err, it is invariably in understating my moves to be congruent, but it is there.<\/p>\n There is so much more to cover in this topic and it is a challenging topic to address with the written word.\u00a0 We\u2019ll cover more on the topic of congruence in our next post!<\/p>\n BJM<\/p>\n \u00a9 2013, Bruce J. MacAllister, J.D., all rights reserved.<\/i><\/b>\u00a0 This article cannot be reprinted or distributed without the written approval of the author.<\/i><\/p>\n [1]<\/a> See, e.g. bibliographies for two pioneering researcher\/writers, Richard Bandler (http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Richard-Bandler\/e\/B000APGX88\/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_10<\/a>) and John Grinder (http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/John-Grinder\/e\/B002886A5Q\/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_20<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [2]<\/a> See, e.g. Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion, <\/i>George J. Thompson, Ph.D. and Jerry B. Jenkins; Harper Collins, 1993.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Richard](\"http:\/\/bizexteam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Richard-Bandler-1-1.jpg\")
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