DEVELOPING SENSORY ACUITY

Sensory acuity Sensory acuity is your ability to use your senses to notice, monitor, and make sense of the external cues from other people. It is your ability to see and listen more effectively and consciously when comprehending nonverbal communications. By developing and using your sensory acuity, you will build and maintain rapport at a deeper, often unconscious, level with other people. Rapport Rapport is the creation of a positive channel to promote communication and understanding. Think of rapport as the unconscious atmosphere you create as an invitation to communicate and interact with another human being. The deeper the rapport, the greater your opportunity to influence and communicate effectively with another person. Mirroring and Matching One way to help rapport to develop is to mirror and match the behaviours of those you wish to influence. In other words, become like the other person. Any observable behaviour can be mirrored, for example: body posture spinal alignment hand gestures head tilt blink rate facial expression energy level breathing rate vocal qualities (volume, tonality, rhythm) key word phrases or predicates anything else that you can observe To mirror another person, simply select the behaviour you wish to mirror and then do that behaviour. The effect should be as though the other person is looking at their reflection in a mirror.

Lesley Hunter (2008)

Practical NLP Factsheet Series

To mirror a person who has raised their right hand, you would raise your left hand (i.e. mir r o r i ma g e ) .T o ma t c h t h i s s a mep e r s o n , y o uw o u l dr a i s ey o u r r i g h t -hand (i.e. doing exactly the same as the other person). Deep rapport is achieved when individuals are mirroring and matching automatically and when micro behaviours (eg. breathing rate, blink rate) and language are involved. However, rapport is easily broken if this is adjusted. You need to apply these techniques discreetly. If someone you are working with shifts their behaviour, wait a few seconds and then shift to mirror or match their movement. You can also try cross-o v e r mi r r o r i n g , w h e r ey o umi r r o r ap o r t i o no f t h ep e r s o n s p h y s i o l o g y with a different portion of your physiology (eg. crossed arms as opposed to legs). This technique will keep their conscious mind from becoming aware of your actions. A large proportion of communication occurs through the auditory tonal channel. As you ma t c hs o me o n e s v o i c et o n e , y o uo p e nu pf u r t h e r p o s s i b i l i t i e s f o r g a i n i n gr a p p o r t .T r y matching the tone, speed, pitch and volume of their voice. P r a c t i c ei s t h ek e yt os u c c e s s f u l d e v e l o p me n t o f t h e s es k i l l s T r yi t o nad a i l yb a s i s , b e g i nt oo b s e r v et h ef o l l o w i n gc h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f t h ep e o p l ey o u come into contact with.

Further information: Factsheet Factsheet Factsheet Factsheet Factsheet Factsheet Factsheet Factsheet Factsheet Factsheet #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 Introduction to NLP Principles of NLP and our map of reality Developing sensory acuity and rapport (mirroring and matching) Representational systems Eye accessing cues Language patterns sensory language and submodalities Language patterns - Milton model Language patterns Meta model Setting well formed outcomes What makes people tick? Motivational strategies

Lesley Hunter (2008)

Practical NLP Factsheet Series