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MAKE GOOD TRAINING GREAT
START BY BUILDING EXCELLENT RAPPORT

 By Bill Cottringer

Without excellent rapport, the
influence of a good trainer and
the impact of quality training
are diminished.

A large metropolitan law enforcement organization has an excellent new trainer who is an expert at a variety of new police data software programs. This organization has decided to make a significant change in officer, shift and departmental performance evaluations based on electronic data tracking on ten different outcome measures. The older manual system is to be phased out over a four week period.

The trainer presents an excellent one day training seminar on the new software program for a large number of shift captains who will be responsible for implementing these changes. There are excellent computer demonstrations, good practice exercises and detailed handouts. The trainer also makes good use of hi-tech, audiovisual aids.

After following up on the actual impact of the training on the participants’ performance in implementing the needed changes, a few problems were revealed. Primarily, making the transition to the new system took a month longer than originally expected. That delay caused some significant confusion with supervisors doing officer evaluations.

What Went Wrong?

What could have gone wrong in this training? Good trainers often overlook something that is extremely important. Great trainers realize the value of putting some thought and effort into building excellent rapport with trainees as the first thing on their agenda.

In order to have the most positive influence with employees during training, trainers have to work at becoming master rapport builders. Excellent rapport helps establish the necessary positive emotional climate which facilitates effective learning. This positive emotional environment is what aligns the goals and commitment of both the trainer and trainee into a common, productive bond.

Rapport is a tricky thing to understand. That is because it is both a process (a series of things you do) and an outcome (the results you get from doing those things). In a sense, you have to get lost somewhere in between to establish good rapport. The fact is you often do it without realizing exactly how. 

At the heart of rapport is trust. Without basic trust, there is no rapport and, without rapport, learning is less predictable.

With this in mind, the smart trainer will first focus on his (or her) immediate presence and manner; eliminate all chances of negative emotionality; and avoid any style of communication which has the tendency to create a defensive climate. To follow are a few suggestions as to how to do this.

Focus on Your Presence
and Manner First

Do what it takes to appear confident, secure, relaxed, friendly and approachable. Be cheerful, happy and likable. Be courteous and respectful. Practice a genuine smile and pleasant voice. Lighten up and let your natural easygoing manner help people feel at ease. Trainees often need to be reminded of the lighter, more positive aspects of things. Don’t be too serious. Find a good joke or two to use appropriately.

Always dress and act fully professional. Your appearance is judged quickly and it will greatly influence your attempts to build rapport. Think about how you can appear your best by neither under- or overdressing and taking a little extra care in your grooming and hygiene. Look at yourself in the mirror and look for the ways to make the smallest improvements which will get the biggest results. 

Plan all these things ahead of time. Preparation is important and the more time you spend on thinking about your presence and how you will be perceived, the better the results. Your personal manner represents the first opportunity to build excellent rapport.

There are many personal qualities and people skills involved in the process of establishing good rapport. You have to know what motivates different people best; you have to understand what skills people have and which they may need; you have to become an excellent communicator; and you have to project confidence, honesty, likability, adaptability and credibility. The more you practice these things one at a time, the less they will show as artificial or raise a red flag of distrust.

Focus on avoiding doing the things which interfere with good rapport, including your own efforts to rush it or display it artificially. Use that energy for the training preparation.

Eliminate Negative Emotionality

Probably the single best thing any trainer can do to have the best impact is to demonstrate his (or her) own positive emotionality, up-beat attitude, passion and excitement for others to see. Any behavior or communication which conveys negative emotions will prevent natural trust from emerging. The impact of positive role modeling cannot be overemphasized. Sometimes, we dismiss the obvious too easily.

Keep in mind that over 70% of what people see, hear and experience today is of a negative spin. As a trainer trying to build good rapport, by just being positive, you will make a valuable contribution to restoring a healthier balance. It will be noticed and appreciated.

All training classes have participants leaning toward the negative side of the job. They don’t want to be there and you don’t have anything to offer them. How you deal with these few trainees is the key which affects the other majority. By reacting to their negativity in a negative fashion (which is easy to do!), you are missing the opportunity to display your optimism when it can have the biggest impact. How you act in adversity is often what people notice most.

Avoid Defensive Communication

One very significant barrier to establishing rapport is defensive communication. This is any communication which conveys judgment, superiority, certainty, control, or insensitivity. Such communication represents attitudes which are a turnoff to everyone, as they just encourage further negative reactions.

In fact, a defensive climate often shuts down communication altogether. People clearly prefer to be understood, accepted as they are, and remain reasonably free to make their own choices (and mistakes!). They also want be treated with equality and be able to establish their own certainties.

As an example, it is very normal for the trainer to develop training goals and lesson plans and then unconsciously try to impose his (or her) expertise and way of thinking and doing things. However, this would be communicating all the things which breed mistrust and create defensiveness, such as superiority, certainty and control.

Also, it is a good idea to review important words you are planning to use. Make sure they don’t have a negative connotation which will interfere with the point you are trying to make. I can remember using the term “symptoms” in reference to some indicators of great training. Too many people viewed this word in connection with disease, which was negative. Consequently, I lost the lighter meaning I was trying to emphasize, along with the point itself. Little mistakes like that can erode what rapport you have established.

What Else Can You Do?

So, what other positive things can you do to uncover natural rapport? Here are some good best practice tips gathered from master rapport builders:

• Learn Names:  Probably the quickest and easiest way to start building rapport is to know and use the names of trainees right away. I know I have always been impressed by a trainer who said within five minutes of the opening, “Bill, what do you have to add to what John here just said?”  Ask general questions by calling on specific people using their names.

• Check Your Ego at the Door:  Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles for achieving rapport is egotism. People do not enjoy or respect others who have big egos. Being an arrogant, self-centered know-it-all is the quickest way to get people to dislike you and tune you out. But, even subtle, minor displays of ego will interfere with rapport and so you have to make a concerted effort to be humble about all that you know and have achieved.

• Acknowledge the Group:  One of the simplest things you can do to build rapport right at the start is to find something to acknowledge the group of trainees.  Consider taking a moment to praise them for the tough, thankless jobs they do; the length of training they are currently going through; their willingness to give up a weekend; their job performance; or something. You just have to summarize your genuine appreciation of them in a single sentence. Any way you can treat the individuals as a whole equal group will help build rapport at that higher level.

• Recognize the Different Readiness Levels: People generally come into training at four different levels of readiness: (1) none at all due to a combination of poor attitudes, lack of motivation and lack of skill preparation; (2) partially ready in mind but not in heart; (3) ready in motivation but not in required skills; and (4) really ready.

As a trainer, you have to acknowledge these different readiness levels and accommodate each with something or risk losing people. Dealing with people where they are at conveys great understanding and is good for building rapport.

• Be Flexible, Accommodating, Understanding and Forgiving:  Things rarely go as expected. Sometimes, you have to be willing to meet people more than halfway and, sometimes, you have to use reverse gear. Such openness is an invitation which rarely gets turned down. Also, don’t set your lesson plan in concrete. If you avoid the opportunity to take a side trip which could be productive, just to cover your material, you may lose some people and the chance to make better points. A rigid approach does nothing to foster rapport.

• Be Willing to Share Your Humanness: Disclose things about yourself in the right doses and at the appropriate times. Exposing your own vulnerabilities and shortcomings is a good way to connect with others who have them, too. Develop a repertoire of personal stories which show how you goofed, but then turned a failure into a success. And, collect good stories from participants, too.

• Ask People About Themselves:  Get people talking about themselves and take interest in what they say.  Build on what they say to validate them and to connect your own ideas. Other people rarely care what you know until they know you care for sure.

• Pay Attention to Your Nonverbal Behavior:  Your nonverbal behavior – facial expressions, hand gestures, body positioning, arm folding, eye contact, tone and pace of voice, head nods, silence, smiling, etc. – can confirm or contradict verbal rapport building attempts. Make sure both are in sync and accentuate what you really mean to be saying.

• Be Totally Available: If possible, come early and stay late for private, before and after discussions. Encourage people to contact you and make it easy for them with an abundance of contact means, including your E-mail address. Your unconditional availability conveys your genuine interest in people. Being at all “secretive” conveys suspicion and distrust.

• Reinforce Positive Behavior:  When you get positive responses from questions at the beginning of training, make it a big deal by rewarding them with some sort of verbal praise. This helps encourage and shape more of the same behavior which starts building synergy which is rapport at its best. When you get negative behavior, ignore the spirit in which it is delivered and find something positive on which to comment. If it is a denial, more information is needed and, if it is a rationalization, just expose the “BS.”

• Share Personal Insights and Experiences:  Use your own insights and experiences in bringing the training alive and relating it to everyday living. The more “real” and practical you are, the more people trust you. Letting trainees know that you know what it is like to try to learn a new procedure (which you don’t particularly believe in) can go a long way to bridge the gap between you and them.

• Vary Your Methods to Keep People’s Positive Energy Up:  Change the pace every 15 minutes by a mixture of lecture, video, role-playing, “paper pencil” exercises, overheads, strategic games, demonstration, group discussion and small group breakouts. Develop some intriguing questions to pose which stimulate group discussion. Lively, productive discussions often build natural rapport between trainees which is extremely valuable in the learning process.

• Plan Out the Most Important Points You Want to Make: Communicate those few points in a variety of formats which reach participants visually, orally and kinesthetically. Reinforce these key points in a summary. Trying to cover too much material is a common mistake. Too much new information creates the potential for overload and confusion. Neither is good for building rapport, learning or developing better performance.

• Remember What It Is Like Being on the Other End:  Never forget what it is like being on the receiving end of training. Visit the mental world of the trainee frequently by seeking out a variety of training opportunities yourself and then remind yourself to practice the Golden Rule from that perspective. You can be your own best critic from this viewpoint.

• Seek Honest Feedback: You can’t ever assume that what you are doing is actually building rapport without verifying it. To become a master at building excellent rapport, you have to find out what works for you and what doesn’t. You have to develop a reliable toolbox and, at the same time, remain flexible in order to learn new things.

There is obviously a core group of skills which help build rapport, but each situation may be slightly different and each trainer may be better at executing different rapport building skills. All audiences are different and have a variety of interests and expectations to which great trainers learn to adapt.

Go one-on-one with selected individuals after the training and review what helped most and what put more distance between you and the trainees. Learn from what you hear and practice what you learn.

About the Author: William Cottringer, Ph.D., is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA, and an active member of the Washington Law Enforcement Executive Forum and the Washington State Security Council. He has taught criminal justice classes for over 30 years. He is also author of “ P” Point Management: Doing Small Things to Get Big Results, and You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too. He can be reached at (425) 454-5011 or by E-mail at bcottringer@pssp.net.