© Lesley Hunter (2008) Practical NLP Factsheet Series

DEVELOPING SENSORY ACUITY

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Sensory acuity is your ability to use your senses to notice, monitor, and make sense of theexternal cues from other people.

It is your ability to see and listen more effectively and consciously when comprehending non-verbal communications.

By developing and using your sensory acuity, you will build and maintain rapport at adeeper, often unconscious, level with other people.

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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 communicateand interact with another human being.

The deeper the rapport, the greater your opportunity to influence and communicateeffectively with another person.

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One way to help rapport to develop is to mirror and match the behaviours of those you wishto 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 thatbehaviour. The effect should be as though the other person is looking at their reflection in amirror.

© 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.mirror image). To ‘match’ this same person, you would raise your right-hand (i.e. doingexactly the same as the other person).Deep rapport is achieved when individuals are mirroring and matching automatically andwhen 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 theirbehaviour, wait a few seconds and then shift to mirror or match their movement.

You can also try cross-over mirroring, where you mirror a portion of the person’s physiology with a different portion of your physiology (eg. crossed arms as opposed to legs). Thistechnique will keep their conscious mind from becoming aware of your actions.

A large proportion of communication occurs through the auditory tonal channel. As youmatch someone’s voice tone, you open up further possibilities for gaining rapport. Try matching the tone, speed, pitch and volume of their voice.

Practice is the key to successful development of these skills …

Try it … on a daily basis, begin to observe the following characteristics of the people you come into contact with.

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Factsheet #1 Introduction to NLPFactsheet #2 Principles of NLP and our map of realityFactsheet #3 Developing sensory acuity and rapport (mirroring and matching)Factsheet #4 Representational systemsFactsheet #5 Eye accessing cuesFactsheet #6 Language patterns –sensory language and submodalitiesFactsheet #7 Language patterns - Milton modelFactsheet #8 Language patterns –Meta modelFactsheet #9 Setting well formed outcomesFactsheet #10 What makes people tick? Motivational strategies