Communication Skills for Accountants

Date: 23 January 2025

In this presentation Ian will encourage you to think more widely about how your communication ”style” may be limiting your impact. He will cover two core concepts;  

Language Patterns 

Note that we process information through our five senses and the main influence or impact of recalling that information is the language we use.  Linguistic experts will tell you we either Delete, Generalize or Distort our language when we speak.  What impact is that having on your effectiveness with your colleagues or clients?  I will explore this in this webinar. 

Being able to effectively ask questions because you notice a certain language pattern is one of the tools that I use in executive coaching.  It opens up the conversation.  You can (and arguably should) be doing the same in your business conversations. 

Rapport Building 

Rapport is the unconscious influence of one person with another.  Have you ever seen two good friends standing in exactly the same posture?  That’s rapport. 

• Rapport is about building mutual trust. 

• Rapport will create the environment in which both of you feel comfortable and able to work with each other. 

• Matching refers to doing the same as the other person in terms of their physiology, voice and or words. 

• Mirroring is doing the same as the other person in terms of their physiology and doing it as a mirror image.  Mirroring well enables you to help create a deep rapport. 

• Matching and mirroring can help build rapport if done well and sympathetically with positive intentions. 

In this webinar you will learn an introduction to language patterns and the basics of rapport building to give you the building blocks of being a better communicator.