Building Authentic Rapport: The Key to IT’s Business Influence
The Challenge for IT
Influencing Skills for IT Teams
We were recently working with an IT leadership team at a multinational manufacturing group. They had just launched a major systems upgrade, but kept running into resistance.
“We’re trying to be collaborative,” one of the managers told us. “We’re making time for the business, showing an interest—but it’s like they still don’t trust us.”
It’s something we hear a lot. Despite how deeply IT is now woven into business operations—from predictive maintenance to HR workflows—it’s still often seen as “them,” not “us.”
And in today’s environment, where IT is under growing pressure to prove its value, that gap can become a real risk.
When the business doesn’t trust the IT agenda, it starts pushing back, trying to reassert control. The more IT pushes forward, the more resistance it meets.
If that cycle continues, workarounds appear. Shadow IT takes hold. And IT finds itself frozen out of the decisions that shape the future.
That’s when we encourage IT leaders to come back to what we call our Holy Trinity of Influencing:
- Insistence leads to resistance.
- Great meetings are built on rapport, not agreement.
- Resistance is a cue to change your strategy, not push harder.
There’s an increasing body of evidence that suggests that the key to influence is that quality or state that can exist between two people – rapport.
Why Rapport Is So Powerful
Let’s be clear. Rapport isn’t about being liked. It’s not about saying the right thing or putting on a performance.
It’s about sitting on the same side of the table—facing the problem together.
Two people can have very different views and still be in rapport. What matters is the mutual trust—the sense that they can speak openly, challenge directly, and still move forward together.
The challenge for IT is that digital tools now live everywhere. Sales leaders champion their own CRMs. Operations teams source their own AI tools. Finance builds its own dashboards. Too often there is no global organizational perspective. What about compatibility? Synergy? Economies of scale? Risk? It should be the role of IT, to lead these conversations in the business.
Without rapport, these conversations become us versus them. Stakeholders dig in their heels and protect their autonomy.
But when rapport is present, the tone shifts. It’s no longer two sides facing off. It’s two people sitting side by side, looking at the problem together. And that’s where real influence begins. There’s a wealth of evidence from psychology showing that rapport is the gateway to influence.
A Story We Were Part Of
In a recent session, we worked with Ravi, an IT leader preparing for high-stakes meetings about a major systems rollout.
Ravi had done his homework. He had tailored his slides. He had even learned a few phrases from the local business culture.
But his meetings still felt flat. Transactional. Surface-level.
One conversation stood out. A regional operations leader—sharp, direct, and clearly sceptical—barely engaged when Ravi spoke about system efficiency. His attempt at humour didn’t help.
So, we suggested a different approach.
“What if,” we asked, “you skipped the pitch, and just asked her what’s frustrating her most right now?”
In the next meeting, Ravi did exactly that.
And the conversation changed. She opened up—not just about the system, but about her real-world frustrations. Unpredictable supply chains. Bad data. The fear that this new system would add complexity, not remove it.
Ravi didn’t push back. He listened, reflected what he heard and stayed curious.
And something shifted.
She didn’t suddenly agree with everything. But she leaned in. They started talking together about what success could look like for her team.
What changed wasn’t the proposal. It was the relationship.
And the research is clear: Rapport lowers defensiveness and opens people up to engage.
The Good News: Rapport Is Learnable
Rapport isn’t a talent you’re born with. It’s a practice—rooted in curiosity, empathy, and shared intent.
At Threshold, we help IT professionals build this capability through experiential, hands-on learning:
- Immersive theatre—where people experience tough stakeholder dynamics in a safe, high-impact space.
- Facilitated discussion—unpacking the psychology of trust, resistance, and influence.
- Live conversation practice—with expert coaching on asking better questions, listening actively, and staying connected under pressure.
We don’t just teach rapport. We enable people to practice building it, in real time, in simulated scenarios.
And the evidence is on our side. Real-time, experiential learning, leads to lasting behavioural change far more effectively than passive instruction or watching videos.
Building Authentic Rapport: The Key to IT’s Business Influence
When rapport is real, influence follows. Stakeholders listen differently. They open up. They challenge you—but they include you.
You stop being “IT” on one side of the table. You become their partner—working alongside them to solve the real problems. That’s when IT moves from function to trusted advisor.
Practical Tips for Building Rapport in IT
- Start with curiosity — Ask before you explain.
- Acknowledge what’s real for them — Reflect their challenges without glossing over them.
- Affirm what’s working — Recognize what they’re doing well, even in small ways.
- Reflect – Play back what you have heard to check that you have understood
- Share real examples — Let stories do the connecting.
- Work on yourself — Get honest about your own biases and how you might be contributing to the blockage.
Rapport doesn’t mean constant agreement.
It means mutual understanding, shared focus, and the trust that you’re working toward the same outcome.
And that’s where true influence starts
At Threshold, we are helping our clients to ensure that their human workforce is committed, engaged and ready for the technology revolution. We do this by bringing about small shifts in line manager behaviour that make a big difference. To find out more visit www.threshold.co.uk
