Building Rapport Without Compromising Rigour
Launch library · evergreen read
Warmth and rigour are sometimes treated as opposites in interviewing, as though a genuinely friendly conversation must automatically be a less accurate one, when in practice the two work together well, since a relaxed subject usually offers more detail than a guarded one facing a colder, more clinical approach.
The discipline lies in keeping rigour intact underneath the warmth: still checking claims carefully, still asking the harder follow up question when it is genuinely needed, and never allowing a pleasant conversation to substitute for the verification that any resulting claim will eventually require before publication, however comfortable and unforced the conversation happened to feel at the time.
Interviewers who manage this balance well tend to get both better material and more accurate material, since trust and precision reinforce each other far more often than they actually compete for space within the same conversation, which is a lesson worth relearning on every new assignment.