I am writing from England, where my nephew Sam has just had his barmitzvah. This marks his transition from boy to young man. To assist in his passage, his father and I took Sam on a two-day vision quest in the woods. We agreed not to speak about what occurred. However, the basic elements of what we did are relevant in guiding people and organizations through crucial transitions, and I can speak of that.

To be effective, change has to be self-evident. I doubt if many of us will ever forget what it was like to be thirteen. Our very bodies were altering our experience as new hormones, new clothes and new ways of thinking began to have their way with us. Although more subtly, the same applies for the crucial transitions of later life. For those who are fortunate enough not to be able to deny the process, it becomes abundantly, if painfully, apparent that change is happening.

People don’t move so readily from “bad” to “good,” as if growth requires denigrating where we have been. Yes, it has to be acknowledged that new ingredients beyond the former ways of being and doing need to come on line. But people will move more readily from “good” to “great.” Until the past is honored and seen as a worthy starting point, the person hesitates to go forward. I have seen it so often: change resisted in the nagging sense that there is something to prove or make right about what has gone before. In truth, each person can say that he or she has done well to get here. And we can help let them know that we see that too.

In the case of Sam’s quest experience in the wild, we were in a different environment free of familiar comforts and discomforts. For executives, it is more about recognizing that circumstances have already moved them into new and unfamiliar territory. The human mind is trained to take what worked before and overlay it on new situations. Unless we are convinced otherwise, that is always what we will do. Somehow we have to get viscerally that the old rules no longer apply in the new environment.

Finally, it is hard to move forward without some vision, some sense of excitement about what is ahead. Usually we see some of what is awaiting us but miss the full potential that is there. The gift of a change agent is to make upcoming possibilities visible in a way that makes people eager to go after them.

My thirteen-year-old friend is still young enough to view the prospect of becoming an adult as enticing. His Jewish forefathers were wise to set this rite of passage at such a young age. Later on he will find plenty to reject in the examples of manhood he sees around him. Yet change and growth are not meant to stop at puberty. You are a change agent for the people in your walks of life. When we look, there are countless opportunities to help others see what is waiting to unfurl in them.

Clients often ask me for tools and techniques to make them more effective in working with people. In a coaching session, whenever we discuss and practice how to handle a particular person or situation, we usually end up recognizing that the connection is the most important thing. Even in the tensest engagement, if we find a way to establish rapport with the other, the rest of the communication will flow from that. Great tools and technique have their place but without rapport they won’t do too much. Here are three keys that I have found help me establish rapport.

Key one: notice what you are afraid of. Any exchange between two human beings involves risk. We may do harm, lose reputation or miss out on opportunity. Something may happen to take us out of our comfort zone where we won’t know what to do. Where there is risk, the natural instinct is to keep distance. Distance gives us perspective so we can map the safest way through. Yet it makes connection harder. Some people engage with avoidance and some with bravado. Either way rapport ain’t going to happen. Take the time to notice what is at risk, for you and for the other person. Once acknowledged, your risks won’t create distance in the same way. You will likely begin to feel appreciation for who they are and for what they are doing in the face of their risks.

Key two: resolve the superior-inferior dynamic. We create separation by upholding ourselves as special. No one has a perfectly undented self-esteem so, to feel good about who we are, we’re constantly tempted to identify as better than or less than others. As a coach or consultant, for example, my livelihood depends on having something to offer people or organizations that will help them. And I get great pleasure when good things happen for clients as a result of our work together. If I am not careful, I could easily surround myself with those I see as less whole or proficient. My wife, Chellsa, and I make it a practice before an important call or session to help each other see how we are holding ourselves as better or worse than the other people involved. The separation resolves, not so much into “I am the same,” as an enjoyment of the exquisite distinctiveness of each person’s character and skills.

Key three: be hungry to meet being-to-being. It is possible to develop an appetite for the depth in people. On the surface, our engagements with others appear to be primarily transactional. There is information to exchange or feeling to convey; a desired outcome from each engagement. Rapport happens inside of all of that. Along with whatever needs to be transacted, you are just eager to discover the other and be discovered by them. Is there anything more beautiful than to meet another in this way?

Make sure you give due attention to the desired outcome, the information and feeling that need to be conveyed in any exchange. Save some of your attention, however, for what is inside of all that: the quality of rapport you establish with another. If someone as stiff and reserved as I once was can find the way to create rapport, anyone can do it! Taking deliberate steps, such as those outlined here, can make a big difference.