Reading the Room. Why? And what is it?

What is Reading the Room?

For leaders and salespeople. And for parents.

Reading the room, in short, is the art of being aware of the social dynamics and the non-verbal cues of the people around you. If you only listen to the words being spoken, you miss the reality of the situation. You miss what people are not saying but are really thinking, and where in the room you find possible resistance and potential allies for your ideas.

Reading the room is about understanding the context and noticing changes in facial expressions, in tonality, in the subtle atmosphere. It is the ability to distinguish between empty words and words that actually mean something. “We will look into it and come back to you” could be genuinely meant, or it could be a polite way of saying no.

When does it mean what?

The sales meeting that went south

Many years ago, I was sitting as a sidekick with my then senior colleague in a sales meeting with two potential investors in a big construction project. It was our task to sell the project to these investors, because we badly needed to fill the book. Our two guests were not only looking for projects to invest in, they also had a strong investor network of their own. The meeting was scheduled to last sixty minutes and from the outset my colleague took charge and worked through an endless stream of PowerPoint slides. It was clear to me that the potential investors wanted to ask a lot of questions, but as my senior colleague, with his natural charisma and gravitas, powered through the presentation, they were given no chance to interact. The further the meeting progressed, the further back the investors leaned. And the further back they leaned, the further forward my colleague leaned. His voice grew stronger, he pushed further forward, as if he wanted to instruct them to listen and to take in his words. It looked cartoonish. They fell even more silent. This is Sweden, so our guests stayed polite. They nodded, showed all the signs of professional active listening, wrote down the occasional note, but their attention was worn thin and I could see them zooming out, attending on auto-pilot. By the end of the presentation, with just a couple of minutes left for questions and dialogue, they had no questions to ask. Zero. The silence on their end spoke louder than my colleague’s PowerPoint circus. I tried to ask them questions, to involve them during the meeting, but the damage was already done. They left with polite words and the promise to study the material further and come back to us soon. We never heard from them again. Predictably.

Social blindness

Have you ever had a colleague who simply could not read the room? Unwittingly treading on people’s toes, missing the social cues, upsetting others without really meaning to? In my youth, these people would upset or annoy me. Nowadays I have compassion for them, because they are the biggest victim of their own behaviour. They walk through life often not understanding why they consistently seem to fall out with others, and why, in their own eyes, others simply do not seem to understand them. For a person who cannot read the room, relationships are often strained and the world seems to be filled with idiots. Leaders, salespeople and parents who are good at reading the room, and who act on what they read, usually get a great deal in return: trust from others, a psychologically safer environment, honest and transparent answers, and ultimately the right conditions to create high performance for themselves and for others. In leadership this translates into settled leaders and settled teams. At home it creates settled children. In sales it translates into more business and long-term client relationships that go beyond the immediate ROI.

Why do people get skilled at reading the room?

Predictability in psychologically unsafe environments

I hate to break it to you, but most people get skilled at reading the room because of past experiences of psychological unsafety, and the need to create some sense of predictability, to anticipate and to adapt to the expected behaviour of others. The art of reading the room, the reading of cues, context and facial expressions, the matching of words with actions, all of it feeds into a lightning-fast predictability exercise inside us. It is pattern recognition in real time based on what we have experienced, feeding into our social intuition.

Engaging in power games

There are two more reasons I can see, besides the professionals who do it for a living, like forensic interviewers or the body language experts who work with the police. First, there are people who lack real empathy and who use the skill to manipulate or to build power. Psychological games, power plays, ways of getting what they want.

Creating high performance

Secondly, and this is the one I focus on, there are people who genuinely want to create an open, transparent, high-performing environment with high levels of trust and psychological safety. Modern teams operating as self-managing ecosystems need openness, candour, fast decision-making and immediate honest feedback to keep getting better. This needs leaders and team members alike to carry agency, self-determination and a real sense of ownership for the task ahead. For that to work you need trust, psychological safety, and people who read the room and say it as they see it.

The secret sauce: the power of awareness

There are two parts to this secret sauce, and awareness is only the first. The second part is daring to name it, to act on it, or to somehow address it when it occurs. Calling out what you see is an extremely powerful tool for unearthing the unsaid, the thing most people are thinking and not daring to say. Who dares to call out what they see? In short, either the brave or the ones who feel safe. In sales, it will be the skilled or driven sales rep who calls out a mismatch between the buyers at the table, or between buyer behaviour and buyer communication. In leadership, the leader will ask whether what they are feeling in the team or in the atmosphere is correct, or whether they are missing something. At home, the parent will feel the child’s discomfort before the child dares to say it, and can help a teenager say something they do not yet have words for. Team members need to feel safe to speak up, and even leaders need to feel safe enough to be vulnerable in front of a group. Presumably we want to read the room in order to do better work, to lead well, and to be decent with the people around us. Which means the question is never only who is brave enough to say what they see, but who we have made it safe enough for. And that is a leadership question.

What I should have done in that sales meeting

Looking back on that meeting, I realise I should have been bolder myself. If I want to be part of a high-performing team, I need to challenge my own team as well. It brings discomfort in the short term, but it can prevent the same mistake from happening again. What I should have done, respecting both my own time and that of the investors, was to cut in on my colleague. Half-way, before it was too late, I should have asked: “I notice we have been presenting for thirty minutes. Would it be more useful to hear what you want to know?” It would have opened up the meeting, and it may well have led to a genuine conversation.

Can we get better at reading the room? Can we train it?

Can we get better at reading the room?

Can we train it? Yes. Which is good news, because the alternative is a career of wondering why everyone else is so difficult. I will say more about the scientific background in my upcoming book on Decoding Intuition™, from mirror neurons to increased levels of awareness. It is also something we practise in the Decoding Intuition™ programmes. In the meantime, three quick ways to start.

How to read the room: three ways to start

1. 1Notice a change in the atmosphere. When did it change? What was said just before it changed?
2. 2Check whether behaviour matches the words. The old rule: do people do what they say, and say what they do?
3. 3Call it out when you see it. Ask humbly whether you have understood correctly. “I may be wrong, but it looked like you had a question there, or were unsure about what I was saying. Is that right?”

You already have the instrument for it. It comes as standard with the human body. It is called social intuition, and it tends to be razor sharp. Use it. And if you want to know more about it, feel free to reach out. Good luck!

Maurice

Maurice Jenkens is the founder of The Intuitive Leader™. He helps founders and senior decision-makers navigate complexity by measuring and trusting their intuition.