This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Pamela Meyer, the CEO of Calibrate Inc. She trains organizations in fraud detection and insider threat mitigation and is the author of “Liespotting” and “How to Read the Room.” Meyer is based in Washington, D.C. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I spent the last 10 years training people in deception detection.
Reading the room is a foundational and overlooked skill. Greater awareness, attention, and observation can transform leadership, relationships, and influence — and it’s entirely teachable.
Doctors are taught to observe before they actually diagnose. Spies are trained to go into the room and then walk out and tell you who wore red, who wore blue, who had COVID, and whose feet were pointing toward the exit.
We all miss those micro-signals because we’re not trained to find them. But you can certainly be trained — and there are payoffs for doing so in the workplace. You waste less time, you gain trust faster, you get what you want more often, and you repair things before they break.
Here are four ways to better read the room:
Do your research
You should know something about the people in the room before you go in, because you’re wasting everybody’s time if you don’t.
I talk about the “Triple B method:” background, behavior, and beliefs. Identifying those things are part of the way one formally profiles somebody. You can start by looking into their digital trail, like social media, published work, Spotify playlists, or YouTube channel subscriptions.
Reduce cognitive load
When your “cognitive load,” or working memory is too full, you’re not bringing the proper presence and observational skills to the moment. If we exert effort to conceal our emotions or story, we often unintentionally allow our facial microexpressions, emotions, and body language to “leak out.”
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If you want to reduce cognitive load, write whatever you need to do on a piece of paper so that it’s not completely distracting you. Then give yourself one purpose for the meeting. You might have two or three purposes for the meeting, but if you have one centralized purpose that helps you focus, like getting someone to take on the budget planning, it can help anchor you before you walk in.
Know your blind spots
We walk into a room with all of our baggage — the fight we had with our spouse, the boss who’s pressuring us, the mortgage that’s underwater. Whatever it is, be aware of it because it actually influences your accuracy. It’s going to distract you.
You should do the hard, deep work of knowing what your own blind spots and biases are, and asking the people around you for feedback on them.
Pause and observe
The first thing you should do when you walk into a room is pause and observe. Don’t talk. Just note the vibe. Is it ambivalent? Is it cool? Oftentimes, the person with the most influence will set that vibe. If you watch what happens right after a conflict occurs — who looks to whom, who smirks — you can also start to get a sense of who has the most influence.
When there’s action, don’t start eating the popcorn and watching the action; watch everything around it. Think about what triggered the action and look at everything after. Especially on Zoom calls, we tend to sit back and start watching the action like it’s a movie, rather than paying attention to the people. It’s important to consciously shift your focus around the room and observe.
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