You’ve decided to ask for a raise. Should you go into your boss’s office first thing in the morning to get it out of the way? Or wait until the afternoon? Wait until tomorrow? Your chances of success will depend on your ability to read the room.
Paying attention to the narrative—spoken and unspoken—can provide information that gives you an advantage in essential negotiations, as well as during a job interview and any other critical meeting, according to Adele Gambardella and Chip Massey, coauthors of Convince Me: High-Stakes Negotiation Tactics to Get Results in Any Business Situation.
The key is forensic listening, which is different from active listening. “Forensic listening is the art of finding and listening to clues,” says Massey, a former FBI hostage negotiator. “It’s when and how people pause, what they emphasize, and what the tone of their voice communicates. By deconstructing these aspects, you can reveal a hidden narrative others may have missed.”
Massey recounts a negotiation he facilitated with an enforcer of a drug cartel who was in federal prison. “He had eight murders that were associated with him, so he wasn’t getting out,” Massey recalls. “We knew he had information on a rival cartel that would help us work a large case against them. We went in and had some ideas. These guys are very transactional. It’s all about what we’re going to do for them.”
Massey offered to improve the man’s cell condition, with no reaction. He offered to move him to a new prison system, closer to his family. The man just stared into the distance. Finally, Massey realized the unstated narrative. Standing up as if to leave, Massey told him, “Obviously, this was a waste of our time. You have no real interest in sharing information. But listen, I just wanted to say one thing. The way you moved in this organization, the things you did, while I can’t condone any of it, from an absolute practical business perspective, I have to say, ‘respect.’”
The man looked Massey in the eye and started offering information. “I figured out that he wasn’t interested in anything I had to offer,” Massey says. “What he wanted was to be recognized as an expert in this area. Once I found the unstated narrative, we were off to the races.”
When you pay attention, you can read a room and catch the things that are important to others. Gambardella and Massey share their forensic note-taking processes, which break up conversations and behaviors into four quadrants.
When you walk into a meeting, look for a display of emotions. Do people feel empowered, disengaged, excited, or discouraged? Are you hearing a lot of laughter? Is it more subdued? “Label it,” says Gambardella, a crisis communications expert.
Also, look for the balance of power in the room. Is there a definite alpha person in the group, and do people seem to appreciate or resent that person’s leadership?
Massey suggests taking notice of how people are responding to each other and to you. “If you walk into a room and find people broken off into groups, there’s probably something at hand that is divisive,” he says. “There are reasons why people are in groups with hushed tones. They’ve got things that they don’t want to share with other people.”
Body language can also help you read a room. Note how someone is positioned relative to you and others in the room. Are they sitting squarely before you, or are they angling themselves away? Are they actively looking around, or are they focused on the conversation? If they’re standing, are they moving back and forth on the balls of their feet? Massey says it could indicate that they are getting ready to move away from you.
“What you’re saying may not be as appealing as it first started, or perhaps they need to get somewhere else,” he explains.
Gambardella concurs, noting that people leave a lot of clues in meetings. “Hone in on some of these things, because most people don’t,” she says.
Pay attention to stories or words that are repeated. Themes often develop in conversations that will tell you what is important to the person sharing them. “Word choice can reveal what someone is thinking,” Gambardella says. “Also pay attention if someone is parroting someone else. Are they telling the person what they want to hear?”
Listen for jargon or buzzwords that might indicate that the person is trying to demonstrate their relevance or mask the fact that they have nothing significant to add. And notice if a certain topic is avoided.
It can help to pretend you’re a journalist, Gambardella says. “[Journalists] listen more intently than most people, because they’re listening to write the story. Most people are just observing the room, observing the situation, they’re not really engaged at the same level.”
People have patterns when they talk, and Massey says they can reveal a lot. Pay attention to the pitch and tone of their voice. Does it go up or down? Is their speech rapid or cautious? Are they loud or soft-spoken? It helps if you’ve encountered the person before so you can identify a baseline.
“Words leave clues,” Massey says. “We advocate for people to build a baseline. It’s borrowing FBI techniques of getting a personality baseline of somebody. Watch and listen to that person in as many contexts as you can. At a restaurant with a client meeting, for example. How do they treat the waitstaff? How are they treating the client? How are they treating you? It’s a process of forensic listening.”
You can build a profile by putting these things together, such as how someone’s demeanor is early in the morning versus late afternoon. You may realize your boss doesn’t like to be approached with new ideas in the morning, but she’s more amenable later in the day.
While you can get helpful information after just one encounter, Gambardella suggests taking notes during every meeting for a few weeks. “Most of us are listening to respond, we’re not really paying attention to other people’s emotions,” she says. “Reading the room is looking for when the room tone changes.”
Massey adds that before every meeting, it’s a good idea to go around a room and engage with people to see where they’re at. “Where does the power seem to be forming from? Who are people focused on? Listen for the themes that are coming back again and again,” he says. “That will help you to develop the picture of what’s going on in that room.”
Reading a room requires identifying the unstated narrative—the disconnect between what somebody believes and what they’re telling you. “We’re all trained to be diplomats at different kinds of levels, depending upon our personality,” Massey says. “But it is so important for us to read between those lines.”
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
visit website
