Detailed Notes
In this episode of the Building Better Developers podcast, Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche explore the overlooked leadership skill of reading the room. Whether you're leading a meeting, pitching an idea, or presenting to clients, understanding how your audience responds in real time is a game-changer.
🎧 Topics Covered: - What does “reading the room” really mean? - Positive and negative engagement cues - How comedians, teachers, and leaders use it daily - Practical tips for improving this skill - Weekly challenge to build your observation muscle
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#ReadingTheRoom #LeadershipSkills #BuildingBetterDevelopers #Communication #BusinessTips #DeveloperPodcast
Transcript Text
[Music] All right. This gave me another topic idea. How to read the room. Oh, read the room is a good one. And it kind of goes with this one better than the other one. It does. I don't know if I want to go I think I got to think about that one a little. Okay. But this one made me think of that. So yeah, let me get out. Is Slack. There we go. Yeah, that is a really good one. That's tempting to uh Oh, yeah. By the way, boom. We've recorded even though I just you guys saw that we were recording before I hit the record button. That's how good we are. Uh yeah, instead of am I off the rails reading the room, that's an interesting one because that's it actually does go with demo and it really goes back to the whole improvising and and things like that business too because it's not just demos. I mean it could be talking to your customer, talking to your employees. I mean you got to you know like when are you you know are you getting the feedback you need or are you only hearing what you want to hear. Well that's yeah that's almost a different thing is getting you know getting feedback is in itself or getting valuable feedback is in itself a pretty good topic. Uh reading the room is sort of knowing when to quit or when to start or when to shift gears. Um that's actually a pretty good one across the board. So I think we're gonna go with that one instead. I like to read the room. Um, so we'll do off the rails. We'll do another time. What was the other one? Um, so, um, I'm getting back to Slack here. Hang on. Uh, Slack. So, all right. How to read the room. Uh, so the other one was, "Am I off the rails?" Yep. And then what was the other one? Um there was one in between that that you said was a different discussion. Oh um getting valuable feedback. Yeah, this is almost like a communication blog at that or podcast at that point. Okay, got it. Room can have some good We'll see where this will go. Like everything else, we'll wing it and see if we land or crash and burn. Three, two, one. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of building better businesses, but we are building better developers. We are the developer podcast. I am Rob Broadhead, one of the founders of developer and also a founder of RB Consulting where we help you figure out technology. There's this thing called technology sprawl. It is like letting all of the herd of cats go loose and then trying to like wrangle them back in. Technology is sort of like that. But we've been doing it for a long time. We can herd cats with the best of them and through simplification, integration, automation, innovation. We take those skills, those tools. We sit down with you. We help make sure that we're on the same page of what is your business, what does it do, what is the value that you bring, what do your customers love about you, and how can we leverage technology to do more of that good stuff. You spend a lot of time and money on technology, we help you make the most of that investment. Whether that is the technology itself, the software, the servers, the hardware, or whether it's your staff, and making sure that you've got the right people, the right training, the right education, even sometimes the right programs to properly leverage that technology, use it, and put it in front of your make it, you know, in front of your customers, make it something that is a value ad for your company. Good thing, bad thing. Uh, let's see. I go with Gosh, there's so many things lately and I have got to think of something that's not just completely pointless. All right, good thing. Good thing, bad thing. Uh this is really a bad thing is what we're going to start with is so now I'm in a place where I don't have a like mailbox that I walk out to the day nor do I have a front door that I like people like Amazon deliver which okay I've got this nice place that's got like lockers and all the stuff and they'll put stuff in there sometimes or they'll just set it beside it but I can just like wander by there and go oh it's Christmas time I've got a a gift. The bad thing about this because that was not really good. The bad thing about this is that sometimes that stuff is really stinking heavy. I never really thought about the fact that sometimes I order stuff that is, you know, 20 30 lbs is one thing, but like 75, 100, 150 lbs. When it was my front door in my office was 2 feet from the front door, I could just like it over and then drag it across the floor and cool. Now I have to like go get a dolly or something like that or a wagon and load this thing up and haul it and by the time I get back I am sweating like a pig. Not a good thing. A good thing I have in my in my new abode I have managed to secure a place that it is like lots of windows and one of the best thing is when you throw the windows open you get breezes like all day long. It is. I'm not on the ocean, but it's almost like that. It's like it is a perfect place to be when you want to just like have a nice quiet day. And especially since I work remote most of the time, that means my work days are just that much better. Not as good as your workday is going to be because you now get to hear from Michael and you've been waiting ever since the prior episode, but he's back. Go for it. Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malash. I'm one of the co-founders of Developer, Building Better Developers. I'm also the founder of a company called the vision QA where we help small to mid-size businesses with their software problems. It we help them analyze their software and make sure that the software really works for their business needs and that they are not working for their software or coming up with some weird processes on paper to basically make the software work for them or some basically workaround to get their job done without the software. And with that, we have a team of developers. We have a great staff that can come in and we will work with you. We will help you do an assessment. We will help you find those pain points and we will offer you solutions and help you solve that problem. Good thing and bad thing. Um kind of mixed. Um good thing, bad thing this week. My wife has gone out of town for almost two weeks. Uh we're when you watch this, you're we're probably through the first week, but it we're a few days into this and um it's really good cuz I'm really able to just focus on work, heads down coding, getting a lot of stuff done. Downside, we live on a large acreage of property. We have lots of animals and they need tending to and it you can't it it gets really hard when the the little dog comes up to you and say, "Hey, I got to pee." I got to pee. I know. I'm on a Zoom call. Come here. Nope. I got to pee. And if you don't take them out, they pee right there on the carpet. So, it's it's one of those where it's you don't know. Uh it's it's good and bad because it's like, yes, I'm getting a lot done, but I got to pay attention to other things that normally I don't have to pay attention to. That almost is a good segue into our topic this week of this episode of Read the Room. And this is something that actually sort of came out of talking about doing demos and things like that, but really this is a it's almost more of like a leadership connecting to your people, your customers, your co-workers kind of thing. It's a skill that some people are very good at. Some people are very very not good at it. And that's where I want to talk about is the so what are some of the things that you can do to help you be better at reading the room to get a little better at that kind of thing. Now let's first talk about what do we what do we mean when we say read the room? Well, this is essentially how is what you are saying being received. Is it something where you know maybe you are wanting to anger whoever the audience is and they are getting angry or you're wanting to make the audience laugh but they're getting angry or you want to make them happy and make them comfortable but you can tell that they are actually so comfortable about to go into a comeomaos state. You know, there's there's a lot of read the room things that I think are essentially warning flags that we want to look for. And the way to get yourself to be better at this is whatever your presentation is, whatever your your goal is when you're in the room, when you're speaking, is to be looking for things that are indicators that are either yay or nay. they are either pro or con what you're doing. For example, let's say that you are uh in a team meeting and you are talking about your idea for this new product. You've got a design idea and everybody's here and it's a design meeting even. Let's say so everybody's here. We're in we're open to design and you start talking about your design. Everybody is like eye contact. They're looking at you. All right, that's a positive. That's probably what you want. People are le, you know, listening. You're getting good feedback. But now, as you go on and let's say you start talking about and it's all going to be purple and suddenly you see like a couple of people with a shocked look on their face and maybe a couple people couple people like now they start to like look at their phone or they're taking some notes that they weren't taking before and so you are losing your audience. That is a read the room. So obviously when you said purple everybody was not a fan and it's that is a very you know like hamfisted kind of u you know example but those are the things you want to look for is as you're going through whatever your presentation is. Usually what's going to happen is you're going to start off with one uh whatever your goal is they're probably going to start off sort of in that way. Now, sometimes you have to like you have to change course. So, you're you're leading somebody somewhere or the group, the team, the p the room, whatever it is, somewhere they don't want to be. Maybe they're all sitting there angry and frustrated and you're trying to lead them to be happy and optimistic. That's going to be a challenge. But the thing is in that case if you can just see them slightly less you know pessimistic and angry and stuff like that then maybe you're you're going in the right direction. The key the cues that you want to look for is basically like what are some of the things and this is especially if you're going into something where it's u prepared in some way form or fashion but if not this is something you're going to have to sort of process on the fly. So, what are positive indicators for whatever your goal is? And then what are negative indicators? And you don't need many. I think honestly if you can get it down to a positive and a negative or maybe two positive and two negative, something like that, you should be good because yeah, that's not perfect. But if you're trying to read a room, unless it's a one-on-one conversation with somebody, then there's just too much information for you to try to like, you know, parse that into all these different things. Now, if it's one-on-one, then you may have a like a whole, you know, deck of cards full of indicators that you want to work with. per room. I think it's gonna especially because the room is going to uh carry some sort of momentum and there's some sort of group think and things like that that go into these is that you really don't need more than a couple of indicators and then make sure that you're hitting the positive ones and if you hit negative ones back out of that and go somewhere else. A good example in a you know a larger room setting would be let's say you decide to talk politics. Now, if you say, "I'm going to talk politics," and suddenly the room goes dead silence, then you're like, "Just kidding. I'm not gonna talk politics." But most often these days, you're going to basically either have a you're depends on where you're at, but a lot of times you end up with a room that is either more heavily tilted one way or the other. It's right or left. There's going to be majority of one or the other. Sometimes you get a mix, but it just seems like that is rare these days. You get one or the other. So, Let's say you're you're going to talk politics and you want the room on your side. You actually don't care about politics. You just want them, you know, on your side. Well, a good thing would be if they start booing, yelling, and throwing, you know, vegetables at you, that's a pretty good negative. If they laugh, clap, or you see see nodding, you see some sort of things that are affirming, it's like or maybe even people will be making hand gestures like, "Yeah, keep going. Yeah, this is great." stuff like that. Those are the indicators of a positive response. So, what you want to do is you want to look around and you say, you know, you step in to put a toe in and you talk about you say, "Hey, what about that well-known left figure?" That alone you haven't really committed to that. But you're probably going to see just by mentioning the name some people are going to be if they like them, they're going to be happier. They're going to be uplifted. they're going to pay attention. If not, if they don't like that name, then they may be they're and it depends on what it is, but more likely than not, they're going to be like, "Oh, no. You know, I don't need to hear about that." You know, things like that. So, they're going to now you may have to actually go out on a limb and limb and even say something nice or, you know, sort of nice or sort of bad about the person to help get the additional feedback. But that's what you're looking for is look for a Q, a positive and a negative. And then just be looking for that. So like in this case, a positive and a negative Q. So a positive Q would be a laughter or a smile, something along those lines. And then a negative would be like, you know, a boo or a grunt or a frown or something like that. So you have you those are easy to read actually across an entire audience. Now there are things that are going to be more uh maybe a little more subtle but depending on your audience. If you're teacher in a classroom if the students are looking at you that's very different from if they are heads down and particularly if you hear snoring or see drool coming off of desks very different kinds of things but you you do know in those cases it's a positive and a negative and these are that's a good thing is that I think we we intrinsically can read these when we are looking for them. thoughts on that? So, the first thing I want to throw out is the first thing that came to my mind when we started talking about reading the room and you started getting into, you know, talking politics was Mel Brooks's history of the world part one when the guy go the comic goes up in front of Caesar and starts talking like throwing out jokes. That is a perfect example of reading the room. One of the key things that a lot of comics do and anyone presenting or talking about a topic in front of people, one of the best things to do to help you read the room is start out with leading questions. Like try to interact, try to connect with your audience first to get their feedback. You know, throw out something that'll make them laugh, throw out something that might make them like groan or that way you kind of get facial expressions. You kind of get their mood. You're you're kind of setting the mood or setting the indicators to understand as you're speaking how you know how are they reacting. Oh, okay. He's laughing. But when I actually told a joke, this guy kind of didn't laugh but kind of gave a different facial feature. Okay, I'm seeing that. But when I said this, okay, now he's really upset. So, this gives you a way to help you gauge the room before you begin your presentation or it really helps set the stage for you to understand your audience um as you're giving the presentation. It helps you get the feedback you need without the verbal feedback you can kind of get from just looking at them. Along those lines, the other thing you could do is start out with ice breakers. Start out with things to connect with your audience so you have a little more connection with them. So as you're as you are giving your presentation, you will pick up, oh, this person likes cats. So as I'm talking about this presentation, ah, here's cats. So you can kind of gauge and it sometimes those people will laugh or giggle and you might get other responses, but sometimes you can I don't want to say you have like um not standins in your audience to kind of help move things along, but you can almost do that with an engaging question at the beginning to connect with your audience to where you can say, "Oh, hey Peggy, you said you like this. Well, how about this?" and you go into that section of your presentation. Yes, you've addressed one person. The audience knows that you are paying attention to them. You're interacting with them and hopefully you can keep them engaged so that you get more out of your presentations and it helps you read the room more. Uh, and kind of the last thing I'll throw out, uh, with reading the room, and it's funny, you know, you talk about throwing dirty vegetables and things like that, but sometimes reading the room with perfect strangers is extremely difficult. And it can even be doubly so if you have a room full of friends or co-workers because you already know their biases. And sometimes as you're presenting things, you might inadvertently trigger some of their biases or you might try to engage some of those uh their personalities or some of their uh the way they perceive things to help move things along. Uh sometimes that works for engagements. Sometimes that can be a a detractor because sometimes that engagement those people may not like to be called on. They may not want to be engaged. So engaging them will turn them off and kind of sour the mood in those presentations. So as you're reading the room, also be careful when you're working through engagements that you're reading those engagements. Are you actually engaging with people that really enjoy being engaged with or people that are so introvert that you are just shutting down your presentation? when you are in a situation where you know you have some secret knowledge we'll say basically of the audience which like Michael said like maybe it's a group of friends or something like that where you could have the option of uh maybe there's an inside joke you could tell or maybe there's like a sometimes there's some lowhanging fruit that you can use to sort of like kick people in the butt to move them along that way whether it's something that you know is going to anger them. Whether it's something, you know, that's going to unite them, divide them, uh, make them laugh, because especially if it's a group we know, there's going to be certain things. It's like going to it's like going to Wisconsin and going to certain parts of Wisconsin and just being like, "Yeah, it's just like how the great Green Bay Packers did and everybody's like, "Yay!" And everybody goes crazy. You know, there's there's things like that. just like, you know, it's easy. It's just like, yeah, that's an easy way to get people thinking a certain way. And it's or it's just like, don't you hate it when you stub your toe or step on a Lego or something like that? You like everybody basically knows that. So, everybody has now joined you in wherever you're at, whatever that emotion is that you're wanting to listen. So, sometimes that's your your icebreaker. Maybe that's the thing that you start with if you want to set the stage, set the tone for what you are about to present or what you're about to talk about. Now, that does tend to take a little more uh preparation and things like that. So, you're probably not going to do that on the fly. It's not going to be something you improvise, but you could possibly do that as well because wherever you're at, there's probably some common denominator that you know that the audience is going to have. It's like when a rock star, you know, comes up and they're like, "Hey everybody, how you doing in Detroit?" or something like that. Or they'll say, you know, "Yeah, I was driving down, you know, Main Street just today." And of course, everybody knows that Main Street's right there. You know, things like that to just do that quick connection. It's cheap. It's It doesn't have a lot of value, but it can at least be a start and sort of like open the door, but then just make sure you follow it up and don't just like keep going back to lowhanging fruit to save yourself if it has gone off the rails a little bit, which foreshadowing, that's something we're going to talk about in the future. A little bit of that going off the rails. Before we go off the rails though, I want to talk about the challenge this week. The challenge this week will be pick a room that you're in, whatever it is this like this week. And ideally a room where you're just more of an observer than anything else. like if you're getting coffee at a coffee shop or if you're in a restaurant or you're waiting at a bus stop or whatever it is particularly this is really a people watching challenge is get a room or you know a park or an area of people and just sit there for five to 10 minutes and literally read the room. Look at the groups. Look at what they're doing. just spend some time sort of analyzing what is going on and then as sort of the the wrapup of this exercise is what is something I could do that would basically get everybody's attention very quickly and start them down a path of whatever it is I want to start them down. It's not exactly attention getting like oh I could throw a bomb in the middle of the room and it would blow up and everybody like he threw a bomb. not something like that, but usually more of like an of emotional that's not shock or or awe or something like that, but it's more like what if you know what is the commonality here? And there may not be one. may be too challenging, but I think it is something that if you do that and then occasionally you try it out, it will help you start to figure out to advance to create that skill of being able to jump into a crowd, read them, hopefully read them faster than in 5 to 10 minutes so that you can then have something that will be like a, hey, now I have your attention and so now I'm going to be able to do something to, you know, now I can actually I've got your eyeballs. Now I can actually make a point, sell something, things like that. And it may even be to the level of like now you're going to learn how to do like, you know, some little magic tricks or something like that. I don't know. But, you know, learn how to walk on your hands or walk on stilts. There's different things you can do. Maybe that becomes your gimmick, your thing that allows you an entry into uh whoever your audience happens to be. I may be going a little further than I need to on this, but it is something that I think even from a business point of view. You may be able to you're not going to carry stilts around. I know. But you're going to maybe you can find something that is a uh maybe it's an icebreaker joke or a comment. Um you maybe you talk about certain sports team or it could be politics or local politics or the weather at the park or something like that. That is a that is that common factor that allows you to step in and then give yourself some time to read the room. That being said, I'm not even going to ask you for all the other stuff this time. I'm going to let you all free. You know where to go. And if you don't, check the next episode. Check a prior episode. For now, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. Bonus material. So we talked about like kind of people watching towards the end for the challenge. One of the other things that has been helpful to us even over the years is like go to leadership summits, watch TED talks, watch other leaders or other presenters and watch what they do. Watch some of the successful people. And then don't just watch the successful. Also look for the unsuccessful and see how they fail to interact with their crowd with the the room and take lessons from both because there's always some good and there's always some bad. And you kind of need to watch both so that you can grow and learn and not just say, "Oh, I'm always following this guy, but oh, I've got this bad habit over here that I don't know." Because they don't do it. I don't know I'm doing it. and you miss out on it. Uh the other thing too is, you know, reading the room. I I've talked about this in the past. If you aren't sure how you're presenting or if you're paying attention again, stand in front of a mirror, record what you're doing, stare at your computer, give your presentation, see your what your body language is like, and adjust. If you sit there and fiddle with your keys in your pocket during a presentation, you're you're going to look fidgety, and they're not going to pay attention. They're going to be looking at what your hand's doing and not really listening to what you're saying. I will go off a off mute again. Almost got bit by that. Yeah, I think this is this is getting a little bit into public speaking things is really more like watch yourself, see what you look like, look if look for mannerisms and uh whether they are uh positives or negatives. Like you can be very much a a hand speaker and very flamboyant stuff like that and that may work very well uh but it may be intimidating to some people. So, making sure that your mannerisms and your approach fit the audience and the message that you're trying to send. If you're dealing with a very jumpy audience and you've got very big quick motions, they're going to freak out. You're going to like add to their angst, their angst, and you don't really want to do that. That's not a good thing. Uh but it could be something where you you know maybe it is something in that case that you do something that's much more calming and slow and you can work with that with your tone, your voice, all your mannerisms. And that is really where I want to slide for the bonus material is think about things when you're wanting to read the room and especially when you're wanting to lead the room while you're reading them is consider ways that you can like pace, volume, eye contact. uh even using other things, you know, body motion or uh props like a, you know, a presentation or something like that. It's like what are some of the things you can do to add to to to work with reading the room to be able to adjust your message as part of that? Because it's that's really the first step. Read the room is the first thing. How you respond to their response is what's really important. It's like, how do you now lead the room to where you want to take him? I'm going to let Michael give his favorite, you know, closing speech this time because it's his turn. Hey everyone, thanks for listening to us. Make sure you like, share, follow us on developer.com, Facebook at developer, watch, check out our YouTubetubes. Um, we're on X, we're on LinkedIn, you know. If we need to be somewhere else, let us know. Go out and have a great night, great day, and we'll talk to you next time. Have a good one, folks. [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
All right. This gave me another topic
idea.
How to read the room.
Oh, read the room is a good one. And it
kind of goes with this one better than
the other one. It
does. I don't know if I want to go I
think I got to think about that one a
little. Okay. But this one made me think
of that. So yeah, let me get out.
Is Slack. There we go. Yeah, that is a
really good one. That's tempting to uh
Oh, yeah. By the way, boom. We've
recorded even though I just you guys saw
that we were recording before I hit the
record button. That's how good we are.
Uh yeah, instead of am I off the rails
reading the
room, that's an interesting one because
that's it actually does go with demo and
it really goes back to the whole
improvising and and things like
that business too because it's not just
demos. I mean it could be talking to
your customer, talking to your
employees. I mean you got to you know
like when are you you know are you
getting the feedback you need or are you
only hearing what you want to hear.
Well that's yeah that's almost a
different thing is getting you know
getting feedback is in itself or getting
valuable feedback is in itself a pretty
good topic. Uh reading the room is sort
of knowing when to quit or when to start
or when to shift gears. Um that's
actually a pretty good one across the
board. So I think we're gonna go with
that one instead. I like to read the
room. Um, so we'll do off the rails.
We'll do another time.
What was the other one? Um, so,
um, I'm getting back to Slack here. Hang
on. Uh, Slack.
So, all right. How to read the room. Uh,
so the other one was, "Am I off the
rails?"
Yep. And then what was the other one?
Um there was one in between that that
you said was a different discussion.
Oh um getting valuable feedback.
Yeah, this is almost like a
communication blog at that or podcast at
that point. Okay, got it.
Room can have some good We'll see where
this will go. Like everything else,
we'll wing it and see if we land or
crash and burn. Three, two, one. Well,
hello and welcome back. We are
continuing our season of building better
businesses, but we are building better
developers. We are the developer
podcast. I am Rob Broadhead, one of the
founders of developer and also a founder
of RB Consulting where we help you
figure out technology. There's this
thing called technology sprawl. It is
like letting all of the herd of cats go
loose and then trying to like wrangle
them back in. Technology is sort of like
that. But we've been doing it for a long
time. We can herd cats with the best of
them and through simplification,
integration, automation,
innovation. We take those skills, those
tools. We sit down with you. We help
make sure that we're on the same page of
what is your business, what does it do,
what is the value that you bring, what
do your customers love about you, and
how can we leverage technology to do
more of that good stuff. You spend a lot
of time and money on technology, we help
you make the most of that investment.
Whether that is the technology itself,
the software, the servers, the hardware,
or whether it's your staff, and making
sure that you've got the right people,
the right training, the right education,
even sometimes the right programs to
properly leverage that technology, use
it, and put it in front of your make it,
you know, in front of your customers,
make it something that is a value ad for
your
company. Good thing, bad thing.
Uh, let's
see. I go with Gosh, there's so many
things lately and I have got to think of
something that's not just completely
pointless. All right, good thing. Good
thing, bad thing.
Uh this is really a bad thing is what
we're going to start with is so now I'm
in a place where I don't have a like
mailbox that I walk out to the day nor
do I have a front door that I like
people like Amazon
deliver which okay I've got this nice
place that's got like lockers and all
the stuff and they'll put stuff in there
sometimes or they'll just set it beside
it but I can just like wander by there
and go oh it's Christmas time I've got a
a gift. The bad thing about this because
that was not really good. The bad thing
about this is that sometimes that stuff
is really stinking heavy. I never really
thought about the fact that sometimes I
order stuff that is, you know, 20 30 lbs
is one thing, but like 75, 100, 150 lbs.
When it was my front door in my office
was 2 feet from the front door, I could
just like it over and then drag it
across the floor and cool. Now I have to
like go get a dolly or something like
that or a wagon and load this thing up
and haul it and by the time I get back I
am sweating like a pig. Not a good
thing. A good
thing I have in my in my new abode I
have managed to secure a place that it
is like lots of windows and one of the
best thing is when you throw the windows
open you get breezes like all day long.
It is. I'm not on the ocean, but it's
almost like that. It's like it is a
perfect place to be when you want to
just like have a nice quiet day. And
especially since I work remote most of
the time, that means my work days are
just that much better. Not as good as
your workday is going to be because you
now get to hear from Michael and you've
been waiting ever since the prior
episode, but he's back. Go for it. Hey
everyone, my name is Michael Malash. I'm
one of the co-founders of Developer,
Building Better Developers. I'm also the
founder of a company called the vision
QA where we help small to mid-size
businesses with their software problems.
It we help them analyze their software
and make sure that the software really
works for their business needs and that
they are not working for their software
or coming up with some weird processes
on paper to basically make the software
work for them or some basically
workaround to get their job done without
the software. And with that, we have a
team of developers. We have a great
staff that can come in and we will work
with you. We will help you do an
assessment. We will help you find those
pain points and we will offer you
solutions and help you solve that
problem. Good thing and bad thing.
Um kind of mixed. Um good thing, bad
thing this week. My wife has gone out of
town for almost two weeks. Uh we're when
you watch this, you're we're probably
through the first week, but it we're a
few days into this and um it's really
good cuz I'm really able to just focus
on work, heads down coding, getting a
lot of stuff done. Downside, we live on
a large acreage of property. We have
lots of animals and they need tending to
and it you can't it it gets really hard
when the the little dog comes up to you
and say, "Hey, I got to pee." I got to
pee. I know. I'm on a Zoom call. Come
here. Nope. I got to pee. And if you
don't take them out, they pee right
there on the carpet. So, it's it's one
of those where it's you don't know. Uh
it's it's good and bad because it's
like, yes, I'm getting a lot done, but I
got to pay attention to other things
that normally I don't have to pay
attention to.
That almost is a good segue into our
topic this week of this episode of Read
the
Room. And this is something that
actually sort of came out of talking
about doing demos and things like that,
but really this is a it's almost more of
like a leadership connecting to your
people, your customers, your co-workers
kind of thing. It's a skill that some
people are very good at. Some people are
very very not good at it. And that's
where I want to talk about is the so
what are some of the things that you can
do to help you be better at reading the
room to get a little better at that kind
of thing. Now let's first talk about
what do we what do we mean when we say
read the room? Well, this is essentially
how is what you are saying being
received. Is it something where you know
maybe you are wanting to anger whoever
the audience is and they are getting
angry or you're wanting to make the
audience laugh but they're getting angry
or you want to make them happy and make
them comfortable but you can tell that
they are actually so comfortable about
to go into a comeomaos state. You know,
there's there's a lot of read the room
things that I think are essentially
warning flags that we want to look
for. And the way to get yourself to be
better at this is whatever your
presentation is, whatever your your goal
is when you're in the room, when you're
speaking, is to be looking for things
that are indicators that are either yay
or nay. they are either pro or con what
you're doing. For example, let's say
that you are uh in a team meeting and
you are talking about your idea for this
new product. You've got a design idea
and everybody's here and it's a design
meeting even. Let's say so everybody's
here. We're in we're open to design and
you start talking about your
design. Everybody is like eye contact.
They're looking at you. All right,
that's a positive. That's probably what
you want. People are le, you know,
listening. You're getting good feedback.
But now, as you go on and let's say you
start talking about and it's all going
to be purple and suddenly you see like a
couple of people with a shocked look on
their face and maybe a couple people
couple people like now they start to
like look at their phone or they're
taking some notes that they weren't
taking before and so you are losing your
audience. That is a read the room. So
obviously when you said
purple everybody was not a fan and it's
that is a very you know like hamfisted
kind of u you know example but those are
the things you want to look for is as
you're going through whatever your
presentation is. Usually what's going to
happen is you're going to start off with
one uh whatever your goal is they're
probably going to start off sort of in
that way. Now, sometimes you have to
like you have to change course. So,
you're you're leading somebody somewhere
or the group, the team, the p the room,
whatever it is, somewhere they don't
want to be. Maybe they're all sitting
there angry and frustrated and you're
trying to lead them to be happy and
optimistic. That's going to be a
challenge. But the thing is in that case
if you can just see them slightly less
you know pessimistic and angry and stuff
like that then maybe you're you're going
in the right direction. The key the cues
that you want to look for is basically
like what are some of the things and
this is especially if you're going into
something where it's u prepared in some
way form or fashion but if not this is
something you're going to have to sort
of process on the fly. So, what are
positive
indicators for whatever your goal is?
And then what are negative indicators?
And you don't need many. I think
honestly if you can get it down to a
positive and a negative or maybe two
positive and two negative, something
like that, you should be good because
yeah, that's not perfect. But if you're
trying to read a room, unless it's a
one-on-one conversation with somebody,
then there's just too much information
for you to try to like, you know, parse
that into all these different things.
Now, if it's one-on-one, then you may
have a like a whole, you know, deck of
cards full of indicators that you want
to work
with. per room. I think it's gonna
especially because the room is going to
uh carry some sort of momentum and
there's some sort of group think and
things like that that go into these is
that you really don't need more than a
couple of indicators and then make sure
that you're hitting the positive ones
and if you hit negative ones back out of
that and go somewhere else. A good
example in a you know a larger room
setting would be let's say you decide to
talk politics. Now, if you say, "I'm
going to talk politics," and suddenly
the room goes dead silence, then you're
like, "Just kidding. I'm not gonna talk
politics." But most often these days,
you're going to basically either have a
you're depends on where you're at, but a
lot of times you end up with a room that
is either more heavily tilted one way or
the other. It's right or left. There's
going to be majority of one or the
other. Sometimes you get a mix, but it
just seems like that is rare these days.
You get one or the other. So,
Let's say you're you're going to talk
politics and you want the room on your
side. You actually don't care about
politics. You just want them, you know,
on your side.
Well, a good thing would be if they
start booing, yelling, and throwing, you
know, vegetables at you, that's a pretty
good negative. If they laugh, clap, or
you see see nodding, you see some sort
of things that are affirming, it's like
or maybe even people will be making hand
gestures like, "Yeah, keep going. Yeah,
this is great." stuff like that. Those
are the indicators of a positive
response. So, what you want to do is you
want to look around and you say, you
know, you step in to put a toe in and
you talk about you say, "Hey, what about
that well-known left figure?" That alone
you haven't really committed to
that. But you're probably going to see
just by mentioning the name some people
are going to be if they like them,
they're going to be happier. They're
going to be uplifted. they're going to
pay attention. If not, if they don't
like that name, then they may be they're
and it depends on what it is, but more
likely than not, they're going to be
like, "Oh, no. You know, I don't need to
hear about that." You know, things like
that. So, they're going to now you may
have to actually go out on a limb and
limb and even say something nice or, you
know, sort of nice or sort of bad about
the person to help get the additional
feedback. But that's what you're looking
for is look for a Q, a positive and a
negative. And then just be looking for
that. So like in this case, a positive
and a negative Q. So a positive Q would
be a laughter or a smile, something
along those lines. And then a negative
would be like, you know, a boo or a
grunt or a frown or something like that.
So you have you those are easy to read
actually across an entire audience. Now
there are things that are going to be
more uh maybe a little more subtle but
depending on your audience. If you're
teacher in a classroom if the students
are looking at you that's very different
from if they are heads down and
particularly if you hear snoring or see
drool coming off of desks very different
kinds of things but you you do know in
those cases it's a positive and a
negative and these are that's a good
thing is that I think we we
intrinsically can read these when we are
looking for them.
thoughts on that?
So, the first thing I want to throw out
is the first thing that came to my mind
when we started talking about reading
the room and you started getting into,
you know, talking politics was Mel
Brooks's history of the world part one
when the guy go the comic goes up in
front of Caesar and starts talking like
throwing out
jokes. That is a perfect example of
reading the room.
One of the key things that a lot of
comics do and anyone presenting or
talking about a topic in front of
people, one of the best things to do to
help you read the room is start out with
leading questions. Like try to interact,
try to connect with your audience first
to get their feedback. You know, throw
out something that'll make them laugh,
throw out something that might make them
like groan or that way you kind of get
facial expressions. You kind of get
their mood. You're you're kind of
setting the mood or setting the
indicators to understand as you're
speaking how you know how are they
reacting. Oh, okay. He's laughing. But
when I actually told a joke, this guy
kind of didn't laugh but kind of gave a
different facial feature. Okay, I'm
seeing that. But when I said this, okay,
now he's really upset. So, this gives
you a way to help you gauge the room
before you begin your presentation or it
really helps set the stage for you to
understand your audience
um as you're giving the presentation. It
helps you get the feedback you need
without the verbal feedback you can kind
of get from just looking at them. Along
those
lines, the other thing you could do is
start out with ice breakers. Start out
with things to connect with your
audience so you have a little more
connection with them. So as you're as
you are giving your presentation, you
will pick up, oh, this person likes
cats. So as I'm talking about this
presentation, ah, here's cats. So you
can kind of gauge and it sometimes those
people will laugh or giggle and you
might get other responses, but sometimes
you can I don't want to say you have
like
um not standins in your audience to kind
of help move things along, but you can
almost do that with an engaging question
at the beginning to connect with your
audience to where you can say, "Oh, hey
Peggy, you said you like this. Well, how
about this?" and you go into that
section of your presentation. Yes,
you've addressed one person. The
audience knows that you are paying
attention to them. You're interacting
with them and hopefully you can keep
them engaged so that you get more out of
your presentations and it helps you read
the room more. Uh, and kind of the last
thing I'll throw out, uh, with reading
the room, and it's funny, you know, you
talk about throwing dirty vegetables and
things like that, but
sometimes reading the room with perfect
strangers is extremely difficult. And it
can even be doubly so if you have a room
full of friends or co-workers because
you already know their
biases. And sometimes as you're
presenting things, you might
inadvertently trigger some of their
biases or you might try to engage some
of those uh their personalities or some
of their uh the way they perceive things
to help move things along. Uh sometimes
that works for engagements. Sometimes
that can be a a detractor because
sometimes that engagement those people
may not like to be called on. They may
not want to be engaged. So engaging them
will turn them off and kind of sour the
mood in those presentations. So as
you're reading the room, also be careful
when you're working through engagements
that you're reading those engagements.
Are you actually engaging with people
that really enjoy being engaged with or
people that are so introvert that you
are just shutting down your
presentation?
when you are in a situation where you
know you have
some secret knowledge we'll say
basically of the audience which like
Michael said like maybe it's a group of
friends or something like that where you
could have the option of uh maybe
there's an inside joke you could tell or
maybe there's like a sometimes there's
some lowhanging fruit that you can use
to sort of like kick people in the butt
to move them along that way whether it's
something that you know is going to
anger them. Whether it's something, you
know, that's going to unite them, divide
them, uh, make them laugh, because
especially if it's a group we know,
there's going to be certain things. It's
like going
to it's like going to Wisconsin and
going to certain parts of Wisconsin and
just being like, "Yeah, it's just like
how the great Green Bay Packers did and
everybody's like, "Yay!" And everybody
goes crazy. You know, there's there's
things like that. just
like, you know, it's easy. It's just
like, yeah, that's an easy way to get
people thinking a certain way. And it's
or it's just like, don't you hate it
when you stub your toe or step on a Lego
or something like that? You like
everybody basically knows that. So,
everybody has now joined you in wherever
you're at, whatever that emotion is that
you're wanting to listen. So, sometimes
that's your your icebreaker. Maybe
that's the thing that you start with if
you want to set the stage, set the tone
for what you are about to present or
what you're about to talk about. Now,
that does tend to take a little more uh
preparation and things like that. So,
you're probably not going to do that on
the fly. It's not going to be something
you improvise, but you could possibly do
that as well because wherever you're at,
there's probably
some common denominator that you know
that the audience is going to have. It's
like when a rock star, you know, comes
up and they're like, "Hey everybody, how
you doing in Detroit?" or something like
that. Or they'll say, you know, "Yeah, I
was driving down, you know, Main Street
just today." And of course, everybody
knows that Main Street's right there.
You know, things like that to just do
that quick connection. It's cheap. It's
It doesn't have a lot of value, but it
can at least be a start and sort of like
open the door, but then just make sure
you follow it up and don't just like
keep going back to lowhanging fruit to
save yourself if it has gone off the
rails a little bit, which foreshadowing,
that's something we're going to talk
about in the future. A little bit of
that going off the rails. Before we go
off the rails though, I want to talk
about the challenge this week. The
challenge this week will
be pick a room that you're in, whatever
it is this like this week. And ideally a
room where you're just more of an
observer than anything else. like if
you're getting coffee at a coffee shop
or if you're in a restaurant or you're
waiting at a bus stop or whatever it is
particularly this is really a people
watching
challenge is get a room or you know a
park or an area of people and just sit
there for five to 10 minutes and
literally read the room. Look at the
groups. Look at what they're doing. just
spend some time sort of analyzing what
is going on and then as sort of the the
wrapup of this exercise is what is
something I could
do that would basically get everybody's
attention very quickly and start them
down a path of whatever it is I want to
start them down. It's not exactly
attention getting like oh I could throw
a bomb in the middle of the room and it
would blow up and everybody like he
threw a bomb. not something like that,
but usually more of like an of emotional
that's not shock or or awe or something
like that, but it's more like what if
you know what is the commonality here?
And there may not be one. may be too
challenging, but I think it is something
that if you do that and then
occasionally you try it out, it will
help you start to figure out to advance
to create that skill of being able to
jump into a crowd, read them, hopefully
read them faster than in 5 to 10 minutes
so that you can then have something that
will be like a, hey, now I have your
attention and so now I'm going to be
able to do something to, you know, now I
can actually I've got your eyeballs. Now
I can actually make a point, sell
something, things like that. And it may
even be to the level of like now you're
going to learn how to do like, you know,
some little magic tricks or something
like that. I don't know. But, you know,
learn how to walk on your hands or walk
on stilts. There's different things you
can
do. Maybe that becomes your gimmick,
your thing that allows you an entry into
uh whoever your audience happens to be.
I may be going a little further than I
need to on this, but it is something
that I think even from a business point
of view. You may be able to you're not
going to carry stilts around. I know.
But you're going to maybe you can find
something that is a uh maybe it's an
icebreaker joke or a comment. Um you
maybe you talk about certain sports team
or it could be politics or local
politics or the weather at the park or
something like that. That is a that is
that common factor that allows you to
step in and then give yourself some time
to read the room. That being said, I'm
not even going to ask you for all the
other stuff this time. I'm going to let
you all free. You know where to go. And
if you don't, check the next episode.
Check a prior episode. For now, go out
there and have yourself a great day, a
great week, and we will talk to you next
time. Bonus material. So we talked about
like kind of people watching towards the
end for the challenge. One of the other
things that has been helpful to us even
over the years is like go to leadership
summits, watch TED talks, watch other
leaders or other presenters and watch
what they do. Watch some of the
successful people. And then don't just
watch the successful. Also look for the
unsuccessful and see how they fail to
interact with their crowd with the the
room and take lessons from both because
there's always some good and there's
always some bad. And you kind of need to
watch both so that you can grow and
learn and not just say, "Oh, I'm always
following this guy, but oh, I've got
this bad habit over here that I don't
know." Because they don't do it. I don't
know I'm doing it. and you miss out on
it. Uh the other thing too is, you know,
reading the room. I I've talked about
this in the past. If you aren't sure how
you're presenting or if you're paying
attention again, stand in front of a
mirror, record what you're doing, stare
at your computer, give your
presentation, see your what your body
language is like, and adjust. If you sit
there and fiddle with your keys in your
pocket during a presentation, you're
you're going to look fidgety, and
they're not going to pay attention.
They're going to be looking at what your
hand's doing and not really listening to
what you're saying.
I will go off a off mute again. Almost
got bit by that. Yeah, I
think this is this is getting a little
bit
into public speaking things is really
more like watch yourself, see what you
look like, look if look for mannerisms
and uh whether they are uh positives or
negatives. Like you can be very much a a
hand speaker and very flamboyant stuff
like that and that may work very well uh
but it may be intimidating to some
people. So, making sure that your
mannerisms and your approach fit the
audience and the message that you're
trying to send. If you're dealing with a
very jumpy audience and you've got very
big quick motions, they're going to
freak out. You're going to like add to
their angst, their angst, and you don't
really want to do that. That's not a
good thing. Uh but it could be something
where you you know maybe it is something
in that case that you do something
that's much more calming and slow and
you can work with that with your tone,
your voice, all your
mannerisms. And that is really where I
want to slide for the bonus material is
think about things when you're wanting
to read the room and especially when
you're wanting to lead the room while
you're reading them is consider ways
that you can like
pace, volume, eye contact.
uh even using other things, you know,
body motion or uh props like a, you
know, a presentation or something like
that. It's like what are some of the
things you can do
to add to to to work with reading the
room to be able to adjust your message
as part of that? Because it's that's
really the first step. Read the room is
the first thing. How you respond to
their response is what's really
important. It's like, how do you now
lead the room to where you want to take
him? I'm going to let Michael give his
favorite, you know, closing speech this
time because it's his
turn. Hey everyone, thanks for listening
to us. Make sure you like, share, follow
us on
developer.com, Facebook at developer,
watch, check out our YouTubetubes. Um,
we're on X, we're on LinkedIn, you know.
If we need to be somewhere else, let us
know. Go out and have a great night,
great day, and we'll talk to you next
time. Have a good one, folks.
[Music]