“Read the room.” It’s the perfect short-hand response to thoughtless or tone-deaf remarks that are out of sync with the tenor of a situation. In fact, “room reading” is a core competency of highly effective people who understand that recognizing and leveraging the countless cues around them is the key to connecting with others — and with success in general.
Reading the room is when a negotiator picks up on an off-handed comment, understanding that it holds the seeds of shared interest. It’s when a health care provider listens beyond the words also to hear the context of the patient’s disease. It also happens when a counselor senses that there’s an important message hidden in that longer-than-usual pause. Reading the room is also when a leader recognizes the nearly limitless context cues in the workplace that offer opportunities for organic career development.
And this kind of sensitivity to context cues is vital because for too many employees, career development operates as an event. It’s an occasion on the organizational calendar. A formal meeting. A process with paperwork that documents a moment in time. And while these represent important contributing factors to someone’s growth, they just begin to scratch the surface of what’s possible — and what’s necessary.
Leaders who allow themselves to see career development exclusively in terms of these events are essentially not reading the room. They are ignoring the countless cues to present themselves each day as informal opportunities to support growth. And they are missing the chance to offer the experience of development that employees crave.
Effective leaders supplement the scheduled development events with short, spontaneous interactions that drive growth based on context cues in the environment. And the good news is that today’s workplace is chock-full of clues just waiting to be read. For example:
| Read the room | Lead for growth |
| When an employee shares win…. | Ask about the skills, talents and superpowers that contributed to the success and help deepen their understanding of their strengths. |
| When an employee is struggling… | Invite them to reflect on the skills they need to be more successful as a way to crystallize and prioritize gaps. |
| When an employee takes on a new task or project… | Encourage them to articulate what they hope to learn and co-create an engaging development goal. |
| When an employee expresses concern about the future… | Explore forward-looking skill needs and how to acquire them. |
As we say in the new 3rd edition of Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go, this iterative, cue-sensitive approach offers enormous benefits to individuals, leaders and the organization.
- It results in shorter conversations that fit better with the cadence of business today.
- Iterative conversations anchored in what’s happening around them allow employees to layer awareness, insights and action more naturally.
- Treating development as a series of cue-driven conversations acknowledges the reality of the dynamic nature of today’s workplace.
- The ongoing nature of cue-driven conversation keeps development alive in everyone’s mind (as opposed to tucking it away for a formal meeting), which can be particularly helpful when working with hybrid and remote employees.
- These frequent exchanges anchored in a leader’s observation of what’s happening around them demonstrate sincere attention and care while sustaining momentum, fueling progress and acting as an ongoing reminder of the organization’s commitment to employee learning, growth and progress.
So, if you’re a leader who wants to make more room for career development, start looking for subtle opportunities to infuse development into your conversations. In this way, you’ll be leading … by reading the room.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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