Read the Room

The teacher was screaming from backstage, ”Linish, don't be an idiot. Do not invite the dignitaries back on stage. They're already on stage."

I was in seventh grade, president of the Interact Club, a division of the Rotary Club. It was tradition for the president to deliver what was essentially a state of the club address. The entire high school would be in attendance, along with dignitaries from the local Rotary Club. The protocol was: the dignitaries would be seated in the front row of the auditorium, I'd invite them on stage to take their seats while I introduce each one of them, get the audience to applaud, and then I'd deliver the address.

Except, that didn't go to plan.

The dignitaries walked into the auditorium, saw their names already placed on the chairs on stage, walked straight up, and took their seats. The script I'd prepared, the formal invitation, the ceremonial walk-up was now obsolete.

I remember the moment because of what the teacher assumed: that I'd panic and default to the script anyway. That I'd robotically invite people already sitting five feet away to come on stage.

That option never occurred to me. The room had changed, so the plan changed. I introduced them, got everyone to applaud, and moved on to the address.

After the event, the teacher praised my "presence of mind." I didn't understand what I'd done that was praiseworthy. It seemed obvious to me.

What I didn't realize then was - I'd stumbled onto something that would matter far more than any public speaking technique: knowing the room is more important than knowing your speech.

Through school, engineering, and business school, I racked up hundreds of hours on stage. Fests, competitions, college events where I free-styled entire programs without cue cards. By the time I reached my MBA, I'd presented a deck I hadn't even seen until it appeared on screen during the presentation. (But our team got a perfect score on that one.)

I thought this meant I was naturally good at public speaking. That I could "think on my feet" and "handle pressure”.

Then I started speaking to rooms full of strangers, and I realized I did not have the invisible advantage anymore - knowing my audience.

All through school and college, I knew the audience. I’d studied with them, eaten lunch with them, argued with them (mostly about nothing). When I changed the tone, dropped a reference, said something “funny”, I knew it would land. Because I understood the people.

At work, that advantage started to fade. Different departments, people whose paths I hadn’t crossed with.

Then came external events. Conference keynotes. Industry panels. Rooms where I recognised no one.

The first few times, I prepared the way I always had: note down talking points for the speech, rehearse it, maybe have a backup story if things felt flat. It was fine. But only fine. I'd lost something. The adjustment I was used to making on stage, only worked if I actually understood the room. And I didn't.

So I changed how I prepared.

Before any external event now, I show up early. To talk to people. Small conversations. What do you do? What brings you here? What's been the most interesting session so far?

Sampling. I'm trying to understand who these people are, what language they use, what they care about.

Then I use what I learn. If I'm speaking to a room of marketers and three of them are dealing with the same budget cut problem, that becomes an anecdote.

I also stopped preparing one speech. I have versions. Sometimes two, sometimes four. Same core message, but with different entry points, different energy levels, different anecdotes. How the opening 20 seconds lands, tell me which version I should deliver.

I still get it wrong sometimes. Once, I opened a keynote with a story, filled with humor and conversational tone. The room stayed frozen. I'd misread them. They wanted data first, proof I knew what I was talking about, permission to trust me before I got casual. I had to pivot 60 seconds in, skip to version three of my speech, and earn my way back. It worked, but barely.

The difference between now and seventh grade isn't that I don't mess up. I've gotten better at guessing right and recovering fast when I'm wrong.

The skills I built in school, like adjusting when the plan breaks, staying calm, reading body language are still very useful. But they're not enough. The real skill is this: how quickly can you understand a room full of strangers.

Over the last year, I've started working with leaders who need to do more of this: keynotes, panels, presentations, all-hands addresses. The ask is usually some version of "help me not suck at this." What's interesting is that almost no one asks me to help them write better speeches. They ask me to help them read rooms they don't know. To figure out what version to give when they can't tell in the first 20 seconds. To know what questions to ask before they go on stage so they're not speaking to an abstract audience.

I didn't expect this to become part of my work, but it makes sense. The reps take years. The frameworks for reading strangers? Those can be taught faster.