Certified Body Language Academy by Joe Navarro Trainer1 of 25 WorldwideDoD-Recognized Counterintelligence Certification
★★★★★"The best presenter our troops have had in 20 years" · U.S. Army Lt. Colonel
Psychology Training for Teams
Most people can't tell when the person across the table has already decided no. Your team will.
Your team learns to see comfort, discomfort and hesitation as they show up in a meeting, then how to earn trust and persuade with the psychology the research backs. It is taught by a Certified Body Language Academy by Joe Navarro Trainer, one of 25 worldwide, who is also a working mentalist. Yes, your team gets read live.
One of 25 Certified Body Language Academy by Joe Navarro Trainers worldwide, with programs built for law enforcement, the private sector and intelligence agencies.
Organizations that have brought this training in
FBI Personnel
U.S. Army
FBI Personnel
U.S. Army
Try It Yourself
What do you notice in this meeting?
Take a good look at the room first. Then tap Show Me and we will point out what a trained eye picks up, one cue at a time, including the one most people read wrong. (This is a staged illustration we made for teaching, not a photo of a real meeting.)
Illustration
Five things a trained eye would notice
Who in this room is comfortable? Who is not? Who has already made up their mind? Take your guess, then tap Show Me.
Open palms. She is talking with her palms up and open, and gestures like this usually go along with someone who feels comfortable with what they are saying.
Pressed lips. His lips are pressed into a thin line, which often shows up when something is bothering someone. It is worth noticing exactly when it appears, like right after a price or a deadline comes up.
Hand on the neck. Touching the neck is what's called a pacifying behavior, basically the body's way of calming itself down under stress. Paired with the lips, it is a good moment to ask a question.
Crossed arms. This is the one everyone thinks they know, and it is the one most often read wrong. Crossed arms can mean someone is closed off, but they can also mean the person is cold, comfortable, or just sits that way. What matters is whether it changed, and when.
Feet. Her feet point toward the presenter. People's feet tend to turn toward what interests them and away from what they want to leave, and most people never think to look below the table.
None of these proves anything on its own. A trained eye looks for clusters, changes and context, and then asks a good question.
Call Chris Michael and have him break down your meetings in far more detail than this, down to the platysmal bands showing on a neck and the separation of the fingers on the table. These are research-backed ways to read comfort and discomfort that tell you when a deal is about to close, and when it is dead on arrival.
Your team gets to see it happen live, with people they work with.
Every session includes live demonstrations with volunteers from your team, so people watch comfort and discomfort show up on a coworker they know, and they get to feel what it is like to be read themselves (nobody gets called up who didn't raise their hand).
In our experience, that is what makes it stick. People forget a slide by the end of the week, but they will be retelling what happened to their coworker for months.
People decide whether to trust you in a fraction of a second, and almost nobody is taught how that works.
Researchers have spent decades studying how we size each other up. It happens faster than anyone thinks, it happens without words, and it costs real money when it goes wrong.
Trust decidedThe next 900ms
100ms
How long people need to look at a face before deciding whether it seems trustworthy. More time didn't change the decision. It only made them more sure.
Tone onlyWords muffled out
40 sec
Listeners heard 40 seconds of surgeons talking to patients, muffled so no words came through. From tone alone, they picked out which surgeons had been sued.
Stress74% less
Productivity50% more
Engagement76% more
74%
Less stress at high trust companies than at low trust ones, with productivity and engagement up too. Trust shows up on the bottom line, not just in how people feel.
People are reading comfort, discomfort and trust all day long, mostly without realizing it, and they act on what they read. The good news is that this is a skill, not a personality trait. When researchers pooled the studies on training people to read others more accurately, the training reliably worked. Almost nobody in business has ever been taught this, which is exactly what we teach.
Sources: Willis & Todorov, Psychological Science, 2006; Ambady et al., Surgery, 2002; Zak, Harvard Business Review, 2017; Blanch-Hartigan, Andrzejewski & Hill, 2012.
What Your Team Walks Out With
Business runs on face time. This is how your team wins more of it.
Here is how I think about it. Every goal in business comes down to time with people: more of it, with the people who matter, and more of that time going your way. Deals close there. Careers get made there. This training gives your team an edge in every one of those minutes.
Every eye in the room. The skill that does this on a stage is the same skill that does it across a desk.
01
An edge almost nobody has
Most people in business have never had a single hour of training in this. Your team will have a full day of it, and they will be the only people in most rooms who know what they are looking at.
02
It feels like a superpower
The first time you catch a client's hesitation before they say a word, it feels like a trick. After a day of practice it is just how your team works.
03
Negotiate with the other side's cards showing
Nobody can promise you will win every negotiation. We can teach your team to see what the other side is comfortable with, what made them flinch, and when to push, pause or walk away. That changes outcomes.
04
Get to the truth faster
Not by spotting lies, which nobody can do reliably from body language alone. By noticing the exact moment a conversation turns uncomfortable and asking the right question right then. It is how trained interviewers work, and it works in a sales call too.
05
Be the leader people are drawn to
Magnetic is not a personality type. It is a set of habits: reading the room, putting people at ease, and saying what moves them. We teach the habits, and your leaders practice them until they stick.
Once you can read someone, the next step is learning how to move them.
The same interviewers who learned to read people also had to learn how to earn trust from someone who had every reason not to give it, and how to keep that person talking because they wanted to. To me, that is influence in its most honest form, and it carries straight over into selling, negotiating and leading a team. We teach it as one sequence, in this order.
01
Read
This is where it starts. You learn to notice when someone is comfortable or uneasy with what is being said, to factor in context (the setting, their culture, how that person normally acts), and to be honest about what a behavior can and can't tell you.
02
Connect
Our brains are always checking whether someone is a threat, so trust has to come before any pitch. People will forgive a mistake much faster than a broken trust. Also, talking about ourselves activates the same reward system as food and money, so a lot of rapport comes from simply letting the other person talk.
03
Persuade
A lot of deals that look like they died over price actually died because the decision started to feel risky. Your team learns how to find out what the other person is worried about, how to lower that worry, how to present an offer so saying yes feels safe, and how to negotiate so both sides would happily work together again.
04
Lead
People take in a leader in a certain order: first what they see, then how you sound, and only after that the words you are saying. That is why a great message can fall flat when the delivery is off. Presence has real mechanics to it, and leaders can practice them until they become habits.
Client Results
What clients say after the training.
"
The best presenter we have had for our troops in 20 years. Chris received an Army decoration for exceptional civilian service after his session. Our senior officers are still talking about him.
Paul J. Kassebaum
Lieutenant Colonel · US Army
★★★★★
After his session with U.S. Army personnel, Chris was awarded an Army Civilian Service decoration, a distinction given to civilians whose contributions produce exceptional impact on military readiness and effectiveness. It was presented after a single training day.
1 Day
One training day, one Army decoration
+10%
Average EQ lift in post-training assessment
★★★★★
"The training answered all our expectations. Immediately applicable for our HR activities: it will help us detect micro-expressions on the faces of our clients and candidates. The course material was professional and complete."
Guissou Nabavi
Training & Development Manager · Mercuri Urval
★★★★★
"It's really cool to hear the science behind why all this works. Some of it makes you feel there is a whole world that exists but can only see when you know what to look for. This will help our business founders a lot."
Collin Mahen
Director of Programs · NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center
★★★★★
"Chris is magnetic. When he speaks to the audience he connects and it feels real. You can hear a pin drop when he is speaking to the crowd. He is simply the best at making audiences understand this material."
Hayley Berger
Manufacturing Coordinator · Pepsi
Client Outcome
An enterprise sales team added behavioral intelligence training to their Q3 development calendar.
A 40-person B2B sales organization attended a full-day Decode Behavior workshop focused on reading hesitation signals, detecting hidden objections, and identifying behavioral commitment cues. Six weeks after the session, the sales director reported a measurable improvement in close rates on complex deals, and noted that the team was asking different questions in discovery calls, catching signals they had consistently missed before.
Industry: Technology · Team size: 40 · Format: Full-day workshop
20%
Average sales lift post-training
Training Programs
Four programs, each built for a different kind of team.
Train sales professionals to read buyers, earn trust quickly, and persuade without pressure, using the same psychology elite negotiators and interviewers rely on.
Read buying signals before they're spoken
Detect resistance and hidden objections early
Persuasion that lowers the buyer's risk instead of adding pressure
Teach leaders how to read rooms, build trust, and influence people at every level, with or without the title. Built for executives who need science, not motivational theory.
Project authority and executive presence on command
Read team dynamics quickly under pressure
Influence and move resistance without losing the room
The methods that replaced interrogation folklore: rapport that gets people talking, accounts you can actually test, and an honest read on what behavior can and cannot tell you. Built for professionals who conduct interviews and need the truth.
Rapport and questioning that produce more information
ORBIT rapport, PEACE, and the Strategic Use of Evidence
Why nervousness is not evidence, and what to do instead
Tactical Behavioral Intelligence for Government & Defense
The same behavioral science used by intelligence agencies, adapted for defense, law enforcement, and government operational contexts. Custom-scoped for your mission requirements, clearance levels, and operational environment.
Behavioral cue recognition under operational pressure
Baseline, cluster and context reads for screening and protection
Science-based interviewing and lawful elicitation: ORBIT, SUE, and rapport-based methods
Custom programs for interrogation, surveillance, and field deployment
A 20-Minute MeetingYou tell Chris about your team and the conversations that matter most to you. There is no obligation, and you will leave with a couple of ideas either way.
2
Custom Program DesignEvery program is tailored to your team's environment, industry, and challenges. You receive a detailed, transparent proposal within 48 hours.
3
Live Training DeliveryDelivered onsite at your location or virtually. Keynote sessions, half-day workshops, or full-day intensives, scoped to your needs.
4
Frameworks Your Team KeepsPeople leave with frameworks they can use the next day, and that they keep using long after the session.
All formats are customized for your team and available onsite or virtually.
Keynote Session (60 to 90 min)
High-impact session for conferences, summits, and all-hands events. From $7,500.
Half-Day Workshop (3 to 4 hrs)
Deeper skill-building with applied exercises and team practice. From $450/person.
Full-Day Intensive (6 to 8 hrs)
Comprehensive training with applied practice built from your team's real conversations. Custom scoped.
Government & Defense Programs
Custom-scoped for operational context and clearance requirements. From $9,500.
Let's Meet
Let's talk about what your team needs.
Send over a few details and Chris will get back to you personally within one business day. It is a real conversation about whether this training is a good fit for your team, and if it isn't, he will tell you.
You'll be meeting with Chris himself.He reads every request and replies personally.
What you get from the meeting
A real conversation about the conversations your team finds hardest, whether that's sales calls, negotiations, interviews or meetings
A couple of ideas your team can start using right away, whether or not you ever work with us
If it looks like a good fit, a clear plan and price for training within 48 hours
Either way, Chris will reply within one business day with a few times to meet.
About Chris Michael
Who is teaching this, and where it comes from.
Chris Michael
Behavioral Strategist & Corporate Mentalist Washington D.C. · Available worldwide
Chris is a professional mentalist, which basically means that for years his job has been reading strangers in front of an audience and guiding what they think and do, live, with no second takes. That got him curious about the people who do this when the stakes are real, and he has spent a good part of his career studying, researching and talking with investigators and interviewers about what actually works.
Today he is a Certified Body Language Academy by Joe Navarro Trainer and holds a counterintelligence certification through the McAfee Institute, which is recognized by the U.S. Department of Defense. He has delivered this training for Fortune 500 sales teams, FBI personnel, defense agencies, NASDAQ founders and executive teams across more than 20 industries.
What makes the sessions stick is that he shows the science instead of only explaining it, live, with volunteers from your team. Once people see it happen to someone they work with, they really can't unsee it.
Certified Body Language Academy by Joe Navarro Trainer
One of 25 trainers worldwide. Completed the Academy's Expert Program, Business Course and in-person Train the Trainer program.
Counterintelligence Certified
McAfee Institute certification recognized by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD COOL).
Science-Based Interviewing
Published a free 45-page field guide on the rapport-based interviewing methods modern investigators are trained in. Download it here.
Army Civilian Service Award
Received following a training session with U.S. Army personnel. Awarded for exceptional impact.
None of this was made up for a corporate workshop. It started with scientists like Darwin, got sharpened by investigators who needed it to work on real cases, and then got tested hard by researchers who wanted to know what actually holds up. Here is how it got from there to your team.
Decode Behavior is Chris Michael's independent practice. Joe Navarro does not personally deliver, attend or endorse Decode Behavior programs.
1872
Charles Darwin publishes The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, the first serious study of how what we feel shows up on the body.
1977
Desmond Morris publishes Manwatching, a field guide to everyday human gesture that is still assigned reading today.
1984
Robert Cialdini publishes Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, which is still the book most people point to for why we say yes to each other.
1975 to 2003
Joe Navarro spends 25 years as an FBI special agent working counterintelligence and behavioral analysis, and becomes a founding member of the Bureau's Behavioral Analysis Program. His book What Every BODY Is Saying later becomes an international bestseller.
2003 to 2019
Researchers put it all to the test. Large reviews of hundreds of studies separated what works from folklore, and government funded research produced the science-based interviewing methods investigators are trained in today.
Today
The Body Language Academy by Joe Navarro certifies a small group of trainers worldwide to teach his method. Chris Michael is one of 25.
Next
Your team
Photos: Darwin by Julia Margaret Cameron (public domain); Desmond Morris by Eric Koch, Nationaal Archief (CC BY-SA 3.0); Robert Cialdini by Viktor Bühler (CC BY-SA 3.0); Joe Navarro by Kris Krüg (CC BY 2.0). Book covers shown for identification.
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions people usually ask first.
These are the questions HR leaders, L&D managers and operations teams ask us most.
Decode Behavior training delivers the highest impact for organizations where reading people accurately produces measurable business outcomes: sales teams, negotiation teams, leadership groups, investigators, HR professionals, and government or defense agencies. Programs scale from teams of 10 to conferences of 5,000+.
Yes, every program is customized. Before delivery, Chris's team conducts a discovery call to understand your industry, your team's roles, and the specific outcomes you need. The behavioral science is universal; the examples, scenarios, and framing are built for your team's environment. Programs have been tailored for finance, healthcare, technology, government, legal, real estate, insurance, and more.
It is both, and we think that is the point. Everything we teach is based on published research, and you can read that research in the Field Library before you hire us. Chris is a Certified Body Language Academy by Joe Navarro Trainer (one of 25 worldwide) and holds a counterintelligence certification recognized by the U.S. Department of Defense. The credentials give skeptical executives a reason to take it seriously, and the live demonstrations let them feel the science for themselves.
It is not motivational or general team-building content, and it is not a broad communication skills workshop. This is applied behavioral observation and signal recognition, built for teams whose conversations have real stakes. If the quality of a conversation does not change your results, this is not the right fit.
Honestly, no, and you should be careful with anyone who promises that. Body language on its own never proves someone is lying, and the research shows most people (professionals included) are close to chance at it. What your team will learn is more useful than that: how to notice comfort and discomfort as it happens, how to account for context, culture and how a particular person normally acts, and how to use questions and evidence so the truth is easy to tell and a made up story is hard to keep straight.
No. Pressure and tricks might win you one conversation, but they cost you the relationship, and people will forgive a lot before they forgive a broken trust. Everything we teach about persuasion, negotiation and leadership works by helping the other person feel safer and more sure of their decision, which is why it keeps working the next time you need them.
Chris is a Certified Body Language Academy by Joe Navarro Trainer, which means the Academy has trained and licensed him to teach its material. Decode Behavior is his own independent practice, and every session is delivered by Chris. Joe Navarro does not personally deliver, attend or endorse Decode Behavior programs.
Chris is a licensed provider for the Center for Body Language, which offers its own certification in nonverbal behavior, so ask about it on the discovery call. Attending a Decode Behavior program does not make anyone a certified Body Language Academy trainer; only the Academy grants that.
Keynote sessions start at $7,500. Government and defense programs start at $9,500. Half-day and full-day workshops are scoped individually from $450/person. Travel is billed at cost. All proposals are detailed and transparent, no surprise line items.
Schedule a meeting → Chris replies within one business day with times → 20-minute call → Custom proposal within 48 hours → Agreement + deposit to secure the date → Customization call 2 to 3 weeks before delivery → Chris handles everything from there. The process is designed to be simple for L&D and operations teams.
Yes. In addition to keynotes and single-day workshops, Decode Behavior offers multi-session training series and ongoing engagement models for organizations that want to build behavioral intelligence as a team-wide capability over time.
Yes, all programs are available in onsite and virtual delivery formats. Virtual programs are adapted to maintain the live demonstration element that makes the training effective. We've delivered programs for distributed teams across multiple time zones and countries.
