Last year we, the community of The Greater Sum, read about changing minds. This year we read about gathering people together. Interesting!
As I read The Art of Gathering, I had practical reasons to look both backward and forward. Backward because my most recent employer had been respected for hosting several very successful regional conferences annually, year after year, and I had been part of the planning and execution for seven of those years. How had we done, really? I also had good reason to look forward: I’ll be hosting a family gathering later this year to celebrate a milestone birthday (my own) per family tradition. I want to host it myself, in my own home, and make it different from other family birthday parties. Would Priya Parker’s book help me do this?
Let’s jump right to the conclusion: a) While my employer did successfully bring people together for productive sharing, the team will do better if they read this book; and, b) I now have the knowledge to make my birthday party an unforgettable tribe-building experience for my siblings and their families - but will I be able to pull it off?
The fascinating thing about Parker’s recipe for amazing gatherings is that it applies to every type of meeting, party, seminar, dinner, conference or cookout. And, yes, the “recipe” moves in chronological order, from pre-planning through opening the event, conducting the desired activities, and closing. We all get chronology, so let me focus on those areas where Parker deviates dramatically from the traditional ways that you and I are accustomed to gathering people. Here’s what makes up the “special sauce” of this excellent book.
A gathering is not about things or logistics; it’s about people. If you believe the only things you can control are the menu, the parking space and the coat check, you’ll likely miss a seminal opportunity to connect people in a once-in-a-lifetime way. And what does that require? A “bold, sharp purpose,” the author says, and a structure “designed to bring people together around that need.” Both specificity and uniqueness are required, as well as a commitment to drill down and down, deeper and deeper, until you have truly moved from the “what” of the gathering to the “why.” The author instructs, “Consider how you want yourself and your guests to be altered by the experience.” (Truthfully, I’d never considered a gathering from that perspective.)
And then she boldly advises that, in planning whom to invite, think carefully about whom to exclude: “Thoughtful, considered exclusion is vital to any gathering… over-inclusion is a symptom of… a confusion about why you are gathering and a lack of commitment to your purpose and your guests.” She explains that having the wrong people in the mix can suck up your time and attention while they, at the same time, are detracting without meaning to detract. (I immediately re-thought the plan to invite a few near neighbors who’ve met some of my family. No, I want this to be all about family connections and remembrance of our forebears - no, they wouldn’t contribute to that, and we’d be explaining and explaining all evening long.) It’s not personal, Parker says; it’s about your purpose.
Where to hold the event? Sometimes we feel compelled to choose the nearest conference center with the best price and the appropriate capacity, BUT, try to “pick a place that elicits the behavior you want and plays down the behavior you don’t want.” And then, inside the venue, create exactly the space your purpose requires, because your purpose is to “displace people… breaking people out of their habits.” (For my birthday party, the venue will be a key part of my purpose: One year ago, many of these family members were swarming over my house and yard, getting it ready for me to move in. Now I will invite them back, not as workers but as guests, to enjoy the fruits of their labor.)
Parker urges us to consider the perimeter, area and density - so you don’t “let the energy leak out.” She offers a number of specific recommendations to make the venue fit your purpose.
The author spends a good bit of space on how to host. (I should add that, throughout the book, she provides clear examples of what has worked and hasn’t worked and why.) She warns the host not to abdicate, expecting people just to talk among themselves, creating a skipperless ship. She refers to “generous authority,” an event run strongly but selflessly for the sake of others. All of this “hosting,” she explains is meant to help you protect, equalize and connect your guests. Ungenerous authority, she says, occurs when you fear losing control or you’re timid. It’s all about creating “a temporary, alternative world.” (I think back to those great conferences we hosted and wonder how close we came to accomplishing that. I think not very close.)
Finally Parker patiently walks us through the key mileposts of any event, with superb advice at each step: Usher your guests in; help them cross the threshold to your alternative world. Open intentionally - never with logistics; prime your guests for the behavior and experience you want right from the start. Some of this “priming” can begin with the invitation and continue with a follow-up email, then an actual threshold-crossing experience. Then, when you open the event, the participants are already in the new world, ready to help you accomplish your purpose. She urges the reader to consider activities that help guests share “crucible moments” rather than “puffery.” (Actually, keep your best self out of my gathering is the way she puts it.) She even advocates “fruitful controversy” (perhaps appropriate for a learning conference among professionals, but I’m not sure I want to go there for my birthday party).
After superb advice about how to host generously and purposefully, the author instructs on a “closing,” not just an ending when people simply begin to drift away. She refers to the “last call” as a way to signal the end is coming, and then advocates “a strong closing” that “looks both inward and outward.” As each guest crosses the line from your temporary, alternative world back to the real world, you should be “marking an emotional release.”
Well! I still say the team I was on a few years ago did produce meaningful and productive conferences. We did not, however, bring people together in a life-changing way and create a “tribe” feeling. We opened well, but we never closed well. We worked hard at connecting people, but I’m not sure we protected anyone or equalized the guests.
As for my upcoming birthday party, I still have a few weeks to plan. I’ll be honest: I’m still struggling with the theme, still wondering what alternative world I want to create. I do know that I want very much to equalize people, so the more timid, soft-spoken family members do not remain in the shadows, and so the confident, natural-leader types don’t accidentally push them there. I’ll have the added challenge of probably hosting some of these guests - from far away - as house guests, so I’ll have to consider how I can get them to “cross the threshold” and be on an equal footing with the others.
One thing I know for sure about the party I plan to host: I want us to have some “crucible moments” for warm remembrances of the generations that built our family and are now gone. I hope some of the “in-laws” and the youngsters hear stories they’ve never heard before. And I want us to close feeling committed to each other, trusting and appreciating each other, now that my generation comprises the “elders.” I hope to have something tangible, too, that each person will take back home to the “real world” to remember the evening they spent in my home, recalling the love and generosity of grandparents and great-grandparents and learning something endearing about those of us now carrying on the family traditions. I will be working hard to master “the art of gathering.”
