Vancouver crows near dusk, by Christina Hendricks, licensed CC BY 4.0
I am currently in a Book Circle that is reading Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters (2018). We have read and discussed the first four out of eight chapters so far, and I am using this blog post to write about a few things that are really standing out to me as especially useful.
The book is about all kinds of gatherings, from family dinners to birthday parties to fundraising events to team meetings. Personally I am most interested in thinking about Parker’s advice as it relates to meetings, or facilitating workshops or classes, as those are the kinds of things I spend most of my work life doing. I don’t host a lot of other kinds of gatherings. And I have found many excellent things to consider and work to put into practice in relation to meetings, workshops, and classes!
Purpose: the why
The first chapter is called “Decide why you’re really gathering,” and it is focused on what Parker says is the important first step when planning any kind of gathering: having a “sharp, b0ld, meaningful gathering purpose” (17). Why are people coming together? Is this a purpose that needs a meeting? If so, how to design the gathering to meet that purpose?
Without a clear purpose, it’s too easy to fall into the mistake of having a category as a purpose, Parker says. Examples of categories include a regular team meeting, a retirement dinner, a panel discussion, a keynote speaker, a book launch, etc. These tend to have certain forms and it is easy to choose a category and a form without a clear sense of purpose: we’ll have a panel discussion and it looks like this because that’s what panels are like. But what is the purpose of the event, and is a panel discussion the right form? And even if it is, do we need to change the way the panel discussion works in order to fit the purpose better?
Parker also lists several “ingredients” to having a good purpose for a gathering:
- “Specificity”: Rather than having a generic purpose, as much as possible, make it about a specific thing. This helps delineate what the gathering is and is not about, and can help in decision-making about activities and invitees. Parker gives the example of a baby shower whose purpose is too broad: “celebrating the coming of a baby” (20).
- “Uniqueness”: “How is this dinner or conference unique among the other meetings, dinners, and conferences you will host this year?” (18-19).
- “Disputable”: A disputable purpose is one that people could reasonably disagree with. An indisputable purpose may fit but doesn’t help you make decisions. Parker gives the example of a wedding being about celebrating love–sure, but does that help you make thorny decisions about the guest list?
You can get to a more specific, unique, and disputable purpose by continuing to ask why you are gathering, and keep asking why until you start getting to something better. Or you can use something like a backwards design approach that may be familiar to some from course design: “This of what you want to be different because you gathered, and work backward from that outcome” (23). This is an approach I’m pretty familiar with, and already often use for workshops and full courses (but less so for individual class meetings).
I struggle somewhat to think about regular team meetings in terms of developing such meaningful purposes. I mean, we could say for each team meeting that there are specific outcomes we want and then design the meeting to reach those, and that would already likely help me better design many meetings. An agenda is important, and most meetings have either a formal one or a more vague “topic” (such as less formal small ones). But what might be different if we thought about and clarified for each other the outcomes we’d like to have after each meeting?
It might also be useful to be more clear on purposes of something like regular team meetings in general. Why do we hold them? What are we trying to accomplish? What might be a specific, unique, and disputable purpose for why this group needs to get together on a regular basis? I wonder if this might help guide what topics are discussed, what decisions are made there vs elsewhere, and what the cadence of meetings should be.
I appreciate this quote from Chapter 1: “Make purpose your bouncer. Let it decide what goes into your gathering and what stays out” (32). This goes for big things and even small details about the event/meeting. I feel like this could be powerful but I haven’t tried it on a deep level yet.
The who and the where
Chapter 2 is partly about who is involved in gatherings, and it flows from the purpose. Parker notes that while many may want to be inclusive in a guest list in order to avoid hurt feelings, or just because we may enjoy some folks’ company, not focusing on who needs to be there to support the purpose can mean the gathering doesn’t end up achieving the purpose. Things can either become unfocused or having some people there may even detract from the purpose, e.g., because their expertise and interest don’t align with achieving the desired outcome.
Parker notes that closing doors, as she puts it, may not be easy; there could be hurt feelings or offense. But she also argues that doing so is actually a form of kindness to the group who does meet: “in trying not to offend, you fail to protect the gathering itself and the people in it” (38). According to Parker, those who aren’t fulfilling the purpose of a gathering are detracting from it even if they aren’t actively doing so, because work will need to be done to include them and that detracts from the sharp purpose (43).
The other half of chapter 2 is about where to hold gatherings, talking about how the venue can make a big difference. This is of course true in terms of design of rooms, but also in terms of symbolic placement, such as retreats for organizations that happen outside of the organization’s space, to help people step away from the usual ways of thinking and acting and try to come up with fresh ideas.
In fact, Parker suggests that “a venue can and should … displace people” as a means to “breaking people out of their habits” (62). This can be done by moving people away from their typical work or study spaces, for example, or it can be done by rearranging those spaces in an unfamiliar way.
It seems to me, though, that sometimes displacement and putting people into a space that feels unfamiliar and jarring may not be warranted, depending on the purpose of the gathering. Sometimes it may be important for folks to feel comfortable, to feel safe, say if there is going to be a need for vulnerability or if there is a difficult topic or conversation. I would imagine it depends on the purpose of the gathering whether a familiar or unfamiliar setting would be most conducive to achieving it.
Hosting: generous authority
Chapter 3 talks about how to host a gathering effectively, focusing on the authority/power relationship a host has. Parker says that sometimes people want to abdicate this authority and let guests do what they wish, but “this abdication often fails their guests rather than serves them” (74).
For example, if you set up a purpose and then don’t really hold people to supporting it, this isn’t going to be very helpful. And Parker also notes that if you try to set up a purpose and ground rules and then don’t actively enforce these, then “others will step in and enforce their own purposes, directions, and ground rules” (77), whether consciously or not, given the vacuum.
This one really resonates with me, as well as the purpose point in Chapter 1. I often want to provide space for folks to contribute, to express their views, to take activities in directions that they find would be helpful (say in a workshop), but this can go too far. A group can end up going in circles without making decisions, for example, or the activities that were so carefully designed to support outcomes don’t actually support those outcomes. You can often provide alternatives for people to choose that would still be effective (e.g., if someone doesn’t want to join a breakout room, they could contribute on a shared document by themselves), so it’s not like you must offer no options. And hearing from everyone is important, but some gentle guidance when things get off track, or when the conversation seems to not be moving forward, could really benefit the group and its purpose in meeting.
Parker talks about a host having “generous authority”: “A gathering run on generous authority is run with a strong, confident hand, but it is run selflessly, for the sake of others” (81). I really like this framing, as it addresses the feeling I sometimes have of not wanting to feel like I’m using too much power over others in a gathering and so sometimes going too far in the opposite direction. Thinking about using authority for the sake of others and the purpose of the gathering feels like a helpful way to remind myself of the importance of providing gentle, but clear guidance.
This is especially the case when considering the purposes of generous authority, according to Parker:
- Protecting your guests: E.g., from boredom, frustration, or distracting or otherwise unhelpful actions by each other.
- Equalizing your guests: Finding ways to address the power differentials among them that could detract from the purpose
- Connecting your guests: Where it’s an important part of the purpose of a gathering, generous authority may be needed to ensure that guests connect with each other, including with new people (which may not be accomplished if one just lets them do as they wish)
Creating an alternative space with rules
Chapter 4 is about generating and keeping participants to a set of rules for the gathering, in order to “transport us to a temporary alternative world,” “a world that will exist only once” (112). Parker focuses on what she calls “pop-up rules,” which are intentional, specific rules for specific gatherings. Unlike etiquette, which people have to be steeped in a culture to understand, pop-up rules are explained explicitly, everyone can follow them, and everyone knows they are temporary for this specific gathering.
To take a very simple example, you could say that for a particular family gathering, there will be no discussion of politics, or for a certain kind of meeting no one will multitask with email or instant messaging for the duration of the meeting, or in a support group no one will give their last names or say where they work. Or rules can be more elaborate, such as something like a class reunion where everyone has to dress in a style that was popular during high school. Or to take an example I’ve experienced as a guest, at a holiday party you have a bingo card and need to find people who have experienced the things on the card such that you get 5 in a row.
According to Parker, “Rules can create an imaginary, transient world that is actually more playful than your everyday gathering. That is because everyone realizes that the rules are temporary and is, therefore, willing to obey them” (120). Of course, whatever rules you might come up with should fit the purpose of the gathering, or, I would imagine, people may find them awkward and be less likely to go along.
Many of us probably have some unwritten rules in meetings and gatherings, such as to not be engaged and not too distracted by technology, to let the host know if you’re going to be late or leave early, etc. Are there some such rules that would benefit from being more intentionally framed and communicated? And new ones that we may not have used in the past that could really help support the purposes and outcomes of the meetings or events?
Conclusion
I’m really appreciating how the chapters so far fit together. It’s clear how and why planning needs to start with a purpose, and then who needs to be there, what rules or guidelines should be in place, and how the host should use their authority, all flow from the purpose. And I’m thinking about how to incorporate these ideas into more of my work meetings. An agenda may set out a clear purpose, or it may not and could use a bit more clarity as to what we want to be different after we have met. These are just some of the things I’m reflecting on while reading this really helpful book!
