🤝#22: The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker - Book Summary & Key Takeaways

“The Art of Gathering is part journey and part guidebook. It is for anyone who has ever wondered how to take an ordinary moment with others and make it unforgettable—and meaningful.” - page v

“We spend our lives gathering—first in our families, then in neighborhoods and playgroups, schools and churches, and then in meetings, weddings, town halls, conferences, birthday parties, product launches, board meetings, class and family reunions, dinner parties, trade fairs, and funerals. And we spend much of that time in uninspiring, underwhelming moments that fail to capture us, change us in any way, or connect us to one another.” - page v

“With the occasional exception, my mood in conferences usually swings between boredom, despair, and rage.”

“The 2015 State of Enterprise Work survey found that “wasteful meetings” were employees’ top obstacle to getting work done.”

“A 2013 study, The State of Friendship in America 2013: A Crisis of Confidence, found that 75 percent of respondents were unsatisfied with those relationships.”

“Most of us remain on autopilot when we bring people together, following stale formulas, hoping that the chemistry of a good meeting, conference, or party will somehow take care of itself, that thrilling results will magically emerge from the usual staid inputs. It is almost always a vain hope.” - page v

“The way we gather matters. Gatherings consume our days and help determine the kind of world we live in, in both our intimate and public realms. Gathering—the conscious bringing together of people for a reason—shapes the way we think, feel, and make sense of our world.” - page v

“We gather to solve problems we can’t solve on our own. We gather to celebrate, to mourn, and to mark transitions. We gather to make decisions. We gather because we need one another. We gather to show strength. We gather to honor and acknowledge. We gather to build companies and schools and neighborhoods. We gather to welcome, and we gather to say goodbye.

But here is the great paradox of gathering: There are so many good reasons for coming together that often we don’t know precisely why we are doing so. You are not alone if you skip the first step in convening people meaningfully: committing to a bold, sharp purpose.” - page 3

“Let’s look at how we might move from the what to the why of something as simple as a neighborhood potluck:

Why are you having a neighborhood potluck? 

Because we like potlucks, and we have one every year.

Why do you have one every year? 

Because we like to get our neighbors together at the beginning of the summer.

Why do you like to get your neighbors together at the beginning of the summer? 

I guess, if you really think about it, it’s a way of marking the time and reconnecting after the hectic school year.

Aha.

And why is that important? 

Because when we have more time in the summer to be together, it’s when we remember what community is, and it helps us forge the bonds that make this a great place to live. Aha.

And safer. Aha.

And a place that embodies the values we want our children to grow up with, like that strangers aren’t scary. Aha. Now we’re getting somewhere.” - page 4

“Who not only fits but also helps fulfill the gathering’s purpose? Who threatens the purpose? Who, despite being irrelevant to the purpose, do you feel obliged to invite?” - page 44

“The thoughtful gatherer understands that inclusion can in fact be uncharitable, and exclusion generous.” - page 38

“Sometimes we over-include because we don’t want to deal with the consequences of excluding certain people, especially those gifted at making a stink. We cave in to the founder who no longer works at the company but wants to come to the leadership offsite, even though its purpose is to establish the new CEO’s authority after the founder’s exit.” - page 38

“We will delve into a way of seasoning your gathering more deeply: designing it as a world that will exist only once.” - page 113

“Conversation: We ask that guests do not discuss their careers until after the presentation portion of the evening.

Attendance: People who confirm and do not attend are unlikely to be invited again.

First names only: Personal information—last names, professions, etc.—are saved for last. In the interest of maintaining pure collaboration, use first names only until The Reveal” - page 114-115

“Rules-based gatherings, controlling as they might seem, are actually bringing new freedom and openness to our gatherings.”

“Dîner en Blanc is a magical example of what a gathering can achieve when it is governed by explicit rules.

On the appointed evening, thousands of locals dress elegantly in white from head to toe, with a dash of the spectacular—perhaps a boa, a fascinator, a top hat, a cane, angel wings, or white gloves. They arrive in pairs at one of a number of designated locations throughout the city. They are carrying picnic baskets full of champagne, elegant home-cooked food, glassware, white tablecloths, white flowers, and their own fold-up tables and chairs. They do not know ahead of time where this massive flash mob of a dinner party will take place. But they are sure it will be good.” - page 125

“They lurk there because everyone is presenting the best self they think others expect to meet.” - page 194 

“How do you get people to be vulnerable when they show up invulnerable? How do you create a work dinner that feels more like a rehearsal dinner? How do you take people who have come to hawk one idea or organization and restore them, for a night, into the complex, multifaceted human beings they actually are? How do you allow for weakness and doubt in people who normally exude certainty and confidence?” - page 196

“A few years ago, my husband and I were going to India to visit our grandparents and extended family. We decided to gather both sides of our family for a dinner. There would be seventeen of us in total. Being well acquainted with large family dinners, I knew that if we didn’t do anything to design the evening, cousins would gravitate to their own cousins, grandparents would talk among themselves, and most of the conversation would be small talk. We would eat, drink, get sleepy, and call it a night. Not necessarily a bad evening, but we wanted to make it special.

We asked the group to share a story, a moment, or an experience from their life that “changed the way you view the world.” Then we added the clincher: It had to be a story that no one else at the gathering knew. This was, in a sense, a rather wild requirement for a gathering of family members in a tight-knit society in which relatives are a bigger part of life than friends. But we thought it might give the dinner a shot at getting people who thought they knew everything about one another to see one another with fresh eyes.

One aunt, a geneticist, spoke of being told as a teenager that she couldn’t be a doctor because she was a woman. Another aunt, a civil servant, talked about passing the Indian Administrative Service test, completing officer training, only to be put in a district magistrate’s office for months on end, never being let into the field.

As the toasts went on, I began to realize that something remarkable was happening: Fathers and mothers and sons and nieces were learning about their own family members in ways they’d never expected. 

When a family elder, now in his nineties, shared his story, he recalled a time fifty years prior when he was working at a large company and realized that the advertisement reels he was sending out to movie theaters were often not making it there or, if they were, not being played. He told us how he solved the problem. Suddenly, in this aging man who often stays quiet, in part because he is hard of hearing, the table saw a young, sprightly, inventive businessman.”

- page 217-219

“She sees her job as helping clients explore their darker fantasies in a safe space.” - page 214

“I think it makes the world a better place,” she said with a laugh. That sounded too simplistic. Why did letting people be dark make the world a better place? She thought for a moment. “Because if they know who they really are, they don’t have to compensate with anger or self-hatred,” she said.” - page 214

“Darkness is better inside the tent than outside of it. We all have it. It’s going to be at your gathering. And if you bar it from the formal proceedings, it doesn’t disappear.” - page 215