Observations on Family Dynamics and Conflict Resolution • Conflict isn’t always observable in relationships. • Relationship dynamics involve many codes. • Cultural and ideological differences can exist within families. • Dream interpretation was a common topic in the speaker’s household growing up. • The speaker experienced vastly different cultural and religious environments within their family. • The speaker became a conflict resolution facilitator in college.
Speaker 1
And so that was the first signal to me like, Oh, all is not what it might appear to be. All is not necessarily always well. And that conflict isn’t always observable, that there’s many codes that are happening within a relationship. But then within two years, they remarried other people. And I would leave my mother and stepfather’s house and it was and still is an Indian, British, kind of globally minded, new agey, meditating, progressive household.
Speaker 3
And I would, I mean, I would come downstairs in that home. And the first question that I would be asked in the morning is like, tell us about your dream.
Speaker 1
Like tell us about your dream last night. Like literally like in our conversations would be a dream interpretation.
Speaker 3
And then I would travel to my father and stepmother’s house and it was and still is a white American evangelical Christian, conservative Republican church going off in twice a week.
Speaker 1
Dogs in the house, meat eating kind of like all Americana. And I became a conflict resolution facilitator in college in part, IDetangling Gathering from the Stuff of Gathering • The speaker was trained as a group facilitator and knows how to quickly connect people and get them off of their scripts. • The speaker aims to detangle gathering from the stuff of gathering, such as food and hosting, and focus on creating the conditions where people are open to being altered by each other.
Speaker 1
I knew that what I was trained to do as a group facilitator, how to connect people quickly, how to get people off their scripts, right? If you’re coming together, how do you prime these people and how what do you do in a room to get them to not say what their prepared stump speech was, but kind of shift them into a lane of conversation Where they’re surprised themselves by what they’re sharing or revealing? How do you create the conditions where people are open to what one of my teachers, Keith Johnson calls being altered by each other? And I knew that so much of what kind of outside of this field of facilitation were taught around groups and gatherings tends to be about stuff, right? It’s almost like the proxy in the bookstore or the library is cookbooks, right? If you’re going to gather, here’s a cookbook. And what I wanted to do is detangle gathering from the stuff of gathering, from food, from hosting the Martha Stewart archetype that the way to host well is to put crudites, you know, Prepare you crudites, three days in advance. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But it becomes so gelled into this is the only form of gathering and to be an expert in food, to be an expert in floral, to be an expert in aesthetics. And all of those things create beauty and meaning, but they’re the hygiene, right?A gathering does not need to be meaningful in the same way to everyone for its art to be relevant. Worship gatherings illustrate the risk of assumed meaning — when shared purpose is taken for granted rather than examined, the form calcifies and the art loses its edge. The challenge is whether divergent interpretations of a gathering actually produce better art than convergent ones.The Importance of Defining the Purpose of Gatherings • Assuming the purpose of a gathering is obvious and shared is a common mistake. • Skipping too quickly to form instead of understanding the purpose of a gathering. • Pausing to ask why a gathering is taking place and what its purpose is can lead to a more meaningful experience.
Speaker 3
The biggest mistake we make when we gather is we assume that the purpose is obvious and shared.
Speaker 1
Oh, I know what a wedding is. And so does everyone else. Oh, I know what a board meeting is. Oh, I know what a dinner party is. And then because we assume we know what it’s for, we skip too quickly to form, right? Long-eyed white dress or red dress going in a circle seven times around a fire or board meeting, you know, one long brown table, 12 white men. And instead, when we pause and actually ask, okay, why are we doing this? What is the purpose? What is the purpose of this of my birthday party or my birthday? Not even birthday party. What is the purpose of my birthday this year? What do I most want to mark? What do I most need in my life? Do I want to reconnect with my friends who I’ve actually lost touch with? And as I feel like I’m kind of starting to lose my way, I actually want to double down. And what would it look like if I actually hosted a party for just the friends who I knew before I was 20 andReflecting on the Purpose of Celebrations • Pausing to ask the purpose behind events can lead to more meaningful experiences. • Asking oneself what they most want or need in their life can help guide decision-making. • Reflection on past experiences and relationships can aid in finding one’s way in life.
Speaker 1
Skip too quickly to form, right? Long-eyed white dress or red dress going in a circle seven times around a fire or board meeting, you know, one long brown table, 12 white men. And instead, when we pause and actually ask, okay, why are we doing this? What is the purpose? What is the purpose of this of my birthday party or my birthday? Not even birthday party. What is the purpose of my birthday this year? What do I most want to mark? What do I most need in my life? Do I want to reconnect with my friends who I’ve actually lost touch with? And as I feel like I’m kind of starting to lose my way, I actually want to double down. And what would it look like if I actually hosted a party for just the friends who I knew before I was 20 and we all share or talk about or do something we used to do together and then reflect On who we’ve become and what our regrets are and how do I find my way again? Or is like the deepest need of my life in this moment to reconnect with a sense of adventure and actually what I want to do for my birthday this year is like go to the fishing docks and watch The fisher people pull in their fish at 5 AM and invite my friends who would only say yes to that crazy invitation to come with me. And so often because we don’t pause to actually ask why our imagination gets incredibly stuck and we focus on perfecting the forms that we already know. And so when you pause and actually ask, why am I doing this? What is the need? It actually opens up an entire world of how we could actually spend our time together. But it’s also incredibly relevant and moving because you’re then inviting specific people that make sense for that need that feel like they’re of use rather than being used. It’s not like how many people can I get at this party? Oh gosh. It’s like, oh, who are the people in my life who give me courage? What if this year I only invited them to come together and bring me like poems or objects that give them courage because I just need a little bit of courage blown my way this year. But because we’re like, okay, candles and pointy hats, we’re actually going on autopilot and perpetuating forms that no longer necessarilyWhy Over-Including in Meetings is Problematic • Gathering is an act of generosity, but we don’t always ask what the need is first. • We often don’t know how or why to exclude people from meetings or gatherings. • Not asking what the need is first leads to over-inclusion. • Knowing the purpose and need for a meeting can help with excluding unnecessary attendees.
Speaker 1
Yeah, you may have been raised the way I heard this quite often, like the more the merrier. That’s always one more seat at our table. And there’s a spirit of generosity in that. And I think gathering is an act of generosity. But in part because we don’t ask what the need is first, we actually don’t know how to exclude people or why to exclude people. We have no rationale for excluding people, right? We back into it. In our work context, you show up to a meeting, maybe it’s a TBD hold on your calendar, you show up and it’s a product design meeting and you enter the Zoom or you enter into the conference Room. And you look around and it’s like, why is legal here?
Speaker 2
And it changes the whole tenor of the meeting.
Speaker 1
Exactly. Right? But we’re always doing this. We’re kind of backing into it. You’re almost like, what is this thing for based on like who’s in the room? And when we don’t first ask, what is the need? Why are we actually here? We over include. And it’s not rocket science. Often, if it’s four people or six people, eight people, all of us are like this. We calculate what we share based on the person who we least know in the room, not with the person with whom we have the best relationship with.Over-including changes the conversation of those present. In a remote-centric world, meetings multiply precisely because exclusion feels rude. This is especially difficult for consensus-driven people — they want everyone to work well together, which makes them reluctant to exclude, which means they struggle to lead decisively. Asking “why are we gathering” serves a different purpose than asking “who should be here” — but the first question makes the second one answerable.Navigating Multiple Value Systems in Weddings • Being intentional about the reasons behind a friendship is important in modern life where multiple value systems are in play. • Weddings involve multiple obligations stemming from different value systems, such as collective reciprocity. • The assumption of individualistic value system in the West is not true in the context of large weddings with hundreds or thousands of guests.
Speaker 1
A friendship. 100%. And so it’s just starting to deeply become intentional about why are you actually doing this? So part of what’s complex about modern life is most of us are negotiating multiple value systems at the same time. Yes.
Speaker 2
Well said.
Speaker 1
And so in a wedding, there are multiple obligations that actually come from different value systems. So one value system is the collective value system of reciprocity. And some of that is a collective reciprocity. You and I both have Indian backgrounds. Like many Indian weddings, my cousins, these are like literally 700 to 800 people. Yeah.
Speaker 2
My parents wedding had over a thousand people. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1
And we look at that from the West, at least from the US often, it’s like, how do you even know all those people? But that’s actually a very specific individualistic value system in which the assumption is you or your parents have an individual link and maybe even a meaningful relationship to Everyone there. That is just not true. Yeah. It’s a value system in which it’s actually multiple generations of reciprocity and who gave who and loan and who gave who when one person’s cousin was sick and they slept on their living Room floor 35 years ago, then they, right, it’s a different cultural system. And so in a wedding, the planning process becomes this incredibly powerful set of negotiations and conversations between the couple and often between the couple and the parents.Creating Borders and Shifting Conversations: The Power of Density • Density affects behavior. • Arranging chairs in a circle can shift conversation and create a sense of safety. • Borders matter for creating group dynamics.
Speaker 1
We’re like hooking our lasso to the wrong star exactly. You got it. Yeah. And I mean, just some kind of the math. So density creates different kind of behavior, meaning how many actually bodies are within a square footage. Borders kind of matter. So an example at a restaurant, this is one of my favorite tips, my friends often like, they’re like, don’t want to be seen with me because I will go and insist on reordering the chairs in A restaurant. If you have six people going together to a table, instead of having three people on one side and three people on the other side of the table, put one person on each, basically the head. Otherwise, you’re like leaking energy. You want to close the circle because that actually shifts the conversation. It actually gives a border in a way that turns two lines into a group and the conversation changes the way people feel safe or not changes, who can enter and exit changes. But we often assume however the room is set up is the way it has to be. And like facilitation 101 at any context is you go into the room and you shift the furniture so that it serves the purpose. Yeah.
Speaker 2
I mean, you were joking about the fact that like your friends don’t want to come to your restaurant gatherings because you’ll force them to move the chairs, but not a joke. It does speak to a part of this process that can feel quite uncomfortable, which is you know, you talk about how as the host, it can be very important to define rules in advance of an event,
Speaker 1
Right? So I talk about the idea of pop-up rules versus etiquette. So etiquette kind of traditionally comes from monolithic culturesThe Importance of Making Implicit Etiquette Explicit in Diverse Communities • Etiquette traditionally comes from monolithic cultures or communities where politeness is assumed and learned from the culture. • In diverse societies, people are raised differently and making implicit assumptions explicit is an equalizing act in the community. • This can be done in fun ways like Anthony Rocco’s secret society member nights rule of not serving oneself a drink, giving people social permission to serve others instead.
Speaker 1
So etiquette kind of traditionally comes from monolithic cultures or communities where whatever is considered to be polite is assumed and learned from the culture, which can work When everybody is raised in the same way. But in diverse societies, the way one person’s raised is different from the way another person’s raised.
Speaker 3
And when we are inventing new ways of coming together, we all have different assumptions of how to be.
Speaker 1
And making the implicit explicit is actually an equalizing act in a diverse community. And that doesn’t mean you have to be controlling or, you know, super didactic. You can do it in incredibly fun ways. So simple example, this comes from Anthony Rocco. He’s an experienced designer. He’s in the art of gathering. He was in charge of creating these like secret society member nights. He would walk into this room, didn’t know anybody, and someone was standing at the door and they were like, welcome, drinks are in the back. There’s only one rule. You can’t serve yourself a drink. You can serve anyone else a drink, but you can’t serve yourself a drink. It was a slight tilt that gives people social permission, right, to look out for one another. And one of my favorite examples is a journalist who hosted what she called the worn out moms Hooten Annie.Establishing Rules for Successful Gatherings • Establishing rules in advance can improve the quality and purpose of gatherings. • Establishing new norms can be difficult and may come with high costs, like offending friends. • Implementing rules can foster inclusivity. • There needs to be a willingness to establish terms and conditions when inviting people to a gathering. • Priya Parker’s expertise in gathering may give her more leeway in establishing rules.
Speaker 2
I mean, I believe that what you’re proposing can absolutely help lift the quality of the gathering, help achieve its purpose. But one reason why it’s hard for people to establish rules in advance is that it does go against the norm, right? And it just takes a lot to be the first mover to establish new norms, especially when the costs can feel very high. Like I might offend a friend or they might see this as a very patronizing move or paternalistic move. Like don’t tell me who gets to pour whose drink, right? That sort of thing. And so I just wonder, given like you said, it can actually lead to a better gathering. It can foster greater inclusivity. How do we build the, I’m just trying to think about the right word here, but it’s like, it takes some goal to be willing to say, yep, I’m inviting you to this thing, but there are terms and Conditions. Yeah. And unless you’re Priya Parker, who has a book that’s literally called the gathering, so you kind of get it like a whole pass for establishing those rules. So like, okay, she’s an expert. Like how do I Maya establish these rules without feeling like wildly self-conscious and insecure and worried that I’m going to offend people?
Speaker 1
Well, first of all, I don’t have a whole pass. So like, I mean, I imagine your friends are like my friends, like it’s my friends who tease me the most, right? So literally now in my gatherings, I outsourced. Oh, that’s interesting. I outsourced like often almost to a fault, I outsourced to the person in the room that’s the most unexpected person to ding the bell or to run the game, right?Outsourcing Pop-Up Rules and Understanding Power and Context • Outsourcing party game responsibilities can be helpful in social situations. • Consider the need and perception of pop-up rules before implementing them. • Shifts in holiday traditions require more than just a pop-up rule or email.
Speaker 1
Well, first of all, I don’t have a whole pass. So like, I mean, I imagine your friends are like my friends, like it’s my friends who tease me the most, right? So literally now in my gatherings, I outsourced. Oh, that’s interesting. I outsourced like often almost to a fault, I outsourced to the person in the room that’s the most unexpected person to ding the bell or to run the game, right? It’s like, I understand power and context. And so I’ll say a couple of things. One is all pop-up rules are not good. Like I wouldn’t create this pop-up rule in a vacuum. First, what’s the need? Then is this need perceived by my guests or Maya in La La Land, right? If you’re trying to shift the way you do Thanksgiving or shift the way you do Sator, it’s not going to work. You send out an email to everybody and say, you know what? Let’s do it differently this year. No. I recognize. You rally. You text the cousins that you know hate the same way that is done every year. You start to have conversations with them. You ask them what they might need. You then go to the grandmother who actually secretly is also bored and doesn’t like cooking for two days and wants to shift it but doesn’t know how, right? Do pre-work. Exactly. Do pre-work. And all I’m saying is it’s the beginning of the conversation, not the end. I often say to my clients, gatherings are Trojan horses because you think you’re planning the son of like a vent with just all the logistics, but actually the higher stakes the gathering, The more it’s a forcing mechanism for people to actually make the implicit explicit to say, what do they care about? Who should be invited and why? How should we actually spend our time? And that ends up becoming this conversation where the gathering becomes just a symptom of thinking and decisions. It’s the process of getting there that shifts the community.
Speaker 2
As we think about structuring gatherings, it can be so tempting to try and avoid any kind of controversy or conflict, right? To avoid hot-button topics. But you do caution against this way of thinking.Outsourcing Power and Context in Social Gatherings • Outsourcing game-running or bell-dinging to unexpected people can be effective at gatherings. • Pop-up rules should be created based on a perceived need and not in a vacuum. • Shifts in traditions require more than just a pop-up rule, and often require personal conversations and rallying with family members or guests.
Speaker 1
Well, first of all, I don’t have a whole pass. So like, I mean, I imagine your friends are like my friends, like it’s my friends who tease me the most, right? So literally now in my gatherings, I outsourced. Oh, that’s interesting. I outsourced like often almost to a fault, I outsourced to the person in the room that’s the most unexpected person to ding the bell or to run the game, right? It’s like, I understand power and context. And so I’ll say a couple of things. One is all pop-up rules are not good. Like I wouldn’t create this pop-up rule in a vacuum. First, what’s the need? Then is this need perceived by my guests or Maya in La La Land, right? If you’re trying to shift the way you do Thanksgiving or shift the way you do Sator, it’s not going to work. You send out an email to everybody and say, you know what? Let’s do it differently this year. No. I recognize. You rally. You text the cousins that you know hate the same way that is done every year. You start to have conversations with them. You ask them what they might need. You then go to the grandmother who actually secretly is also bored and doesn’t like cooking for two days and wants to shift it but doesn’t know how, right? Do pre-work. Exactly. Do pre-work. And all I’m saying is it’s the beginning of the conversation, not the end. I often say to my clients, gatherings are Trojan horses because you think you’re planning the son of like a vent with just all the logistics, but actually the higher stakes the gathering, The more it’s a forcing mechanism for people to actually make the implicit explicit to say, what do they care about? Who should be invited and why? How should we actually spend our time? And that ends up becoming this conversation where the gathering becomes just a symptom of thinking and decisions. It’s the process of getting there that shifts the community.Ways to Connect through Personal Stories • Encouraging people to share personal experiences can facilitate meaningful conversations and connections. • Sharing personal stories can help bring down defenses and create a more open environment. • Asking people to share stories or experiences can be a better way to connect than engaging in debates. • A storytelling activity where everyone shares a unique experience can be a fun way to foster connection and discussion.
Speaker 1
It could be anything. And you ask people at some point in the night to stand up old school style if it’s available to them, ding their glass and share an experience or a story that no one else in the room has ever Heard about what it’s taught them about whatever the theme is. And the only other rule is that the last person has to sing their toast. And that just kind of moves the night along. We tend to throw the baby out with the bath water because there’s so many mind fills we decide not to talk about anything, but there’s actually ways to still have meaningful conversation And connect without all having being the same. And in certain contexts, asking people to share stories or share experiences is a much better way than getting into a debate about whatever recent thing.
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. I mean, very hard to have so many defenses up when people are just sharing personal stories. I would love to end on a personal note. You know, a slight change of plans is very much about personal stories of transformation. And I’m just so curious to hear how has working in the area of gatherings changed you as a person, you know, your worldview or your understanding of human beings at our core?
Speaker 1
It’s changed me as a person in part because I often thought like change kind of happens out there or like, I don’t really know or understand where and how culture happens. It just kind of happens. And I think what working specifically and deeply in the field of gathering is it’s helped me realize that there’s a successful way that’s already in our life. It’s baked into our everyday life that is kind of like a magic wand.
Speaker 3
The way that we come together is invented.
Speaker 1
We literally make it up or someone else did and then we’re following it. And it’s just it’s like we can choose and help persuade other people and shape them and grapple with how should
