This text number is 5800 and the estimated reading time is 10 minutes.
Reading enriches people and sharing makes people happy. At the end of the article, a mind map is attached to help you sort out the essence of the context in the text. Welcome to read, you are one step closer to knowledge.
The book shared today is The Gathering.
Founder of Priya Parker's "Thrive" lab, trained in the field of conflict resolution, has designed gatherings for tech companies, construction companies, beauty brands and financial institutions. He studied organizational design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Political Science, and political and social thought at the University of Virginia.
Everyone can successfully hold a party. You don't have to be an extrovert. (In fact, some of the best party planners suffer from social phobia.) You don't have to be a boss or manager. You don't need to have a luxurious house. Luckily, the art of partying doesn't depend on how funny your personal charm or jokes are. When delicate thoughts and (often invisible) structures are integrated into the party, when the host has curiosity, willingness, and generosity to try, the party can be completed.
This book provides practical planning and organizational ideas and skills for themed gatherings, team building, public relations activities, community operations and other activities, helping you create a good community atmosphere, enhance networking, achieve party goals, and make every reunion a highlight moment of ordinary life.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="101" >01, determine the purpose of the gathering</h1>
Why do we meet? Why do we consciously come together? Are we gathering to solve problems we can't solve on our own? There is a great paradox about the purpose of gathering: even though there are thousands of good reasons to get together, we often don't understand what we are here for. When hosting a party, many people skip the first step: committing to a bold, clear purpose. So, the first thing we have to learn is the purpose of the party, and we have to create a bold and clear goal for the party. Many times we gather without purpose, and we often substitute categories for purpose.
For example, think back to a few recent gatherings you've organized or attended, a social event, a book club, or a volunteer training session. If I ask you what the purpose behind these parties is, a lot of people will answer what they should do at the party. You might tell me about that social night, it was to help people in similar fields get to know each other. The book club was a book club event to get everyone to read a book together. That volunteer training was to train volunteers. A lot of times, this is the cyclical logic that guides us when planning our gatherings.
You might ask, "What's the problem with that?" "Isn't the purpose of social nights social? Yes, socializing is of course the goal. But if that's all, then social nights fall into the same clichés as countless other social nights: people wandering around, awkwardly exchanging business cards, eagerly greeting others in a high octave tone. Such gatherings may not enchant anyone, but will make some guests feel embarrassed or insecure, and even vow not to attend any social evenings.
That is, once we introduce the purpose of our gathering in terms of categories, then people apply assumptions. So in the end, just go on step by step, at this time you don't have an activity to do your own ideas and original intentions. What exactly is your purpose before you run an event.
For example, the core of my use of this wedding is to express my gratitude to my parents, then this time the wedding, from the decoration to the process, to the seating arrangement will be different. So if I use this wedding, I hope that my brother, who has a conflict with my father, can bridge the relationship with my father, then this wedding will have to be redesigned. If I use this wedding to be able to express the love between the two of us and let everyone see that the two of us are the most beloved, then how your wedding should be designed is a completely different goal and purpose.
So a good purpose is characterized by its specificity, concentration, and speciality, and its scope is narrow, and the more focused your goal is, the easier it is for you to do activities that fascinate everyone. Know that every event is unique.
For example, a Japanese tea master is called Senritsu. Before each tea ceremony performance for everyone, Qian Lixiu would say a sentence that translated into Chinese what it was, called "The same moment in life will never happen again." That is, this moment is unique, even if we have drunk thousands of cups of tea, and have drunk countless cups of tea in this lifetime, but this sip of tea must be new, we have both met many times, but this time we have met, only once in our lives.
This is what Senritsu tells everyone, the tea ceremony, which seems boring, very slow, and constantly repeating, will be unique every time. So when we're hosting events, uniqueness is important. The way to find the purpose of a party is to ask why and keep digging down. This is also a common tool used in business. Why do you do that, and then ask why.
For example, a couple asked the author to help them plan a neighborhood party, just to invite everyone to a meal together. Later, the author asked them, why do you want to have a neighbor's dinner? He said because we like to have dinners, and we do them once a year. So why do you do it once a year? Because we like to bring the neighbors together in the early summer. So why do you like to bring your neighbors together in early summer? Thinking about it, I think it's a great way to document that time and reconnect after a busy school year, which is important. Why is that important? Because in the summer we have more time to get together, to re-remind ourselves of what community means, and to help us build friendships, to make community life better and safer, and to make the community a place that embodies the values that are good for children.
When you keep asking like this, you will find that such a party, in fact, it has a responsibility, that is, to make everyone love the community more, to let everyone pass on the right values in this community, to show our children, so the author quotes Kennedy, in another way, she said: Don't ask what your country can do for your party, but ask what your party can do for your country. It is we who want to raise the meaning of the gathering to the height of society, to the level of being able to contribute to the country.
So the author says that the purpose is a tool and amulet. The purpose is both a tool, that is, we know how to organize this event, but also a talisman to ensure that we do not deviate. So this is the first step, before we organize a party, we first think about what our purpose is, what level of our hearts we want to touch people.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="100" >02, select guests and venues</h1>
The guest list is the first "test strip" to test whether the purpose of the party is clear, and it is your first chance to put your ideas into practice. The authors say: When you learn to purposefully exclude some guests, you will start organizing gatherings purposefully.
1. Select guests
Be purpose-oriented and set up your guest list. Many people, when they are invited to a party, they will be embarrassed when others hear it, and then say that you can come too, and we will let people in casually, and let whoever wants to come. That's when you have to learn to say, "Please don't come." This event we are full, what are our conditions, so next time we invite you again, but this time our conditions are this. That is, you take the initiative to tell others that there are some activities that you cannot come to, and at this time, you are an exclusive favor for those who come to participate in the activities. You bring people who shouldn't be there, and for them, it's irresponsible in itself.
The author said that there is a bar called Scarabee, scarabee is the scarab. Scarab Bar is located in a small town with a university, the founder of the bar feels that this town does not have a bar for college students, all the people in the bar society, college students can be in it. So he opened a bar and served only college students. We know that after opening a bar, you will be tempted a lot, people outside want to come in, you refuse is to refuse money. But the founder firmly said that it is not the students who will never let him in, so his bar business has been very prosperous. It was because there was such an atmosphere that belonged purely to college students, and this was the power of rejection, that we had to select our attendees.
The authors argue that gatherings have the right size. Gatherings of about 6 people are conducive to establishing intimate relationships. After this small gathering of about 6 people, everyone can become very familiar and establish intimate relationships. Then a gathering of 12 to 15 people, which facilitates dialogue, allows for in-depth conversations. A party of 30 people becomes a party, you need to have music, you need to have beer, and then everyone is very lively. The smaller the venue, the more intimate it is.
Gatherings of 150 people can still generate intimacy and trust, because out of 150 people, everyone can see each other. The number 150 is called the Dunbar number, and a Dunbar number in the social network is 150 people who can really maintain communication. Although there are 5,000 people in your mobile phone circle of friends, the people you can know, call names, or often have some interactions here are generally around the number 150, which you can see within the scope of activities. So the gathering of 150 people can also find intimacy.
If more, a sea of people is formed, then the purpose of the gathering is not to communicate and create a sense of intimacy, but to use the energy of collective vibration. It's the kind of venue where there are 1,000 people, 5,000 people, and you'll find that everyone is melting into the sea of people, and you can't see him, but the vibrational energy will affect everyone. Everyone will shout slogans together, do some things together, create a wave of people during sports competitions, and so on, and the atmosphere is a completely different feeling. This is the number and level of the different gatherings. At the same time, the venue comes with its own script, and what kind of venue you choose determines most of the tone of the whole party. So don't run there to do an event just because someone else gives you a free venue.
2. Select the venue
For example, the director of a museum has to train their new librarians. How could he bring some inspiration and impact to these young people who were new to the museum? He found a blank field like my back, a very beautiful and clean blank field. One of the halls in the museum was emptied, and dozens of chairs were moved in after it was emptied. He inserted all these dozens of chairs together, that is, they were plugged and stuffed with each other, making a huge device.
When the young men who had been trained entered the room, they froze as soon as they entered the door. Dozens of chairs were inserted into a big pile, piled up in that place is a chair hill, and then all the young people stayed there and did not dare to move, thinking that this was not something mysterious, there was any design here, and these things were messy, as long as they were placed in the empty house of the museum, they all looked like works of art, so no one dared to move.
The students started to hesitate and didn't know what to do. Then after a while, whispering, finally having the courage to go up and start dismantling the chair, and finally moving the chairs down one by one. Later, the curator came forward to explain why such an event was set up. The curator told them the first lesson of the museum, the things in the museum can also be moved, the things in the museum can be set, the museum will bring us the feeling that you feel now, it will make some things sublime, but it also needs to be placed by people, because you will do this work in the future.
The venue can transfer people's state, transfer people's state of mind, and transfer what people are thinking at the moment, so we have to find a suitable venue. The venue must have a perimeter, that is, there must be an enclosed space. There are some rules of density here, that is, how much space can accommodate how many people, there is probably a statistic here. If your casino is an area the size of 400 square feet and you want to create an exquisite dinner, invite 20 people. Conversely, if you want a hot dance, you invite 80 people to it. In short, a rule is that the more crowded the higher the intimacy. What you want to create is the kind of thing that tends to be exquisite, and the area should be correspondingly larger, and the more familiar, hot, active, musically intense, the smaller it is. This is our general idea of density.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="68" >03, rejecting perfectionism</h1>
To reject perfectionism, the party should let everyone be honest with each other and not hold it. You no longer feel the need to maintain your image, your state.
1. Let people keep their true selves
The author once organized a campaign of 15 dignitaries in Abu Dhabi. These 15 people are all leaders, and they come from different countries, and their opinions are different, even different races and different colors. How could these 15 people not hold it, and then she thought of a way to call it a five-five toast. Ask everyone to make a toast, everyone should stand up, combined with a certain experience in their own life, make a toast, let everyone know more about your life experience, and bless today. After the toast is done, sit down and the last person to make the toast does push-ups.
Then when she got to the scene, she began to tell everyone about the rules. When it comes to doing push-ups, a lot of people laugh. Do push-ups and start toasting now. Someone really starts picking up a glass, knocking on the bell, and then telling a story of themselves, and after telling the story, the blessing begins, and the atmosphere gradually begins to melt. When I finally found out that there were still three or four people left, four or five people, I began to rob them. Because everyone knows that the last person is going to do push-ups. Started to grab, rushed to toast, more and more lively, and finally these 15 people mingled together, very happy.
The author also talked about a very private thing about his adolescence at the party. It's you telling a story, and then you connect with everyone, open the privacy quadrant, and make everyone's public quadrant more. This is the way to strengthen the connection, how people can let down their defenses and reject perfectionism.
So in any gathering, what we pursue, what we hope to get, is some new sprout speech. Improvisation, sudden thought, and improvisation come to the inspiration to say things that are the most precious. Gatherings should focus on people. We need to have some stranger spirit. You have to be willing to deal with strangers, willing to know strangers.
2. Create benign controversy
In the event, you can even design some benign controversy, that is, some parties can discuss issues. What is a benign controversy? Benign disputes are ones that help people take a closer look at their concerns, and while benign disputes are risky, they can be beneficial. To accept benign controversy is to agree that harmony is not the noblest of the gatherings, much less the only value. Benign controversy causes us to re-examine what we hold dear: our values, our priorities, our uncompromising principles. Benign controversy is heuristic, not protectionist. It can bring about something better than the status quo, can help communities make progress in their thinking, and can help us grow.
It's okay to argue, but there have to be rules, don't turn your face, don't get angry. Angry, of course, a small range of anger is OK, but do not make a particularly large unpleasant cause. Before setting up an event with some controversial topics, you can do a heat map. Which topics will explode, which topics will definitely quarrel, which topics are appropriate. Do one of these heatmap analyses and then create a safe space. This is how we open our hearts and let everyone communicate and communicate more in the process of the activity.
3. Scatter
You can't just say you're going to disperse, and you can't always leave it undeclared. If you never announce it, everyone doesn't dare to go, and if you want to go, you can't go, which is very awkward. Therefore, the author said that the ending is a very difficult task. At the end of an event, there is a formal farewell process to send everyone out. Let him be unfinished, with a little drunk, with flowers, with small gifts, with that feeling, with the abundance of the heart out of this line, then the next time you want to organize the event again, he will definitely come, he will think I like this kind of activity.
A strong closing has two phases that correspond to two different needs of the guests: looking inward and going outward. To look inward is to take the time to understand, remember, acknowledge and reflect on what happened tonight, and to finally unite as a group again. Then go outside to get ready to separate from each other and return to the original world, for example, to take photos. So create opportunities for everyone to look inward and look out at the same time.
Also do not use logistics to end, when everyone is experiencing the feeling of looking inward, the outside began to shout, saying who is moving the car quickly, such things are very troublesome. Set an exit line. The exit line does not have to be a real line, the exit line may be some action, some activity.
For example, after an event, we set fire to a large scarecrow that had been tied before. The process of burning the scarecrow, which represents the end of the whole festival, is a good ending.