The Art of Gathering: Evolving Practices Post-Pandemic

Priya inspires meaningful gatherings by emphasizing the importance of purpose and connection in every event.

### The Evolution of Gathering: From Autopilot to Meaningful Connections
* 🌍 Priya's journey with the art of gathering has evolved significantly since her TED Talk in 2019, as she explores how **in-person and virtual gatherings have changed amidst the pandemic**.
* 📚 Her book, "The Art of Gathering," emphasizes that the **way we come together affects our lives**, and this realization became even clearer when gatherings were **restricted during COVID-19**.
* 💡 Priya notes that people now understand that **gathering is a skill that can be learned**, and her recent work focuses on teaching communities how to **gather meaningfully**.
* 🔄 She highlights common mistakes in gatherings, such as **neglecting purpose**, assuming larger groups will **naturally connect**, and leaving guests **without guidance**, which can lead to feelings of **loneliness**.
* 🎉 Using examples like a college reunion, she illustrates the importance of **intentional design in gatherings** to foster **meaningful conversations and connections**.
* 🎶 Priya shares a touching story about a Thanksgiving gathering where **intentional planning** helped a family **honor their shared grief** while creating a **joyful atmosphere**.
* 🤝 She emphasizes the role of hosts in managing dynamics, such as **dominating conversations**, and encourages hosts to practice **"generous authority"** to ensure everyone feels included.
* 📅 Ultimately, Priya invites both hosts and guests to approach gatherings with **curiosity, intentionality, and a focus on purpose** to create **transformative experiences**.

Priya, you have been very generous with us at TED. You gave a TED Talk on the Vancouver stage in 2019, pre-pandemic, about how to bring more meaning into in-person gatherings. And then you participated in a virtual TED interview in 2020 about how to do the same thing in the depths of COVID when we could only gather virtually. But now you're joining us for the third time, and I think we're kind of in another space now, perhaps a re-emerging space, when many people are now comfortable gathering in person, but some still aren't. And so, as the pandemic has continued to shift our gathering practices, I'm curious how your work around the art of gathering has evolved. I wrote the book The Art of Gathering, and it came out in May 2018. And for about two years, I basically was trying to make the argument that the way we gather matters, that the way we come together affects our lives, our schools, our culture, our workplaces. And then basically almost overnight in, you know, February, March

2020. If you all remember, you probably remember where you were, you know, at that moment when you started hearing that this, the sort of this thing was coming, the pandemic, by taking Gathering from us. We began to see it, we began to see it as something that Gathering is something that shapes us. We began to see it as we couldn't send our children to school, as we, many people couldn't go back to the office. There were many people, still essential workers, still going to workplaces, but when Gathering was taken from us, we basically began to see not only that does it shape us, but we shape it. We literally make it up. And so, in the last two years, one of the biggest changes that I've seen in Gathering is people have now accepted that Gathering is something that shapes our lives. And so, my work has really changed since over the past two years by focusing on people and community that realize this is learnable and have been working with communities and workplaces to we actually put out a digital course to teach people the skill of how do you

gather in a way that changes people. It is a learnable skill. It is not rocket science, but so much of The Way We Gather is boring, is on autopilot, no longer actually attend to the problems at hand. And by the way, well before the pandemic hit, the American Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared a loneliness pandemic before the pandemic hit, right? And so at some deep, deep level, we're starting to realize, Oh, we shape the way we come together, and maybe we should try to think about doing it differently. Yeah, absolutely. It's great that people are taking it more seriously as a skill. And I think for people who already are thinking that way, people often want to understand what common mistakes are when we gather. Like, you know, some of the things you've written about that are common mistakes is please teasing over purpose, assuming that the mo is the marrier when we host people, and leaving guests to fend for themselves. Can you talk some more about those and maybe other ones? So

we often assume, and there's very good intent in this, that if we sort of take care of the logistics right, get a location or figure out your Zoom connection, and you bring people together, like they'll, people will figure it out. And sometimes that's true if you're a part of a close set of friends and you all love the way you spend time together, keep doing that, right? You're lucky, it's rare. But so often when we come together, we can actually, it's, we can actually feel incredibly lonely. We can feel disconnected. I'll give a simple example. You know, often in our kind of higher stakes gatherings, I have a friend of mine, um, went to, uh, his, um, I believe it was his 40th college reunion, right? And there was so much focus on galvanizing the alumni coming from all over the world, flying back to their home country, right? And at some level assuming that when people come together, there will be magic. And sometimes there is, and you're lucky if there is. And he went, and he was so

excited to go and be together with people he hadn't seen in 40 years. And he got there and basically everyone was kind of milling about, and there's this kind of belief that if we should sort of leave people to themselves, we don't want to over-impose, right? You don't want to make it too structured, and there's some wisdom in there. But basically, when you leave a larger group of people to themselves, you're under-equipping them to kind of get the most they can out of it, right? He was imagining nights of stories, What have you learned over the last decades? What have your mistakes been? How right? What is the, what has our shared grief been? Where have we? And we forget to act that it actually takes a little bit of design and thought to connect people in a way that allows them to take risks, that allows them to know which conversations to have, that allows them to prime themselves and each other to know why they're there and to kind of

activate that purpose. I mean, that College reunion example is so good because it's so true that events like that can just you all standing around suddenly and now what, right? Totally. And so often, and I love the kind of the metaphor of a reunion because whether you're listening to this and it's a College reunion, whether it's a large extended family reunion, whether it's a volunteer reunion, like whatever it is, at some deep level, we are going because we want a sense of meaning. I have this monthly newsletter. It's free. You can sign up for it. And the most recent one was called Meaning is Medicine. And I started with a story of a woman that all of the stories I share, I have permission to share. So, it's this woman named Amanda. And it was the first Thanksgiving that her family was hosting since her grandmother had died. And they were all still pretty rattled by her death. And so, first of all, 90% of the success of what happens in the

room happens before anyone enters it. So, Amanda called up her mother, and she said, You know, Mom, I know that this is a tender time, and I'm wondering, as we bring our family together. Amanda wasn't sure, like, Is this all about Grandma? Is this... do we not talk about it at all? This is our shared context. Like, how do we do this without being too heavy-handed? And she asked her mother, What is it that you would most like to experience or feel as we bring our family together this year, not every year, this year? And her mother said, Comfort and happiness, comfort and joy. You know, I want... And so, Amanda listened to that, right? She's starting to do her excavation ahead of time. And so, she wrote all of her family members ahead of time, and she said she asked them to send her songs that they play that bring them comfort and happiness. So nice. And then she created that as the Spotify playlist, right? That was playing throughout the evening. And over the course of the evening, different people were like, Hey, that... oh, that's my

song or oh that's what I learned about this this time, and they found themselves, you know, humming to the same songs that their grandmother used to love. They found themselves telling stories, you know. It was, she found just the right meaning, dialed just the right volume. That's to honor the shared grief, to honor the shared loss, but also to give people some amount of agency and co-creation in terms of what it was. She kind of found this a soundtrack, you know, literally and metaphorically to the evening. We don't gather when only during times of joy. We also, most of us, all the time. There's so many complex, complex and complicated moments, and it's not rocket science, right? It's a playlist to help her family kind of have a moment together while they're grappling with a really big change in their shared family. We're getting some questions from members, and I think some of them will fit in right now in an interesting way. So, people are asking specific things that can be

challenges at Gathering, so Hazel asks what if one person dominates a conversation instead of letting everyone take part. Um, how, what are some strategies for handling that? How much time do you have? I'm just kidding. Even before the invitation is to first ask, like, what is the purpose of this thing? Who do I want to be there? And at some level, who do I want in and who do I want out? And who is going to likely help achieve the purpose, and who is likely to threaten that purpose? So, a friend of mine, his name is Adam. His, um, actually, this is interesting. I didn't put these two together, but another, his grandmother had passed away um, a few years ago before the pandemic. And traditionally, in his family, um, they would come together a year after the death to Market. And they couldn't do that in person because of the pandemic. And um, he got his father and his uncle to agree to let him kind of run it. They're like, We don't think we can do this on Zoom, like, too awkward, too awkward. And Adams was like, Let me try.

Let me try. And he also knew. I promise I'm getting back to your question. He also knew that there were certain family members who would just dominate, right? Particularly in a Zoom context, right? You can kind of mute all, but then it's totally sterile. And so he sent out an invitation, and he said, um, we're going to come together, we're going to remember Granny, and um, if you'd like to, we want to invite anyone and everyone who would like to share a story about her that's short and sweet, just like she was, right? And more than 20 of his family members came together on Zoom. He kind of like played, you know, MC or whatever you want to call it. And because he had said ahead of time, he made this sort of joke, it was tongue-in-cheek, it was context-appropriate. They already knew, oh, I need to like watch how long I am. And then if they, you know, and then if someone was going on and on, everyone saw that invitation, right? And so you can kind of course-correct in the

chat short and sweet just like granny. Um, but the last thing I'll just say about what was so powerful about him doing this on Zoom was in the traditional culture in which he came from, in the traditional practice of honoring The Departed, it would traditionally be an elder or a spiritual leader. And part of actually rethinking this tradition is they were democratizing who got to share her memory. And so at some level, like when we begin to think about equalizing, which goes back to how do you get someone to dominate when you start ahead of time, and two, when you have a popup rule that's that people can understand why you're setting it. The third is you then don't necessarily need to, you know, enter the crowd, kind of the crowd course corrects. Um, but the final thing I'll just say is if someone is domineering and it's threatening the purpose, the role of the host is to practice generous Authority, and that is to protect your guests, to connect your guests, and to temporarily equalize them.

and to do it with humor and joy, but the group needs to be protected. That's a great, great example, and I'd love to talk about the role of the host for a moment because I think something that comes up a lot for people, and you write about this too, is the potential awkwardness of all this. That there's this awkwardness as a host feeling like it's embarrassing to try to get people to do an activity together or if it's too earnest or controlling, and then there's the awkwardness of just getting your guest to buy into all of it. You know, they might want to just relax and not participate. So, how does a host navigate this? Such a good question. We have been interviewing people over the last two years to ask them, aspiring gatherers, what are your biggest challenges. The biggest thing they get stuck on when they decide they want to gather differently is in getting buy-in from their people, their community, and doing something differently because how we gather at some level is usually

implicit right. If you think about our workplaces, like how many of you have inherited someone else's meeting right? You join a new workplace, you join a new community, and you're like, Oh, hey, now why don't you run the Wednesday meeting? And the Wednesday meeting, you're like, Okay, what's that? And it's usually created by someone else at another point in time, sometimes decades ago. And so, there's a lot of ways to actually get buy-in, but the first is to realize that people might be attached to the previous form. So, I'll give a simple example. Years ago, I was told about this meeting at the New York Times where it's like a 70-year-old meeting, and it was called the page one meeting. And it was, as it was told to me, it was the meeting that set basically the agenda of what seven pieces would be on the front page of this newspaper, right? Every day, seven, eight, I can't remember the exact number on the front of the page. And at that moment in the media

landscape. Whatever was kind of on the front page of the New York Times was kind of the news of the day, right? It's the seven stories policymakers, right? It was the seven stories that went out over the, you know, the wire, all of that, and the meaning took place around this big sort of King Arthur-style table. Um, it was as it was told to me. The editors would come and make their offers to the Olympic Gods, you know, to say, like, argue why it should be there, why it should be their, um, story. And for years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, this was the, like, metabolism of the paper, right? Long story short, like, 20 years ago, something called the internet was created, right? Then all of a sudden, there were studies that showed, like, the majority of people were not getting their news from page one anymore. They're cut getting from the website. They're getting from social media. And yet this newspaper still had this, you know, this meaning, and whether or not you are, you know, in Media or

journalism. You sort of think about in your own life, like what is your page one meeting, right, in your family, in your communities, in your workplaces. What's the equivalent of this meeting that people have a lot of attachment to, but it no longer serves the need. And Dean McKay, the editor at the time, basically realized that he had a ritual that people were attached to, but that no longer made sense for the need. And he did a number of different things to get by. In the first was, we need to have a way to actually discuss what our mission is, all the news that's fit to print, where and how do we kind of grapple around that question on a daily basis. It's not what are the seven pieces of news to go on the front page of the paper. Anyway, long story short, he looked at where practically when should this be. We also get attached to time. I believe it was at 10 or 11. He moved it earlier in the morning. He expanded who

should be there, right? The audio team is now there. The audience team is now there. Who is at our meetings or our gatherings is often a reflection of our purpose. During the pandemic, I believe they also changed the whole thing onto Zoom, but at some deep level, the way to get buy-in is that gathering is a practice, and you have to start asking what is the actual need, what is the felt need of our community, who are our allies, and then how do we start making small changes to begin to shift the way we come together so that you're not wasting people's time. How should we spend that right? Absolutely. This New York Times example, I think, feeds into this question from Katti, which is, what are some best practices for honoring intergenerational gathering in the workplace? Because I imagine that meeting had a lot of generations in it over time as well. I love this question. I'll give a couple of examples. I know we're of workplaces in which there's, there are opportunities to in

particularly now in the world of remote work, a huge part of connection across generations used to happen informally in person, right? It happened in hallways, it happened in elevators, right? The famous like, What's your elevator pitch? You have 30 minutes, 30 seconds with the CEO, like what do you say? I know of a workplace, I think it's a management consulting firm, small firm, where they started to realize that there was, that they were doing mentorship, not wrong, but half wrong. And they assumed that mentorship is always sort of like top-down, and I don't mean that just directionally, institutionally, but age-wise. And one of the biggest things that they realized when they started listening to their workers was that there were a lot of skills that younger generations are bringing in that older workforce don't have. So, things like using Slack as a digital native, right? It was like all of these different elements. And so, they created an intentional

reverse mentorship program where they would pair people up, and that mentorship would go sort of both ways. Um, I know a couple of other organizations in which, again, this is particularly in a remote context. In their large Town Halls, when their entire organization is there, the way you open a meeting really matters, and they start obsessing over creating connection in the first 5% of the meeting. And so, um, one organization that's in as well is they create coffee rooms, coffee lines, where they're kind of synthetically creating the context that we used to have in the workplace. And all that means is they're putting people into breakout rooms, um, and so often, particularly when the, you know, going gets tough, when you have conflicts in your teams, which is invar, which is going to happen in any long-term relationship. When you actually have that cross-stitching across generations, and you have ways to come together and be like, Oh, that's the same person who, you know, went to the same

concert I went to. You're much more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt, and you're much more likely to actually realize that even if you have a difference on this project, these are people that know you, these are people that feel you, these are people you can pick up a phone and chat with. But you have to design for that connection. Your mention of Slack made me think that this question from Paul would be a good one to share, which is: What do you think about using interactive virtual tools like Mural, Kahoot, polling, etc., to add meaning? Is there too much? Is there too little? How do you manage that? I think some of the most interesting innovations in our digital gatherings is around tools that allow people to connect more meaningfully, and often the best ideas that come up aren't like, Oh, use a mirror board to do this. It's saying, Wouldn't it be cool if we could get everybody to share their best idea about the new product launch? and then asking, Okay, so are there tools that exist that

we can do that easily. Um, during the pandemic, I'll just answer this real fast. I was so interested in the people hacking together tools that didn't yet exist, right? And so I don't know if you all remember this, but one of my favorite tweets during the pandemic was from a guy. He said something like, Last night I went to a digital party. It was called the bodessy, in which every room, it was a global digital party, in which every room, every Zoom room, was a different part of the body. So you could sort of like navigate through these different breakout rooms, and like the throat was like a place where you could, um, was like the bar, and you could take shots of dyed Pepsi or whatever tequila, whatever you're having. And um, and the, and then I entered this other room, and it was the womb, and everyone was in their own bathtub, right? Like, and, and, and, and it was like, and then it turned into this like hot tub party, but everyone was in their own bathtub, zooming in.

and it was, it totally broke like blew my mind that this was actually possible. And you know, I was chuckling watching these like deep, deep ingenuity, right connection. It's like don't let our to don't get too overwhelmed by the tools, look for where there's desire and interest and connection, and then find the infrastructure to just help it along. That is amazing. I would have loved to have attended that. Um, what you're saying makes me think about something, write about a lot, which is psychological togetherness and how that um can come about in virtual gatherings or not. So I know a lot of what you're you've just shared is our examples of how we create that, but what are some other ways we we make psychological togetherness virtually? You know, whether it's in person or whether it's whether it's uh virtual or online, every gathering we attend, no matter how senior you are in organization, no matter whether you are an in-law in a family or whether you are, you know, um, the family of origin, we

all walk in at some or we enter a room. We enter a Zoom kind of asking, like, do I belong here? I think of gatherings as temporary alternative worlds where we need to open them, and then we need to close them. And the first 5%, the opening, really matters. The opening is the highest, the invitation, what you say in the invitation. And then the opening is the highest opportunity to help people feel like they belong, and particularly, and you can do that in super simple ways. In our digital course, we actually have all of these ways that people use the chat box to create psychological togetherness in our online environments. So often, that first 5% is sort of clunky, you know? It's kind of awkward, like, what are we doing here? How, like, ah? And in our in-person environments, actually, those are the best moments because it's when people have the most agency in a room. You can choose whether you're in front of the room person, whether you're back of the room.

person where like grab some almonds, have the conversation you actually want to have. In our Zoom environments, we have less agency. So, for example, if you want to pop into the chat right now, drop into the chat the first concert you ever went to and who you attended with, who took you, right? And whether you're watching this live or afterwards, like right now, you know, I'm seeing New Kids on the Block, right? Led Zeppelin, James Taylor, Tina Turner, Amy Grant, Whitney Houston, right? All of a sudden, you have so much. The Eagles, right? Barry Manilow, Michael Jackson, Shakira, right? First of all, y'all like music, which is great. And so much is all of a sudden, it's like, Oh my gosh, wow, like their first concert is my first concert, or Oh my goodness, I didn't realize that they were that old, or Wow, right? Like, Oh my wow, they went to that iconic concert, right? In Brazil, whoa. And gathering can build a sense of community, and so much of what we are doing here is helping us.

all create meaningful connections without all having to be the same, but part of the tool of creating psychological togetherness is first the deep empathy to realize you have to stitch it, you have to create it, but not yourself, crowdsource it, and find appropriate, you know, relevant questions for your audience, depending on who you are, to help people understand what it is. These are incredibly helpful ideas for virtual gatherings, so thank you for all this. I'd love to pivot back to in-person for a moment, and there's something that you've talked about before that I think is a great example, the birthday party. So, you talk about how birthday parties can be these autopilot gatherings that we assume they have to be, they have to take a specific form, and we're just going to go through the motions, and you instead suggest that we start with purpose and redesign a birthday party based on what we're actually craving this year. I know you kind of talked about this a little bit.

with the Thanksgiving dinner example, but I think something about this birthday party example is great because it's just something that most people go to many of every year, right? So how do we make these better? I had a friend who realized, I want to have a sense this year of a more sense of adventure. And so, for their birthday party, they were inviting people. They lived in a seaside city, inviting a group of friends to come and watch the fisherwomen at 5:00 a.m. drag in their nets and watch the sun together. And they again explained it in the invitation ahead of time, like, Why am I doing this? Why am I inviting you to do this? Also, people can say no, right? It's like, Love you, see you at nine, but at some level, like, gatherings that are specific, that are disputable, meaning like it's not for everyone, it doesn't have to be for everyone, it comes from a real need. It also allows people to feel like

when they choose to show up, they're being of use versus being used. You're not like sort of squishing all the bodies into the room to show sort of like to demonstrate some point. It's actually from the inside out, which is saying, Hey, I'm feeling this. Maybe you're feeling this too. It could be just thinking differently about how we spend our time. It could be, Hey, I never get to go. I always think about going hiking, and I never get to actually go hiking. For this year, I actually wanted to go. Who wants to come with me? It's just, it's in, it's inviting an intentional interruption and allowing people to kind of shift away. They spend time together and at some level using your excuse as of birthday if you choose to kind of bring closer to you the life of your choosing. So, pivoting a little bit into the digital course that you teach because I think you mentioned something at one point that I think would be really interesting to hear about, which is um

there's some common struggles people have when they're hosting gatherings, and what are some of the most common struggles, and how do you help them address those. The first unit, this is the first work, this is the first worksheet that we use for all of our students on how do you develop a discernible purpose. What does it actually mean to be disputable as a purpose? Is the purpose of a wedding to honor the previous generation as it is in so many cultural contexts, or is the purpose of a wedding first and foremost to unite these two communities, to create cross-stitching between these people and friends so that when the going gets tough, as it does in all long-term relationships, you have people tapping you on your shoulder saying, Remember your vows, remember what it felt like to be there that day, remember what you committed to each other. But these are two different purposes, and so often when we don't pause to get really clear even within ourselves, What's the purpose of this thing? What's the need? What is my

desired outcome. We just basically, the conflict goes into proxy wars like the guest list, right? There's the last, there's the final wedding invitation. Go to your mother's colleague or to your college buddy. And so, the biggest thing that we skip, the biggest mistake we make, is we assume that the purpose is obvious and shared. And the biggest shift to have more meaningful gatherings is every single time, the more obvious seeming the gathering, the more important it is to ask this question. What is the purpose of the staff meeting? What is the purpose of the 50th anniversary of our company? What do you mean, what is the purpose? No, really, what's the purpose? Is it to honor the past? Is it to honor the future? Is it to focus on newer employees? Is it to reignite the vows of the people who have been there longest? What is the unique and disputable purpose? And then you can actually start deciding how you spend your time and what the story of the gathering is. That's such a powerful point that the more common the gathering

the more important this is, and maybe that's not very intuitive, I think if you haven't been in this world before. So, all that is really valuable for the host, and I think Susan's question is a really interesting one for the attendee perspective. She asks, What about the attendee of a gathering? How do they get the most out of the event? Susan, I love this question. This work is called the art of gathering, not the art of hosting, in part because I believe guests have a lot of power. First of all, from the moment, well ahead of time, I said this earlier: the way we spend our time is the most sacred thing we have. So, practice what I call intentional guesting. So, we've heard about nutritional diets, meaning the diets of a people, sort of what do we put into our bodies. We've heard about informational diets, what do we read, what do we doom scroll or not. And I want to introduce you to sort of an idea around a gathering diet, which is within your

family within your communities, within your friend groups, but within yourself. Like to actually start thinking, not just one gathering at a time, but over time. Like how often, what does it mean to be part of a community? How often do I host? How often should I guest? What is too much, right? What are the RMS of our family or chosen family in which we go out into the world, and when are we kind of at home? And to really think about that as in a more intentional time. Otherwise, a couple of different things happen. One is if you're anything like the people you know in my world and myself, it's like you kind of like intentionally say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll be there, and then you have sort of last-minute flaking or last-minute like, That's not helpful, particularly to anyone, particularly to the guest, I mean to the host. But the second thing is if you once so part of practicing the Gathering diet is to think about your ratio of gatherings, but the second is to start a

practice where you're being more intentional about what you choose to attend and how you attended and to practice what I call either the chosen or decisive yes or the connected no and invitations are relational right. I almost think of an invitation as I'm throwing a ball like the host is throwing the ball to the guests and the guests are catching it and the only way to not throw it back is to not answer right or just kind of say maybe in the sort of modern way but to throw back and to then to then practice you know whenever you host anything. It can be a meeting. It can be a text thread with your friends right. You put something out there and whenever whether it's you know Charmila or Dave who responds like yes yes yes I'll be there. It's like oh thank you right. Someone's enthusiastic about it. Someone's right. So how what does it mean to be a chosen connected yes if you choose to go or a connected no which is to say thank you so much for inviting me.

thank you for like. I'm so grateful you thought of me. We're saying closer to home this year, but I really appreciate the invitation. Right, there's so many ways to say no. The final thing I'll say is when you begin to think more deeply and just observe, like the first step to becoming a more artful gatherer is literally to just start observing the moments of group life that you're in, to get curious. What's happening here? Are people interested in this meeting? Why is everyone on their phone at this dinner party? What's happening here? Just observe. And the best guests I know, sorry, the best hosts I know, are really good guests. I was recently, a couple of years ago, I went to the bar, um, a bar in the Carlisle in New York City. And every evening, as I'm told, um, a pianist comes out at like 5:00 pm, live piano player. And I walked in, um, with my family at the time, and um, they're

still my family with my family, and um, we sat down, we chatted with each other, and kind of like noticed the music in the background. It was beautiful, but kind of noticed the music in the background. Everyone was chatting, chatting, chatting, chatting, and then a guest came in, and they sat down at a table in front of the piano, and they asked to move all of their chairs around to one side, and they started like listening with deep intensity to The Pianist. After the first song, they started clapping really loud, and there was kind of this like ripple that went through the room. It's like, Oh, what's happening over there? and everyone kind of turned, and the piano player himself was kind of like seemed sort of surprised and delighted. And then the next song, we just kind of were tuned a bit more to the piano, right, and tuned a bit more, and after every song, basically, people started really applauding and sort of respecting, and those three guests shifted the room.

they CH they they elevated us, and so whether it's in a context like that or whether it's with a group of friends or a team lunch, and you realize like we could just chitchat or we could kind of find the right conversation to have. How might I do this in a way that creates more safety, more chosen risk, more connection? And it's a practice that is learnable, and you don't have to be an extrovert; you need to just be curious. Well, I wish we had so much more time. I have like 90 more questions for you, but we have a few minutes, so maybe just to wrap up. I love to just ask Sam's question. He said, Is there a set of best practices for gatherings? He said, Online, in real life, but I know we won't have time to go on all that. So maybe just the three things that come to mind that you would share as a closing thought for this. First, I'd also direct you to my website prep.

parker.com. We have the answer to that in something called the new rules of gathering, and the five biggest tips we have is in a workbook there. It's free; you can download it. The first is the biggest mistake we make when we gather is we assume that the purpose is shared and obvious. Don't skip asking the purpose. The second is that openings matter. Think deeply about the world you want to create. Don't start with logistics. A third is closings matter, and most gatherings don't end; they stop. So, we can even do it here, you know, spend time closing out what you most want people to remember. The majority of people that I interviewed for the art of gathering self, who other people credited with consistently creating transformative gatherings, identifies introvert as sometimes on the outside of things. And when I asked somebody like, Why do you think this is? She said to me, Well, I don't know about other people, but for me as an introvert, there's so many gatherings I go to, and I kind of regret

going to. I feel uncomfortable. I don't. And so I create the Gatherings I wish existed in the world. And usually when I am creating something, I want to be at. It's true for other people as well. That's lovely. That reminds me of the idea of you. People write books to answer the questions they have themselves, right? It's like solving your own problems. Priya, this has been so wonderful. Thank you so much for taking the time and for joining us here on the TED membership platform. Thank you so much for. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you all so much for being so engaged in your beautiful questions. And I invite you to really just in one small way, whether as host or as guest, to take a small risk and just begin to ask like, what is the need here? How can I serve? How might I do this differently? Thank you, Priya. [Music]

How To Come Together in a Meaningful Way | Priya Parker | TED

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Priya's work on the art of gathering has evolved significantly since the pandemic, with a focus on teaching it as a learnable skill.

The pandemic highlighted the importance of gathering in shaping our lives and communities.

Common mistakes in gathering include assuming people will figure it out on their own and leaving them to fend for themselves, which can lead to feelings of loneliness and disconnection.

Meaningful gatherings, like reunions, provide a sense of purpose and connection, especially during difficult times.

Amanda's thoughtful planning for her family's first Thanksgiving after her grandmother's death, including a comforting Spotify playlist, helped create a meaningful and shared experience.

Strategies for managing dominant voices in conversations, such as setting clear intentions and inviting short story sharing, can help achieve a balanced and inclusive atmosphere.

Rethinking the Role of the Host in Gatherings

The speaker highlights the power of democratizing the sharing of memories during a virtual gathering, challenging traditional practices.

They emphasize the importance of the host's role in navigating awkwardness, gaining buy-in from participants, and temporarily equalizing the group.

The speaker also shares an example from the New York Times, where the editor successfully transformed a long-standing meeting to better serve the organization's changing needs.

Honoring Intergenerational Gathering in the Workplace

Gathering for meetings and events reflects the organization's purpose and can be optimized by addressing the community's felt needs.

Remote work has shifted the way intergenerational connections are made, leading to the implementation of reverse mentorship programs and intentional meeting openings to foster relationships.

Using interactive virtual tools and creative digital gatherings can enhance meaningful connections and collaboration across generations.

Creating Psychological Togetherness in Gatherings

Psychological togetherness is essential in both virtual and in-person gatherings, as everyone enters with a desire to belong.

The opening moments of a gathering are crucial for creating a sense of belonging, and simple actions, like using the chat box in online settings, can foster connection.

Redesigning common gatherings, like birthday parties, with a focus on purpose and individual cravings can lead to more meaningful and fulfilling experiences.

A friend transformed their birthday party by inviting people to watch the fisherwomen at 5:00 a.

, creating a unique and adventurous gathering.

Intentional and disputable gatherings, driven by a real need, allow guests to feel useful and connected.

The key to meaningful gatherings is clarifying their purpose, which can lead to more impactful and intentional experiences for everyone involved.

Guests at gatherings have a significant impact and should practice intentional guesting by considering their gathering diet over time.

It's important to be thoughtful about attending events and to respond to invitations with a chosen or connected yes, or a gracious no.

Observing group dynamics and being a good guest can enhance the overall experience and contribute to the art of gathering.

The speaker shares an experience of how three guests' enthusiasm for the pianist shifted the energy in the room, highlighting the impact of intentionality in gatherings.

They emphasize the importance of asking the purpose of the gathering, creating meaningful openings and closings, and the role of curiosity in fostering connection.

The speaker also offers a free workbook with best practices for transformative gatherings, encouraging others to take small risks in serving and creating the gatherings they wish to attend.