The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters

by Priya Parker

Looking inward is about taking a moment to understand, remember, acknowledge, and reflect on what just transpired—and to bond as a group one last time.

Turning outward is about preparing to part from one another and retake yo...

A gathering is a moment of time that has the potential to alter many other moments of time. And for it to have the best chance of doing so, engaging in some meaning-making at the end is crucial. What transpired here? And why does that matter?

Whether or not a gathering creates space for meaning-making, it is something that individual guests will do on their own. What did I think of that? How am I going to talk about it with others?

connecting the tribe one last time. To have an affirming moment of recalling not what we did here but who we were here.

“If These Were My Last Remarks.” The session features approximately twenty participants, each of whom is given two minutes to tell the group what they would say if this were the end of their life.

What of this world do I want to bring back to my other worlds?

The more tightly bonded your gathering is, the more it forms a tribe, the more important it is to prepare your guests for the dissolution of that tribe and for the opportunity to join and rejoin other tribes.

the games give them an experience in which they can put on and take off an identity as easily as switching T-shirts.

We’ve collectively experienced something here together, so how do we want to behave outside of this context? If we see people again, what are our agreements about what and how we’ll talk about what occurred here? What of this experience do I want to bring with me?

give guests an opportunity to make public pledges to the group of what they will do differently moving forward,

a letter that each guest can write to their future self on a self-addressed postcard, to be mailed out by the organizer a month later.

How can I use this gift to turn an impermanent moment into a permanent memory?

never end a gathering with logistics, and that includes thank-yous.

The last call, the logistics, and the dramatic close.

We could all come up with our own adaptations of Goldman’s habit of striking that note, then exploiting the space between that note and the second one.

Don’t use your thanking time to describe people’s jobs and areas of responsibility.

Rather, find a way to honor that person instead of their job description. This will make your thank-yous meaningful—both to those thanked and to your guests.

As you close, there may be a brief moment to hark back to the place this book began—to your purpose for gathering. There is often a subtle way to remind people of why what is now ending was initiated in the first place.

“Recognizing that you cannot balance your life at every moment, I urge them to think of immediate priorities so that over an arc of eighteen to twenty-four months, their life seems to be balanced and under control,”

she purposefully tries to connect the grief of the family with that of mourners everywhere.

She connects this individual suffering to the larger existence of suffering in the world, thereby making it both smaller and bigger.

With your guests now leaving the world of your gathering, it is time to draw another line, the line of exit, and help them cross this, too.

The exit line can be physical and symbolic.

All day long, I have been taking notes on what people say and jotting down specific phrases, confessions, epiphanies, jokes, and one-liners that I think capture an important moment. Then, in my closing, after all the other participants have shared, I have them stand up, look at one another, and listen. I read aloud bits and phrases that people have said over the preceding day. In hearing their own voices, presented in the order of the day’s events, they are reminded of all we did together. I am also showing them how deeply they were listened to, and signaling to them that what they said was remembered.

Finally, I come to my last quote. (Often it is something that was said by another participant in their closing comments just a few minutes prior to me speaking.) I close my iPad or the notebook from which I’m reading. I pause. I look up. I let the moment hang. And then I say some version of “I pronounce this Lab …”—then I clap: an exit line—“closed.” I mark it. I end it. And they are released. And usually everyone starts clapping.

Whatever your final moment is, it should be authentic and make se...