3. THE INVITATION
A sincere offering to engage that integrates purpose and intent
WHAT IS AN AUTHENTIC INVITATION?
Once we have explored the nature of our purpose in At the Heart of the Matter, and have clearly identified and aligned the intention for our gathering by Clarifying Intent, we again look inside ourselves so that a sincere invitation can be extended. Although important, the physical form of an invitation is simply the delivery system of this Aspect. The essential and often-overlooked quality needed to make an invitation effective is sincerity.
When we convene, our Invitation does not just ask for a body to show up at a date and time. It is designed for authentic engagement—to create the opportunity for those invited to bring themselves fully present, both when they arrive and continually throughout the gathering. We invite that presence through the sincere tone and warmth of our Invitation. When participants have received this kind of invitation, there is a better chance that they will show up physically, and a much better chance that they will arrive with presence, ready to participate fully in the gathering.
GENUINE HOSPITALITY, GENEROSITY, AND CONVICTION
We integrate our purpose and formulate a clear intent to create the first social or outer expression as a Convener. Although much of what we will examine about the Invitation is still internal to the Convener, with the expression/extension of the Invitation, we take the step into actualizing active relationship, which will be reflected in the quality of the Invitation.
In our socially complex world, invitations can be complicated. We invite people formally or informally, using the vehicles of voice (in person or via phone), e-mail, online invitation websites, postal mail, fliers, media announcements, or hand-delivered notes, to name a few.
No matter what the form, the Invitation is extended with genuine hospitality, generosity, and conviction. Anticipation of rejection can sometimes interfere with our willingness to wholeheartedly invite others, but the likelihood of rejection increases when we don’t invite this way.
When our Invitation is made with genuine hospitality, generosity, and conviction, all manner of possibilities open to the meeting.
• We are hospitable when we extend our welcome to the recipient of our Invitation with sincerity. The gesture is the open arms.
• We are generous when we offer the full warmth and resources of the gathering environment. The gesture is the open hands.
• We have conviction when we invite in such a way that recipients are convinced of the value of their presence at the meeting or gathering. The gesture is the sincere, open smile.
Imagine open arms, open hands, and open smile together as the gesture of sincere invitation. This gesture communicates openness to relationship and can be demonstrated via our body language when we greet in person, or through our voice and tone as we imagine ourselves using this gesture when greeting people virtually.
CHALLENGE
Rejection
A primary challenge we invariably confront in order to extend a full, wholehearted, and sincere invitation is the anticipation of rejection. It takes some courage to offer our whole heart in a sincere request when others are free to refuse. Paradoxically, when we withhold our wholehearted invitation, the likelihood of refusal increases.
When we design our Invitation, therefore, we revisit At the Heart of the Matter and Clarifying Intent. Our good intentions and knowledge of who we will be in relationship with others will support a confident, sincere request, knowing rejection as just another form of freedom, not to be feared.
The rejection of an invitation to engage may be the door opener to an even deeper level of relationship, once a future invitation is accepted.
PRINCIPLE
The combination of sincerity, hospitality, and generosity is a strong attractor for full presence.
The objective of our Invitation is not just to get people to show up, but also to create the opportunity for them to be fully present and contribute their gifts. When people who attend experience that their presence is truly wanted and valuable, and that their unique gift is necessary for the best outcome of the gathering, the possibility for authentic engagement, leading to success, is greatly enhanced.
For an event, especially a business or social appointment, the invitation for engagement creates a promise that is freely made and carries an obligation to do something together.
When we extend an invitation, our communication to the recipient is, “I want you to attend because you have something to offer.” Once we are committed to extending an invitation, the sincerity and clarity of our intent, as well as the message, are essential. Our genuine desire for relationship will be communicated in our Invitation—yes, even to those we think may have to be invited for political, relational, or hierarchical reasons.
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
Who am I to invite?
What is at the heart of my invitation?
Why should they come?
These questions align our heart with our intent. If we don’t do this internal work, our invitation may come off as halfhearted and/or insincere. Most of us have been on the receiving end of this sort of invitation. We may politely decline, or we may just not attend. If we do decide to come, we often arrive tentatively and likely are not fully present.
INVITING FULL PRESENCE
Sandra, a senior executive in a large corporation, reported that the Art of Convening model provided transformational success in the project of “breaking down silos,” an identified goal of her organization.
After taking the Art of Convening training, she had decided to approach a meeting across departments under her direction using the Convening Wheel. She prepared herself first, clarifying her intention of bringing the group members into authentic engagement for the purpose of understanding their connection to each other so that they could work with a “We’re all in this together” attitude. As the boss, she just had to require people to come. But she thought further about what it meant to be invited.
Because of some difficult conflicts she had encountered in the past and continuing struggles with some of the personalities involved, it took some deeper thinking for her to imagine each of the department heads as an individual with unique, needed gifts. There was one person in particular whom she secretly wished would not be available for the meeting because his abrasive style had alienated others in the past.
As Sandra thought of the people she wanted to invite to this meeting, she imagined each as a valuable contributor and began to experience a sincere desire for each individual to attend, regardless of what her previous expectations had been.
In addition to issuing a group memo with an agenda, requiring attendance at the meeting, Sandra decided to write a personal e-mail to each of the eight department heads. She extended an invitation that went beyond requiring. She wrote a sincere note of appreciation to each, and not only asked for their physical presence, but requested, quite genuinely, that each show up prepared to fulfill the promise of his or her own considerable talents, convictions, and creativity.
Sandra reported that everyone came to the meeting (no surprise there). She wasn’t quite sure whether the department heads were more open than they would otherwise have been, or if she had just perceived them that way, but there were breakthroughs that day. She had been prepared to engage in the usual refereeing between some strong personalities, but instead was astonished to find a willingness to speak, and listen, with genuine interest and respect. It was not all smooth sailing, but the meeting went remarkably better than she had learned to expect.
For her, the internal preparation she had done beforehand made a difference that was relayed in the sincere invitation she extended. It was the pivotal point that allowed these leaders to come together and authentically engage, as was needed for the project at hand.3
MAKING IT REAL
The possibility of rejection is always present when we extend an invitation. A few simple practices can greatly reduce the interference of the anticipation of rejection in our sincere invitation. One is to practice extending sincere invitations and hospitality in our everyday lives, making it a part of who we are. This practice hones our sensitivity to the other and helps us to experience the inherent eagerness of others to accept our invitation. It could also be a practice of sending cards or other types of communications to others in order to invite closeness or friendship.
Another practice is to set the table for our family at mealtimes, inviting them to join us for meals. This very simple practice has the twofold effect of increasing our sensitivity to creating an “inviting” place for our gathering, as well as providing practice in extending hospitality.
We invite others to join us for activities, meals, and fellowship even if they have said no in the past, and even if we don’t expect them to reciprocate. We send cards to our friends even if they don’t send cards back. In this way, we establish who we are and that our desire to engage with others does not depend on their response. Thus the experience of rejection becomes, for us, another form of freedom—not to be feared.
We launched the Utne Reader salon movement in 1991 with a cover story whose headline read, “Salons: How to revive the endangered art of conversation and start a revolution in your living room.” Toward the back of the same issue we ran a little ad with the inviting question, “Shall We Salon?” The ad went on to ask, “Would you like to meet up to 25 other people in your neighborhood (town, bioregion) who read Utne Reader? Maybe get together with them and have a salon, start a study circle, organize a council, or whatever? If so, send us your name and address, or simply send the mailing label from your current issue of Utne Reader to us by April 15, 1991.” After a couple of short paragraphs about what respondents could expect, we concluded the ad with Margaret Mead’s now-famous lines, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
The ad attracted over 8,200 responses, and we set up 500 salons of up to 20 people in cities all across North America. Within a year, more than 18,000 people had joined the Neighborhood Salon Association, meeting at least monthly in office conference rooms, church basements, coffee shops, and, mostly, each other’s living rooms. The Blue Man Group members met each other and formed in an Utne Salon. Countless marriages, businesses, and nonprofit initiatives got their start there, too. Several schools and cohousing projects trace their genesis to Utne Salons. Shortly after the issue came out, a number of large daily newspapers, including all 77 properties in the Gannett newspaper chain, started discussion circles for their readers. The salon movement was born.
The key to the success of our invitation was our assumption that if we were feeling something, our readers must be feeling it, too. Our need for community, to connect with others who shared our interests, values, and concerns, created an offer and invitation that was a sincere expression of a genuine desire.
—By Eric Utne4
Craig was publisher of Utne Reader during the launch of the Neighborhood Salon Association. Crafting a genuine, well-articulated invitation had power and attraction and, for the magazine, was a marriage of social activism, community, and successful business.
REINFORCING OUR SINCERITY
A convening practice we use at Heartland is to read each participant’s name out loud prior to a gathering. Quite often the names are read the night before, and sometimes they’re read the day of. This process has multiple benefits for the gathering, including the reinforcement of the sincerity of our Invitation. As the names are read (either by the Convener alone or by a team), we envision each person as welcome to the meeting, ready to share his or her valuable gifts. It is our experience that this simple practice of quietly honoring each participant produces big rewards. It translates into a genuine expression of appreciation as we go forward with the gathering. See Exercise 1 at the end of this chapter for a full explanation.
The presence we bring as we invite and welcome people into a meeting or gathering is important. When we model the values of hospitality, generosity, and conviction, there is a natural tendency for those in attendance to mirror back those values in kind.
The following example of welcoming by Sheila Hines Edmondson is a fitting illustration of these principles of sincerity and hospitality.
THE OPEN WELCOME
The sincere welcome is an open gesture of goodwill to receive and accept participants upon arrival, acknowledging their place in the event wherever they are on their journey. The welcome puts people at ease. It sets the tone for the activities that will follow in any meeting or gathering.
At a Thought Leader Gathering, for instance, my intention is to create the sense of community and belonging—especially for those who are arriving for the first time—and help them to understand a little about what the process is for our time together.
What I’ve experienced in response to the welcome has been mixed, but positive. Some may wonder if they are in the right place, because the welcome is much different than at other meetings or events they have attended. There are members of the community who return often and share that they look forward to the greeting. Whether I help make someone’s day or not, I’ll never know. I do know that my aim is to contribute positively to each person’s experience. Our relationship begins with my intention and the greeting.
—By Sheila Hines Edmondson5
The Invitation is more than perfunctory words on a page or in an e-mail. It includes the internal condition of the one who does the inviting, as well as the form and wording of the actual invitation. Beyond that, the follow-through of our welcome and hospitality from the beginning, and throughout our engagement, makes the Invitation a potent attractor for presence.
WHERE WE ARE ON THE CONVENING WHEEL
1. At the Heart of the Matter—We have explored who we are and how we will be in relationship with others.
2. Clarifying Intent—We have identified an intention consistent with At the Heart of the Matter that has substance and is acted upon.
3. The Invitation—We have extended a sincere invitation with genuine hospitality, generosity, and conviction.
Now that we have designed and extended the Invitation with grace and confidence, we have completed the first third of the Convening Wheel. As we continue to the next Aspect of the Wheel, we will shift the concern to Setting Context.
Things to Remember
Challenge: Rejection
Principle: The combination of sincerity, hospitality, and generosity is a strong attractor for full presence.
Essential Questions:
• Who am I to invite?
• What is at the heart of my invitation?
• Why should they come?
Aspect-Strengthening Exercises
Checklist for the Gathering at Hand
• Have I (internally and externally) sincerely invited each person to engage?
• Have I envisioned/imagined how I will welcome participants when they arrive?
• Am I prepared to follow through with my sincerity throughout the gathering?
EXERCISE 1: NAMING
An elegant yet powerful exercise to create alignment and extend an effective invitation that expresses hospitality, generosity, and conviction in advance of any meeting is surprisingly simple.
The principle: When we hold people in our most positive thoughts, it creates a powerful field that brings them into our intention.
The practice:
Step 1. Before a gathering, write down the name of each of those who will attend so that you can read them all out loud. Reading names the night before allows you to sleep on them, or you may try it the day of. This process has multiple benefits for our gathering, including the reinforcement of the sincerity of the invitation.
Step 2. Find a quiet place where you are able to concentrate as the names are read (either by the Convener alone or by a team). We envision each person as welcome to the meeting, ready to share his or her valuable gifts. There is something especially honoring to the participants in doing this. It translates into a genuine expression of appreciation as we go forward with the gathering.
EXERCISE 2: CREATING THE WELCOME
Before your next meeting or gathering, create a specific method for how you intend to greet and welcome people into the room or physical space. If you’ve just read the names of those invited, imagine greeting them, modeling the clear expectation of presence, engagement, and participation.
Journaling Questions
Recall a time when you extended an invitation in your professional life. What was at the heart of it, and what was the compelling reason for the invitee to attend?
1. Were your intention and the construction of the invitation aligned with each other and in integrity with who you are?
2. If not, what could you have done differently?
3. When, if ever, has fear of rejection gotten in the way of your extending an invitation? Consider what might have been lost as a result.