“We need 30 minutes!” read the marked-urgent email. “It’s important employees know this on Day 1,” read another. Although the New Hire Orientation he was in charge of was already packed to the brim, Henry felt mounting pressure to add more or find a way to say “no”.

Henry’s gathering highlights a common challenge and an even more common temptation - the temptation to overpack. This temptation extends beyond our travel habits and into the way we bring people together, whether in person or virtually. It’s all too easy to stuff the suitcase. 

The prevailing notion is one of efficiency. As long as everyone is in one place, it’s best to give them as much information as we can, we think. Let’s not waste a minute of our time, we say. And especially in high stakes gatherings like Henry’s with multiple stakeholders and opinions, agendas naturally pile up. The more people, the more content. The more clothes, the bigger the suitcase. Sure, we can buy a bigger suitcase. But that doesn’t solve the core issue. We know this doesn’t scale. 

Here’s the 3 step process I led Henry and his team through to enhance their new hire orientation through this period of rapid growth.

Step One: Define your Gathering:

When we think about the gatherings that we have all been a part of, they tend to fall on a spectrum, from push to pull (at you vs. with you), and from one size fits all to personalized (about anyone vs. about you). The choices we make when we gather can lead to different outcomes. Here’s a model I created:

To determine where to start, first, clarify where to end -- the outcome. What do we need from the people you’re trying to affect? What do you want to be different at the end? We gather for the outcome, not the tool, so start there. Henry defined his gathering as “engaged”. More than anything, he wanted new hires to leave with the confidence they made the right choice in joining the company. 

Step Two: Diagnosing your Gathering

What quadrant are we actually in? If defining your gathering is the ideal state, diagnosis reveals the current state. Surveys, focus groups, interviews, observing participant reactions and behaviors (during and after), and more help us diagnose. Diagnosis centers on these three things:

1. Framing - How we get buy-in from the audience 

2. Space - How we help others absorb the material 

3. Structure - How we lead people somewhere

There can be “pull” framing, space, and structure, and “push”. Same with “one size fits all” and “personalized”.

Here’s an example from entertainment: Pull framing invites you in and elevates the audience's contribution: “Thanks for coming, Monday! You all play a very important role here tonight!”. Push framing can seem forced or mandated: “Get louder, Chicago! I don’t hear you!”

Here’s some of what I observed from Henry’s New Hire Orientation: 

Framing

• In 80%+ of sessions, the participants were passive, being talked at (push)

• Participants were most engaged during sessions where they contributed (pull) and working together on a group project 

• Positive feedback centered on community building and cohesion among new hire group (personalized)

Space

• It was difficult and time-consuming for Henry to juggle constantly changing presenter schedules and content, and increasing requests from stakeholders to take part. (one size fits all)

• Participants complained of ‘information overload’, ‘the sheer volume of information’, visibly and notably exhausted by the end of each day, scheduled breaks ignored (push)

• Low retention and recall of information shared (push) (one size fits all)

Structure 

• Few breaks in the day(s) or times to connect/breathe (push)

• Unclear objectives, sessions were disparate and didn’t connect (one size fits all)

• 60%+ of sessions were department overviews (one size fits all). Hard to remember/distinguish sessions, information isn’t relevant to participants unless it is their department (one size fits all)

Diagnosis:  Gathering was optimizing for content to the detriment of the experience. What was pull and personalized to the presenters was perceived as push and one size fits all by the participants (compliance). Why this matters - in addition to lack of engagement, this approach is not scalable. 

Step Three: Adjusting your Gathering

The model isn’t suggesting there is only one correct way to gather. Rather, we can define, diagnose, and then adjust our approach for the outcome we want.

Here are some of the adjustments we made to shift Henry’s gathering from compliance (push and one size fits all) to engagement (pull and personalized). 

Framing

• Added in more time for the group project to increase participant contribution (pull)

• Increased pre-program communication that shared the journey of the week and their role instead of a calendar and a list of sessions that lacked context (personalize)

• Added ability for participants to provide real-time program feedback (pull), and how it would be incorporated so they felt heard, “based on your feedback, we…” (personalize) 

Space

• Provided a glossary of terms attendees would hear throughout the program (pull)

• Added debriefs at the end of each day (personalize) 

• Protected and honored breaks throughout the day (pull)

• Started and ended each day with a review (what we learned yesterday) and preview (and what we’ll learn today) (pull)

Structure 

• Removed department overviews (Every company has a legal department), focused instead on what makes the organization unique. Used sessions to show the evolution of the organization, key projects teams are working on, and how departments tie into and work with each other (personalize)

• Increased coherence. Started and ended each day with a reminder of the 5 key learning objectives for the program instead of separate objectives for each session. (personalize)

Instead of changing the presenter content one presentation at a time, we made enhancements to the conditions that would help any content stick. By focusing on strategy instead of tactics, presenters could come and go as the company scaled, but the foundation would stay solid for the long-term.

Henry said no to sessions that didn’t meet five key objectives and said yes to putting the rest online for participants to watch on their own time. 

These enhancements led to faster delivery time and helped employees retain and leverage the material shared.

We mean well when we say yes to everyone. We want to be inclusive, we want to share as much as we can, or make it as relevant as possible to a broad group of people. Naturally, we pack more in - a session from finance, HR, marketing, the list goes on.

It’s one thing to share information. It’s another for it to be heard, internalized, and acted upon. A success metric based on quantity is how gatherings of all kinds from workshops to conferences to all-hands and more get muddled and diluted instead of crystal clear. It is this clarity that drives not only efficiency but effectiveness. 

Focusing too much on the former can be the difference between a tick-the-box gathering and one that transforms. We can measure success in how much space, time, or how many slides we take up. Or, we can measure our ability to bring people along with us. It’s not about what’s in the suitcase. It’s about where it allows us to go. 

Lindsey Caplan is a screenwriter turned organizational psychologist who helps HR & business leaders create experiences that boost motivation, engagement, and performance

Say hello@gatheringeffect.com