The Art Of Connection: 3 Ways To Build Deeper Relationships

Hello, this session is about building relationships including skills on relational organizing and resonating. Let's get into it. So in our movement DNA relationships are across the three different components as the story of what our movement is about and where they fit into it, the structure of the movement and what their role and your team dynamics could be, the culture of our movement and how we interact and treat each other, as well as the strategy of the movement, what we're fighting for and how they contribute to it. So organizing is basically a fancy word for relationships. When we trust each other and are vulnerable with each other we can move united. Organizing focuses on power, who has it, who doesn't and how to bring enough people together to shift power into the hands of the people. So a big part of bringing people together is recruitment. Recruitment is necessary so that we can properly absorb people and invite them to our next escalation. This is when we come together to take non-violent direct action. So coming back to this idea of organizing, organizing is leadership that enables people to turn the resources they have into the power they need to make the change they want. Power comes from our commitment to work together to achieve common purpose and commitment is developed through relationships. So when we run campaigns this is a journey that we are trying to get people on. We want to set people up in our community from observing campaigns up this ladder so that they are taking more action. An important tool to make sure that we can bring them along on that journey is through building working relationships. So we want to build intentional relationships in our organizing and these should be rooted in shared values, they should be long-term, they should be created by mutual commitment and involve consistent attention and work. An important tool for organizing relationships is the relational meeting which we'll talk through now. So relationals are one-on-one meetings that are key to building trust between people so that we can better work together. So instead of just asking someone to show up for a small or one-off tasks that maybe feel transactional we are building intentional relationships and an ongoing commitment to each other. Relational meetings are important because when we are trying to build movements for social change we need to work together rather than as individuals. As mentioned relationals also help build working and organizing relationships and these relationships should be built on connection and trust and organizing in these relationships are not transactional or one-sided. We use relationals to build relationships outside of our teams or to strengthen our teams and step people up to take further action. We should be building intentional relationships and an ongoing commitment to each other and therefore it is important to be clear about our intention when going into a relational meeting. Now when we're having a relational what kinds of questions should we ask? The relational meeting triangle is a tool that we can use to learn deeply about another person. The triangle has home, community and organizations as categories for questions and it's good to make sure that you ask questions that come under each of these three categories during a relational. This helps us to get to know the other person better, their motivations and their values so that we can find the best ways of working together. Some example questions include where did the other person grow up, how did their upgrowing influence their values, what does community look and feel like to them, how did they get involved with a particular group, occupation or hobby, what do they do in their spare time that makes them happy, what influenced them to make particular decisions in relation to their organizing, how did they end up in a particular organizational situation and how does that make them feel and why. These are some good standard questions that you can have prepared if you want but a relational is about building a genuine connection and it's hard to know where the conversation will go. You can go deep when it feels right, pull back when it doesn't. Keep in mind you're building a public relationship, you want to uncover the person's values and motivations but this isn't a gossip session and it's not therapy. So how do we have a relational conversation? There are different frameworks that can be used to have a relational conversation and this provides a guide for the kinds of things that you want the conversation to include. In this framework we have purpose, exploration, exchange and commitment. So the first step is purpose. We want to be upfront in establishing why we're meeting with the other person to make sure that you're on the same page as them. If you plan to ask the person you're meeting with to make a commitment at the end of the one-on-one it is appropriate to let them know when you set up the meeting and remind them at the beginning of your meeting so that they aren't caught off guard. Some reasons that you might want to set up a relational meeting are you're curious to learn from the other person, you want to collaborate with them on something, you're starting a relationship with a new organization or you're strengthening your bonds between yourself and existing team members. When you're in the meeting itself we have the next stage which is exploration. Most of the one-on-one should be devoted to exploration by asking questions. If you are meeting a person for the first time ask questions that help you to understand their story, their values and the resources that may be relevant for your shared purpose. For example the knowledge or skills that they or you have. If you already have a relationship you might ask questions that help you to understand what's going on in their life at the moment or the challenges or the success that they are experiencing in their organizing. During the one-on-one it's also key to exchange resources such as information and support and insight. You may connect your stories or provide coaching on a particular challenge. This creates the foundation for future exchanges. A successful one-on-one meeting should end with a commitment to start working together or to continue working together. You could do this with a hard ask. To make a hard ask, the ask should be concise, plain and specific. You don't ask them to commit to something in general, instead have a specific event or a specific role in mind. Convey the urgency of the ask, you want them to do it because it relates deeply to a problem they care about not as a favor to you. Take notice of what kind of no you might get, is it a not now, not that or not ever. That leads us into this barrier handling framework. This framework can be used during relationships if you're having any troubles handling barriers like if the person is hesitant to make a commitment. First we listen, we ask questions and get the person to open up to you, ask for their stories and why they care and what concerns they might have. You can then explore to find out why your solution could benefit them. Continue asking prompting questions to explore their values. Also share a little about yourself to create trust and vulnerability to encourage them to share. You can then acknowledge, so hopefully at this point they have shared their concerns or stories about their community. Acknowledge their feelings and find common ground. Finally we have progress, now is where we connect what they have brought up to the solution that we're proposing. Be specific about your ask and find common ground between what they think needs to be done and what we are trying to achieve. Now during relational meetings we need to make sure the focus is on the best ways to bridge connection. We often refer to this quote, activists assume that because something is true it will be meaningful to the people we're trying to reach, but in fact the opposite is often the case. If something is meaningful people believe it to be true and what this quote conveys is that things like true facts and statistics don't move people. We move people by connecting to what is meaningful to them and a really important way to do that is by sharing stories. So why storytelling? Storytelling is vulnerable, by opening up to others and sharing our stories we give them permission to do the same. This is also why stories are the shortest distance between people. We should tell stories that feel safe and appropriate. We can think about stories that are between the public and the private realms. We want to share stories that connect us to the other person and to the public issues that we are trying to work on. To share the right level of vulnerability we can think about sharing from scars not wounds. Another tool we can use to share stories and help us build relationships is through resonating. Resonating is one way that we practice sharing stories and being vulnerable with one another. It's a practice of which has been demonstrated to build trust and deepen relationships. We often do resonating pairs where one person shares a story based off a prompt and the other person responds back. This is the resonating part. It involves listening with your heart, practicing empathy and reflecting back noticing. You might share things back like I felt right there with you when a part of your story that changed me was. I could feel something in my body when you said. I could picture something. So some norms about storytelling is that stories are confidential. Please don't share them with others what other people have shared to you. You should be challenging your own comfort level for vulnerability but make choices about what feels okay for you to share. Make sure that you're sharing from again scars not wounds. Some tips for stories. Share something of meaning to you. Get into moments and details. How did it feel? What did you see? And share your stories of support. That's it for today. Thanks for watching this presentation on building relationships in community organizing.