Be A Great Host With Care, Micro-Solidarity And Micro-Affirmations

Our sixth blog has been contributed by Mark McKergow. Remarkably rich in both ideas and narrated experience.

Care speaks louder than words”

Last year I participated in the Remix Musical Improv festival in Edinburgh. As a jazz musician I improvise a lot, but this event was about improvising musical comedy and shows in short and long forms. I managed to make some acting contributions and also played sax and clarinet to accompany some of the action.

I mention Remix not just because it was a total blast to be doing workshops on improvised rap and musical genres, and taking part in jam sessions and stage sketches, but because it was SO WELL ORGANISED. Christine Simpson took such great care in sharing information, registering people, making sure everyone had the choices they wanted, looking after rooms, teachers and moving us between the different sessions, dropping in discreetly to the various classes and then leading the late-night jams with huge energy. She took real care of all the people involved – a very fine host leader.

This kind of care is not only part of making the event run smoothly, but because it demonstrates a valuing of everyone involved. And as a participant we may not notice that immediately and directly, but it’s enormously important, really conveying that the event is about us the participants and not simply a money-making venture or a vehicle for prima donna stars to flaunt their self-importance. (Remix was most certainly not either of those two things, but you know what I mean…).

When I was teaching organisational trainers to use accelerated learning methods back in the 1990s we used to take great care with the participants and the learning environment. Walking into a room which has been prepared for today’s topic, carefully arranged, decorated, filled with interesting materials and peripherals, with music and maybe flowers, and a warm and interested teacher to say hello and welcome – that shows a valuing of the people in far more meaningful ways than a wall poster declaiming ‘Our people are our greatest asset’ can ever achieve.

Micro-solidarity

Decades ago, my wife Jenny (being a good 0s radical) used to go on student marches to show solidarity with the Cuban sugar harvesters and their fight against capitalism. She tells me that they had a march to celebrate the harvest one year – even though it had been unsuccessful! It’s easy to want to stand alongside a big group of people you’ll never have to meet – Cuban sugar harvesters, striking miners in the 1980s and so on. It is quite another thing to actually show solidarity with them as individuals, face to face. (The 2014 movie Pride is a nice story about what can happen when people move from general solidarity to actual personal engagement – well worth a watch if you haven’t seen it.)

My attention was recently drawn to a website/organisation intriguingly entitled Microsolidarity. The people behind it have a very interesting community building practice which starts at the level of self and progresses to partnership (pair) to small group (crew) to large group (congregation) to crowd. It’s a ‘fractal view of belonging’ – the same things coming up at different scales. They also reference the importance of leadership as hospitality (though don’t seem to have read my books on host leadership yet).

I think they’ve hit on a key point about community building. My Village In The City initiative is contacted from time to time by people who would love to be part of a thriving local neighbourhood community. On closer inspection it sometimes transpires that they want to somehow get there without making any effort themselves involved contact with actual (breathing, warm, different, unpredictable, possibly smelly) people! 😊

When people ask about how to get their ‘village’ off the ground, we advise them to aim small. Find one other person who’s keen on the same thing. Maybe advertise a get-started gathering in a local venue – and be delighted (not downhearted) when only two or three people join you. That’s a start. In fact, it’s a great start. You can talk about your hopes for the community in the future, your skills and experience that will be useful, what’s already there in terms of community (maybe in tiny traces)… and you’re off to an actual start. Having two dozen people show up would be nice… and also quite hard to engage with at first. Building out – from one other person to another, smaller groups to larger – is surely a useful way to go.

Micro-affirmations: connecting with individuals

Today we will look at how to use tiny remarks not to be aggressive but to be supportive and affirming. This is a really good skill for those of us wanting to organise people in ways that are both humane AND effective, so read on with interest…

I mentioned the work of Rayya Ghul and her colleagues at the University of Edinburgh. Rayya talked to students and staff and wrote about how comments about race, gender, sexual orientation, disability and class could very easily wear down those on the receiving end -even if the remarks were unintentional. She published resources for staff and students (written with Katie Nicoll Baines) which you can download free from her Researchgate page. These resources also give some excellent pointers on how to use micro-affirmations both as a counter to microaggressions and as a great way to support people. Here are some of the suggestions:

  • Learn all students’ names – if you are not sure, ask them to help you pronounce them. Practice saying the name and/or make a note of the phonetic pronunciation.
  • Ask for and respect people’s pronouns – do not make assumptions when enquiring about partners
  • Show interest in students, ask them about their aspirations.
  • Affirm a student’s potential to succeed – the future is unwritten and up for grabs
  • Highlight the student’s specific abilities and progress to them and reinforce this through appreciative enquiry – help them to articulate their strengths and to build on them.
  • Validate their experiences – believe them when they share their concerns or report incidents
  • Listen actively – lean forwards and focus on the student
  • Affirm their feelings – if they say they’re (for example) nervous then agree that’s tough right now (and it’s probably very normal)
  • Make clear statements about expected behaviours and what will not be tolerated – state them and have them visible.

These now form part of the guidance for staff at the University of Edinburgh. In general these are very small but important things, all based around noticing little signs and taking a genuine interest in the person in front of you. Doing them well is not easy! While this list assumes a teacher/student relationship, it’s quite easy to see how it can be easily adapted to other settings such as community development or leading a team.

Conclusions

The immense potential for using little interactions to show care, take an interest in people, actually show solidarity, go slowly, give space, simply be with others on a small and personal scale, is a key piece of organising in a humane and effective way. To enhance your Host Leadership, try looking out for a chance in the next 24 hours to do a little light micro-affirming and see how it feels to you.

This is an edited version of a piece published on Steps To A Humanity Of Organisation, Mark McKergow’s weekly update on Host Leadership, Solutions Focus, community-building and ways of organising both humanely and effectively. It’s free to read and subscribe.

Mark will be among those participating in the Host Leadership Gathering on 3-4 June 2024 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Come and join us!

EVENT SCHEDULE

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