Anatomy of a Welcome

Belonging Based Facilitation leads with its values, one of which is anti-racism. As such, one of our core commitments is to not be ahistorical. This value shows up in our practice when we are warming up a group - we help usher them into and ultimately through the Warm Welcome Stage by letting them know what preceded their iteration of a group. As Priya Parker discusses in her book on The Art of Gathering when we come together in the warming stage, we can quickly share who we are and what brings us all together. 

As facilitators, we often introduce ourselves to a new group by describing how we came to be part of that group or how long we have worked with a subset of the group to prepare for our time together. When doing circle-work (e.g. transformative justice, community accountability, or other sacred circle work) we often begin with a grounding and/or check-in. Grounding or checking in allows the group to arrive, to become present with the moment. This act of becoming present is important for all groups embarking on a particular project or task together, and it can be easy for groups that have been together a long time to  overlook the warming stage,  It’s important to remember that every time someone joins or leaves a group or whenever a group comes together to engage in something new, it’s time to warmly welcome folks into the group, answering the questions: who are we now? and why are we now together?

You’re The New Sheila vs. Individuated Invitation

As Belonging-Based facilitators, we want to let people know that they belong from the moment that they arrive. So often our warm welcomes are about how we set the space ahead of time: materials are shared a week before, anything we need that day is printed out, name tags are available with a variety of colors, nourishment is on hand, there is relatively comfortable seating for everyone and when we finally get around to doing introductions, we invite folks to share their names, pronouns, access needs, and something that they need from the group to feel belonging [we actually tend to ask this ahead of time]. 

When folks are new to groups, they often practice in this way. But as we are with organizations longer, we can begin to skip over this step. How many of us have been on a job where someone leaves and when the new hire for that position comes on, we say “oh, you’re the new Sheila!” and proceed to introduce Kenya as “the new Sheila.”? This can be even more complicated when race, gender, and other identities are involved, but it is also a lie. This person is not the new Sheila, they are their own person with unique talents, gifts, and experience. They may be coming in to join the team and perform a specific function, but they will do it a different way and if we hold them to the same expectations of Sheila, we will miss their new and unique contribution. We are signaling that they don’t belong, but that SHeila does. Or that they can belong conditionally to the extent that they are a carbon copy of Sheila. “Sheila always used to bring the donuts to our meetings,” Sheila was never late with her reports, Sheila always knew how to reset the servers, the list goes on. We say “any time a group changes composition it’s a new group,” so that the group can adjust to and incorporate this new being into belonging to the organization. At the Othering and Belonging institute, there is this lovely image that describes it in the context of exclusion and inclusion.

From the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkely.

So how do you do it?

Invitation, recognition, and connection.