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In an electronic, need-for-speed, overnight-delivery age, the more personal the invitation the better. A visit is more personal than a call; a call is more personal than a letter; a letter is more personal than e-mail—a letter with six people’s names on it is less personal than one addressed to one person, and an e-mail is about as impersonal as it gets. We are so flooded with e-mails and the medium is so senseless that I have come to believe that in the rank order of inviting, e-mails don’t count. But all are better than lying in bed at night waiting for the universe to provide.*

Okay, it’s time to make the invitation… How will you do it? You have what you’ll invite people to. You have the list of people. How can you make the invite?

Is there someone you can ask to share this risk with you? To ask you about the invitation or to come with you to make the invitation? Remember, as soon as someone says yes, they are sharing the responsibility for the gathering’s possibility with you.

Next we’ll talk about the setting for the meeting, which will influence whenand where.

Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging (p. 122). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.

There are certain properties of invitation that can make it more than simply a request. In addition to stating the reason for the gathering, an invitation at its best must contain a hurdle or demand if accepted. This is not to be inhospitable, but to make even the act of invitation an example of the interdependence we want to experience.

So, the invitation is a request not only to show up but to engage. It declares, “We want you to come, but if you do, something will be required from you.” Too many leadership initiatives or programs are begun with a sales and marketing mindset: How do we seduce people to sign up and feel good about doing things they may not want to do? Real change, however, is a self-inflicted wound. People need to self-enroll in order to experience their freedom and commitment. 

Think about the topic of your invitation:

• Local schools
• Gardening and sharing food
• Knowing neighbors enough to ask for help
• Knowing coworkers enough so that no one is without a holiday invitation to gather with others
• Artists and those interested in sidewalk traffic

Next, think of the cost to attending (here are examples from Peter Block):

1. We come together to create a new possibility through having a conversation we have not had before. We do not come together to negotiate interests, share our stories, or problem-solve the past or future.
2. No one will be asked in any way to yield on their commitments or interests. We are not coming to decide anything. We begin with the belief that the commitments and interests of each of us have to be honored and taken into account by all.
3. Each agrees to participate in all three two-hour discussions. There are always emergencies, and always pressing priorities, but the loss of even one person, for just one meeting, immensely reduces our chance of success.*

How will you describe the costs to accepting your invitation? How will you communicate that it is okay to decline the invitation and you’ll make it again later.

An invitation that requires a certain cost- time, commitment to something larger than myself, open mindedness about the outcome.

Whatinvitation could you create to fit the list of invites you’ve been forming?

*Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging (p. 121). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Too often we dilute the transformational possibilities of groups by asking too little or expecting too little. A transformational invitation includes cost, and opens the inviter into a vulnerable posture.

An invitation is more than just a request to attend; it is a call to create an alternative future, to join in the possibility we have declared. The question is, “What is the invitation we can make for people to participate in creating a future distinct from the past?”

The distinction here is between invitation and the more typical ways of achieving change: mandate and persuasion. The belief in mandate and persuasion triggers talk about how to change other people and how do we get those people on board, how do we make showing up a requirement, all of which are simply our desire to control others. What is distinct about an invitation is that it can be refused, at no cost to the one refusing.

Genuine invitation changes our relationship with others, for we come to them as an equal. I must be willing to take no for an answer, without resorting to various forms of persuasion. To sell or induce is not operating by invitation. It is using the language of invitation as a subtle form of control.

This rather purist version of invitation is one reason why you cannot judge success by numbers of people or scale. The pressure for scale will distort the integrity of the invitation. [No matter how small the response, a first meeting can be] a beginning and worth the effort… The concern we have about the turnout is simply an expression of our own doubts about the possibility that given a free choice, people will choose to create a future distinct from the past.”*

Look at the list of potential invitees you made, notice your fears. What would it cost you to invite these people and hear a no? We’ll get to the “what” of the invitation soon, but for now consider how you can keep the invite clean— how might I come to these invitees as “an equal.”

*Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging(p115-117). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

In the wilderness, the stranger becomes a neighbor through the vulnerable act of hospitality. Such hospitality is not reserved to tea on the front porch or holiday suppers (though these are great). Wilderness hospitality is an act of calling forth possibility by accepting the leadership of convening.

“Invitation is the means through which hospitality is created. Invitation counters the conventional belief that change requires mandate or persuasion. Invitation honors the importance of choice, the necessary condition for accountability. We begin with the question of whom do we want in the room. For starters, we want people who are not used to being together. Then we include the six elements of a powerful invitation: naming the possibility about which we are convening, being clear about whom we invite, emphasizing freedom of choice in showing up, specifying what is required of each should they choose to attend, making a clear request, and making the invitation as personal as possible.”*

We often avoid vulnerability and unconsciously repeat habits of isolation by assuming we don’t have anything or anyone to conviene.  Inhabiting the wilderness can be as simple as inviting shared community to be together.

This week, as we consider invitation, think of a way to invite others into meeting for the good of a neighborhood, a cause, or an association that you care about. As the invitation is formulated you will get clearer about “what the invitation is.” But for now, begin by building a list of people who do not yet know one another, but whom you believe might be awakened by your call into a shared possibility. We’ll discuss that next, but for this week’s exercise, begin by jotting down who those people would be.

*Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging(p113). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.