The Art of Gathering

The Art of Gathering shows you how to bring people together to create transformative, breakthrough meetings and experiencesWe spend our lives gathering - first in classrooms and then in meetings, weddings, conferences and away days. Yet so many of us spend this time in underwhelming moments that fail to engage us, inspire us, or connect us. We've all sat in meetings where people talk past each other or go through the motions and others which galvanize a team and remind everyone why they first took the job. We've been to weddings that were deeply moving and others that were run-of-the-mill and simply faded away.Why do some moments take off and others fizzle? What's the difference between the gatherings that inspire you and the ones that don't?In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker gets to the heart of these questions and reveals how to design a transformative gathering. An expert on organizing successful gatherings whether in conference centres or her living room, Parker shows us how to create moving, magical, mind-changing experiences - even in spaces where we've come to expect little.

“As social animals, humans gather, meet, and bond-seeking meaning, purpose, creative expression, and more. In almost all cases this is an unconscious process leading to subtle frustration and a lack of satisfaction. For the last few years I've avoided social gatherings because I find them meaningless and banal. I learned much from this book. Priya Parker has created both an art and a science to gathering in ways that can bring joy and fulfillment to any meeting”

[A] remarkable new book about how we spend our time together, at work, at home, and beyond. If you want to get more out of every event, whether it's with your boss and co-workers or friends and family, The Art of Gathering can help Bustle
[A] fantastic book . . . . Good things happen when people connect. Especially when we follow Priya's sage advice Forbes
Enthusiastically delivered formulas for better get-togethers... useful to those whose job it is to plan meetings, conferences, and the like and a worthy survival manual for consumers of the same Kirkus Reviews
This clear and engaging book sets down many things you thought you knew, until you find yourself remembering that you did not attend to its simple rules at the last significant event you hosted.... A passion for successful encounters enlivens every page -- Sherry Turkle author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age and Alone Together
A brilliant and eminently practical guide! The Art of Gathering will open your eyes to just how often we gather - and how we can turn those mundane events into dazzling opportunities for meaning, dreaming, and doing. This book should be mandatory reading for everyone from the business executive to the community activist, the conflict resolution specialist to the dinner host. Concrete advice that will forever change the way you gather -- Daniel L. Shapiro founder of the Harvard International Negotiation Program and author of Negotiating the Nonnegotiable

Priya Parker is a strategic facilitator with a background in conflict-resolution. Her company Thrive Labs has worked with organizations as varied as MoMA, the World Economic Forum and the International Finance Corporation on strategy, vision and purpose. Parker was a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council in 2013 and a member on the New Models of Leadership's Council on Values. Her TedxHasselt has been viewed over 900,000 times and she has been covered by CNN.com, Harvard Kennedy School Review, NPR's Morning Edition, Inc. magazine, Entrepreneur magazine and Forbes.

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