RELATIONSHIPS:
One-On-One Meetings
Introductory One-On-One Meetings
Help Someone Else Prepare for a One On One Meeting
Purposeful Curiosity: Sample Questions
Five Key Elements of a One On One Meeting
Meeting One On One: Help Other Volunteers Get Started
Why is it important to learn someone else’s ‘story’?
Self Assessment for Organizers – Key Questions
How many of the conversations you have in a week are pre-planned one-on-ones?
What would you need to do to be more intentional about setting up one-on-one meetings?
Who in the community would it be important to meet with one-on-one to expand yours and the campaign’s network of community relationships?
How will you recruit and coach others to set up one-on-one meetings?
Are you prepared to “tell your public story” in a one-on-one situation? Who could you practice with?
Introductory One-On-One Meetings
The purpose of an introductory meeting one-on-one is to identify whether, and in what way, we might work together more closely with someone else – with other community organizations, perhaps influential individuals (“grasstops”) or volunteers who could take on new leadership roles.
An introductory one-on-one meeting is a conversation – a conversation where you share information about what the Sierra Club is working on, what you are doing as part of that, and who you are as a person.
You also ask questions to learn more about the other person – what motivates them, what they are doing now or hope to do. Your goal going into the meeting is for you both to discover that your respective motivations (values), and interests (goals), create a sweet-spot (shared interest) for work together.
We do this kind of intensive relational work because it is the single most effective way to build relationships for work together. Bob Bingaman, the Sierra Club’s Organizing Department Director likes to tell a story that has been handed down from organizer to organizer over the past several decades. It is the story of a young organizer who had a chance to speak with Cesar Chavez, the late president of the United Farm Workers (UFW) and one of this nation’s premier organizers for social justice.
It happened during the famous UFW-led lettuce and grape boycotts of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The story goes that a young organizer working with the UFW had the opportunity to spend some time with Chavez one afternoon, and decided to ask him, “What is the secret to success in organizing?” Chavez responded, “The only way I know how to organize people is to talk to one person, then talk to another person, then talk to another person.”
Purposeful Curiosity
Where did you grow up?
How did you get from there to here?
When did you first start doing [whatever the person does now]?
What were you doing before that?
How did that change come about?
Be curious about the connections between one life event and another and look for themes. Just asking the simple question, “Why?” can be very powerful. Why did you decide to move across country? Why didn’t you finish business school? Who first gave you the idea that it was important to . . . ?
Julia Reitan’s favorite question is to ask first, where someone grew up, and then, “How did you get from there to here?” Why people moved from one place to the next helps you learn more about their values. What motivated them to move? Was it a personal relationship? A career choice? Love of a particular place? This helps you see them as a person and understand the values that have moved them to action – literally moved them from one place to another.
Asking these kinds of questions is not intended to be intrusive. Most people actually enjoy being able to reflect on their lives and their choices. It’s not often that people find a curious and appreciative audience.
Meeting One-On-One:
How to Engage Others in This Critical Work
1. Ask volunteers to meet one-on-one with new volunteers. Volunteers who have been engaged in the campaign may not be “experts” but they can share what they’ve learned so far. They can speak to what they’ve been doing with the campaign, what motivated them to get involved, and have a very effective one-on-one meeting with a new volunteer who is eager to learn.
2. Ask volunteers to set up a one-on-one meeting with someone in their own extended professional or personal network.
3. Ask several volunteers to come with you to an event or presentation. The goal will be to speak one-to-one with everyone who attends the event, so that you and your volunteer team can identify who to follow-up with one-on-one later.
4. Ask a volunteer leader to accompany you to a one-on-one meeting with a community “grasstop” leader, and be a second point of contact with that person and the campaign. This is ideal for a volunteer leader whose professional or personal background may mesh with the person you’re meeting with.
Why is it important to learn someone else’s “story?”
Think of a time when you had an “aha” moment after talking with someone – you learned a personal detail about them that helped explain who they are. You may have heard a story like the one that follows.
“I was a real tomboy as a kid, always getting in trouble. I loved roaming around in the swamps behind my house in Florida, finding snakes and toads and getting covered in mud. When I was older, 10 years old or so, we moved to the suburbs in New Jersey, and it was so different there. I didn’t have the swamp anymore, and really no where to go and play. Bu I found this one tree, kind of in the corner of a lot, that had a hollowed out space in its trunk and I would spend hours in there, imagining all sorts of things and talking to the tree. That wasn’t a great time for my family and that tree was my great refuge. Now I am back in Florida, and I want to make sure that there is always swamp and trees for those that need them.”
This leader, a newsletter editor for her local group, could have talked about her professional expertise, her previous volunteer activities, or alternately listed facts about the diminishing wetlands in her area, talked about her anger about the trees being cut down.
Instead her story is about what she experienced as a child that shaped who she is and what motivates her today. It’s personal information that wouldn’t be listed on a resume or written in a bio format. It’s more powerful and memorable because it helps us understand the underlying motivations and values that drive her and which you may share.
Discussion:
When might one on one meetings be part of your work? How can you make them purposeful?
How can someone’s personal story help you engage them in the work you are doing?