Crew Caller Training Design

Documentation for people training fresh crew leads

This is part 3 in a series of Notion pages I wrote as part of introducing crewing to the Commons in SF.

More disclaimers here:

Crewing @ the Commons

Link to official Commons documentation

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So you’re interested in training crew callers!

Purpose

The purpose of the crew caller trainings is to “produce” stewards of crewing at the Commons, who help cultivate these goals in themselves and their crews: Goals for the Crewing Program

Object Level Goals (”What” is done)

Concretely, the contents of the training should address topics like:

• Getting a crew started

  • Getting some clarity about what you want

  • Putting out a call for a crew

• Running a crew

  • What to do during a crew session

  • Navigate challenges during a session

  • Navigate challenges outside of a session

    • What if someone stops showing up/communicating?

    • What if crewmates have tension/conflict?

• Cultivating the crew and its members

  • Modeling speaking authentically and listening deeply

  • Sharing leadership and power

  • Encouraging people to speak up

  • Encouraging people to call a crew next time around in an attuned way

• Doing so from a place of experimentation, exploration, holding intentions lightly, curiosity, mystery, iteration

“Meta” Goals (”How” it’s done)

• Sustainability - “How do we make trainings sustainable for organizers and participants?”

  • How do we make it engaging?

  • Can we show rather than tell?

• Iteration - “How do we make trainings more targeted, effective, rich?”

Session Design (Round 2?)

TBD

Session Design (Summer 2024)

What We Did

1 crash course in “here’s what a crew session is like”, and follow up session to navigate fears/concerns/alternatives/etc - a session “A” and a session “B”. Most crew leads only did session A. There was a lot of individual outreach to leads to get a sense of common blocks/fears.

Cons: overwhelming, too accelerated intimacy → discomfort/defensiveness/closedness, a lot of “white glove” 1:1 DMs/conversations (doesn’t scale)

Design Considerations

In this first iteration, there’s been interest in a range of guidance around crew calling, from a single session, 2 sessions, to 4 sessions.

The signpost at 4 sessions comes from the crewing program that the Microsolidarity organization ran, which seemed to work well and be relatively comprehensive. In short, the theme of each session was roughly:

1. What do you want in your crew?

2. Working with hosting fears

3. Practicing facilitation

4. Practicing case clinics, integration, retro

Session A

Pre session homework

The intention of this time is to be primarily experiential, and spend minimal time talking at you. So please come having read this, or get here early to read it: Crew Calling 101 (10 min)

Bring something to write on (notebook, phone)

Structure

1. Johnson intro (5 min)

2. How comfortable are you with hosting? (2 min)

   1. Place yourself in a line of how comfortable/confident you are with facilitation and hosting.

3. Check in (5 min)

   1. Turn to the person next to you

   2. How are you doing today & what are you hoping to get out of this program? (2 min each)

4. Fears (2 min)

   1. Pull out your phone or a notebook

   2. What kinds of impressions do you try hard NOT to make? What do you really NOT want others to think about you?

5. Case clinic sections walk thru (5 min)

   1. Sections

      1. Sharing - questions aren’t required, they’re inspiration/signposts, don’t need to go thru every question

      2. Questions - not to fix, but to understand their world

      3. Reflection - what you heard, maybe more abstract

      4. Generative dialogue - trust they know what’s best but offer ideas perspectives etc. that could be helpful

      5. Closing comments

   2. Generally, prioritize the timing over the completeness, though as facilitator you can kind of feel it out

6. Crewing sim (groups of 3) (60 min total)

   1. Get in groups, decide who’s going to share a case (5 min)

      1. Basically, a problem or challenge that you’re facing currently, that matters to you, and is somewhat concrete, but it doesn’t have to be super well formed. Could be personal, professional, big, small, etc.

   2. Decide who will “lead” each section, (2 min)

      1. 3 sections

         1. Check in - 1 or 2 min each

         2. Case clinic - follow the sheet

         3. Feedback/appreciation for this group - 1 or 2 min each (normally logistics in your real crew)

      2. Case sharer won’t lead the case clinic

   3. Check in (particularly related to fears) (5 min)

   4. Shortened case clinic (40 min)

      1. Please follow Shortened Case Clinic Format

   5. Feedback/appreciation (6 min, 2 min each)

7. Group share - how was that (10 min)

   1. Questions/did it make sense? (At any level - doing a case clinic, leading, the meeting structure, etc.)

   2. Was it helpful? Was it connective? (show on fingers)

8. Pull out phone/laptop - add yourself to 🙌 Crews (5 min)

9. Group check out - how you’re feeling about starting a crew, a takeaway (10 min)

If you’re like “yup that was great and easy and I get it and it all makes sense how it fits into the commons and I feel super comfortable and on the same page”, sick. If not, come to the 2nd session.

Shortened Case Clinic Format

Copy pasted and slightly altered timings from here:

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Session B

1. Reflections on groups (7 min)

   1. “Favorite vs least favorite groups” in pairs (4 min)

   2. How can we cultivate more of the good group vibe than the bad group vibe? (3 min)

2. Intro group share - how are you feeling about leading a crew now? 1-5 fingers (1 min)

3. Sharing (10 min)

   1. “Announcement” - N+2 sessions instead of N+1

   2. Context on crewing & the Commons

      1. Crews are a 'nice place to hang out' but also a place to grow our agency and hosting capacity. A healthy Crew is an ideal context/container to grow a person, particularly through receiving generative feedback about how we're showing up, and supportive encouragement

   3. Challenges

      1. Accelerated/premature intimacy

      2. What’s your responsibility to hold/not hold

4. Troika (40 min) - Liberating Structures - 8. Troika Consulting

   1. Person to the left time keep

   2. Group share

5. Difficult feedback (20 min) in pairs

   1. Main learnings - meta conversation before sharing, checking in after sharing

   2. Everyone - Think of a person that you’re experiencing conflict with, don’t choose the hardest relationship in your life but choose something that feels meaningful, you’re going to simulate a conversation with them

   3. Activity

      1. Sharing

         1. Person A take 10 seconds to imagine that person B is them

         2. 1 min - A: tell them how you feel about having this conversation? What hesitations/reservations/fears do you have about even talking? Ask “can I share” (yes)

         3. 1 min - A shares

      2. After care

         1. 1 min - B “take it badly” - get defensive, shut down, change the subject (fight freeze fawn)

         2. A check in with B - “Hey you seem X, how are you feeling?”

         3. 1 min - B shares how they’re feeling

         4. 1 min - A reflects and/or shares how they feel

      3. 1.5 min - B debrief with A - how did it feel to be on the other side of the interaction?

      4. 1.5 min - A reflects on feedback

6. Group share - how was that (10 min)

   1. pairs compare with case clinic

7. Pull out phone/laptop - add yourself to 🙌 Crews (10 min)

8. Group check out - how you’re feeling about starting a crew, a takeaway (10 min)
   

Session A v2

We iterated on session A in light of how we felt the first one went and tried this.

1. Johnson intro (5 min)

2. How comfortable are you with hosting? (2 min) (Amy)

   1. Place yourself in a line of how comfortable/confident you are with facilitation and hosting.

3. Check in (5 min) (Amy)

   1. Turn to the person next to you

   2. How are you doing today & what are you hoping to get out of this program? (2 min each)

4. Reflections on groups (7 min) (Johnson)

   1. “Favorite vs least favorite groups” in pairs (4 min)

   2. How can we cultivate more of the good group vibe than the bad group vibe? (3 min)

5. Fears (2 min) (Johnson)

   1. Pull out your phone or a notebook

   2. What kinds of impressions do you try hard NOT to make? What do you really NOT want others to think about you?

6. Troika (35 min) (Amy) - Liberating Structures - 8. Troika Consulting

   1. Person to the left time keep

7. Group share - how was that (10 min) (Johnson)

   1. Questions/did it make sense? (At any level - doing a case clinic, leading, the meeting structure, etc.)

   2. Was it helpful? Was it connective? (show on fingers)

8. Pull out phone/laptop - add yourself to 🙌 Crews (5 min) (Johnson)

9. Group check out - how you’re feeling about starting a crew, a takeaway (10 min) (Amy)