Crew Calling 101
Documentation for fresh crew leads
This is part 4 in a series of Notion pages I wrote as part of introducing crewing to the Commons in SF.
This still has guidance of “do case clinics”, which hasn’t incorporated learnings from the first season of crewing.
More disclaimers here:
Link to official Commons documentation
So you’re interested in calling a crew!
The good news - this hopefully will not be your last time crewing. In my (Johnson’s) experience, it’s an art and a practice that you’ll improve at over time. There’s no pressure or expectation that the 1st or hundredth crew you call has any specific outcome. Hopefully, a minimum, it’s a growthful experience that you come out of with some friends.
Structure of a Crew Cycle
You’re going to navigate a full crew cycle/round/season. A full cycle looks like:
Calling (bringing together) the crew
Sharing expectations with crew mates: Joining a Crew
If you crew “in the wild” (outside of the Commons), you’d want to communicate these with everyone individually, but here, we’ll communicate them (just make sure your crew mates have read it)
Sharing your pitch on the crew sign up page: 🙌 Crews
“Here’s what I’m about/my vibe, I want to meet for this amount of time at these day/times, at this place”
Make an event in Luma for the crew: Creating An Event on the Commons Cal
Running the crew
Create a group chat
Each meeting, someone does a case clinic (peer support)
Last meeting, retro
Self reflection/growth
“How do/did I show up as a leader and how can I improve?”
Participating in feedback for the crewing program
Regularly sharing how your crew is going, getting support if stuck
Retrospectives, collective learning, sense making, etc. (Mid/late July?)
Calling the Crew
1. Why
Take some time explore if there’s anything specifically you want out of your crew - “why crew?” Some questions to consider:
What challenges are you experiencing that you hope to address with crewing?
If I were to move beyond those challenges, what would become possible is...
What's most important to me about that is...
If you have clear answers to those questions, great! If not, the good news is that “I want more/better friendships, connections, trust, support, belonging, and to show up as a better friend/person” is a wonderful purpose - it’s the most common one for me (Johnson) across a few dozen crews.
Some other possible inspirations, from my experience and that of the Microsolidarity network:
Working on our relationship to parents
Exploring IFS
Exploring relationship to money
Planning a trip together
Book club
Doing a course together
Solopreneurs supporting each other
2. What
If, based on your why, there are things that you’d specifically like to do with your crew sessions, go for it.
Otherwise, I’d strongly recommend starting with case clinics. In my experience, they’re tried and true; having started a few dozen crews, I’ve returned to doing a cycle of them to start every crew regardless of the eventual intention of the crew. They seed all sorts of norms and practices that are critical to communicating, collaborating, connecting effectively.
So even if you do have a clear vision/thing for your crew, I’d still suggest either starting with a round of case clinics, or doing them in parallel somehow. For example, I (Johnson) want to start a bottomless brunch crew (lol) but want to do case clinics each day before we go off to brunch.
Ultimately, as crew caller, it’s up to you to decide what you want to put out in the initial call.
3. When
# of sessions - N+1 (eg 4 crew members = 5 meetings)
Weekly, N+1 weeks
Duration - at least 1.5 hours, recommend 2 hours so you aren’t rushed, assuming case clinics
Starting the ~5/31 (when new members start)
Ideally you can make every session (barring emergency/last minute important stuff). You need to attend the first 2 or 3 sessions to hold it down. can potentially get away with asking someone in the crew to facilitate if you have to miss one of the later sessions.
4. Where
Wherever you want - the Commons, your home, the park, as long as it’s accessible for everyone and regular.
5. Who
3-6 people total, no more no less.
People will sign up for your crew, or you can go out and look for/invite people into your crew personally, if there are people you have in mind that you’d actively want in it.
Rich, the OG Microsolidarity guy, likes to share that after his events/programs/etc. that people will often ask him “how did you get the perfect people to do this together???”. And he responds “lol I didn’t, I just set up the structure.” My experience and observation is that with the crewing structure, pretty much any group of people can and do connect meaningfully, even if it’s not to the level of BFFLs).
Running the Crew
First thing to make a group chat and check that people have read Joining a Crew
Normal Sessions
3 main “parts” of a normal session
Start with a check in
Give everyone a minute or 2 (using a timer can feel a bit awkward but is helpful for not going over time)
People can share how they’re arriving, how they’re feeling, whatever they want. But I invite people to share about what’s going on for them in the present moment.
The primary intention is to help people land and be present (vs in their head thinking about all their other responsibilities)
Do the case clinic
Basically just follow this format for case clinics
Confirm logistics for next time
When/where
Who’s sharing a case clinic next week - this depends on the group.
In some groups, people are hesitant to share a case - it’s vulnerable, can feel awkward, people have all sorts of hang ups about sharing problems/challenges in their lives. This is part of the point of crewing/case clinics, to slowly encourage people out of that shell. In this case, agreeing to who will go. a week prior is helpful so people can prepare.
In other groups, people feel quite comfortable sharing, and seeing on the day of if someone has something alive feels better.
As the crew caller, sussing this out is your responsibility. For the first session, you might message in the group chat “hey who wants to go”, and navigating from there. Maybe someone responds “sure I can” pretty quickly, and you can be more in the latter bucket. Maybe no one responds and you gotta DM a few people to coax one of them into sharing first.
Retro/Reflection
A guide: Group Reflection
How/Vibes
18 min video/~10 min read
Intended vibe of crews: “Assuming like me, you want to be in a context where everyone gets to lead sometimes, where there's a sense of shared power, shared responsibility, shared accountability, that no one is a particularly special person. There's not really like a boss or one person in charge, that it's distributed. To get to that stage, your role as a founder, as initiator /caller or /host, whatever your language, a lot of what you're going to have to do there is about encouraging. It's encouraging people to step in and to step up.”
“So in that sense, shared leadership means giving up power. It means that, if I want to be in an environment where it's not just me calling the shots, but there's 10 people or there's 30 people that feel like they're empowered, like they have a meaningful say, that's going to mean that not everything is going to go my way. And again, it's a whole developmental process. It's a whole kind of maturity to get used to the idea that I'm not in control.”