S1.E2: The Basic Tool of Organizing: The One to One or Relational Meeting

[Music] Hi, my name is Luke Brevitton and this is the Listen Organised Act Podcast, which focuses on the history and contemporary practice of organizing in democratic politics, paying particular attention to the role of religious communities in that work. This podcast is a collaboration between the Industrial, Aries Foundation or IAF and the Keenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. You can download readings relevant to the episode from the website. That's www.almondcenter.org/listen-organisedact-podcast. Do sign up at the website for news about events and resources related to the podcast or to semi-questions. In this episode I discuss why and how listening is the beginning point of democratic organizing and the role of the one-to-one or relational meeting in that work. In the first part I talk to Lena Jamoul about what is a one-to-one, what it involves and how it differs from other ways of engaging with people in democratic politics. In the second part I talk to Arnie Graf in order to reflect further on some of the tensions and issues that arise in doing one-to-one. I'll introduce Arnie after I talk to Lena. Lena Jamoul is Executive Director of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees. She's wide experience of community organizing both in the US and the UK. And about eight years ago she switched to being involved in union organizing, which is her current role. So Lena, it's great to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for doing this. I think the last time I actually saw you in person, and this was brought back to me recently, was in 2008, which is many moons ago. Right. And you're amazing. You're organizing in Chicago at the time. And by some remarkable feat of Hutzper and Cunning, you managed to get me into Grant Park to hear Barack Obama's Victory speech, which feels incredibly kind of relevant to the moment as we're in this time of transition. And they played before Obama came on, Michelle and Obama came on. They played John McCain's Concession speech that night. And I think it was the night of the election, or it was the night of the election. So yes, I have very many happy memories. Last time actually I saw you in person. I've been thinking about that concession speak actually quite a bit. I know it's remarkable. I've had all these views as well, because it stands and stark contrast to the current moment. But Lena, just tell me a bit about your journey at organizing, where you've organized, and something of your current role. Yeah. Well, I think my journey into organizing began before I was born, like a lot of us. My parents had been, you know, political activists in Syria in the late 70s trying to form some kind of semblance of a democratic labor party that happened to be an opposition to the Assad government. And so that was really the formation of our family's trajectory. And definitely my trajectory and kind of DNA and contribution to the world. So I was born in Syria. We emigrated to Cyprus in 1984 when I was seven and then kind of grew up between Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, and then London. And but grew up always with politics being talked about at the dinner table in the sense of if people, ordinary people aren't organized, power can't be held accountable. You know, I came across the IAF when I was in the Industrial Ares Foundation, when I was in graduate school, and really found that to be my calling vocation in a way that there is a way to make a difference in the world. There is a way to connect people to one another and through those connections, build power that can have impact in people's lives and neighborhoods and communities and workplaces and, you know, and kind of maybe more importantly than themselves from the end of the night out. And did you, and was your first organizing job in London? Or was it in the US? I can't remember. It was in the US. And then I was a volunteer leader, you know, as a graduate student and helped lead campaigns on a voluntary basis with the organization and then moved to Chicago in 2006. And that's when you took up full time kind of organizing. And tell me a little bit about your current role. Yeah, I'm currently the executive director of a Labour Union with 15,000 members in Minnesota to Labour Union of Professional State Workers. It's called MAPE, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees. And I've been in the organization for almost seven years. So turning now to the one-to-one and something called the relational meeting, what is it? You know, in organizing terms, people often bang on about, you know, the one-to-one is the basic tool of organizing. You know, can you just give us a sense of what is it and what does it involve? Yeah. So a one-on-one is, you know, a 20 to 30 minute conversation with someone that's face-to-face in order to get to know them and in order for them to get to know you. And through that conversation, figuring out what that person's self-interest is, what makes them tick, what's their hopes and dreams for themselves and their families or communities, whether they have any appetite to do anything about those hopes and dreams, and what kind of leadership potential following or network that they have. So what would you say is the point of it? Why? I mean, it's obviously interesting to hear people's stories. It's a nice way to kind of get a sense of who they are. But why do this? What's the point of it? What are you trying to achieve through having these relational meetings? Yeah. I think politics is really hard. And I think folks and politicians or activists or campaigners or whoever are always trying to figure out what's the message, what's the thing that I can, you know, get on TV and tell people or print in the social, or whatever. And I think there isn't a thing. I think all there is actually is relationships with people and connecting with them. And it's labor-intensive and requires a lot of time and patience and the ability to suspend judgment and the ability to resist selling an ideology at the ability to be okay with not knowing what the answers are and to go and try to talk to enough people so an answer emerges or a set of answers emerge. And I think those are actually really things at the heart of our politics. And kind of so I do one-on-one to really bring that back in a real practical and real way of this how you invest your time as a leader or a political person. So it's kind of central to it is what you're describing is the kind of if politics is really about people and people coming together to kind of determine the conditions of their lives really and having some say over that being able to act together to determine that. It's crucial we need a way to put people before program. A lot of politics is about selling ideological programs or recruiting people to campaign or and it actually the person gets lost in the program and the one-on-one is in a sense a way of actually saying no, we need to put the person first and the program whatever it is, you know, a campaign working together on issue, an election process is secondary and comes flows out of the relationships we build together as persons. Would that be a fair kind of characterization? Yeah, exactly. Right. And building on that that sense, I mean, how then does the relational meet differ from other kinds of ways in which politicians and those in NGOs or even kind of planning processes listen to people. Because you know, you could turn around and say well actually, you know, we do polling. That's a way I'm listening to persons and putting people first or focus groups is a way of doing that or I mean, I know you did some of this. I was involved in this during the election and phone banking. These are all ways in which one tries to engage people in the processes. How does the kind of one-on-one meeting differ from them? Yeah, that's a good question. It differs in a number of ways. ways, one is you're not trying to sell anything. And also the information, it's a mutual exchange. So you're also sharing about yourself and your kind of, so you're learning and the other person is learning to, it's a two way mutual exchange. There's also, you know, less of a script, right, right, that you follow. And, you know, for a focus group, for example, it's like you're trying to get something out of that exchange where this is, this is your trying to build a relationship and you're trying to identify leaders. Right, right. And so there's more, there's just more space around it, you know, kind of moving into with a more open mind. Although, you know, I will say the kind of the dynamics of a one to one is a pliable tool. So that's an interesting, it does seem to me this kind of, there's a tricky dance in the one to one of there's, there is, it's not casual chitchat or talk or just a kind of, hey, let's get a coffee and hang out kind of thing. And it's not this very focused kind of one way conversation where I'm trying to extract something from you or sign you up to something. But there is a sense of, there's, there's a direction to it, there's a direction of travel to it. And while at the same time, one is genuinely trying to connect to what the, the kind of hopes dreams, what someone has energy for, what their real concerns are beyond simply all kind of passing the time of day of talking to the weather. And get a sense of what will they act around or on? And do they connect to the things I'm engaged with or trying to kind of work on in your case, building up a union membership. So there's, there is this tricky dance isn't there between actually having a meaningful conversation really connecting relationally to someone. And on the other hand, kind of moving them to act in a certain way. And I always find that's a tricky tricky dance. And in your experience, I mean, that the example you've just given is a good one. There can be moments of agitation where you're trying to press people to say, what, what really is motivating or why didn't X, Y, Z or why won't you join? You know, what's going on with you? How do you handle those agitations? What, what's some of your experiences of that and have a tension? Yeah. I mean, that's that's right. These, they're not, they are purposeful conversations with the purpose of building power. So there's there's got to be a direction to that. You're right. And part of the agitation piece is because we, public life asks us to stretch ourselves, but being public or doing something kind of outside your family and your, your individual kind of social life. I think that's why agitations important to the one on one piece because it kind of primes you when tests you and also makes it more memorable. You know, makes the interaction more memorable. But it's important for that to come out of a relationship and to be agitating people around their own self interest. Right. Right. So you have to spend some time with people to get to know what, what that is. Yeah. The sense in which then it's not simply treating people as kind of campaign folder, but actually even though once trying to work out how you can act together with others as it were, there's a sense which that has to be born out of a genuine relational connection rather than simply it's not, it's not, it's too reductive to call it a recruitment drive, even though one hopes one would generate shared speech and action to put it at its most abstracts coming out of it. And in that sense, going back to example, you just gave, I mean, how do you handle talking to very different people to you? And when it's clear, you do disagree with them, like how do you like there, there could be real points of disagreement. But if it's a relational meeting where I'm not own, you know, I mean, I guess this goes back to a kind of more philosophical point. If politics is begins not by demanding everyone, you disagree with leaves the room before the conversation begins, but actually involves talking to people you can radically disagree with or very different to you or have different cultural or religious backgrounds to you. How do you handle those kinds of differences in the one to one setting? Yeah, but going back to 2016, I mean, I had a series of one on ones internally with our members who are Republicans of people that I knew and respected are more involved in the union, but had voted conservative. And wanting to understand where people were coming from. And so I approached that conversation, I'm not trying to change anyone, not trying to just trying to figure out what's the motivation. And and had some really good conversations with people who had voted for Trump in 2016, but, you know, I think of I think of a member who worked in the Department of Corrections who said the most important issue for her is for folks coming out of prison to be able to have work. And because that's the thing that keeps them out of prison, but had a had a particular kind of family and religious upbringing. And that was what her what was and then towards the conversation she asked me jokingly, can I still be a member of the union? You're going to kick me out of the union. Right. We know we need you. We need. So I think that's I think that's partly being able to and we've worked as a north with her one really, really great campaigns of getting more funding out of the legislature for probation and community services, which is her her work. So that's an interesting just I mean, do you think that's part of why the the one on one or the relation meetings is such a kind of key tool that actually if if it's much more about how do we change things together? It enables want to build a relationship across ideological differences. You don't come in defined by your ideological differences. You come in that you're a person, I'm a person. And how do we talk together and see what are their points of connection here? We can't I can't pre-know that and that I've used to me a lot of particularly in our polar eyes context. People operate with an ideological checklist and they seem to think they already know whether this person is going to be prepared to work with them or not. And that's only one of my experiences in organizing is people I would have who are very different religious backgrounds to me, very different cultural backgrounds to me. One of the delights of organizing work is that was kind of haunted by the fact that on the one hand people I thought would radically disagree with me and do radically disagree me. A lot of things turn out to show me love and respect beyond I beyond which I deserve and we did lots of wonderful work together. People I agree with me about many many things don't have to stab me in the back quicker than I can blink an eye. So it's kind of this curious thing in politics that that ideology doesn't necessarily make for the ability to work together or even cultural sameness or religious sameness or lots of things we think kind of ease the wheels of genuinely working together don't. And so therefore if we're making a political judgment based on those, we're often going to make bad judgments about who actually we can work together with on on an issue. What do you I mean, do you have experiences like that? Yeah, I mean, you know, a textbook answer, powers organize people and organized money. And so to organize people, I think I think you can really only do it effectively in relationally. And so and the tool for that is is the is the one on one meeting. I also think it does, you know, you have to have a certain level of patience and commitment and be willing not to know it all. And kind of all these kinds of qualities that go into to to someone being willing to invest prime time in one on ones that I think lend themselves to just good leadership. And so that when you have an institution that says, okay, one on ones are at the heart of the way we build power and kind of carry out our mission. And then you attract leaders who are willing to do that who are willing to be tested on it and kind of follow through then you then you build a different kind of infrastructure. That's more solid. And it's much more I guess it's a kind of more leader full form of organization rather than a kind of one person at the top dictating kind of command and the troll structure. style of these things. Dig into the kind of practicalities a little bit. Let's say you wanted to think about this as a minister or you were running a small organization and you wanted to start doing one-to-one and create this more relational culture for and draw people together to act together in more concerted ways. Talk us through like how do you explain to someone, hey come and meet me for this weird kind of conversation. Like how does that go for you? If you've never met someone before and they're outside the union or they were outside, give me to your organizing, how would you set that up? What would talk us through the steps that involve setting it up and a little bit about that first initial moment of having the conversation? Yeah. So this is the point where people really struggle and where I know I really start. I'm an introvert. I didn't pre-my organizing days. I liked my social circle and that was it. You know, it was just pretty narrow. So this isn't not easy for most people. So the key thing, and I remember Arnie Graf describing it as you have to run an action on yourself to do it. So kind of first, just decide you want to decide that you're going to do it. And then the second piece is really set time on your schedule to do it. Because no one is going to make it urgent for you, so you have to make it urgent for yourself. And kind of decide, you know, I'm going to do X amount of these a week or a month or whatever it is. It's just like some kind of thing that you're going to keep yourself accountable to. And then I suppose if you were kind of just, you know, if you're a minister in a church or some organization, you'd need a little bit of frame for the meeting. So it could be if you're new somewhere, it could be. I've just started here and I'm getting to know the neighborhood or the parish or I'm getting to know our stakeholders in whatever context that you're in. Tell them why them they're going to know why why me. So either someone recommended you and said you'd be a good person to talk to or I heard you say this at a meeting. And I want to find out a little more about what you mean or your experience. And I want to get to know you. Then they're going to want to know what's good to tell people that you're not singling them out. So I'm trying to have conversations with a number of people. So you're not talking, you know, people feel a little comfortable. So folks generally tend to need a little bit of a frame frame for it. And then, and then she did as normal. That's the other thing. If you're awkward about it, it'll be awkward. But if you treat it as the most normal thing in the world for you to be doing, then it'll be normal for the other person too. And how much do you begin by sharing a bit about yourself? Do you open by just saying a little bit about yourself? Yeah, yeah, I do. I do. It just, it uses the conversation and it kind of, and I'll do a little framing in the beginning of the conversation too. Because they might have probably forgotten what you set on the phone, why you were setting the meeting up. So I'll, you know, I'll kind of do another frame at the beginning. And yeah, generally, I'll tend to open with a little bit about myself. And generally, what kind of, what's your, I mean, how, what are some of the kind of questions you asked to get at? What is really motivating people or what they're, what they're angry about or what they're passionate about? Yeah. I mean, I think you just, you can ask that. What do you, what, what gets you up in the morning? What do you worry about for yourself, your family? If you could change one thing that you think this'd be great if it happened, but it would never happen. What's that one thing? You know, ask people, what's, what's the mark you want to have in the world or in your organization? Does anything make you angry? What is that? Yeah, no, there's a, because those are not the kinds of questions we ordinarily ask. And yet, we all have thoughts and feelings around this kind of question. So it's, it's the opportunity, I think often in my experience, giving people the opportunity to talk about those things. Actually, it's, it's one can go quite deep, quite quickly as one kind of gives people the opportunity to, to think and reflect on those aspects of what they're doing, why they're doing it. And, yeah, I think I think that gets it at a very important point about in the beginning, once politics, with listening through something like the tool of the one to one sometimes I'm told to call it a tool because it's kind of relational meeting, but, but that sense in which. Are we, are we taking seriously what people care about, what they cherish, what they love. And beginning there, or are we, so much politics is, it's either a, even at its best, a kind of, if we build it, they will come and then we've got to work out a mechanism to, to get them to where, where we're at. And they'll get very frustrated when people don't want to come to the places, we're telling them, we'll be good for them. I got the kind of self-righteous Vanguard problem, but all, we've, it's all about a kind of technique of techniques of recruitment. It's not the sense that we talked about earlier of actually beginning with people, rather than program. But I think that is also true in, and I've been interested to kind of your experiences of working with institutions in the kind of community organizing, setting, whether in Chicago and London. It's also true, certainly, my experience of churches, there's a decided lack internally of that kind of relational approach of, of actually rooting what the church is doing and its programs and services that it's, it's, it's ministries in actually where people are at. And I think that's much more, three people who run the church have an idea and then spend a lot of time trying to get people to turn out on a rainy Thursday to come to that ministry or, or, or volunteer for it. Rather than beginning with, hey, you know, what do you care about? What are the problems in your community you want to see and that you want to act with others to address through forming a ministry here? Part of it is, is I think saying, by wanting to engage with people about what they care about, is saying that they matter. That they have value that they're, they're important to you and important, the organizational, an important member of this community. And that I think is also a very powerful thing to say in so much of the world that doesn't they only have value as a consumer or any value as a client or any value as a kind of vote on a, you know, or a signature. It's stepping beyond those kinds of ways of valuing people and saying that you, you as a person matter. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And you can tell people that they matter. But sitting down with them and having a conversation communicates to them that they matter and you never have to say, I'm doing this because you're important or you matter, you know, sounds a little weird. But people do, I mean, I've had this experience quite regularly that at the end of at the end of the conversation, people will say, thank you, thank you so much for doing this. I feel like I matter. I've had that experience quite a bit of people, you know, kind of reflecting that. That, that to me. And actually just another kind of practical issue. I mean, do you take notes after it? What do you do with that information? Yeah, information what do you do at not information through on term, but you get what I mean? Yeah, so I give you a textbook answer and I'll give you what I actually do. So I leave the textbook answer is you don't take notes in the meeting, but you take notes after the meeting. And I do take notes every time every week between 30 to 40 minutes to like really reflect on both the meetings I've had and then the upcoming meetings. And so that'll be the time, but it's kind of all all together rather than. Yeah, I do, I do depend to do count on my memory more, more than I more than I probably should. Lena, thank you so much. It's been great talking to you on the podcast and I look forward to the day we can meet again in person. What comes through from talking to Lena is that the one to one as a practice embodies a distinctive vision of democratic politics, one which puts people before program. As a practice, it involves having a very particular kind of conversation with someone, one that seeks to identify what they are passionate about or angry about, what they want to see change where they live or where they work, whether they will act on that desire for change, and whether they can get others to act with them to address shared concern. As I mentioned at the outset, I wanted to reflect further on some of the tensions and issues that arise in doing one-to-ones. To that end, I talked to Arnie Graf about his experiences of doing one-to-ones and training others to do them over many decades of involvement in community organizing all around the US. I wanted to talk to Arnie as he's one of the most experienced organizers in the world today and has helped shape its contemporary practice. He began organizing work as part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and then went on to work with the Industrial Arias Foundation for many decades. More recently, he's worked with the British Labour Party to develop the insights of organizing for local party politics in the UK. Arnie, thank you so much for talking to me on the podcast. I've been talking to Erlina Jamul about what is a one-to-one and what it involves building on what I discussed with her. I just wanted to jump straight into the thick of doing one-to-ones with you and ask, can you give some, I believe, some examples of not just a club, how to do the one-to-one, but when one's doing a one-to-one, what are the responses in oneself when you're identifying leaders or potential organizers? What are the things that go off for you effectively, emotionally, mentally? Did you think, "Whoa, yeah, that's what they tell a story and you think, 'Oh, yeah, they're a leader,' or, 'They're telling you something about themselves and what makes them mad or what they really cherish.' And you think, 'Yeah, I need to press into this person, almost the kind of internal world of the one-to-one.' Because we don't often, we can read that when you do it, but actually I think it would be really helpful to know something of how you approach that and what goes, what you're looking for and what sets you really gives you energy. Well, if you're out in the community, I'm trying to, the first thing is, do they have any kind of following? So what's going on in my head is, who do they relate to? What are they part of? And if you're not part of anything which you can find in some communities, so many things have collapsed, the church has gone or whatever is not much there, then I'm trying to figure out, do they know their neighbors, do they relate to how long they live there? How, do they, their kids, if their kids are older and grown, do they relate to people if they're still living there? So the first thing is, I'm looking for, are they relating to other people? And would they have any pull on people? I'll ask, 'Well, I'm not a leader or I know some people.' Well, we were talking to me about the school that's a problem or the garbage in the community, whatever they're talking about. Could you pull together five people so we could talk about this? And if they answer me, 'Yeah, who would they be?' And why? What is it about Mrs. Simon that you think would be a person that you would pull together and would be good for this? So the one thing is, is there, do they have anybody behind them? And given their story, if you pull out your story or a story that they're willing to share with you, is what they're saying relate to what I think could be a good leader. And some people tell stories and they're nice stories, but they're not, it's nice for their life, I mean, you know, but it's not anything that would necessarily lead you to think that you want to have a second meeting. One of the things that organises often talk about when they're talking about one to one is they're looking for people who have anger. What's member of that and what kind of anger do you look for? And can you say a little bit about how does that connect to bringing about change? So I've met people who have anger, good anger, but they can't direct it. They can't discipline. No matter what you do to try to, it interests me. But in the second and third, I'm trying to think of, you know, what do they do with it other than, you know, something that's destructive? So or they do nothing with it. You know, you meet people to say, I get so angry. I just, I just, I better stay away, you know, because I'll lose my temper and, you know, that's not good. All of that. And I'll ask them a story about when they did lose their temper and what happened and, you know, if they lose their temper 10 times, they tell you, you know, it's not, you know, and so I'm looking for, you know, their level of anger. And I'm looking for if they want some power. I may not ask it in that direct way because you're talking to somebody. You want powers are weird question. What do you want to make happen? And when people say, well, I'd like to see the community come together. Well, what are you willing, what are you willing to do to bring them together? Those people off you give you the general answer, well, I'd like to see the community come together. I'd like to see us do this. I'm tired of all the violence. I'd like to see what you know, I'm tired of all the garbage that you, you know, this city never comes around and picks up the trash, you know, we don't have any, whatever they're talking about. So those are the types of things. And lastly, I would say, if they have any curiosity about me, not, you know, who is this guy? You know, if they want to know, you're not, not, you know, deep and all that, you're only meeting for a time. But, you know, who are you? And so you work for, you know, the aim organization, you know, what do you do that for? That makes me even more interested in a person because they have a kind of curiosity and interest in the world around them. They're not, it's not all focused on themselves. They're an external one reference. Exactly. Exactly. In terms of the anger piece, someone who had a genuine care and love for the institution or for the people in the community, how far that extent that it's not just a question of that external, you know, they're looking beyond themselves, but there's a kind of care for the world around them. And how often do you encounter that? How do you, how do you hear that articulated? So, one of the some of the pointers towards that that you kind of register when you're doing one to one with people. Mm-hmm. Well, if the care is more than general, right? So you say an issue is, you know, it's not one of the things that makes an issue instead of a problem is that it's specific, not general. People can say, well, you know, I really care about the community, but or I care about the school or the church or whatever they're involved in. But if you're not, I try to take that as a kind of, in our language, take it down from a problem to an issue. So specifically, what have you done? Or specifically, what do you do? Well I try to do it, but then the principal wouldn't let me. So why did you let that, why did you let him get in your way? So you look, care has to, you know, if there's no, to me, if there's no anger behind the care, the anger we talk about, I don't mean temper and crazy, but you know, the anger that we talk about. And they care, I want to know what they've done about it. And if they're not thinking about it, are they willing to do something about it? And if they're not really sure, it's just, you know, then I don't, I don't, you know, I don't necessarily care to come back. Right. So it's not a kind of vague, it's not a vague sentiment. Like I have a generalized sense of, isn't it terrible as poverty in the world or isn't it terrible that Paul Kis don't get good education? There's a sense in which you're looking for folk who they've, they've got a, there's an active concern to try and address a real problem in the world. There's a, there's a real wound here that they're trying to, that's got concrete shape, that they've trying to do something about. Yeah. And they're organizing them. Yeah. You're coming with a means to actually bring meaningful change. And so they've tried different ways or they've, that's certainly my experience of it's, that's one of the kind of key things that they're, they try various things. And then are they going to be hungry, if you like, for a meaningful way to bring change to address that issue or other kind of things that could turn about? Right. Or, you know, they haven't, but they want to. I mean, I don't know how many times I've said to people, you know, that's, that's a nice expression, a nice sentiment, nice feeling. But it doesn't do a darn thing. Different language, if I'm not, you know, if I'm in the community, I'll say, you know, it doesn't do a damn thing, right? It means nothing. It might, it might, you maybe feel better because you care and you pine for something or other, but it's, you know, generally it's a waste of time. And so, you know, fine. I mean, you'd be how you want to be. I mean, it's not for me. But, you know, I appreciate meeting you. And if you ever want to do something, you know, you know, where I am. And you can call me up and we can see if we can do something. So you do, because you get a lot of people who generally are concerned about the local school or this or that or whatever. But they don't do anything. And when you challenge them, you say, well, OK, great. You're concerned about it. Here is what would you like to do about it? And they say, this should be changed. Well, are you willing to get together? You know, with some people and myself, and we could figure out to do about it. Oh, well, you know, I'm busy. I got two jobs. I-- whatever, you know. I've got my favorite soap opera to wash at 330. I can't go. Whatever. I don't say that, but whatever. And I-- you know, I mean, if you're meeting a person you're in a home, you know, I'm not angry. You polite. I just say to myself, I'm moving on. And I cut the individual meeting short. So how agitational-- how agitational are you ever in a meeting? I try to be every time I'm meeting somebody. But it takes different forms. You know, people, when they think of agitizing, they think of somebody just coming at you, coming at you, coming at you. You know, I call that irritation. You know, you don't want to irritate somebody. So there's a difference between agitating and irritating. And some of the organizers get confused. They irritate the hell out of people. They irritate me. So-- Well, they're agitating. They're agitating inside of a context of how you try to-- and you agitate in different ways given the person. What would be some of the-- give us some examples of agitation. Well, irritating is, to me, is just-- let's say the person says, you know, there are problems in the local school. And my child goes there. And I don't like the fact that recess is only 10 minutes instead of 25 minutes. Or I'm making stuff up, but whatever. And so I'll say, well, what do you think should be done about that? Well, we should get it to-- well, who could make that change? Well, the principal will go to the side. I said, OK, how many other people feel that way? Well, I don't know. You know, I'm not sure. Or I've talked to a couple of parents in here. I said, well, would you bring those couple of parents together? Well, I don't really have the time. Or now, look, you just said that you were interested. And you were concerned. But now you say you don't have the time. I mean, what is it? You want to do it or you don't want to do it? That's irritation. Right. A lot of organizers do-- my experience running with them, I can't even tell you how many individual meetings I've run with organizers over the 50 years. I mean, thousands. That irritates the hell out of me. And when we go outside, who were you to go into somebody's home and irritate the hell out of them? First of all, it's lousy for the organization because we get a terrible reputation. These people are great. But anyway, who are you? What makes you-- where is this a frightious-- what the hell are you doing? But agitation would be coming at the person differently. Well, if you could do something about it, what would it be? Who would you have to-- so let's think together how we might do something about it. Well, I'm not an expert. Look, you're an expert about your child. You know your kid better than anybody else and what he needs, or she needs. So I take you as an expert. Now look, what do you-- if we could, who do we have to talk to? And well, I don't know if I want to. Well, maybe it's not that. Maybe it's not as important to you than as you thought you. No, I didn't say that. I said, well, then what do you want to do? I think that's more agitation than irritation than saying, what's wrong with you? And you say you care about something, but you really won't do anything about it. And that's the kind of person that I'll leave after about 25 minutes. I'll thank them for me being in the house, and it was lovely meeting them. And I wish them well. Now, that's really helpful. That's right. I think it's a great distinction. It's really, really helpful. It's easy to get caught doing one or the other. It's easy for organizers to get self-righteous. And I think that's what I mean, just say a little bit about it. Easy, easy. If you're passionate about an issue, let's say you're going out, there's a living wage initiative or do it housing or increasing internet access. These are important issues. You're passionate about it. You see the need of it as an organizer. And you're not getting a response from someone. What are the ways in which you approach or help yourself not get angry with them or not come over as a self-righteous vanguard who knows better how everyone else should live? Is it my experience? It's partly just I'm just interested in them as a person, and I'm trying to hear from them as a person. Rather than I'm recruiting them to an issue. How do you prevent yourself either ending up using the one to one to recruit people to an issue you're working on or your own kind of like, I just know better how what's going to going on and why come this person get it? Well, you know, I call it the self-righteous vanguard problem. It's like, you know, we know better how everyone else should live. Yeah, well, I think I've I fight that a lot. You know, I guess what I do is I call it the 20-minute rule. You know, if it's going like that and I'm feeling self-righteously anger, it's time for me to get out of there. And so I thank them for their time and I excuse myself. Because anything that I do in there if I'm feeling that way is useless and could be damaging. Not, you know, too. Because sometimes individual meetings, you know, and the person shows no interest. And once later they're at a meeting, a bigger meeting. And they'll come up to you or you notice them and you say to yourself, I wonder what Joe's doing there, man, that I walked out on that meeting. Not brutally, but I mean, you know, well, some guy brought him there and a friend or whatever. And then, you know, so it isn't always, you know, you also don't want to burn all your bridges. And there's no point to, you know, I mean, because it is self-righteous anger and so what's the point? Listening to Arnie Reefforce, what I learned from Lena, that doing one-to-one is not just about building relational networks, but crucially, it's also where finding people who care about their community and are prepared to act with others to make it a more just and generous place to live and work. The conversation with Arnie helped me see how the one-to-one demands aware of listening to others so that we both hear what they care about, but also we hear who they are, what makes them tick. This kind of double listening is difficult, but thankfully, the practice itself trains us to do exactly that. As we've heard, the one-to-one or relational meeting is a distinct practice and discipline that ensures democratic politics puts people before program, grounding shared action in the actual lives, experiences and stories of people. As a practice, it ensures action to bring change for the better is done with those most affected rather than two or four them. It takes time and patience and can often be very hard work, but it also changes us, helping us to become more tuned and responsive to the people among whom we live and work. So I encourage you to start doing one-to-one's yourself. If you're interested in learning more, I include suggested readings in the show notes. Just remains to me to say thank you for joining me for this episode of the Listen Organised Act podcast in which I explore the one-to-one as the basic tool of a relationally driven form of democratic politics. I hope you can join me next time as I continue this journey through the different elements of community organising.