The Gathering Effect with Lindsey Caplan
angela_r_howard (00:01.805)
All right. Hello, Lindsay. Welcome to the podcast. So excited to finally have you on. It's been a few months coming here, but excited to have you on the podcast.
lindsey_caplan (00:10.603)
So happy to be here, hi Angela!
angela_r_howard (00:13.065)
Hey, hey, and I'm really excited to have this conversation. We were just chatting a little bit before we pressed record and really digging into the concept of the beauty of gathering and what that means from an organizational perspective and how it can be used as a vehicle to drive organizational change. And
and transformation, which I think is really a hot topic that a lot of people are thinking about right now. How do we think about the human experience and what it actually takes to create change and how we can use this really unique way of, and you're gonna talk more about gathering and what that means, but Lindsey would love to hear a bit of an introduction from you. Who are you, what do you do, and what impact are you looking to make on that?
lindsey_caplan (01:05.938)
Ooh, all good questions. Yeah, so my name is Lindsay Kaplan and I run a consultancy called The Gathering Effect. And what I help people do is create or recreate great gatherings that not just help people sort of be moved and be changed, but help the organization succeed and create a great employee experience. And...
angela_r_howard (01:07.485)
Hehehe
lindsey_caplan (01:28.854)
The way that I do that is I leverage my background across three different disciplines who all sort of study and exceed at gathering. One is entertainment and the other is education and then now in business. And so it's a unique blend of disciplines, but I've learned over the past 20 or so years what they all have in common and applied that to this tool that we know and love so well inside of our companies.
angela_r_howard (01:49.277)
Hmm.
angela_r_howard (01:55.233)
Wonderful. And what's the impact you're looking to make on the world? Is it is it gathering people? What's what's kind of the meta vision?
lindsey_caplan (01:58.939)
Oh, right.
lindsey_caplan (02:03.594)
You know, I, there's a quote by Ian Forrester that I love called Only Connect. It's on the front page of this book that I'm writing. And I think what I really aim to do is to help people connect more with each other and ultimately with themselves.
angela_r_howard (02:17.881)
Mm. I love that. I love that. And I would love to hear a little bit more about the entertainment side of your background, because I think it's such a the blend you mentioned is a beautiful blend. And, you know, it kind of again, it gets to this idea of how people actually learn. And, you know, media entertainment is such a part of our culture. Storytelling, it's such a part of our culture. So.
you actually are a screenwriter turned organizational psychologist. So tell us more about the screenwriter part of your journey before you discovered organizational psychology.
lindsey_caplan (02:47.061)
Yes.
lindsey_caplan (02:52.374)
It's a very natural transition, right? Just sort of makes a lot of sense. Yeah, a long, long time ago, I wanted to write for television. I studied that in college and moved to LA to try to be a TV writer. And I did that for a little while. And ultimately I realized I wanted to develop people in real life, not just characters on a page, but it's a lot of the same muscles of observing people, using empathy and thinking about what do I write or create that...
angela_r_howard (02:54.841)
Obviously.
lindsey_caplan (03:22.994)
gets people to go from A to B. Who do they have to meet? What experiences do they have to have? What are they motivated by? And how do I not leverage that the words on the page should produce that? And found my way sort of randomly into learning and development, where again, there was someone behind the scenes curating these leadership classes or these trainings and thought, aha, interesting. That's a great application.
and then took that one step further to get my master's in organizational psychology and put all that together to help develop not just people, but companies as a whole. That's the very short 20 year journey.
angela_r_howard (03:47.507)
Hmm.
angela_r_howard (03:59.301)
Just compact and like 20 seconds of narrative there. Well, yeah, I just think it's such a fascinating transition. And actually at the surface, it may seem different, but to your point, the building of the empathy, like understanding personas, understanding your audience, like all those things are really important with organizational development, change management, transformation.
And so this concept of gathering, I would love to hear more about what you mean by it. I think we all kind of have a construct in our head of what that means, but what makes a good gathering?
lindsey_caplan (04:38.134)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so first, what is a gathering? To me, it's the most common tool that we use inside our companies to spark movement or change. So gatherings are things like off-sites, training classes, new hire orientations, conferences, all hands, off-sites. I lump them all into this word, but you could call them company events as well. And my definition is how people bring people together.
to match a message with a moment to create an effect. So some piece of content I wanna share with people in order to help them be moved or be changed or inform them or engage them. And your question, what makes a great gathering? Well, I've learned over the years that it's not just the content, it's the conditions that we create inside that room.
angela_r_howard (05:27.601)
Yes.
lindsey_caplan (05:31.178)
whether it's virtual or in person. And what I help companies do is script or re-script their gathering for more impact. And it starts with, I think, changing our perception about what a quote unquote good gathering is and learning how to do it a little bit more effectively.
angela_r_howard (05:49.485)
Yeah, and I think to your point, there is a and this is where the entertainment piece comes in, there is a connection with like, what kind of media are you going to use? You know, how do you the effect I think is a key piece of this. Like, where how do you want people feeling when they leave? What do you want them doing differently when they leave?
lindsey_caplan (06:07.958)
Yep. Yeah, it's like when I used to write screenplays, you start with the end. So what where does the character end up at the end? What happens to them? What's the journey? And then how do I create that experience or that script in order for that to take place? So very similarly with these gatherings, two things I always suggest. Yes, let's start with the end in mind.
angela_r_howard (06:13.789)
Mm.
lindsey_caplan (06:30.938)
So how will we know that we've succeeded? What do you want people to know or do or feel? Can you tell me a story about how you would know that this gathering was successful? What would people be doing differently? The more concrete, the better. But secondarily, it's about starting with the effect that we want. So oftentimes we talk with a slide deck or the cool guest speaker or the food we're going to order. Oh, cool things.
But let's start a bit more strategically with the change that we're hoping to make. And it tends to fall into one of four categories, which I'll just briefly describe. One is compliance, which, you know, let's just be honest. Sometimes we do these gatherings to get people to take in action. Two is to inform, so to share information. The third is to entertain. And the fourth is to engage, to get buy-in, behavior change, ownership.
angela_r_howard (07:06.874)
Yes.
lindsey_caplan (07:25.89)
transformation inside of our company. So once we're clear on the effect that not just we want, but need, then everything else becomes a little bit clearer, not just for us, but for the employees or the people who are a part of it.
angela_r_howard (07:39.565)
Wonderful. Yeah, it's a really great distinction. And I think to your point, gatherings like this long list of things that could be a gathering, each one has its own purpose. And every gathering doesn't require the guest speaker, the food, the in-person, you know, in-person is wonderful. But I think something else that we're trying to weigh out as organizational leaders is.
in this hybrid work environment, how to be really intentional about the experience. So what are your thoughts on, like what are some of the conversations you're having with these teams when it comes to hybrid gatherings and when to use hybrid versus remote in person? What are some things that are popping up as themes?
lindsey_caplan (08:23.686)
Yeah, so I'll break it down into a motto that I follow and hope people follow as well. And it's pull together, push apart. So how do I know if I should bring people together? So
When we need to pull people together is when our gathering or our change effort requires engagement or perhaps to entertain. You know, comedian needs an audience, right? So there's a reason to bring people together. When what we would desire is to inform or to get compliance, we can do that apart, push apart. So a practical example is, you know, a new hire orientation. I think gone are the days where people sit in a room for a week.
and they have presenter after presenter and it's all synchronous, that just doesn't happen because of the pandemic or scale, whatever it might be. And so if we follow this model, what is worth bringing people together for? It's the chance to talk about what they've learned asynchronously to connect, meet new people, to focus on the culture piece. It's not to hear necessarily a speech from finance about how to fill out their payroll forms.
angela_r_howard (09:12.4)
Mm-hmm.
lindsey_caplan (09:32.598)
So once we get clear and what are we doing together, why we need to be together synchronously, I think it can make all of our gatherings not just more efficient, but more effective.
angela_r_howard (09:43.205)
Yeah, I think that's a great point. And it does take a little bit of intentionality and curation to really carve out those containers of this is compliance, this is us coming together. And I would love to hear your perspective on, I guess I'll call it the secondary impacts of gathering. So when I think about working with an executive team, if we're putting together.
lindsey_caplan (10:07.178)
Hmm.
angela_r_howard (10:12.433)
It depends on the end, right? Do we want to create camaraderie? That's another question. Do we want to bring together cross-functional? Or there's a lot of globalization happening, right? So getting people in a room, we have to be really intentional about creating space. And so how much of your methodology is around the structure versus the organic, what I'll call secondary benefits of gathering?
lindsey_caplan (10:41.174)
Hmm, so many thoughts there. So first, let me provide an observation, which is, I think post-pandemic, or post, I guess, perhaps post, we have a desire to come together. And a lot of companies, I think, are hungry for that. And that makes a lot of sense. At the same time, the bar is higher now, especially if we're flying somewhere or putting on pants, right?
angela_r_howard (10:44.945)
Hehehe
angela_r_howard (11:08.285)
Yes.
lindsey_caplan (11:08.998)
And so what I'm seeing is either these gatherings are the kitchen sink. So we want to do everything. We want to have camaraderie. We want to speak about company goals. We want to do everything at once. Or it's for connection and just to bond and get together. And so what is, again, what are we hoping to achieve and what can we reasonably achieve in this timeframe? I think it's just, again, really important to think about what's necessary now.
angela_r_howard (11:16.594)
Hmm.
lindsey_caplan (11:36.41)
But your question around the secondary effects, hopefully this answers your question. But what I look for in a gathering, what I help people look for and help people adjust is really three things. One is the structure. So how do we manage expectations? How do we get people from A to B? One way to do that is the agenda, right? So how are we communicating what we're going to do and how we lead people there?
most gatherings don't have an agenda slide. So let's create one. That's just one quick tip, right? The second is space. So not really the physical space, although that is important, but much more about how we help people absorb or attain information. So a lot of my learning and development background comes into play here. So if we're pumping the gathering full of content,
angela_r_howard (12:08.037)
Yes.
lindsey_caplan (12:26.562)
A, don't do that. But if we are, how do we more intentionally create the space for people to absorb it and retain it and take it up as their own? And then the last piece is framing. So again, my screenwriter background, the language that we use, how do we communicate in a way that gets buy-in and pulls people in versus pushes them away? So those are the components that I look for and I think that they all impact the secondary effects.
angela_r_howard (12:28.061)
Hehehe
lindsey_caplan (12:57.262)
and ideally help people be much more intentional about the choices that they're making.
angela_r_howard (13:03.553)
Yeah, and I think just it inserts kind of a human centered design element, which is we need time to process. We need the space to get to know each other and to, you know, consider other ideas, too, you know, that gets into kind of the, you know, even a DE&I conversation about how do we create space where differences and ideas and listening can happen, you know, across the gathering.
lindsey_caplan (13:30.193)
Mm.
lindsey_caplan (13:33.33)
Yeah, it's not content that changes us. It's our connection to the content. That's what fuels.
angela_r_howard (13:38.867)
Mm-hmm.
lindsey_caplan (13:42.806)
transformation and change is when we feel connected to the content that's presented. So we have to work to make that happen. And it comes from giving people time and space to talk to each other. It comes from carefully planted prompts and questions. It comes from a sense of safety in the room to ask those questions and answer them. It's a bit more nuanced than we perhaps think. But you know.
That's where I come in and where I get to support.
angela_r_howard (14:15.161)
And how large or small are the gatherings that you're working with? Is it team meetings and town halls, or is it, you know, what's the span of a gathering from your perspective?
lindsey_caplan (14:29.47)
Yeah, it's everything from a small team offsite of 10 people to a 10,000 person town hall. And I like to say that my work is content agnostic and channel agnostic. So it can be virtual. It could be hybrid. It could be in person. It could be an offsite training. It's the same concepts that apply to different mediums and messages as well. And hopefully, once we learn these techniques,
angela_r_howard (14:42.349)
Mmm.
lindsey_caplan (14:59.054)
It gives a framework to apply to all of these gatherings versus relearning at each time. And again, I hope that provides value for people to have the common language.
angela_r_howard (15:11.377)
What are some of the, I guess some of the hangups that people have when they're coming to you and what are some of the things that you see as, for those who are listening, who might wanna kind of adopt some of your thinking and making their gatherings more engaging, inspiring and action packed, action filled, like you're giving something for people to actually take action on. What are some hangups, what are some barriers to that you often see?
lindsey_caplan (15:38.902)
Hmm. Yeah, I think one barrier that's a little bit of recency bias here is just, you know, who gets to present, who gets to talk, what content to include. And, you know, I'll give you a practical example.
angela_r_howard (15:53.063)
Mm-hmm.
lindsey_caplan (15:58.506)
I was working with a company on redoing their company all hands that they had about once a month. And as is typical, the bigger a company gets, the more people want to present and talk. And it also becomes a bit of a land grab for who gets that air time and who do I say no to. And from an admin side, it actually becomes really hard to know what to do. And so,
Without clarity on the effect or the goal of that all hands, it's hard to know who to say no to. So that's number one. Clarifying what's the objective for them that was about creating alignment in the organization. We created a strategic filtering sort of.
Venn diagram of the three pieces of the litmus test that have to apply for them to say yes to that person. So one is it applies to every single person in the company. Two is it requires action. And three, they want to engage and not just inform. So back to the pull together, push apart. And so what that does is it eliminates a lot of announcements. It eliminates some department updates and it really...
angela_r_howard (16:43.365)
Mm.
angela_r_howard (16:51.652)
Hmm.
lindsey_caplan (17:06.55)
gives the company time to be intentional about who gets a say, and then what goes in different communication channels. So that's one hang up is just who gets to present and what do we include and what do we say no to. And then another hang up is, you know, nobody asks questions or no one seems to engage in the gathering. And oftentimes that's because we haven't
angela_r_howard (17:30.045)
Mm.
lindsey_caplan (17:34.038)
invited anyone to participate or showing people why we need them there. So what I tend to do, and this is just the TLDR to your question, is oftentimes the gatherings that I see are very push and very one-size-fits-all. They're very passive and made for anyone, and what I help people do is make them more pull and personalized. I help the gatherings be done with people and about the people in the room.
angela_r_howard (17:44.137)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (17:48.479)
Hmm.
angela_r_howard (18:00.862)
Hmm.
lindsey_caplan (18:02.754)
And if people can make that shift, then that's what we're really usually after.
angela_r_howard (18:11.245)
Yeah, and I often see, you know, oftentimes the presenters end up being like the executive team, right? And it's the same people and it's the people at the top presenting. And so I think another way, you know, I love your Venn diagram kind of criteria. And I think a part of that is also getting other voices to people who are actually doing the work, right? Because I think when people see...
lindsey_caplan (18:19.159)
Yeah.
angela_r_howard (18:36.657)
you know, someone at their, you know, on their team or within the same type of role, it becomes more real. And that person can even close that gap and create that bridge between that content too.
lindsey_caplan (18:49.546)
Yeah, I love what you're saying. And the reason why that's so important, or one reason why it's so important, is that, especially now that we're, a lot of us are virtual or remote, to me these gatherings are culture on display. They are much more of a signal of what we care about than maybe we used to have when we were in person and there were so many other signals. So...
That weekly town hall is the chance for people to know what's important at your company and a chance to boost morale and motivation in ways that maybe we don't realize. So again another reason to be intentional about what we're doing.
angela_r_howard (19:30.361)
Love that, love that. Well, Lindsay, tell us more about your book. Obviously we've talked about a few key concepts here, but tell us more, what is it called? Tell us all the details, and then we'll kind of wrap up with just where to find you. But tell us about the book first.
lindsey_caplan (19:52.05)
Yeah, this is a forthcoming book. So it's called The Gathering Effect Shocker. And yeah, it's a much deeper dive into the application of entertainment, education, and business to make our gatherings and our change stick inside companies. And it's probably got, at this point, 100 different tactics and ideas and lessons from these disciplines that I've collected over the years. And I feel like every.
angela_r_howard (19:58.918)
Yeah
lindsey_caplan (20:20.406)
Every time I go to a comedy show, I get another idea or watch this lecture. It's so fun to see the world through this lens and then help people apply it. And in the meantime, people can find a lot of that content and ideas on my website, which is gatheringeffect.com. And yeah, that's where you can find me.
angela_r_howard (20:23.049)
I'm sorry.
angela_r_howard (20:43.553)
Wonderful, wonderful. Well, we'll make sure to include the forthcoming book and the name of it so people can keep their eyes and ears open for your launch. And then when you launch it, we'd love to relaunch this podcast episode at that point to get people to read the book, which sounds like a very important and value-filled read. And then we'll make sure to include your website and all that jazz and the show notes, people can reach you if they need help with their gatherings.
lindsey_caplan (20:48.007)
Hahaha
lindsey_caplan (21:13.718)
That would be great. And I'll just say one quick thing that I'm working on and about to announce is this gathering or company event cost calculator. So oftentimes it can be hard to quantify not just the ROI of the events, but the importance of doing them well. And so this calculator I'm about to launch helps people really visualize and make concrete the investment. And a shocking statistic I found is that a weekly town hall.
for 4,000 people costs about $17 million a year. So if that's not a reason to do this well and intentionally then.
then I don't know. I don't know what is.
angela_r_howard (21:56.893)
Well, I love that. And that's such an important point, because there have been times where I've been in a meeting or a gathering, looked around the room, and my past life, I was ahead of HR. So I knew everyone's salaries, right? And I'm just going around the room calculating the amount that this meeting is costing us, like the minutes, the hours. And it is jarring how much we spend on waste.
lindsey_caplan (22:10.154)
Mmm!
angela_r_howard (22:25.541)
without being intentional, you are wasting time. You are wasting energy and, you know, where people's energy can be going to create even more impact for the company. So when that comes out, let us know. If it's out before we launch this episode, we will include it in the show notes, but that is such a value add to folks. So we'll be sure to market that too.
lindsey_caplan (22:29.364)
Mm.
lindsey_caplan (22:46.638)
glad you think so. That's great.
angela_r_howard (22:50.116)
Wonderful, Lindsay. It was so fabulous talking to you. I could do it all day. But thank you for sharing your time, your insights, and thanks for all the work you're doing in this space.
lindsey_caplan (23:01.41)
Thanks so much, Angel, I really appreciate it.
angela_r_howard (23:04.745)
Thank you.
