In Depth Crew Calling

So you’re interested in crewing, per microsolidarity!

I’ve been somehow involved in ~25 crews at this point, and I figured I’d share some of my experiences.

I have experience with crews forming around an interest, around a vibe, around existing groups of friends (from weeks old to decades old), around a person. I have experience with crews lasting, ending, failing to launch, sputtering. I have experience with crews with varying degrees of structure in the sessions. I have experience with crews with one or two callers. I have experience with crews meeting from daily to monthly. And many of the permutations!

The average age of my active crews is maybe 8 months as of May 2023, so relatively young, so we’ll see how they maintain/wind down/emerge over time.

Why Am I, Personally, Crewing?

I started crewing because I was invited into a crew with a bunch of overlapping interests, I like making friends, and I like trying stuff out.

Since then, I’ve found that I (and everyone else) have plenty of problems for which I really appreciate listening and support. I’ve also really wanted to build my capacity to listen, reflect, support others, and communicate authentically and nonviolently. I kept adding crews because I had a sense of how foundational these are, and every crew has given me opportunities to become a more effective communicator/listener. It’s contributed hugely to my capacity to, in some cases, drastically transform important relationships in my life, most notably my relationship with my mom.

Beyond those I’ve wanted to experiment with and practice different relational practices, like authentic relating or circling. I’ve also had specific intentions, like improving my relationship with my parents or planning a trip that crews supported.

Hoping that in writing this, I might help some other people access some of these benefits (and more!)

Goals for Initial Crew

IME, the a minimum viable crew is:

• Each member has some interior curiosity and/or interest in being more intentional/conscious with their time/relationships
• Each person is drawn/attracted to the crew enough to show up
• You can trust each person to honor the agreements of the crew if they agree to them (e.g. “I agree to show up for X weeks worth of crew sessions doing [whatever we agreed on]”)

Characteristics of a juicy potential crew:

• Sweet spot is 4 or 5 members
• Diversity — gender and background are 2 pretty notable ones IME
• Excitement/vibes beyond “willing to show up”

Further notes on those characteristics

• 6 can be better in a group with strong cohesion but volatile schedules, such that crew sessions can continue even if 1 or 2 people don’t make it
• 3 can be better in a group with some experience holding space, where the extra person or 2 makes a difference in a case clinic feeling like you’re talking to someone vs being held by a group

Where to find crew members

1. Free electrons from any larger groups (informal congregations) you’re in
   - See Experimenting with microsolidarity crews — EA Forum for more details
   - AKA your hobbies, interests, neighbors, etc.
2. Existing groups of friends that are interested in becoming looser -> tighter
   - I started a crews with old friends from middle school, friends I knew for a few weeks, friends from/adjacent to work, friends that went on a trip together
3. Manifesting
   - Write up a little post or doc of what you’re interested in, slap it on the internet (social media, discords, slacks, blog, etc.) and see what happens!
   - I’ve started this one and this one with this approach, and on the cusp of starting another
4. If you have people, just go get ’em — simplest case, you already have the people in mind that you’d want to crew with
5. From a potential crew co-creator
   - If someone’s already engaged with the idea of crewing (see below), you might ask them if they know anyone that might be interested and fit “the vibe”, that they could reach out to. Depending on their level of enthusiasm, all of these methods could be available to them as well.
   - Can introduce a bit of complexity early on in crewing (“who’s facilitating?”), which might just be mitigated by alternating facilitation. But, longer term it might help accelerate towards shared leadership, which IMO is one of the intentions of crewing.
   - I have not yet successfully started one this way. Remains to be seen how feasible it is, if it isn’t then I would hypothesize that holding a strong clear container out the gate is the main reason why.
6. Any combination of the above

How to Engage

So you have someone in mind or that reached out to you regarding crewing. How do you engage with them?

You can start doing this before having a crew worth of people lined up, the time and space to start crewing, etc.

I get pretty into the weeds here so feel free to skip. The TL;DR is to be open, honest, curious, build some rapport, understand what they’re about, and get to know them as potential crewmates. In the context of starting a crew, specifically, you’re looking for minimum viable trust in the dyad — that they will honor agreements, rather than say they’ll show up but then ghost.

If You’re Reaching Out

This could be a whole post — “how to reach out to somebody, generally speaking?”

The first question is “why are you reaching out to them?” Your main 2 goals are probably 1) to connect with each other as wonderful humans, and 2) to invite them into a crew.

Common answers to 1) for someone new:

• You’ve “seen them around” and they caught your attention in some way. Assumedly, they have qualities you admire/appreciate/enjoy/are curious about
• They seem interiorly curious/intentional and you want to engage with more people like that
• You were introduced

Common answers for 1) for an existing connection:

• You talk all the time
• You enjoyed their friendship, thought they’d be a good fit, but haven’t been in touch in a while

Your first message(s) will benefit from primarily and genuinely addressing why you’re reaching out to them.

Now, depending on how much you know of them and how much time you have, among other factors, your actual goals may vary. (Hint: more time is helpful)

Most notably, for someone unfamiliar, you might not actually know them well enough to understand their vibe and feel confident in inviting them into a crew. In which case, consider first focusing on getting to know each other before proposing crewing. Hopefully you’re interested in connecting to them as a human, but here are some questions you might also be getting a sense of:

• Does this person have space for a crew?
• Are there major obvious reasons why crewing wouldn’t make sense for them?
• If this person started waffling in the middle of the season, could we at least stay in dialogue/connection about it?

Though if you already feel quite sure, I’d recommend being up front about your intentions to invite them to a crew.

Most notably for an existing connection, there might be Reasons why you haven’t connected in a while, particularly any lingering resentments or unresolved tension. The crew will not work well with elephants in the room, and they’re unlikely to accept an invitation with elephants in the room.

Ideally, you can do the inner work (e.g. self empathy) to understand the disconnect on your end, share it with them, and re-establish connection with them. Sharing both the difficult feelings/needs behind it and the desire to connect is likely to be received well! Authentic relating and nonviolent communication both have frameworks for how to do this.

Try to get a sense of their current priorities, especially if they might overlap with crewing, though you can still extend an invitation if crewing doesn’t clearly fall into one of their enumerated priorities. And try to get a sense of behaviors/traits like introspection, open mindedness, and vulnerability, as ones that are important/valuable in a crew mate.

If They’re Reaching Out

If they’re reaching out to, say, a social media post you put out, your work is simpler. The main intention is likely to just be to get to know them, to understand their intentions and priorities, and to see if there’s alignment with the crew.

How to Invite

So you’ve started the conversation, built a bit of rapport, and got a sense of what they’re about. You want to float the crew concept and invite them into the crew. What do you say?

TL;DR Draft Message

“I want to experiment with being in a crew together with you. I have [some group of people] in mind for us because [something we have in common]. I’m proposing we meet X times (5 or 6), where each time we meet, we do a case clinic for someone in the crew. A case clinic is basically a structured conversation where we support someone about a problem/challenge they’re facing for ~an hour. At the end, everyone will have had 1 case clinic, and the last meeting would be a retrospective on the experience, and present an opportunity to gracefully bow out if it’s not for you. For at least this first season, we’ll only meet if everyone can make it, so it’s important to be able to commit to the X weeks. I think you’d be a great addition because XYZ, and we both want more connection and support in our lives. How’s that sound to you?”

I’d actually recommend breaking the above message down and having a dialogue instead, so that there’s more granularity to understanding how different pieces land with the person you’re inviting. It might look more like:

• “Wanna try this crewing thing? It’s about cultivating some connection and support with a small group, and I think you’d fit well with this group I’m pulling together.”
• “So I was thinking we’d meet for an hour and half each week for 5 or 6 weeks, how’s that for you?”
• “The people I got this from suggest doing case clinics, which is this thing where we all support one of the people in the group for about an hour. How’s that sound to you?”
• “Yeah an hour feels like a long time to me also, I’m a bit unsure as well but I’m willing to give it a shot, hbu?”
• “So we would each go once and our last call would be a retrospective, which would be a graceful opportunity to bow out”
• “How do you feel about committing to the 5/6 weeks?”
• “I was thinking our first call could just be a vibe check where we get to know each other a bit and see if we align on intentions and want to move forward”
• …

“What?”

If the group isn’t familiar with each other, usually it’s helpful to start with an intro, vibe check call, where everyone can introduce themselves, get a sense of what the other folks are about, and you can share a proposal and/or context for the crew.

The structure of a “canonical” crew usually lasts 5 or 6 weeks, and consists of doing a case clinic for each person, followed by a retrospective, where a case clinic is a structured group conversation oriented towards supporting one person with a problem/challenge.

In my experience, some people are really uncomfortable with the notion of spending 60–70 minutes of attention on an individual’s problem. Often it has roots in people’s relationships to taking up space and to sharing about their problems. I’d recommend acknowledging their concerns/fears as real and valid, plus whatever is authentically there for you of course (e.g. resonance). And, if forming a lasting crew is important to you, I’d ask if they’d be open to experimenting with it for the 5 or 6 sessions. In my experience, the only crews of mine that have made it beyond a first full season are ones that started with case clinics.

Initially, I’d recommend orienting around case clinics, or at least emotional support, even if the crew formed around more specific/concrete intentions/projects. Ideally, you could explore the intentions through case clinics, and potentially shift to action/execution as you build trust with each other.

“Why?”

How you convey the crewing concept depends on the person/crew. It’s important that you share roughly the same message to everyone in the crew, so expectations are on a similar page.

Regardless of what a crew goes on to do, the first step is always building trust and social fabric, typically starting with emotional support. This is typically the main/first purpose I’ll convey — the crew will be a place for mutual support and building trusting, authentic connections.

Additionally, “formal crewing” is based upon intentionally setting time aside to connect. To someone interested in intentionality, you might share that in a small way, crewing can be an act of exercising agency in how you spend your time and energy, and how you relate to others. On top of that, hopefully the crew will have a vibe that ends up blossoming.

In my experience, crews are also a container for healing, both at the object level of the specific challenges that people might share, but also relationally. For me, crews helped me shift my relationship to things like taking up space, how to support someone, and asking for help, all for the better.

If the crew was formed around a certain intention or project in mind (e.g. Parent Pod), then obviously call that out.

“When?”

I strongly recommend no less often than every other week, at least starting out. I’d recommend weekly if possible, given that calls inevitably get moved around, and in some cases, canceled. Doubly so If it’s a group with relatively volatile schedules (e.g. people are traveling/digital nomads, etc.)

In my experience, if the group barely knows each other and calls are infrequent, each call feels kind of like starting over because you can’t build momentum/get to a critical mass of connection/trust/vibes. If the group knows each other well and calls are infrequent, half/most of the call gets filled up with chatting, checking in, and catching up, rather than a proper case clinic, and over time the value proposition of the crew lowers.

This is part of why I suggest only meeting when everyone can make it, at least for the first season. If some people aren’t there, particularly at the beginning, insecurities and confusion around “am I still part of this? Who’s part of this?” can be taxing. IME a more free flowing agreement works well and creates flexibility once the group has some cohesion, e.g. has done a full season or two together, or has known each other in real life before.

People may protest this as taking too much of their time. As with any concerns, I’d recognize their concerns as valid, and still ask if they’d be open to experimenting with weekly/biweekly for the 5 or 6 sessions.

Group Chat

Once you have a crew’s worth of people interested, step #1 is to toss everyone in a group chat on the messaging platform of (collective) choice. This will be the future home of scheduling, clarifying, of sending questions, offering support, sharing memes, etc.

Sometimes there’s a clear name for it (“Work Crew”, “[place] Crew”, “Parent Pod” etc.). One that I’ve seen several times if there isn’t an obvious name is to just concatenate a few letters of each person’s name.

Scheduling

Scheduling can be a bitch, especially if people have volatile schedules. The ideal is definitely the same time every week, and sometimes that isn’t achievable. Sometimes you’re working across time zones.

The rule of thumb is that scheduling drains energy, so the less time/energy spent wrangling schedules, the more time/energy can be spent cultivating immaculate vibes.

There’s a million ways to do it — when2meet, lettucemeet, syncing google calendars, poll in the group chat, throwing out a date and time. Use your best judgment, often scheduling for at least a week out gives people time to fill in their availability.

For future calls, if your crew can’t meet regularly at the same time, I’d recommend scheduling the next call in the last 5 minutes of the current one.

First Crew Call

So you’ve made it to the first crew call. You’re holding the space. Here are some things you might consider doing in the call; what you would do depends on a lot, like how well you know each other, what you have in common, etc.:

• Names (duh)
• What brings you to this call
• Your interest in microsolidarity/crewing
• Reservations/hesitations
• Connection games (like from authentic relating)
• Checking how people feel about moving forward with scheduling
• Scheduling next call w/ volunteer to share

Congratulations! You’re crewing, good luck!!! I’d see other resources from here on how to hold space and facilitate effectively.

Would welcome any feedback, particularly constructive/critical, and also if this was helpful for you.

Appendix — My Crews (as of May 2023)

Feel free to reach out and ask me about any specific crews if you have any questions.

• I was put into 3 crews as part of a gathering or residency (Microsolidarity, Embodying Collective Transformation)
• Invited into the emergence crew by Jarred, sort of evolved into crew organizers, sort of evolved into bloom city
• I personally called:
  - “Formalizing” an existing friend group (Qwest, Lisbon, Taiwan, Bali, TDJ)
  - Creating a group for a purpose (Parent pod, 30th birthday crew)
• Collaborative calling — LMS
• Invited into ST DJ, IFS wizards
• Failure to launch
  - J&J
  - Liberating structures
• Sputtered
  - Sage Circle
  - Camp crew v2
  - 2 time minimum viable hologram
• RIP
  - Camp asian bois
  - JKC
  - P crew (collab calling)
• Potential
  - University friends
  - LIfe itself Berlin pods
  - Microsolidarity practice project crew
• Pending
  - STC