Who’s in the Room, and How We’re Together

When I first joined others trying to build a local food system in the Charlotte region, I thought the challenge was strategy. In reality, the challenge was people.

We didn’t have the right people in the room. And the people we did have weren’t always engaged in ways that mattered.

One obvious mistake still stands out to me. In the middle of working on a regional food study, I realized I hadn’t properly brought my own board of directors along. Our organization was about to be named as a primary applicant for a grant, and as the Executive Director, I was well within my rights to apply without engaging the board. But I was also new in the role.  In my eagerness to jump into the work and do a good job, I made assumptions about board engagement.  I didn’t actually engage my board members about this effort until I needed their signatures. As a result, I nearly lost the support of my own organization at a critical moment.

That experience taught me that attending to people isn’t only about who gets invited to the table. It’s also about noticing who is already connected to the work, and making sure they feel included and prepared.

I learned this lesson again with our rural neighbors. For months, we had been inviting them into the city for meetings, and few came. It wasn’t until we shifted to conference calls, something simple but more workable for their lives, that they began to show up. By removing barriers like travel time and parking, and by offering more than one option for engagement, we signaled that their participation mattered.

And then there was Kristina. She was young, just out of college, and often felt sidelined in food systems work. I invited her to co-lead with me. At first, people went through me for everything. Over time, as I forwarded messages to her, put her name on updates, and pointed others her way, she became a leader in her own right. Watching her step into that role reminded me how much of leadership is about making space for others.

All of these moments point to the same truth: attending to people means seeing who is present, noticing who is missing, and creating the conditions for everyone to participate fully.

It also means paying attention to myself. I carry a lot of energy into group work. That energy can be contagious and motivating, but it can also push people away if I’m not careful. Part of attending to people is noticing how I’m showing up, and how that affects the space around me.

Over the years, I’ve learned some simple practices that help:

• ask more questions than I answer
• notice whose voices haven’t been heard
• make it easy for people to join and stay in the work
• design processes that meet people where they are

When I get this right, people don’t just attend a meeting. They feel invited, seen, and trusted. And when that happens, something bigger becomes possible.

Attending to people is but one point on my compass for working with groups to address complexity – I also attend to Purpose, Process, and Presence.