A friend of mine works in the entertainment high-tech world and is part of a large, fluid community where the general attitude is almost always “the more the merrier.” His 50th birthday was approaching, and he knew he wanted a smaller birthday celebration full of the people he felt particularly close to. He was more at ease in smaller groups and where there was lots of space to have one-on-one conversations.
But his friends were all friends with each other. Could he gather differently this time to mark a big birthday in a way that would nourish him but might be different than what others might do? He needed to figure out a logic to the inviting that he could own if push came to shove, and someone asked. He decided to invite only the friends he had spent meaningful one-on-one time with within the past year. He figured it was a good proxy for mutual interest and effort. And it would give him a size that felt manageable and exciting for an all-day all-night pool party.
To create his guest list, my friend practiced what I call ‘kindly exclude’. Kind exclusion is the intentional drawing of a temporary line for the good of the guests and to help activate and fulfill an event’s purpose. Far too often, in the name of inclusion and generosity — two values to care about deeply — we fail to draw boundaries around who belongs at an event and why. And kind exclusion — creating that boundary and trusting it — can be done with great care. By closing the door, you create the room.
The 5 Reasons to Kindly Not Include Guests
1) Kind exclusion helps clarify and distill your event’s purpose.
An advertising firm’s legal team recently asked to join a product development meeting so they could flag any potential legal issues. The product manager said no. “The purpose of this meeting is to dream up ideas, and not think of the risks just yet,” he explained with a smile. “When we’re ready to identify potential risks in the plan — which is what I trust you to have my back on and you do so well — you’ll get the first invitation.
But right now, that’s not the lens we need at this moment in the process,” he said. Rather than just knee-jerk including them, he took the time to think through the purpose of the meeting and then, with warmth and care, defended it. It was purposeful, not personal.
2) Kind exclusion helps us locate who the event is really for (and can build demand for other events).
I recently learned about a monthly support group for “older adult” brain cancer survivors aged 58 to 70. The group often receives interest from people outside the age range, the co-founder and co-facilitator told me, but they “made the choice to be very intentional about holding that boundary to preserve the specialness of that group.”
Often, interested members outside that age range understand but feel disappointed. About a year ago, the co-founder “decided to never again turn someone away without offering them some options for other warm places to land.” The group proactively researched and identified a handful of “Aging Out” groups they never knew existed, and now make “a warm handoff in a vulnerable moment.” They found a way to hold their line with care.
3) Kind exclusion protects your guests and your intentions for the event.
The Pixar “Braintrust” is a famed team meeting developed to help the company’s storytellers workshop new ideas for future films. Over years of tweaking and experimenting, it’s designed to help a group of creatives take risks together, critique one another, and collectively find creative magic.
Soon after rejoining the company, Steve Jobs asked the president, Ed Catmull, if he could attend the famed meeting. Catmull said no. As documented in his book, Creativity, Inc., Catmull explained that if Jobs made an appearance, the team would start performing for him and their finely tuned dynamic would go out the window. Jobs got it. In excluding him, Catmull protected the purpose of the meeting in a way that got Jobs not just to understand, but to buy into the meeting’s shared purpose.
4) Kind exclusion helps us locate what the intention of the host is actually offering.
A woman recently started offering a class for women to prepare for menopause. Her vision was to help older women going thru a life change develop story-telling skills. “There were a couple of women who messaged me saying they love to tell stories orally, but were still learning poetry and wanted to create their story in that style, and I had to say no,”.
Though at first it felt odd saying no. The instructor drew a line to not include women who only wanted to write in a poetry format. As the teacher, her skill (and interest) was in the storytelling part of writing. If she allocated limited time in the class to help the students transition stories into poetry, it would detract from the time available to focus on the actual craft of storytelling and alter the rest of the class’s experience. By thinking through her priorities for the gathering — teaching the skill of storytelling to menopausal adults — she was able to better understand where to draw a line that best brought her skills to the forefront.
5) Kind exclusion can lead to transformative and educative conversations with those individuals who don’t attend.
A groom-to-be and his partner were planning for a small, intimate wedding: just immediate family. 20 people total. The groom’s brother asked if his father-in-law (the groom’s sister-in-law’s father) could attend to be more comfortable. The bride was against it, in part because she had many aunts and cousins that they intentionally excluded.
The rest of the family kept pressuring them to make an exception, but the couple held strong. And that’s OK. She ended up calling the sister-in-law’s father herself, to explain their decision. “She was gracious about it, and the entire experience really set the tone in our marriage and with extended families,” the bride told me later. The couple carved out space for new patterns based on their needs and desires for their wedding, while maintaining connection and open communication with their loved ones.
“It’s purposeful, not personal.”
When my friend in the entertainment business sent out the 40 invitations for his 40th birthday party, a few friends who had gotten wind of the party reached out to ask why they hadn’t been invited. He explained his line — “a meaningful interaction in the past year” — and in a few cases, this line opened the door for connection.
One friend said, “Wow, I hadn’t realized it’s been so long. I would still love to celebrate with you. Can I take you out for a meal?” Counterintuitively, kind exclusion can lead us to have the conversations we need to reset a relationship and find new ways of being together.