Try this meeting agenda to help teams harness emotions as a collaborative tool

The day I met Susan Cain was a microcosm of the movement that’s risen out of her latest best-seller, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole.



I’d sent friends my favorite story in the book about the novelist Franz Kafka: He meets a young girl who’s lost her doll at the park, and after failing to help her find it, claims he’s a doll postman and brings her letters from the doll. His parting gift is a new doll, along with the note: “My travels have changed me,” to account for her different appearance. The girl keeps the doll forever, discovering his final letter decades later. Hidden in the doll, it read: “Everything that you love, you will eventually lose. But in the end, love will return in a different form.”







When I asked Cain if she remembered it, she said: “Of course! Isn’t that the best story?” This wasn’t surprising. Cain’s not only become a beacon of our bittersweet emotions—she’s invited us into a deeper field of connection. If a single story can convene friends around the “chillingly beautiful,” as one shared at 7 a.m. on a Wednesday, how might we harness bittersweetness as a collaborative tool? Here, Cain offers a tool kit, including an agenda for a “bittersweet” gathering, to experience its creative benefits.



Fast Company: I was moved by your newsletter, “Why beauty matters, even when your life is falling apart,” so it resonated when you asked: “How could beauty be worth our attention compared to everyday horrors like poverty, hunger, and war?” How would you answer that?



Susan Cain: The practical answer is that studies show that when we engage with something artistic or beautiful it activates the same parts of our brain as when we’re in love. It creates greater senses of well-being and creativity. So there are demonstrable, immediate benefits.



But none of those are the true benefit. Beauty connects us with our best selves. In that newsletter, I talked about C.S. Lewis posing the question: “How can you think about beauty when we’re living on the precipice of so many horrors?”



Humans have always lived on that precipice. It’s the fact that we’re always thirsting for a more perfect and beautiful world that propels us to create things and connect with each other. Beauty is the great catalyst to the world we all desire. That’s what it symbolizes and why we search for it so much.



FC: Let’s say we’re designing a “bittersweet” meeting agenda for a group or team to experience the power of these emotions. How would you design that gathering?



SC: I’d start with a practice of everybody sharing something they find “unbearably beautiful” and why. It might be a video, a piece of art, or an experience they had.



Then I would ask them to write down and, if they’d like, to share something in their lives that’s “a bitter” and something that’s “a sweet.” The facilitator can point out that every one of us is walking around with this connection of bitters and sweets. It’s part of what it means to be human, regardless of what we present to each other.



Lastly, I would suggest playing the Cleveland Clinic video: Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care. It shows people you normally walk past in hospital corridors with captions like “Waiting for a new heart” or “Visiting Dad for the last time.” So you can show the video, then ask people to write down their own captions and guess what other people’s are.



I did a similar exercise at a conference where the organizer asked us to write down a difficult experience we were going through on a slip of paper. Then he collected them and read some on stage. People wrote down heartbreaking stories. What was so striking was that only moments before we were all smiling during the coffee break. The contrast between our polished self-presentation and the stories on those little notes was so stark. Suddenly, we were all looking at each other, like, Wow, I didn’t fully see you before. Now I do.



At the same time, I’m always conscious about doing these exercises in groups. For those of us who are introverted or private, going deep in front of people we don’t trust is a lot to ask. Our online lives encourage that everything we create or write is automatically for the purposes of sharing. I don’t think that’s right. We should first be creating and writing in a way that’s not meant to be shared and see what comes out. You can decide whether you want to share it as a second step. But the truth comes from what you would say if no one could hear you.



FC: Let’s say you and I are working together. What tools might we use to enhance our creativity and collaboration?



SC: I would say to ask questions like, “What is the pain you can’t get rid of and how can you turn it into a creative or healing offering?”



Another is: “What does home look like to you?” That’s what bittersweetness really is—the gap between the perfect home we long for and where we find ourselves.



It’s also being attuned to the stories that move us and sharing them. We might say: “Over the next week, every time you feel the chills or tear up at something, write it down. Keep track of it and see what moved you.”



I do this as a writer. I take notes on interesting stories and record my emotional reaction to them. I’ll write down: “Here’s the part where I got goose bumps”—because I might not get goose bumps next time or remember when they came. If you’re creating a play, it’s important to know which moment is the emotional linchpin. It’s the opposite of what we’re trained to do, which is to move away from sadness. We’re not conditioned to stop and say: “Oh, this is the part where I cried. This is the part where I had the chills.”



FC: If we are steeping ourselves in these emotions, what can we do to help reach our full creative and human potential?



SC: I would say creating a space of total nonjudgment. I can’t tell you how many people write to me saying: “I thought I was the only one who felt this way and that there was something wrong with it.” I don’t think we realize how much we judge each other and ourselves for expressing these feelings. A space of extreme emotional nonjudgment is key.



FC: How can we get into the “ecstatic” state you describe?



SC: It’s different for everybody. I think of [these states] as portals. If I listen to certain songs at the right time of night, in the right state of mind, eight times out of ten, I’m going to get into that state. Another is walking through the woods alone, eight times out of ten, it’s going to happen. It’s a question of paying attention to those portals and realizing that going through them is the reason we’re alive. So, where are yours?