An example might help illustrate the point. In a workplace organizing campaign, often the first workers an organizer meets are those who might be termed the “loudmouths.” They talk back to the boss—but they talk back to everyone else as well. Inexperienced organizers often mistakenly identify them as natural leaders, when in fact their coworkers rarely pay serious attention to anything they say. More experienced organizers know this, and also know that identifying the real leaders takes more time and a more subtle understanding of workplace dynamics. But when they’re organizing support in the community, they’ll go straight to the “loudmouth” priest who talks a radical line, without noticing that no one in town outside his tiny congregation pays any attention to what he says, and meanwhile they’ll overlook quieter clergy whose large congregations include many of the workers in the organizing campaign.

As time went on we learned just how nervous workers were about meeting with their religious leaders to ask them for support. They might stand up to their boss at work by putting on a union button, which union organizers invariably think is the scariest thing a worker can do, yet they struggle to muster the courage to ask their minister for a meeting. Note to labor: Workers relate more to their faith than to their job, and fear God more than they fear the boss.

Giving themselves strength in numbers was the key. If they went as a group to meet their minister, their request for help was likely to be successful. The training sessions we were running for these meetings were crucial, and role-playing was the crucial component.