Conflict Resolution WG aka Reintroducing Gravity in Giveth

The Giveth Community
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Summary:

  • Gravity work & conflict management Intro
  • Stats from June 2022 until now
  • How cases are being processed in Giveth
  • Active Gravitons & resources
  • Scaling the conflict in DAOs
  • Prevention and empowerment

Dear Giveth Family,

As we continue to grow and evolve across all teams, engaging with diverse opinions from different parts of the world and various traditions and backgrounds, we can see that dispute is not only an inevitable part of this work environment but also our individual lives. This forum post is here to reintroduce the concept of Gravity work and positive conflict management in Giveth. The Gravity framework has been part of our community, providing a structured and efficient approach to addressing conflicts and finding resolutions that benefit all parties involved.

Effective conflict management can bring numerous benefits to relationships in the work environment. By providing a safe and collaborative platform to address conflicts, individuals can express their concerns and feelings openly, which can help to foster better communication and understanding among team members.

Basic Stats:

As part of our commitment to transparency and accountability, we’d like to share some stats from our Gravity work. So far, we’ve processed 4 cases during the last 6 months, which involved roughly 8 contributors altogether. Two of the cases were resolved by ending one party’s contribution period. The rest of them have resolved in improved relationships and work engagement. It is important to mention that all of the cases were managed in a peaceful and respectful way, ensuring everyone involved feels good about the outcomes, and all disputants feel acknowledged, heard, and seen.

We’re proud of this achievement and believe that it demonstrates the effectiveness of the framework in managing conflict and promoting healthy communication and collaboration.

How cases are being processed in Giveth:

For those who may be unfamiliar with how cases are processed in Giveth, here is a step-by-step breakdown:

  1. A conflict is usually identified when HR receives an Escalated Feedback form and a Gravity case is opened or the Gravity team is contacted directly by contributors who have experienced a conflict and need a Graviton’s help or mediation.

  2. The case is assigned and reviewed by an active graviton, who works with the parties involved to assess the situation and gather more details.

  3. The Graviton will assess the scale of conflict and schedule a mediation session for all parties involved.

  4. It can vary based on individual cases, but a session facilitated by Graviton as a neutral third party (mediator) will be scheduled to ensure a constructive and positive resolution can be reached.

  5. After both parties feel heard and acknowledged, an agreement will be established.

  6. After 1 month, the Graviton will reach out to follow up on the resolution part to make sure everyone involved in the case has been experiencing the positive outcomes of the resolution and agreements have been honored.

Note: All cases are being kept in a private repository on Google drive, and only the involved Gravitons have access to it.

Active Gravitons & resources:

Currently, our active gravitons are @NikolaCreatrix and Heather (@hanners717), with Nikola serving as the lead of the group, supported by GravityDAO.

For those who are interested in becoming more involved in Gravity’s work, we encourage you to attend the next online training session hosted by GravityDAO. Visit their new website https://gravitydao.org/en/ or reach out to Nikola or @juankbell from GravityDAO. This training will take about 5 weeks and will provide valuable insights and skills for managing conflicts to find resolutions that benefit all parties involved.

If you are interested in learning more about a Graviton’s work at Giveth and the framework we use to manage conflicts, check out our Notion page. Conflict Resolution Working Group
This page provides a wealth of information about the Gravity framework, including resources, and tools that we work with as well as our future plans, goals and even meeting notes.

The scale of the conflict:

When it comes to conflict management in DAOs, we believe it’s important to classify conflicts into three categories: soft, medium, and serious. Soft conflicts are minor issues that can be resolved through open communication and mutual understanding. Medium conflicts require more structured approaches like the Gravity framework to find effective resolutions. Serious conflicts may require outside mediation or legal assistance to reach a resolution.

At the end of the day, we believe that providing constructive feedback to each other is crucial for our success as a decentralized organization. By approaching conflicts with an open mind and a willingness to work toward resolutions that benefit everyone involved, we can continue to grow and thrive as a community. Therefore, do not underestimate the power of providing regular constructive feedback to your fellow contributors using this Typeform.

Prevention and empowerment:

One of the main goals of Gravitons as mediators is to make sure we do as much as we can to prevent conflict from arising and provide effective tools on how to improve communication and address tension directly when we notice emotions are stirring up. However, when conflict begins, the role of the mediator is to empower disputants to step up and learn how to communicate with one another using nonviolent communication tools such as ‘I’ statements, active & reflective listening, and cultivating genuine heartfelt conversation. We would love to hear from the community what the needs and desires are around personal development and bettering our individual communication skills so please feel free to voice your needs and ideas and share them in the comments!

As a Gravity team, we would love to request your permission to have access and transparency around individual’s feedback/contributor’s feedback to be able to provide additional support based on studying and understanding underlying dynamics. This way, contributors can provide and communicate their feedback and therefore catch any potential conflict before arising.

Gravity team can have access to the feedback forms submitted for buddy reviews
  • Yes
  • No, I have a concerns and comment below

0 voters

Lastly, I hope this post has brought more clarity and transparency to the process and intentions of this group. Please share your ideas, thoughts, and comments so that we can keep working with what is the true underlying need of our community and do our best in prevention and education around conflict management for individuals and essentially for the whole community.

Your GG team.

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I dont think this would be a good idea. at the Buddy review level, it seems more …relaxed and …friendly. if the reviewee knows that …‘someone’ is going to be looking over this, like a report. its no longer a ‘buddy’ call, but a Peer Review. (might just be my pov ofc. im an edge case in so many ways. )

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Thanks Giant! Yeah that’s great to have this pov and that’s exactly why I would like to know people’s feeling around this. From my pov - the buddies already have the access for their buddy reviewers anyway, this is strickly for the Gravity team to have the access in case there is for 1) an active case around a contributor and for 2) to generally study our internal culture. From a psychological point it can help me to define the right educational tools and support for different contributors. And it’s not so much about seeing what type of feedback someone received, but more about understanding how different contributors provide their feedback and learning how to prevent conflicts and catching it up before it becomes a lot of tension.

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Maybe it’s better to take it case by case by individual contributors and gravity cases where the need arises. I don’t think it’s a fair representation for a few voters to decide what happens with everyone’s buddy review information

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I honestly don’t think Gravity should have access to buddy review information. I’m apart of the HR working group and I don’t even have access to buddy review information. It’s information that may influence my opinion my team members and I don’t want that. I think buddy review information should stay private, only between the two parties and whoever is helping administer buddy reviews. From my experience, even the person administering the buddy reviews/peer feedbacks, doesn’t read them either.

There’s something really sacred about confidentiality between buddies and I think we should respect that safe space.

However, I would like to see Gravity help coach contributors in communication technique to address the soft and medium level escalated feedback. As mentioned in your “Prevention and Empowerment” section. This is where I think we should put our efforts.

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@NikolaCreatrix if you’re curious to get more information about our internal work culture, we could do a survey or 1-on-1 qualitative interviews? (Especially with people who have a lot of buddies!)

I don’t think we should necessarily prevent conflict. Conflict is inevitable, beautiful and transformative. I think organizations that embrace conflict tend to have better product outcomes. I think we should put our efforts into embracing conflict and creating educational communication tools and supports to help contributors navigate conflict, much like the Gravity course you mentioned. However, we could do a hybrid version for Giveth contributors who don’t have time to attend a 6 week course.

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Thanks @hanners717 I can see where you’re coming from and can respect that. :slight_smile:

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Okay, I see where you all are coming from. And I agree that the sacred safe space between buddies is really something we should protect and respect. :heartbeat:

Also, I like the case-by-case approach mentioned by @mitch. When there is a case and access would be beneficial, the Gravity team can ask for consent.

Also, that brings me to something I totally forgot to mention in the post. A GG team member should always ask for permission to facilitate assigned cases, and both parties consent to it. A safe space is essential. (I will make sure this is reflected in our code of conduct in the notion page)

And doing a survey could be an ideal alternative to this. That’s actually even better when done smart.
The goal of this research really is just to choose the best practices and workshops in order to bring skills and tools which are missing the most.

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Thanks @NikolaCreatrix for putting together this comprehensive forum post with such a clear explanation of the Gravity process in Giveth. It’s great to see creative suggestions for how Gravity in Giveth could develop.

I don’t think Gravity should have access to buddy review info. When the situation is positive, there is not really any reason for Gravity to step-in - so what we are really talking about here is when feedback is negative. There are many reasons why job performance can be effected and I believe having a safe space to discuss these is essential. These can be very sensitive times and I think allowing access to this feedback to be opened up could create tension or anxiety. I’m not convinced that having open access for Gravitons would achieve the goal of preventing conflict.

However, I do agree that it could offer a very good insight into how we give feedback as a community but I would prefer to see a different way of collecting that info, such as surveying.

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Great to see this Gravity post! Please let’s do a Giveth Essentials to talk more about the frame wooork! thank you for all the work you do @NikolaCreatrix :sparkles:

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Let’s wait a little bit after we launch the online course pretty please! :heartbeat:

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