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"To provide a context for authentic participation, we need sanctuary -- a safe place to share what is on our minds and hearts so we can tap the creative wellsprings of who we are together. To that end, we have a covenant of confidentiality and community norms."
Peter + Trudy Johnson-Lenz,
Community of Inquiry and Practice 96
on Wholeness and Meaning in the Virtual Workplace
For our Community Covenant, we compiled a set of guiding principles for virtual communities, that help them sail smoothly through turbulent on-line waters.
- Keep confidential other people's items (unless permission is explicitly given by the author to do otherwise); each person's words are his or her own
- Recognize that together we are creating shared meaning which belongs to all of us
- Express your truth as clearly and gracefully as you can in the moment, without blame or judgment
- Where appropriate, speak from your heart as well as from your mind, bringing more of yourself to the conversation
- We are all working on different aspects of the same problem, not on separate or different problems. To the extent that we can embrace and "own" others' concerns as our own, they will be able to embrace our concerns as their own. Let's be on the look out for a synergistic synthesis of all our perspectives and resources that is greater than and fundamentally different from the parts that were our original, separate, positions.
- We can acknowledge those aspects of another's position that we find right, valid or useful, before we explore those aspects in which we differ. If we do this, we form bridges of common concern between us and the other, before we focus on our differences. This makes a bridge rather than a wall out of the bricks of our communication.
- Suspend roles and status: Give everyone and their opinions equal respect and value the differences in people and opinions; mentally paraphrase what you believe they said before you think about your perspective.
- Seek finer nuances of meaning: Creatively investigate what is being said to discover new elements. Attend to the context and to the meaning that is flowing through the group.
The first four principles are excerpts from Peter + Trudy Johnson-Lenz's work quoted above. Covenant guidelines 5 and 6 come from John Holmdahl's "Suggested Attitudes for Enabling Us To Maximize Positive Synergistic Outcomes and to Minimize Difficulties as We Work Together" presented at the meeting of the Society for General Systems Research, 1986. Covenant guidelines 7 and 8 are from "Learning from Online Dialogue" by Terri O'Fallon and Gregory Kramer.
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© Copyright, 2001, Community Intelligence Labs
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