Discussion 05: Ethical, Cultural, and Group Management Issues
Please note: In order to successfully complete the program, you must respond to this post. Your comment/response should answer the questions/show that you completed the given activity (if any). Read the post carefully and implement the learning in the chat rooms. If you didn't participate in Discussion 04: Group Leadership
, then check here!
This discussion highlighted some of the major points related to ethical, cultural, and group management
The competent group leaders act ethically in leading the groups. And, achieving this type of competence requires more than good intentions. Many well-intended group leaders have engaged in an activity while lacking solid ethical principles. It could probably be because of unawareness of the code of conduct and guidelines. So, a high level of familiarity with the guidelines is important so they act as professionals and leaders while leading any group.
A few points to remember:
Privacy and Confidentiality. It could be possible a group leader may also be a long term listener for a member. Members might have shared their situation in detail with them in a 1:1 setup. But, when you are a group leader, you need to ensure you are not bringing up the matter discussed in 1:1 with members unless the members themselves bring up the topic and discuss it with the rest of the group as well.
Follow Community Guidelines. Preach what you can follow. As a group leader, you would need to intervene from time to time to ensure the group is running effectively. Reminding users that they follow community and chatroom guidelines while participating. But, at the same time, remember to be the first to follow the guidelines too. So, you are able to model the role behavior in the groups.
Make unbiased decisions. In a group, everyone is equal to you as a leader. Even if you communicate with some of them more frequently than others. If anything goes wrong or you find anyone being unsupportive or unacceptable behavior, take the decisions without any bias. So, the group could trust you and know that you are impartial and there for everyone and against wrong behaviors. For more, here are the community guidelines.
Members in the group come from different backgrounds, demographics, and cultural differences. So, as a leader, it is significant to respect and acknowledge the cultural differences and highlight the common grounds to connect all members of the group. Such behavior allows members to feel inclusive and comfortable in the groups to share.
And the group management issues include conflict management. You may observe that sometimes misunderstanding or disagreement causes conflict between two or more people leading to an unsupportive and unhealthy environment in the room. So as a leader, it is your time to take action and settle down the conflict to ensure room and group stay supportive and comfortable around each other. Spontaneity is the key to restrict such events from happening.
Discussion: What is one ethical, cultural, or group management issue you recognized in the room? What would you do to handle it?
Activity: Respond to at least two of your fellow trainees' comments with thoughts on their share.
After fulfilling the requirements of this post, please check out the next discussion here. Ensure to implement the learning from these discussions in the chat rooms to build and support the group. You must take part in the brainstorming/activities given in all of these discussions to successfully complete the program.
One ethnically issue that comes once in the while is the cups crisis guideline that listener get upset that we are not allow to help people I. Crisis.I see that turn in to full blown fight 3 times. I think the best thing to do is to get a mod to handle it.
Discussion: What is one ethical, cultural, or group management issue you recognized in the room? What would you do to handle it?
One cultural issue in the chatrooms is that sometimes participants may have the urge to speak in other languages. This may lead to moderation and exclusion issues. To handle this issue, it’s important to let the participants know that we want everyone to understand what they are communicating so that everyone gets the chance to interact with them.
What is one ethical, cultural, or group management issue you recognized in the room? What would you do to handle it?
Sometimes people start having 1-1 coversatios within the room and it can be quite offputting to people that aren't in it because they feel excluded. My suggestion would be to remind them that its a group discussion and to stop having the 1-1 if someone is asking a question and needs help
What is one ethical, cultural, or group management issue you recognized in the room? What would you do to handle it?
One group management issue I've noticed is members purposely getting on each other's nerves but not necessarily breaking any rules. I observed this to be a frequent issue when there are no mods active in the Sharing Circle room.
I would handle the situation by leading by example. Make it known the kind of behavior that is positive rather than focusing on the negative. If things continue to spiral out of control, I will call in com mod or another mod to respond to the situation as I'm not a mod yet.
That's a great point! it's good to remind everyone what 7 Cups is all about: emotional support!
What is one ethical, cultural, or group management issue you recognized in the room? What would you do to handle it?
One cultural thing I had to deal with in the past in the group support chatrooms is members talking in another language that was not English. After about 4 verbal warnings, it came down to giving them formal warnings so they would stop doing it. This then resulted in a clique being made which unfortunately resulted in some of the members being muted (as the community mod was called for the situation).
@ASilentObserver
Discussion: What is one ethical, cultural, or group management issue you recognized in the room? What would you do to handle it?
I did recognise that certain rules can tend to be overlooked in a room and the way to handle it would be to first understand why the rule is being implemented and what the consequence would be to disobey it. By sharing these knowledge with others, it creates unity and appreciation for the rules intended to be followed
@ASilentObserver
Discussion: What is one ethical, cultural, or group management issue you recognized in the room? What would you do to handle it?
Cultural/Ethics/Gender: Issue with jokes
I like to remind everyone that humor is universal but also culturally specific. What are non-offensive jokes to some might be unethical to others. I would express in a gentle but firm way that there is no need to add suffering to anyone.
@ASilentObserver
In my opinion, ethics very often correlate with safety, because we need to preserve confidentiality not only because it is ethical, however, it also provides security and guards feelings and trust. Unfortunately, I have encountered a situation in the LSC when the listener shared room many details about the chat with their member, making the member's issues the topic for a joke.
I would address it by notifying the sharer about our guide and limit on sharing chat information (describing the issue in up to 5 words). Furthermore, I would provide them with an explanation of this rule and why it is important in order to make sure it carries the value for the sharer. In case if they would not react to notification, I would be forced to invite the mod for handling the situation. Furthermore, I would encourage the listener to connect with a mentor and the chat support to explore professional ways to handle the chat topic.
@ASilentObserver Discussion: What is one ethical, cultural, or group management issue you recognized in the room? What would you do to handle it?
english is not the first language of many of our members <3 sometimes they find it hard to understand terms and abbreviations, and sometimes their grammar isn't as good as a native speaker's. people become confused by this and it can cause the person whose first language isn't english a lot of stress and frustration. they can feel as though they are not being understood, even when they try to get their explanation across to everyone else.
@ASilentObserver
One of an issue I found is that in a few sharing circle I joined, there were many members coming from the same country, sometimes instead of speaking in English, they would then speak in their native language.
In order to tackle this, I would first empathise with them by saying something like "it's so exciting that many of you speak the same language". And after that i would gently remind them that there are others coming from different countries in this chatroom and encourage them to speak in English.
