5 Ways to Proactively Manage Conflict In Your Online Community
When groups of people gather conflict is bound to happen eventually. Online communities are no exception. In my experience, a proactive approach to conflict is incredibly helpful. As a community manager, you want as little conflict as possible, so figuring out ways for proactive de-escalation is important.
Here are some lessons I have learned along the way....
1) Education! .
My first month in my role at 7 Cups, I made a post entitled, “Approaching Conflict Resolution: Dealing with Issues Directly.” In this thread, I outline the basic steps to take when approaching a conflict directly. Over the next four years, I’d continue to proactively teach basic conflict resolution skills to my community members. Teaching these skills has had two important impacts -
Teaches users how to be proactive in approaching conflict (a skill they need both online and offline in their real lives)
Builds a culture around managing conflict amongst themselves. By deliberately pushing the ownership out to them and providing a structured process for them to resolve conflict, we empower them to take ownership of their interactions in the community. And now four years later, they know if they come to me with a conflict, my first question will be “have you tried conflict resolution yet?”
2) Do not be in denial about a conflict. As a Community Manager if you see something starting to bubble, get ahead of it and try to resolve it before it becomes a bigger problem. You can do this by simply diving in and talking to people.
3) Conflict can be healthy for a budding community organism. Sometimes they just need to work through something, so figuring out ways to have safe and supportive conversations where people can professionally share their opinions is important.
4) Levels of Escalation!
As part of this proactive approach, levels of de-escalation have emerged over the years. By levels of de-escalation, I am referring to systems and processes that proactively try to help a conflict get resolved while the conflict continues to escalate.
Level 1 - do conflict resolution with one another
Level 2 - If you are unable to resolve the conflict, agree to disagree and continue to act in a professional way towards one another.
Level 3 - If the conflict continues to be an issue, please file a report with the community management team. Community managers intervene.
Level 4 - Behavior reports system, review, reports..etc. and consequences. Note: one of our community guidelines states, that users must be proactively approaching conflict.
This outline provides users a structured process on how we will intervene when conflict strikes.
5) I currently manage an online community. There are real limitations to text communication when resolving conflict. Don't waste a ton of time trying to resolve something via text, hop on a call and talk it out with your members.
Feel free to message me about anything written here. Happy to answer your questions!