Accountability

Adopted: 10/13/25

Living together leads to conflict, especially with how much mixing and intention we have in our community. This plan offers guidance on what to do if someone else’s behavior is bothering you, and on what you should expect if your behavior is bothering other people.

Conflict should be celebrated🥳! It’s an opportunity for relationships and the community to grow. But conflict can also be scary, emotionally draining, and can take up too much space in a relationship and in the community. This plan tries to help us find the balance.

Step 1. Reflect on the behavior

People will engage in behavior that annoys us often. If we can deal with the annoying thing on our own, that might be better. If the behavior bothers us and continues to bother us, we should address it before things begin to fester. Here are some tools to help us decide.

• Look through Responses to Difficult Behavior. Should we address the issue without engaging directly or should we talk to the person directly?

• Consider doing some exercises to gain more perspectives about the issue

  • 2.2 Mine Not Mine

  • 20.1 Compassion Exercise

  • 22.1 3DT

• If you decide to manage this yourself, you can stop here✅! If you decide you want to engage with the person directly, advance to the next step

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Step 2. Talk to the person about the issue

Before talking to someone

• Look through the Agreements for engaging in conflict

• Read through Exercise 24.1: Six Common Elements of Conflict Resolution. Think about how to structure your conversation to hit these elements well.

• Think about or read through the Hive Values, Principles, and Aspirations and Community agreements

  • While you should bring up an issue bothering you regardless, if the behavior is not outside of shared agreements or values, it may come as a surprise. Prepare accordingly. 

  • The values and agreements should not be weaponized. However, they can help center the conversation on shared expectations.

First check-in

Find a time to talk to the person about the behavior that is bothering you one on one. Find that time in whatever way makes sense for the two of you.

Some things to keep in mind:

• This can be a fairly informal discussion that is used for building connection and understanding.

• The goal should not be to get the person to change their behavior. The goal should be to build understanding about why there is conflict and think collaboratively about solutions.

• Describe the impact the behavior is having on you.

• Be curious about why the other person is engaging in the behavior.

• Try to uncover what needs/wants/desires aren’t being met for you both, and think about if and how the community can support them.

• If you are being approached, remember that it is very hard to bring things up. Consider looking through Exercise 13.1: Feedback Sequence for Leaders For tips on how to receive feedback.

Some potentially useful phrases:

• “You’re not in trouble”

• “I care about our relationship”

• “I think this can help us be closer”

• “I want your input on something that's been bothering me”

Before you end the conversation

• Make sure you have a shared agreement of what comes next. (ex: actions for either of you or for the community to take, taking space or seeing if learning more about each other was enough to resolve the issue)

• Make a plan to follow up after a set amount of time. Try to wait more than one week and less than three months, based on the nature of the conflict and people’s schedules.

• If either of you feel remorse for what you did, consider apologizing. You can look through Exercise 14.2: The Art of True Apology for tips on offering an apology.

Follow up check-in

Check-in

• Start by having the person who was approached in this process share out

  • Did they name any needs/wants/desires that they wanted help with last time? If so, have those been addressed?

  • Have they made any efforts to address the behavior that started this process? If so, how would they rate their efforts?

• Follow with the person who initiated the process.

  • Were there asks or requests made of them? If so, what work have they done to address those requests?

  • How are they feeling about the behavior that bothered them in the first place? Have things gotten better? Worse? The same?

Evaluate

• RESOLVED: If things are feeling better, try to schedule a little celebration🥳. A drink, ice cream, whatever feels right for you. Bringing things up and working to address them is hard. Celebrate the great work you both did to get here!

  • ✅You can stop the process here if it feels like things have been fully addressed

• PROGRESS: If things are feeling like they are getting better but still need more work, come up with another plan for what to do next and schedule another follow up check-in like this one.

• NEED HELP: If things are not feeling better, or if there is progress but it feels like there is more support needed, call for a restorative circle.

Step 3. Restorative Circle

When it feels like a conflict process is at an impasse or standstill, it can be useful to bring the whole group together. Adding more voices and perspectives can help everyone involved get a better grounding of how a situation or behavior is received in the community and can help guide towards a path forward.

Special circumstances

Some circumstances may lead us to skip some steps in the process, for example: 

Egregious behavior

• If someone engages in egregious behavior that threatens the safety or well being of others in the house=the person may be asked to move out as a first step with a short timeline.

•  We understand that safety and well being are subjective concepts and will not jump to this conclusion lightly.

Uncommunicative

• If multiple good faith efforts to connect have been unmet, you may choose to call a restorative circle as a first step.

• The community commits to holding at least two follow up restorative circles (we will not ask someone to leave unless it’s the third time we are talking with them about a conflict).

• If a person does not respond to a call for a restorative circle and refuses to attend meetings, we can jump directly to asking them to leave. This should only be done after there has been a good faith effort to get them to participate in dialogue about the conflict.

Multiple people involved

• Decide if a small group format makes more sense as a first step than 1-1 

• Everyone should consent to who participates - if in doubt, default to 1-1 and include others when ready 

• If everyone in the house is involved in the conflict we should jump directly to a restorative circle and the community commits to holding at least two follow up restorative circles before asking someone to leave.

Feeling uncomfortable or unsafe approaching someone

• First self-reflect to see if you can work past the discomfort of approaching someone (DO NOT put yourself in harm’s way)

• If help is needed, find a support person (from house or broader community) to join in a 1-1 conversation

• The person being approached should consent to bringing in a facilitator, and they have the right to refuse

• Without consent for 1-1 conversation or a support person, we should jump directly to a restorative circle. The community commits to holding at least two follow up restorative circles before asking someone to leave.