Working agreements, community agreements, and group boundaries are ways to name how we work together in relationships with each other as individuals and groups.
Making these agreements explicit can reduce friction and increase fairness as we work together.
- Operate with Gagudi – the Tsalagi (Cherokee) term for coming together for the common good.
- Honor pronouns.
- Notice intent and take responsibility for impact.
- Stay engaged.
- Be aware of power dynamics and how you use your privilege.
- Put relationships first – show grace with yourself and others.
- Speak your truth, recognize truths that differ from yours, create space for multiple truths.
- Be curious, listen to understand, be willing to challenge our own assumptions.
- Uphold confidentiality and consent.
- What is learned here leaves here, what is said here stays here.
- Keep focused on our common goal.
- Be willing to sit in discomfort and heat.
- Focus on personal learning and our own actions.
- Listen to hard, probing questions and consider them as separate from your goodness as a person.
- Honor where people are on their journeys and be kind as we navigate obstacles.
- Be candid: honest, kind, and useful.