 Welcome, thanks for being here. How many of you have a leadership role or serve in a Code of Conduct Committee in a project? All right, fantastic. How many of you have to deal with projects within communities from time to time? Okay, great. Well, just a few words about myself. My name is Joanna Lee. I'm an attorney and a mediator, and one of the many things they do to support open source foundations and projects in communities is I help them with Code of Conduct incident response and sometimes help resolve interpersonal and community conflicts. So today we're going to talk about applications to use in mediation and conflict resolution tools in open source communities. We'll talk about traditional approaches, traditional and newer approaches to conflict resolution and the potential benefits. We're going to focus particularly on transformative mediation, which is a newer form of conflict resolution that I think has great benefit and potential for application in open source communities. We'll share some knowledge and tools that you can start applying today, and I'll direct you to some resources if you're interested in learning more. So my own personal journey and relationship to conflict started with being an incredibly conflict averse person. Most of my life I have, when there's conflict, I run and I duck in the corner. I am an attorney, but I very consciously chose to be a transactional lawyer, which means I'm negotiating agreements between parties who want to work together and not litigating disputes. But in the course of my work, increasingly I found negotiating led into developing skills as a mediator. And I started doing a code of conduct work for foundations and communities, and that put me right in the center and heart of conflict. And along the way I've been adding tools to my toolkit, including studying nonviolent communication, different theories and forms of conflict resolution, authentic relating and radical honesty approach to conflict resolution, and reading all sorts of books on negotiating and conflict. And so I've gone from being a very conflict averse person to being conflict embracing. And what I mean by that, this is Joanna's own personal view and theory of conflict. But I used to see conflict as this terrible, uncomfortable, scary thing that was to be avoided at all costs. I mean to the point that I would just say yes to avoid having to engage in a discussion about something that I disagreed with someone on. And now I see conflict and disagreement as such a natural, even healthy, valuable and necessary part of human interaction and just being a whole authentic person, especially in relation to others and community. Conflict presents an opportunity. On the other side of conflict, if people are able to move through it and resolve it successfully, you know, and we can define success in a number of ways, there are often great rewards on the other side. You can think back to a time when you've maybe had a conflict with a friend or a spouse or a family member, and you actually work through it. So think about the understanding, the intimacy, the connection, the going from, oh, they're the threat, they're the problem, the enemy to, oh, they're a human being who also has needs and desires and goals and fears just like me, right? You probably learned something along the way. There was probably an understanding and shared reality bridge. So in the conflict, really juicy conflicts have this tendency to expose what's invisible, underlying motivations, underlying fears, underlying resentments that have been in the background for some time. When we engage in conflict, that's an opportunity for all that to come to the surface and an opportunity for it to be resolved in a way that's very meaningful. That doesn't mean conflict is always productive. Whether it's productive or destructive really depends on how people show up in that conflict, how they engage with each other. And so when we talk about mediation and conflict resolution, I'll be talking about the conditions and the tools that help create the conditions for people to show up as their best selves. So what is mediation? There are a broad range of definitions of mediation depending on who's writing the definition. And a lot of them have been written in the context of mediation for settlement of legal disputes. The one that I particularly like because it's simple and to the point is the top here. Mediation is a process in which an impartial third party facilitates communication and negotiation and promotes a voluntary decision making by the parties to dispute. There are a few key words here. It's a neutral third party intermediary and there is a facilitation of communication and the decision making by the parties involved is voluntary. So that mediator isn't imposing a decision upon them, isn't telling them what they're supposed to do, isn't taking sides, isn't taking necessarily a position in the conflict, but helping them communicate. And there are mediators who have a more directive approach where they are offering opinions on, I think you're right on this point and you know you have a weak case with regard to these issues and those are also forms of mediation, but that's not the type of mediation we're going to focus on today. So some of the benefits in general of successful conflict resolution. One is if people are engaged in a conflict in the resolvent they might come to an agreement on how they're going to move forward. And that's great even if there is not an agreement and there is really just an agreement to continue disagreeing there still can be other benefits of that the dialogue of engaging in discussion around the issues of conflict. One is sometimes having a discussion helps either or both parties really get clarity. Get clarity about the nature of the conflict itself. I'm sure you've all had the experience of you know you're having an argument with somebody and what you're arguing about isn't really what you care about right? You know it might be about hey you know you left the dishes in the sink again right? It could be a household chore and often underlying it there's something else. There's a deeper human emotional component to that. Maybe it's feeling underappreciated, maybe it's feeling taken advantage of, maybe it's you know you want more attention or you want more appreciation from your partner or your friend or your family member. It's often not usually just about the dishes right? So engaging in healthy dialogue around conflict can help people gain clarity and understanding about what's important to them and what's important to the other person. It can result in a more peaceful and harmonious relationship, learning and growth for either of both people, greater understanding of self and other, greater empathy. The ability to restore that, seeing the other person as a fellow human being rather than a problem or a threat and a greater sense of personal empowerment and agency. And sometimes there's a sense of closure that comes with having a conversation, whether or not it results in agreement, full agreement on how to move forward. Uh oh, my clicker. So how can we apply this in open source communities? Well one is when interpersonal conflicts arise in a community, it could be about you know why didn't you merge my pull request or you know why wasn't I chosen for this program committee etc. Or it could be you know it could be rudeness that's happening in a community space and both people feeling you know like they're very justified in their positions. It could be a disagreement over the technical direction of a project. Another potential application is in code of conduct incident response. So there is an increasing movement and desire in many open source communities to apply a restorative justice framework to code of conduct incident resolution and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. I do want to note that mediation where two people are talking with each other with the conversation facility by a third party. You know they can't be forced on anybody. If that decision, if that conversation is going to happen it has to be completely voluntary on everyone's part. So increasingly open source communities are trying to find ways to apply restorative justice especially in communities are very social justice minded and oriented. And restorative justice is a framework and theory of justice that was developed in the 1970s in alternative to retributive justice which is a punishment based theory of justice. And it focuses on healing and restoration of harm particularly with respect to the person who is the so-called wrong doer and the person who is the victim. You know and in many conflicts it's not going to be clear who is the wrong doer and who is a victim. Sometimes they'll both point the finger at each other and say well they're the wrong doer I'm the victim. That does happen and that's also a situation in which facilitated conversation can sometimes help with resolution. In a pure restorative justice framework though that conversation typically doesn't happen unless in advance the person who is the so-called wrong doer has taken full responsibility for their actions and the impact. And the idea behind that conversation is that there's healing and restoration of the interpersonal relationship through both the wrong doer giving a sincere apology and also hearing and empathizing with the impact on the victim and the victim also receiving that apology and witnessing the remorse is somehow restorative and healing to them. So if there is going to be a restorative justice conversation having really good mediation tools that that third party facilitator can bring to help create a safer space and help the parties achieve that outcome is very helpful. Transformative justice is another theory of justice that is having an impact in code of conduct work and that is a theory and framework of justice that was developed in the 1990s that focuses on broader more systemic issues that may have contributed to or encouraged the problematic or wrongful behavior. Mediated conversations can help illuminate and create awareness of these systemic issues and there are forms of mediation that are very social justice oriented. We will talk about one of them later and those help deconstruct and shift narratives and stories that perpetuate inequities and power imbalances. So potential benefits of a conflict resolution tools specifically is applied to open source communities is that it can contribute to more harmonious relationships. It can help parties gain clarity about what's really important to them and understand each other and creating opportunities for learning about how one's actions are perceived by and impact others. It's one thing when if somebody who violated code of conduct receives an e-mail after the investigation is completed and says, hey, you did this thing, it violated code of conduct and shame on you. Please don't do it again. It creates a whole other dynamic when they actually talk to somebody who is emotionally impacted by their action and they're looking face to face with that person and recognizing, wow, my action actually had an emotional impact on this person. It helps the internalization and learning about one's own behavior in a much more meaningful way than just getting an e-mail that describes what you did that you really shouldn't have done. Also, if there is a conversation and people voluntarily come to an agreement on how they're going to move forward, whether it's how they're going to behave and treat each other going forward or how the project's going to resolve this disagreement over the technical direction, those agreements and commitments tend to be so much more durable. People are so much more behind them when they've had, they've participated in that decision making versus having an outcome just imposed upon them by whether it's a project leader or code of conduct committee. Also, feel free to interrupt with questions at any point. There may be a narrow set of situations in open source communities where a formal mediation session where you've got people engaged in conflict and a neutral facilitator facilitating that, but there are still so many benefits of learning conflict resolution skills. If you are in a management position, if you're in a project leadership position, if you're part of a code of conduct committee, really, I think all human beings should probably have some conflict resolution training because it makes us better people. It helps increase our ability to learn, understand things from another person's perspective, maybe redirect when a conflict is starting to spiral out of control. So the skills that you learn when you study conflict resolution can be applied to helping you have difficult conversations more effectively, supporting contributors in their disagreements, being expressed more respectfully, diffusing conflict when it arises. So even outside of a formal mediation session, there are so many benefits to understanding a little bit of theory and a practice in conflict resolution. So here are five very common approaches to mediation. There are many more. This list is not exhaustive, and the first three are sometimes referred to as the big three in that these are the most commonly used approaches to mediation used today. So, and which one is best? Well, it may depend on the situation. Some mediators really are very strongly attached to one particular approach. For all types of conflicts, you know, I personally tend to use the facilitative. Well, we'll talk about what those are, but I tend to use some approaches in some situations and then the transformative approach in others. But for purposes of today's discussion, I really want to evangelize transformative mediation for a couple of reasons. One is it's human-centric. Some of the other approaches to mediation are great for commercial and business and legal disputes, but when we're talking about messy human beings just trying to work together, a human-centric approach tends to be more effective. It also doesn't require legal knowledge or training. You can study and become a transformative mediator without having a legal background. Also, I think it's very consistent with a lot of the values of open source. It's all about honoring parties, self-determination, and empowerment and agency. It's also so much simpler to learn and apply than any of the other approaches that we'll talk about today. So, a brief overview. So, evaluative mediation is typically only used in legal disputes, and this is where somebody who's sort of in a quasi-judge role but is a neutral mediator goes to each party, usually talks to them separately. They're usually in separate rooms and they go to party A and say, hey, these are all the weaknesses in your case you really need to settle. Then they go to party B and say, hey, you don't have a case. You're not going to win. You're going to spend so much money on lawyer's fees, you really ought to settle. And then they go back and forth and they try and pressure the parties to come to an agreement by really capitalizing on their fears of loss. Not a great approach, I think, in open source communities. Facilitative mediation is really about problem-solving. It's about, have any of you read the book or are familiar with the book Getting to Yes? Okay, great. Also, for those of you who haven't, so this is very much an interest-based versus position-based mediation approach. So you're helping parties find common interests and common ground and focusing them on that. It's very future-oriented, not about whose fault is it in the past, how do we assign blame, but how do we move forward productively? There's often brainstorming about solutions. And the Getting to Yes parable that's so often cited is two people are fighting over an orange. And they both have the position the orange should be mine. Well, so that's their position. And those are mutually inconsistent positions. They can't both have the orange. There's only one orange. But then if you ask them, well, why do you want to use the orange? And one of them says, well, I want the peel to make something out of. And the other says, well, I want to make juice out of the flesh of the orange. Well, if you look at their actual interests, the why they want the orange, there's actually a way to get to yes. One of them gets the peel and the other one gets the flesh of the orange. So that thinking is the thinking that drives facilitative mediation. Understanding, I'm going to address transformative approach last because we're going to do the deepest dive into that. Understanding based mediation is also, it's a type of human centered approach to mediation. And the theory underlying this is that the key to solving conflict is creating understanding. That's understanding of yourself, understanding of the other in their perspective, and then also understanding of practical realities. For example, maybe we would all love the project to host the next conference in Hawaii and pay for all of us to have a week vacation there on the tail end of conference. But there are vegetarian constraints. So it's not just understanding perspective. It's understanding constraints or resources and practical realities. Narrative mediation is a very, very interesting approach to mediation. And I think this is going to be very appealing to many social, social justice minded folks. The theory underlying this approach to mediation is that the stories that we tell others and ourselves and the stories that we buy into collectively as a community, as a society help shape not only the way we identify ourselves and how we see others, but also how we relate to others and how we see conflict. So for example, I could tell a story of, yeah, that person over there is just a total jerk. They're arrogant. They're dismissive. They hate me because I'm a woman. That's a story I could tell whether it's true or not. I mean, who knows? That's subjective. You know, I could also tell the story of, you know, that person could be having a bad day. They could be dismissive because they're in a rush and they're really stressed. I could, you know, I could tell other stories about that. So a narrative-based mediator is, helps the parties understand what their stories are, deconstructs those stories, and questions the underlying assumptions of those stories and then helps the parties come to a new narrative that is more a peaceful narrative rather than a conflict-ridden narrative. And this is a very involved approach to mediation. It's very interesting, but it's very involved. It requires a lot of training. It's very time-consuming. And the risk there is, the mediator is also imposing, the goal is to impose their own narrative on the parties, which there are times that that may be useful, but there are times when, you know, maybe that's not the best way to honor people's self-determination. So the transformative approach to mediation is, it's based on a very well-developed theory of conflict that has been based on many different areas of psychology and social science research. And the basic theory is this. So conflict can be constructive or destructive. People tend to experience conflict from a place of weakness and self-absorption and weakness being confused, not quite knowing what to do, feeling powerless, feeling frustrated and self-absorbed, meaning unable to get out of your own frame of thinking, unable to see the other person's point of view, unable to even see the other person as a person. They're a threat, they're a problem. They're not a human being, right? And it's also possible to engage in conflict from a place of strength and responsiveness, strength meaning having clarity, feeling empowered, not feeling the need to be defensive and protect yourself, but instead feeling in a place of empowerment and being able to make choices, understanding that you do have choices, which allows you to be more responsive to the other party. So when you don't feel like you need to defend yourself, when you're in a place of strength, that gives you the ability to see and hear the other person's perspective without feeling threatened by it, even if you don't agree with them, but at least see and hear them. So furthermore, the theory goes that when people are engaging in conflict from that place of strength and responsiveness, they are so much more likely to make better decisions for themselves and they're so much more likely to be able to collaborate effectively with the other person on finding a path forward that is acceptable to all. Oh, okay, here we go. So these are cycles of conflict. So here we have, this is the destructive cycle of conflict. So when somebody is feeling weak, unsettled, confused, fearful, disorganized, defensive, et cetera, then that feeds into their self-absorption. And the more self-absorbed they are, the more they tend to invalidate the other person's viewpoint. And then the other person now feels weak and attacked and they need to defend themselves. And both people tend to dig their heels in and you get caught in this vicious cycle. However, there's also a constructive conflict cycle. So when both people are calm, decisive, and a place of clarity, they're able to be open, attentive to the other person, able to see the other person's perspective, willing to see the other person's perspective. And if either party moves to this, it has a tendency, not always, but it creates an opening for the other person to also move to the constructive side. Because when the other person acknowledges you, sees you, you get, oh, they're hearing me. Maybe they don't agree with me, but they're acknowledging that I'm a human. That creates a sense of empowerment, of strength, of validation that allows you to also say, okay, well, yeah, thanks for recognizing how I feel about this. I can also recognize that you may have some valid concerns as well. And if parties, the more they can move here, it does create this very positive cycle. And I think we've all been in situations where it'll spiral downwards if we're in a destructive cycle, and it can result in great closure and resolution if we're in a positive constructive cycle. And so the theory also goes, how do we move from weak to strong, self-absorbed to responsive? And it's through empowerment and recognition shifts. And so by empowerment and recognition, empowerment means people feeling like they have choices, people being given choices, people being acknowledged. And recognition is about seeing and being seen. When you feel seen, you are more likely to, you're gonna be more open and willing to see someone else. So what a transformative mediator is doing is, again, there's empowerment shifts and recognition shifts, and these all feed into each other, is we're using practices and tools that help the parties create opportunities for the parties to move from destructive to constructive conflict cycles. And so let's talk a little bit about what those tools are. A few more words on the theory. So the theory also goes that people are capable from moving from a constructive to, from a destructive to constructive cycle of conflict. And they want to do so. I mean, if you can think of a time when you are really frustrated or upset about something, it's not fun being there. It's really not fun being in a place of weakness and self-absorption. It's not fun feeling weak. And the self-absorption also causes an isolation. We are social animals. We are wired to have, for connection with other human beings. And when we're in a place of self-absorption, we feel like we are cut off and isolated from everybody else. The theory also goes that people can make these shifts or are more likely to make these shifts when they're supported in doing so. And so that is a transformative mediator's role, helping provide people with support so that they can make these empowerment shifts and recognition shifts and move to a more constructive place. So transformative mediator really, really does on our self-determination. They're not nudging, they're not pushing, they're not saying, hey, there's a solution over here. I know how to divide the orange. They are going to facilitate a conversation because they want the parties to come to that conclusion on their own. They're thinking again that when parties, when people come to a decision on their own, it's so much more meaningful, it's powerful, it's empowering to them. Rather than somebody saying, okay, well, I know what's going on here. Really, you need to divide this orange up and this is how you do it. There are definitely situations in which that is warranted, helpful, et cetera, but that's not a transformative approach. That would be more of a facilitative approach to mediation. So there are some other practices, but these are the three basic practices that a transformative mediator uses. And they're extremely simple, but I can tell you, it took me a four-day class and plenty of practice and I still feel like I'm improving in all of these areas. But one of the tools is reflection. Reflecting back what each party said, using their own words and emotional energy and tone. Oh, okay, so you think Josh is a total asshole. Are you okay? You were really just trying to do your best, right? Reflecting that back for a few reasons. One is it helps, remember, when the parties are in destructive conflict, they can't hear and see each other. So they're not going to provide that seeing and validation for the other. So part of the mediator's role is to see and provide that acknowledgement and recognition to each party. So it gives them a sense of empowerment. So they can start making those subtle shifts in the right direction. Also, when people are engaged in destructive conflict, they really truly don't, like they physically almost don't hear each other. It's like they're tuning out the sound of the other person's voice. It's like the other person's voice is so annoying that whatever they say, it just goes right past you. You just disregard it as not even being valid. And when you hear the mediator say it again in the mediator's voice, it allows the other person to actually hear it from a neutral party. So they're hearing it a second time, but in a different voice. Additionally, sometimes people will say things they don't really mean. They'll say things extreme like, oh, they never, ever, ever do the dishes. They never say anything nice to me. And when the mediator repeats that, that gives the person to hear back what they said reflected. And they can think, oh, is that really what I meant? And sometimes they'll correct. Someone will say, okay, I didn't mean always. I meant most of the time. And so that's a purpose of reflection. There's also summarizing. So at key points in the conversation, summarizing, hey, this is a nature of the conflict. These are the points that you agree on. These are the points you disagree on. And the purpose of this is, it helps the parties get really crystal clear because when people are engaged in destructive conflict cycles, they can be very confused, they can ramble, they can even lose sight sometimes of what they're arguing about or trying to resolve. And hearing it summarize in a way that's very poignant and can help them organize their thoughts. And then there's checking in. So asking questions at potential decision-making points. Remind the parties that they have choices. Again, this is an act of empowerment. So these techniques are very, very simple. But again, to learn them, and welcome. To learn them, training and practices is really strongly recommended. And if you want to learn the transformative approach, I'd recommend taking a transformative mediation course with Dan Simon, who's one of the thought leaders and major contributors to the field of transformative conflict resolution. Dan is who I did my training with and he's just really, really excellent. But if you don't want to do the formal training, hopefully what you've learned today and then the discussion is going to follow now can still help you with both a way of looking at conflict and some practical tools that you can start applying right away. So when you're engaged in conflict or you see somebody else engage in conflict, start thinking about it. Is this person feeling weak and disempowered? How can I support them in feeling more empowered? How can I remind them they have choices? Some of this is just listening. Just listening to somebody and not with or without giving advice but usually without giving it. Just listening, showing empathy, seeing a person, acknowledging them. That can create an empowerment shift, just that simple act. If you feel comfortable, you can reflect back what you understand their experience was either in their words or your own words. Also conversing in ways that emphasize that a person has choices. So using open-ended questions to remind people that they're in a position of choice and empowerment. Even beginning a meeting with saying what would you like to talk about? Or asking somebody do you still want to keep talking about this? Do you want to take a break? That's the type of check-in that a transformative mediator would use throughout a conversation. I love to harvest the wisdom of a group when talking about these types of issues. So I'd invite you all to just think about a conflict in your life that is now more or less resolved. What helped you get through that conflict to the other side where you felt clear and a sense of being in choice and you knew what decisions to make. Whether the conflict got resolved in this so-called amicable way or not. Anyone willing to share? Yes. The dispute that was going on for year, two years and it was about contracts and things that people needed to do and each management chain was hearing from their own people that the other guys were turkey and when we finally got both of the senior managers in the room the problem was all about revenue recognition. This company could not agree that they hadn't performed because they recognized the revenue. Without that fact for two years you've been fighting with each other. Your process of getting the underlying having a common understanding of the actual underlying facts is very important. Thank you for sharing. I'm going to repeat that for people online and people who may not have heard the other side of the room. There was a two year dispute between two companies. It went on for two years and it got resolved when the managers got in a room together and talked. They found out that it was a way in which revenue was being recognized. It was a legal commercial dispute but it was also a human dispute and that employees were angry. They were like, oh, they're in the household, they're in the household, right? So the two companies that were in the cause got unearthed as soon as the managers got in a room and talked to each other. Imagine what would have happened if they didn't wait two years to talk to each other, right? So having information and sometimes just having a conversation. What else has helped you move through conflict? You and then you. All right. Great. Thank you. I'm going to repeat that again for the people online. So it's before having a conversation about the nature of conflict. Really checking in, making sure people's needs are met. Saying, do they need a break? Do you need water? Please take care of yourselves. Please get enough sleep. Get food if you need. One minute. Okay. Yes. So I heard two things there. Thank you. The importance of listening. Both if you're the party in conflict or you're assisting somebody in conflict. That's listening. That is so helpful. And then reminding yourself, hey, this person that's disagreeing, you might actually have my best interest at heart. They might actually be trying to support me. However, whether or not their methods are effective or not, they may actually be trying to help and seeing and acknowledging that. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Face to face interaction instead of just trying to resolve a chat. I mean, we're out of time, but we'll take one more comment. Yes. So many of the conflicts that we come across in this space are by definition, they're in a chat or they're in a comments section or they're in a comment thread on GitHub. A lot of the conflicts that I've had to work through, there's not really an opportunity to bring people face to face. Yes. And I can have that challenge of not being able to meet face to face, but also it becomes performative. It's very difficult to get people to climb down from their position and not trying to resolve the conflict themselves. They're trying to perform for the other people that they think are watching them in the comments. And I kind of wanted to get yourself on. Yeah. Do we have to be out of the room right now? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate the flexibility. So the question was, you know, sometimes there aren't really good opportunities to bring people face to face because a conflict's happening in chat. And then there's another, I heard there's another issue happening where there's a performance aspect, right? People feel like they have to perform for other people in the community. You know, they can't back down because they don't want to show weakness or they don't want to show that they're not being loyal to their friends who are part of the conflict, right? So all these factors, you know, one is if you, having trying to resolve it in the public chat can be very challenging and sometimes can actually spiral in the wrong direction. It can actually help escalate things. So to the extent you can, you know, reaching out, whether it's by video chat or, you know, instant message and having a direct one-on-one conversation with each person who's involved in conflict separately, you know, before you even attempt to bring them together is sometimes helpful and necessary. You know, and sometimes you can't get them, you know, sometimes right in the heat of the moment they're not open to, they're not really open to correction or self-reflection. So you just even ask me, hey, can we just take a cool-off period? Can we just, like, take the night off, talk about this again tomorrow? Can we just pause? Because sometimes even just asking people to pause for an hour a day, that in itself, sometimes they come back and they're a little bit more rational, and then you can have a conversation with them about, hey, you know, that didn't land, what your comments in the chat didn't land well for a number of people. All right, well, we're out of time. Thank you, everybody. And I'll be around in the hallway, so happy to chat one-on-one with any of you who have questions. Yeah, thank you.