The Keeper of Secrets: The Dance of Community Leadership

Leslie Hawthorn — @lhawthornFOSDEM 2013

The Keeper of Secrets

How to be an effective leader

when everyone talks to you

…but expects you not to talk to anybody else

These are my opinions only.

Your mileage may vary.Greatly.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/birgerking/6908909031/

There is No Cabal

…but there are a lot of people having

one to one ~ or ~

small group discussions

Isn’t that a Cabal?

one to one~ or ~

one to fewconversations

are not always harmful

When is something a secret?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29010088@N02/2711420294/

We are social creatures, so it’s in our nature to talk about things that matter to us.

We talk about them a lot.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vinothchandar/7675396528/

While we all understand that we’re not supposed to discuss certain topics, we do so anyway because we fundamentally require the input of our peers.

Some ‘Secrets’ are Really Great

Consider a donation to the OSUOSL Beer Fund

[URL REDACTED]

Use your favorite search engine to find OSUOSL beer fund

Full disclosure: osuosl.org is my former employer. I do not benefit from the beer fund for many reasons,

including my preference for whiskey.

http://www.flickrflickr.com/photos/mamchenkov/448409220/

Some secrets are relatively innocuous…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7914713@N05/3395188917/

If we accept that discussing the things that matter to us is human nature,

how can we tell if something ought not be shared?

What about the thingspeople don’t say

…but are still blindingly apparent?

Ostensibly, if someone comesto you with information about something that bothers them,

chances are they want youto do something with

that information.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjornmeansbear/4680634219/

Capable leaders...

Creating empathy and inclusion requires understanding —

not just what to share,but how to share it

the right way.

Case Study:

When You Have to Share,but You Ought Not

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67776729@N06/6417063815/

Contributor in critical path is having a bad time,

…but doesn’t want to discuss it widely

http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilt/1631494/

Simple cases of difficult circumstances start to feel like deliberate discourtesy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/howardlake/4850758742/

Despite their irritations, few folks are willing to be direct about their concerns....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/helloturkeytoe/4635903792/

Why Your Community Leaders Deserve Combat Pay”

…will be the topic of a later presentation

“

How to ...1) Encourage disclosure

2) Ask for permission to disclose in such a way as to keep all parties comfortable

3) Encourage community to be direct but kind with their concerns

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjornmeansbear/4680634219/

Case Study:

The Person Who Just

Doesn’t Get It

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradmontgomery/5378236347/

Some folks are quite good–hearted

…but their actions harm

the flow of the project

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23155134@N06/8023566962/

Project members understandably get cranky and waste cycles if they feel like they have to spend much of their time herding errant fellow volunteers

We have excellent and well documented processes

for sharing code.

( )

There is no manual to teach us how to share

our emotions, frustrations and concerns.

This is not entirely true, see the Resources section at the end of this presentation.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/howardlake/4850758742/

Despite their irritations, few are willing to be direct about their concerns…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11742539@N03/5844531939/

This technique isineffective at best

Handling these situations quickly and effectively is

messy, uncomfortable

and incredibly necessary.

How to ...1) Correct education

issues

2) Suggest other ways contributor can be effective

3) Be willing to ask people to move along

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjornmeansbear/4680634219/

In Brief:

Negotiation Theoryfor Geeks

Negotiation Theoryfor Geeks

~ or ~

How to avoid project bankruptcy from community leader

combat payments(a.k.a. leader burnout)

See http://hawthornlandings.org/2011/08/02/negotiation-avoiding-the-vale-of-suck-starts-with-you/

Having conversations with your friends is easy

See http://hawthornlandings.org/2011/08/02/negotiation-avoiding-the-vale-of-suck-starts-with-you/

We needlessly assume other conversations must be painful

Be Willing to

Askfor WhatYou Need

● Ask the other party what they needto be successful

● Find common ground● Reach agreement● If you cannot reach agreement, find the

most optimal solution for both parties● It is OK to not reach agreement

Practice Radical Honesty

Radical honesty ! =

being a tactless jerk

Behaving Diplomatically

…is not the fine artof being disingenuous.

Do you want

to be right?

~ or ~

Do you want

to win?

A few bits of radical transparency from LH● I learned how to use vi and

Unix at the age of 3. I remember precisely squat about how either works, except ls and ls -a.

● Being an active listener, effective leader, and confidant is exhausting and sometimes painful.

● Having difficult conversations with people scares the every loving fsck out of me, too.

● I’m up to about 1,000 lines of Python now and I still don’t relish coding. I’d rather talk to the other humans so you don’t have to take the context switch hit.

● This is my second FOSDEM closing keynote where someone else prepped my slides. Thanks to Garrett LeSage & Pawel Solyga!

The Only

SecretYou Need

The secret to being an effective community leader is

genuinely caring about the health and well being of your project,

your community members, and your fellow human beings.

…even especially when they annoy the crap out of you.

Leslie Hawthorn — @lhawthornhawthornlandings.org

Questions?

Thank you!

The Legal BitsThis presentation is licensed CC-BY-3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Please reuse, remix and share widely.

Resources● Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture:

http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/

● David Eaves’ Blog: http://eaves.ca/

● The Center for Non-Violent Communication:http://www.cnvc.org/

● The Harvard Negotation Project: http://www.pon.harvard.edu/category/research_projects/ harvard-negotiation-project/

● Gabriella Coleman, Coding Freedomhttp://press.princeton.edu/titles/9883.html