Do you need a mediator? Part 1: Maybe you actually want an adjudicator?

It happened again, and I wasn’t unhappy about it. Some folks contacted me asking if I would mediate a conflict within their nonprofit. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing when this happened in the past.

Often, the folks in this situation are in organizations that pride themselves on being non-hierarchical and are dealing with some unaccountable behavior that has resulted in a breach of trust. They all tend to say they want a neutral/third-party/unbiased/outside person to help them sort it out.

What they want me to do about it is where our ideas diverge wildly.

Sometimes, they really want an adjudicator - they want someone to decide if a rule was broken and what the consequences should be for the rule-breaker.

For some organizations, if it’s not a rule that they had “in writing,” they feel disempowered to take action. This situation is a little bit strange because the problem behavior is usually something that is not at all in alignment with their stated organizational values and/or something that no one actively thinks is a good idea, like harassment (it could be harassment of a unique flavor - such as they had a harassment policy but it didn’t mention social media as the delivery method). They may have an internal adjudication process, but it somehow allows for infinite appeals, so they need to continue finding outside adjudicators indefinitely.

Fundamentally, needing an outside adjudicator signals a problem of trust within the organization - especially if they have a dispute management process in place. Suppose no one thinks the process works, or the people involved are committed to saying it is “biased” until they get the desired resolution. In that case, a more profound issue must be fixed than a single-issue adjudication.

It could be that the dispute or accountability process was poorly constructed or poorly executed - likely both.

One type of poorly constructed process is based on lists of rules (often rules created based on incidents after they happen). There is a never-ending need to add new behavior rules that are only slightly different from existing ones. If you encounter people saying, “I didn’t break a rule because there was no rule about it,” a murky set of expectations is part of the problem.

The remedy for the “list of rules we can’t update fast enough” problem is to move away from rules lists and toward principles. It may feel less clear - there won’t be as many hard-and-fast you-must-not-do-that things, and, as a result, there will be more need for communication (and maybe upgrading communication skills) to navigate the nuances.

Another flavor of poorly designed processes relies on an individual or small team to resolve issues. Team members are asked to investigate and then choose punishments for their teammates. A “formal process” that is settled by a small group of people choosing an “appropriate punishment” does not cause stronger relationships or a stronger sense of buy-in from teammates. Suppose you’ve had situations where there was a verbal or written warning or a suspension/expulsion/firing/probation, and the result is teammates who are still unhappy with the person involved or feel stressed when they are around. In that case, you might have this flavor or poorly designed process.

Poorly executed dispute and accountability processes often look slow and tedious. If folks ask for help managing an issue and the common complaint is “nothing happens” or “it takes forever,” you are probably dealing with poor execution (likely on top of poor design).

Claims of bias or “it won’t be fair because x and y people involved are friends” or there’s a push for most of the issue management group to recuse themselves because “they’re biased” - you probably have a compounding execution issue.

The more pervasive issue of process and execution failings is that teammates lose trust in both the leaders and the system. The organizational culture is tanking, good people are leaving, and creativity and investment in team goals dwindle. Accomplishments of any sort can become an uphill battle. The environment feels toxic to the remaining people, and the organizational reputation suffers.

These systemic and execution challenges can be fixed! I’ve worked with organizations to make these exact types of systemic changes. A call for mediation (but actually meaning adjudication) is a good sign your organization would benefit from this work (see https://wslleadership.com/the-process).

In the meantime, you still are pretty sure you need a mediator, maybe… wait, what does a mediator do? Is there something better? Stay tuned for Do You Need a Mediator Part 2: Is There Something Better?