How do you ensure alignment when you have two senior executive stakeholders who disagree with each other on the proposed strategy and you are stuck in the middle?

Question

Jeff Beaumont · Accepted Answer

My first career was in public accounting. I theoretically had 9 different partners that could give me work at any time. Those 7 years taught me how to navigate disagreements, especially in the middle of tax season when everyone was at their wits' end.

A few suggestions come to mind:

1. It's not binary. Don't get stuck thinking it's either A or B. Is there a third way? Chip and Dan Heath in their book Decisive talk about "narrow framing". We often get ourselves riled up because we only see two forks in the road. Sometimes that means you need to reverse course and look for another way.

2. Understand the needs, desires, and fears of the execs. Sometimes we just need to be heard. When someone "knows" me and can speak up on my behalf, I will feel better and relax a bit. Know your execs and ask, "What is that you're wanting out of this?" They may still not get it, but so often we just want to be heard.

3. Give it time. While that's happening, ask yourself if there's a chance it can get resolved within days, weeks, or months. If weeks, ask yourself "what does this make possible?" and see if you can work on another project that got pushed to the back burner. NOTE: this is sometimes wishful thinking because if two execs are locked in disagreement, it's often a critical project and you cannot afford to "waste" time.

4. Phone a friend. Talk to a friend or someone outside your company. Try to explain what's going on. Because you have to translate it out of your company's speak, it causes you to tell the situation in a different way. It helps you better understand the situation and also your friend can ask you basic and probing questions.

5. BATNA. BATNA is a negotiation technique which stands for Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement. What would be the best alternative? While you don't want to compromise your values, who you or, or build an ugly product that has a little bit of everything for everyone (pleasing no one!), what are the alternatives that you can consider?

6. Go on a run or walk. Psychologists have helped us understand that when we're stuck, we need to do the unintuitive thing: get up and go do something fun, go on a walk, call up an old friend. While you're away, your subconscious can process the information.

7. Look for a mediator. While I wouldn't jump to this, but if you're really stuck, consider if there's a third or fourth person to break a tie or help mediate. Don't make this your first choice because it could get worse.

8. Look for a new job. If it's really really bad, you may need to move on — either for a new project or job. Hopefully not!

Michael Maday · Answer

This is a tough one!

In this situation, I would do my best to flex my diplomatic skills. Draft up communication that includes both Execs

(with some other relevant stakeholders if possible) and do your best to lay out the pros and cons of both options, doing your best to appear as neutral as possible and then push these execs to make a decision one way or the other. If you feel very strongly that one option is the correct one, and you have facts to back this up, do not walk away from an opportunity to appear decisive and in control. I would much prefer to be fast and wrong (and then course correct) than taking too long to make a decision, or even worse never making one at all!

Related Ask Me Anything Sessions

Clari Vice President, Customer Success, Nicole Alrubaiy on Influencing the C-Suite

GitLab Senior Director Customer Success Operations, Jeff Beaumont on Influencing the C-Suite

MURAL Director of Customer Success, Amara Okoli on Influencing the C-Suite

Related Questions