How do you go about resolving conflict between team members?

I think it’s important to let team members resolve conflict between themselves whenever possible. If you’re seen as the ‘fixer’ for all conflicts on a team, it puts you in a tough position and disempowers the team. So my first reaction when conflict arises is to attempt to coach the two team members individually on how they can resolve the conflict directly with the other person, without me or someone else having to be formally involved. One of the best tools I know in terms of conflict resoluti ...Read More

I start by trying to understand the nature of the conflict, usually via 1:1s with each individual. Is it that they don't agree on an approach to a project? That someone said something passive aggressive? That one person feels like they are not as accountable to doing work as the other?  I will sometimes talk to other folks involved as well to get a more holistic understanding of the situation.  Based on that, I will first ask myself - is this a conflict I personally need to solve? As someone who ...Read More

If this is an HR issue - please involve HR right away. I'm intentionally going to assume it's not for this question. As a people leader, your role is to provide a psychologically safe environment for your team to strategize, collaborate, discuss, disagree, and align. A lot of people call this "storming and norming in order to perform." Your team will be made up of different types of people who must get used to each other, and it might not be smooth sailing initially. In general, it's good to cre ...Read More

I love this question because it's core to what PMs do. Try to understand where everyone is coming from. Sometimes, passionate people will have different opinions and argue them out, which can be valuable, but it's important not to just agree all the time to avoid conflict because that can lead to a lack of clarity. Your job is to point everyone in the same direction (aka alignment), focusing on the user and the overall goal. If discussions aren't productive or risk slowing things down, you might ...Read More

It’s usually not b/c they hate each other. It’s often times a disconnect in understanding each other, or a misalignment in objective/incentive. Understand the situation, assess both perspectives, form an opinion on the right path, use logic/reason to convince one (or both) of the parties why it makes sense to go down your route. Though, in most situations, let them work it out, I’m assuming you’re working with competent, logical adults and they would have to agree one something in order to move ...Read More