How to solve a conflict between two team members

Problem

"When I took over a new team a few years ago, I had to manage two brilliant senior architects who worked well but who also had big egos. The two architects kept arguing about technical issues, as they both had very strong views about what should be prioritized. The rest of the team usually would stay silent. The problem is, once people start arguing, they form preconceived notions that they know what the other person is talking about and they stop listening."

Actions taken

"A very easy way to resolve a conflict is to make people take a step back and to ask them to put their ideas down on paper. When people are asked to write about their top three concerns it makes them think and re-evaluate their thoughts before they start articulating them on paper. The thoughts go through a quick lifecycle, and statements mature, get more succinct and more often than not, the result is emotion-free, logical and ego-free. The final content makes more sense than if they were talking and avoids heightened emotions."

"A very easy way to resolve a conflict is to make people take a step back and to ask them to put their ideas down on paper."

"So I asked each of them to write their three biggest concerns on a piece of paper, and then to brainstorm together. They both shared one common concern which they both seemed to have missed about each other. They had raised two concerns each and brainstorming enabled them to address all but one in a one-on-one setting. For the last issue they disagreed, so I asked them to choose an arbitrator they both trusted and respected, who solved the last issue. At the end of the day, they managed to find a satisfying solution for each of their disagreements and managed to collaborate much better."

Lessons learned

"There are three ways to solve a conflict: discussion, arbitration, and escalation to senior management. When there is a conflict within my team, I always try to make my engineers talk and brainstorm first. For this first step, making them write down their main ideas is always a great idea. If there is still a genuine conflict after this first phase, the second step is to try to solve the conflict via arbitration. As in this story, I try to find a credible person that both parties respect. Most of the time, this works well. However, if this doesn't work or it is not possible, the last recourse is to ask senior management to consider the pros and cons of each party's arguments and to decide. The person who loses the argument should not have their ego hurt by this - they should feel encouraged by the others."