Coaching Your Team Through Interpersonal Conflicts
This week’s query is about conflict and complaining.
“As a manager, what should I do when one of my direct reports complains about the behavior of another teammate during a 1-1?”
If this hasn’t happened yet, it will. It’s so natural for humans to surface problems this way. Escalating conflict is engrained in us from a very young age, starting with our parents, then our teachers. Parents, teachers, and managers all share one common trait: formal authority. And part of the social contract is that people with formal authority are responsible for fixing our problems.
So it’s not surprising that as a manager, you likely hear a lot of complaints. Feedback is great, and listening is important as a manager. I always give some space during 1-1s for ranting, because I’d rather them bring frustrating issues to me so we can work through them together, versus having it simmer under the surface. But once the rant is done and the information is shared, what exactly are you supposed to do? Should you mediate, protect anonymity, or do nothing?
You’re not responsible for fixing every problem.
As a manager, you probably feel responsible for fixing your team’s problems so they can get their work done. Naturally, you’re going to go into solution mode if somebody surfaces an interpersonal conflict. You need to fight this urge and recognize that jumping in to help is actually preventing your team from developing conflict resolution skills and building trust and resiliency. Interpersonal means “between persons”. You are not one of those persons, so your job is to stay out of the conflict, and instead coach the involved parties to resolve it themselves.
Your direct report may have just wanted to rant and trusted you to provide space to blow off that steam. Before assuming that they want you to resolve it for them, it’s worth checking in with a question like “did you just need some space to get that off your chest, or do you need help with a solution?”
Teach conflict resolution skills
If the complaining is about behavior and not about business impact (i.e., “this person was a jerk to me”, and not “this person was careless and caused a service outage”), the first course of action is to refocus the conversation on what your direct report is going to do about it. “How did they respond when you shared this feedback with them?” is usually the first thing I ask.
If your direct report hasn’t had a direct conversation with the other person, that is the first step to take. Especially in software engineering, where great technical skills can cover up gaps in professional skills, it might be that your direct report has never had to give direct feedback before. They might have relied on managers to deliver feedback on their behalf. Breaking this cycle is your challenge.
A simple conversation framework
Equip your direct report with some conversation frameworks so they aren’t fumbling for words when they approach their teammate. Even better, practice or model the conversation with them.
One simple conversation framework has four steps: purpose, feedback, feedback, solutions.
State your purpose, and let the other person know you have feedback to discuss
“I want to give you some feedback about the project we’re working on. Are you up for it?”
Share your feedback, and be sure to include the impact it’s having on your team, or on your personally.
“When you started working on tickets that I said I would take, I felt like you didn’t listen to the plan the team made in sprint planning, or that you don’t trust me to work on a feature that you originally built.”
Ask the other person to share their perspective. Listen to them and try to understand the cause of the problem.
“Okay, so from your point of view, I hadn’t added myself as the owner of the tickets, so you thought the plan wasn’t concrete.”
Discuss potential solutions, and decide on a solution together.
“I’ll add myself to tickets I plan to work on, and you’ll check in before you start working on something without an owner, if we discussed it already in sprint planning.”
Coaching your team member to have a conversation like this will empower them to handle future situations independently. It also prevents you from becoming a mediator and problem solver, which is not a healthy place for a manager.
P.S. I’ve just launched a course called Hard Feedback. If you dread giving hard feedback, this course is for you.
