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Conflict

Engineering for the Rest of Us by Sarah Drasner​

Some strategies to mitigate stress when there's conflict:

  • Check in with facts: Sometimes we react to an event without checking that we understand exactly what's going on... It can be so helpful to revisit the literal facts involved in a given circumstance.
  • Find and rally around the positive: Looking for the positive elements of a situation and saying them out loud can help balance what's naturally unbalanced.
  • Reject negative premises: As a manager, you will sometimes have to counter paranoid or negative views on a situation.
  • Review consequences: Most of the time, the consequences of an action are not as dire as people make them out to be. Announcing "everyone will be fired" is not very productive. What are the real risks? State them clearl
  • In dire situations, step away: If you have extremely volatile people on your team who are stuck in a bad loop, you may have to reconvene at a later time, and meet with them 1:1 to get on the same page. Conversations should remain as open as they can be, but there can be times where meeting as a group is no longer productive, and everyone needs time away to cool off. Use this tool infrequently and not as a default practice, but use in situations where things feel especially off track." [8]