Show Notes
Two people on your team can't stand each other, and everybody knows it. The short answers in the meeting. The eye roll. The long way around the office. And you are hoping it blows over. It won't. And while you wait, the rest of your team is paying for it.
Here is the part most managers miss about workplace conflict. It is never just between the two of them. It is in every meeting, every handoff, and every person stuck in the middle. It is the whole team's problem. It just has two names on it.
Researchers Frank de Wit, Lindred Greer and Karen Jehn pulled together more than a hundred studies on conflict inside teams. Disagreements about the work were not the problem, and sometimes they helped. Personal conflict, people who just don't like each other, hurt trust, commitment and performance over and over. Conflict is not the enemy. Your job is to pull it back to the work.
In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Same Side, three moves for conflict resolution in the workplace when two people on your team can't stand each other.
ONE. DON'T WAIT FOR THE BLOW-UP. The test is not whether they have had a big fight. It is whether the team is working around it. If people are going through you, leaving somebody off emails, or being careful about who works with who, it is already time. Start with each of them separately: I'm not here to take sides. I just want to hear it from you.
TWO. PUT THE WORK ON THE TABLE. Don't play judge. Open the meeting with this: you don't have to like each other, but you do have to work together. Ask each of them what they need from the other to do their job well. Write it down, get both to agree, and put a date on the follow-up.
THREE. DON'T LET THE TEAM PICK SIDES. Stop taking the stories, stop splitting the team up to keep the peace, and say one thing to everybody else: don't carry it, we're one team. And never vent about either one of them.
This is how a manager resolves conflict at work without making it worse: listen first, pull it back to the work, and keep the team together.
WHO THIS IS FOR New managers dealing with conflict between employees for the first time, first time managers stuck in the middle of two people who don't get along, and experienced managers who want better conflict management skills before the team splits into camps. ------------------------------- Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here
Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum. 👉 Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn
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