How to Resolve a Conflict Between Two Team Members

Conflict between two people on the same team rarely resolves itself, and stepping in too late is more common than stepping in too soon. Most managers wait for it to become obvious, by which point both sides have usually built a story about the other that a single conversation won't undo on its own.

The conversation

Read it once before you go in, then use it as a guide rather than a script to read word for word. The order matters more than the exact phrasing - get the structure right and your own words will carry it.

1. Get both sides separately before you get them in a room together

   Understanding each person's version first means you walk into the joint conversation with context, not guessing.

   • Talk to each person individually before any joint conversation.
   • Ask each of them what they think the other person's perspective is - the gap there is often the real issue.
   • Decide whether this needs a joint conversation at all, or whether it's small enough to address with each person separately.

2. Open the joint conversation by naming the shared goal

   • You: I want to start by saying we're all trying to get the same outcome here, and I want to help you two work through this together.
   • Them: I appreciate that, but I don't think that's how it's felt lately.
   • You: That's exactly what I want to understand from both of you.

3. Let each person state the impact, not just the complaint

   • You: Can each of you say specifically what's been happening, and how it's affected your work?
   • Them: When decisions get changed without a heads up, it throws off my planning.
   • Them: I didn't realize it was landing that way - I thought I was just moving fast.

4. Interrupt blame and redirect to specifics

   • Them: Well, they never actually said anything until now.
   • You: Let's stay on what's happening going forward rather than who said what before.
   • You: What would need to change for this to work better between you two?

5. Land on a concrete agreement

   • Them: If decisions get flagged before they change, that would fix most of it for me.
   • Them: I can do that - I'll loop you in before anything shifts.
   • You: Let's agree on that specifically, and I'll check in with both of you in a couple of weeks.

6. What to avoid saying

   • Don't take a side in the room, even if one person's account seems more convincing - it usually escalates rather than resolves.
   • Don't force an apology neither person means - a forced "sorry" rarely changes the underlying behavior.
   • Don't treat "let's just move past it" as a real resolution without a specific agreement behind it.

7. After the conversation

   The joint meeting is the start of resolving this, not the end of it.

   • Follow up with each person separately a few days later to check how it's actually going.
   • Watch for whether the agreed change is holding in practice, not just whether the room felt resolved.
   • If it recurs despite the conversation, that's a sign it may need to go further than a peer-to-peer fix.

That's the whole conversation

Every real version of this conversation goes slightly differently. What is above is the shape that holds regardless of how they react - what to actually say in the moment is still yours to find.