Resolving disputes in a company
Thoughts Brewed: Edition No. 14
Hey everyone,
I almost didn’t know if I was getting this out in time this month 😳 So much change happened this month for me as CEO, and us as a company—as I anticipated and I believe mentioned would probably happen, in my Feb newsletter).
When one of our software engineers joined, he asked me about dispute resolution in the company. In thinking about and answering it, I realized there’s so much more to the question—like the different types of disputes, leadership creating police + enforcing. Today, I’m sharing my thoughts on resolving disputes in a company. I love that our team asks the important questions ❤️ Let’s dive in…
Resolving disputes in a company
Humans quite literally have been disputing since, well, even before the beginning of humans. Remember, Neanderthals were a thing. But for the sake of this argument, let’s stick with humans. Long before verbal expressive communication was possible through the creation of language, non-verbal communication rang superior, and humans were forced to find alternate ways to get a point across—be it joy or discontent over the actions or inactions of another tribe member.
I’ve come to find that humans, while given a range of different methods to communicate in this day and age, still haven’t changed quite much when it comes to feelings on any particular topic. And spearing the wildebeest to earn a spot as a lead member of the tribe has now manifested itself as the Dude Bro doing all he can to get the raise. Yes yes, that’s a generalization. You see, the reasons disputes over product or team related matters generally boil down to three reasons:
Fact based disputes
Interpersonal disputes
A mix of both (with interpersonal overshadowing the facts)
Only three?! Yep, generally speaking (but feel free to share with me alternates you feel could be added). Does that make resolving them any easier? Nope. Leading people is tough stuff, but you’ll find that the tough stuff becomes much “easier” when you have values, policy, and the team’s best interest at heart to lean on.
Note: How to (in particular we) build and set policy will be another post coming.
For now, let’s tackle the different disputes...
Fact-Based Disputes
How the hell do you handle a dispute when there’s only facts involved? Ah, the age old adage. Wars are literally started over facts. The long story short is, in teams this usually happens when say there’s a question over which technology to use, or what the most efficient method of product development is, or a call over branding. In software companies a company dispute may be over the balance of quality against speed of execution.
How do we do it at Stark? Heavy is the head that wears the crown in any company, and decisions need to be made no matter what. But with us, each decision may be a different person calling it. Sometimes it’s leadership, the point person for the project, or the lead of the discipline. A great separation of this may be CEO vs CTO vs Lead Engineer.
Ultimately though, we make a pragmatic decision. And when leadership hands the responsibility of critical decision making off to someone else, they also need to be willing to accept that it may not be the best decision, but it was one that was important to be made by the person responsible for the project—enabling them to own both the success of the decision making (leading to empowerment) or failure (leading to lessons learned and an ability to course correct next time).
Having said that, some decisions are costly. It’s up to leadership to understand when to balance the two. But how do people making pragmatic decisions come to those decisions?! What is the rational? What’s that conversation like that enables you to actually come to a head?
You can do this a few different ways:
Principles can be laid out → Here’s how we generally like to make decisions.
Re-stating the goals of the project → Why are we doing this in the first place? How does this help the user? How does this help the company?
Interpersonal dynamic happening
Generally speaking, and after polling some folks randomly on Twitter, a sizable enough group of folks (112 people) confirmed my assumption that Interpersonal Disputes are the primary cause of disputes in companies. >46% voted that this is the dispute they’ve experienced during their career history. Again, we’re human.
Judgement, ego, shame, pride, and/or other various emotions get jumbled up either in an instant or over a long period of time after letting things fester because one avoids conflict and the other is a battler. A teammate that keeps interrupting the other without realization or care for how it makes the other feel, an employee that isn’t performing the way they should be.
Rahim’s bi-dimensional graph details how the concern of others against the concern for self determines conflict management. While I’m not sure this is the only model to reference, it’s certainly sheds light on some interpersonal behavior that often leads to proxy disputes. More on that below.
Note: Please ignore the design of this graph. I didn’t design it, but one could argue creating graphs like this is what causes disputes in an org. Kidding. Or not? Let’s continue…
Emotional spillover because what are facts?
In the spillover dilemma, what you actually have is a proxy dispute, where you come from fact-based disputes but they’re being overshadowed by an interpersonal issue. These are situations where you’re diving into the facts and miscommunication is happening left and right, and you realize the dispute itself has nothing to do with the facts. It never did.
It requires mentorship and coaching of the individuals on what’s really at play. In other words, why they’re in judgement of each other or realistically why they’re bringing something to the convo that has nothing to do with the other person. They see a former co-worker that used to piss them off in their new co-worker, or their childhood was revisited in a situation, etc. in which projection is happening.
What happens when lightning finally strikes?
Well, ideally it doesn’t get to the point where enough friction was generated in the first place. But alas, and again, wishful thinking when humans are involved. And in any company, it’s leadership’s job to ensure the framework is in place for individuals and the team as a whole to navigate that dispute—hopefully on their own at first. There will be disputes that have absolutely nothing to do with leadership, and it’s up to the individuals to work it out. They are adults after all. And if not able to, with concretized policy that helps determine what happens next.
At Stark we have 10 good eggs on board as I type this. As a fully distributed team, the makeup is a mix of cultures from all over the world where some phrases have a completely different meaning, and some history was never taught. It makes for some of the most enlightening, diverse, and educational conversations. We’re still small enough where if things come up (like a difference of opinion) we’re working through them collectively based on what the problem statement is. What helps is that everyone by now has established enough of a general judgement of each other to assume good intent. Meaning, at the presence of what some would consider a difference of opinion, ill intent isn’t assumed, and it makes it much easier to navigate the conversation toward understanding what the other means. And for that matter, helps individuals grow as communicators—the greatest human flaw. We’ve yet to have an actual dispute though-if by dispute you’re leaning more on arguments. No arguments have been had.
We’ve definitely disagreed on some decisions, and final decisions needed to be made (some by leadership and others not—which is so important), but as I said, we’re a group of people that understand that multiple things can exist at once, and we’re super keen to dig in, in search of the answer, rather than pointing fingers and tossing “I told you so”’s around. We press the need to have reason for decisions, and we leave ego at the door when we’re making them.
That, along with our general principles / values, and company policies (CoC) further governs decision making going forward—and in turn evolves the frameworks we have in place for folks.
Does that mean I think we’ll go on forever without a dispute happening though? No. 10 will become 100 and eventually 1,000, etc.. Phew! That’s a bit nauseating to type. People are human, and there will come a time where a dispute occurs that has nothing to do with anyone except the two people involved, or everything to do with a call leadership made.
When people can’t resolve the disputes
Much like the individuals that determine the terms of identity for groups of people, any group of individuals randomly deciding how to govern a group of people can be dangerous depending on who is doing the governing. People need to have a toolset — both emotional and policy support to help determine how it’s resolved in the event they can’t do so themselves. More often than not, when something can’t be resolved, it will bubble up to leadership before policy needs to be brought in, and leadership should have clear alignment on how you individually and collectively address things.
At Stark we’re all product people that put people first and foremost, and know that in the end our overall strategy, mission, and principles to create a hell of an experience internally and externally is a universal truth. Ultimately, there is a specific recipe to building Stark, and the concretized principles like our How We Work and Code of Conduct govern the decisions we make. If you don’t have something like this, I highly recommend you start putting them in place. At ten, things start to get real. By 15 folks, you’re starting to change the rhythm of business. It’s easy to kick the can down the road, and before you know it you’re 30 people with work churning out and policy is a blue sky task that ends up being governed by committee rather than policy.
How are disputes resolved on your team? What would you change or improve if you could? Tell me all about it!
What I’m reading…
The Shortness of Time
“Time is one of the most under-appreciated models that we all encounter, and yet it’s the most ubiquitous. When employed correctly, time becomes an amplifier. When spent without consideration, it becomes a persistent source of regret.”
Shane Parish strikes with goodness again, paying tribute to the old adage on the shortness of life, and for that matter paying respects to the masterpiece of the famous Roman Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (aka Seneca), on the Shortness of Life.
If you’ve not read it, I highly recommend the book. It looks small, but I’m convinced if you breeze through it that you’ve not actually consumed it. It’s a small and dense read.
Effort
“I think people generally underestimate how effort needs to be poured into talent in order to develop it. So much of getting good at anything is just pure labor: figuring out how to try and then offering up the hours.”
One of the best summations of effort that I’ve ever read. I immediately shared this with several people and subscribed to the newsletter. Through reading this though I was thinking about how mediocrity is directly correlated to the amount of effort you’re willing to put in to succeed.
Wine Windows in Florence
Known as ‘buchette del vino’ in Italy, Wine Windows in Florence spurred by the Medici family, capitalized on the DTC train. Unsurprising to see an original use case (during the plague) has spurred its return.
Worth thinking about…
Once you get to a certain size, how do you design the organization in such a way that everyone feels the same sense of mindset, culture, objections, commitment, recognition of customers, shared principles around policies and practices?
I have my thoughts, but I leave you with that question to sit on, and hope you’ll share thoughts with me in the comments!
On my mind
In a small team, the tree’s foundational roots are planted. As it grows, you acquire more folks and add them onto the branches. A great opportunity to inject nourishment in immediately is onboarding. Hold a values / vision / culture day instead of a toss into mechanics on day one.
As always, thanks for reading! And if you have any questions about the topics I’ll be covering, go ahead and AMA by replying to this email or pinging me on Twitter. If I don’t have the answer, we’ll deep dive together.
I appreciate you. And until next time…