Digital

Article

Project Management

The Conflict Resolution

Skills Every Project
Manager Needs
How to foster awareness, understanding, and respect for the different
perspectives around the table. by Liane Davey

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The Conflict Resolution Skills

Every Project Manager Needs
How to foster awareness, understanding, and respect for the different
perspectives around the table. by Liane Davey
Published on HBR.org / October 20, 2023 / Reprint H07V6T

Olga Pankova/Getty Images

When you’re new to project management, you might think the secret is
to keep conflict to a minimum to ensure that your team completes tasks,
meet deadlines, and avoids melees. Maybe you frame your role as the
bridge-builder — the peacemaker. While that sounds good in theory,
trying to keep everyone happy misses the point of effective project
management.

The real secret is to foster an environment where the inevitable conflicts

between opposing demands are anticipated, appreciated, and resolved

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in a way that optimizes the outcome for the project and the business
overall. A great project manager is less a peacemaker and more a keen,
skillful, and respected conflict manager. Effective project managers
need to build skills to:

Expose Tensions and Trade-Offs

Projects bring together stakeholders with different perspectives,

priorities, and levels of expertise. Maybe sales walks in the door
lobbying for a product roadmap packed with new features, while
engineering digs in to protect platform stability, and operations won’t
be distracted from their laser-focus on streamlined deployment. That’s
not a sign that anyone is a poor team player or that the project is
doomed. It instead reflects the diverse and often diverging demands
on any initiative. Your goal as a project manager is to provide a safe
and constructive forum for everyone to understand these demands and
to find a path that offers the best possible outcome, given the available
resources, within your risk tolerance.

Without someone willing to broach these trade-off conversations,

stakeholders often retreat and retrench into their functional
perspectives, causing the project to suffer. In cases where decision
authority is unclear, this can lead to a stalemate where no one is willing
to sign off on the plan. Alternatively, if one group does have the power,
clout, or decision-making authority, they might force through a decision
that doesn’t work for other stakeholders. In that case, dissenters
might respond with anything from protesting openly and stalling the
planning; to coalescing passively, but surreptitiously undermining the
decision; to proceeding with the plan even though there are inherent
risks that might blow up later. None of these options is attractive. While
introducing conflict during the deliberations might feel slow and risky
at the time, it’s much safer and more efficient than avoiding it.

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Establish a Productive Conflict Dynamic

It’s best to start any new project by fostering the right conflict mindset
among team members. Productive conflict requires that all parties
appreciate the competing demands and necessary trade-offs. But don’t
expect stakeholders to show up with clarity about their position or
empathy for the needs and demands of others. Self-awareness is in
short supply, and empathy is hard to conjure in an environment where
SMART goals and the drumbeat of accountability keep individuals
focused on their own functional priorities. As a great project manager,
you need to foster awareness, understanding, and respect for the
different perspectives around the table.

You can get off to a good start when you’re kicking off a new project
by doing a team exercise to map the healthy tensions. The first step is
to help each team member articulate the unique expertise they bring
to the table and the issues they will be paying attention to. Next, have
them describe the stakeholders for whom they must advocate. Finally,
write a concise description of the tension each role is obliged to bring
to the deliberations. For example, sales might be paying attention to
the competition, advocating for potential customers, and fighting for
a solution that’s differentiated, whereas operations might be focused
on the ease of delivery, advocating for people in manufacturing and
logistics, and arguing for something that’s scalable. You can find more
detailed instructions for doing the exercise here.

Having facilitated this exercise hundreds of times, I can attest to the

transformation when everyone in the room feels legitimized to advocate
for what their role requires, and feels prepared for the contrasting
positions they will hear in response. If you keep the resulting map
handy, it can serve as a touchstone you can return to when facilitating
particularly contentious conversations.

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Solicit Dissent and Facilitate Conflict

Even while doing this project kickoff exercise, it’s common for some
team members to keep quiet and leave perspectives unspoken. Your job
is to create a safe space where the team considers all of the pertinent
options, risks, and trade-offs. Drawing on the tensions map, you might
say, “We’ve been focused on the design and haven’t yet discussed the
implementation. Hassan, how are you thinking about the effect of the
proposed design on the ease of roll-out? What should we be factoring
in?” Continue inviting people to contribute until you have each unique
perspective in the discussion.

Not only will you need to invite participants to disagree with one
another actively, but you’ll also need to ensure that unpopular
perspectives, dissenting opinions, and contrary facts get a fair hearing.
You can use prompts such as, “What risks have we not addressed yet?”,
“Who might object to this plan and on what grounds?”, or “How could
this plan fail, and what would we have to change to reduce the risk?” to
introduce some tension. In particularly conflict-averse cultures, I allow
some emotional distance from the dissent by asking for concerns as
hypotheticals, such as what could go wrong or who might object, rather
than asking someone to disagree directly.

Manage Friction

Not all conflict is healthy. When the dynamic shifts from productive
tension into destructive friction, you, as the project manager, must be
able to redirect it. You might need to interject if someone interrupts,
contradicts, or belittles others. Your exact move depends on the
situation, but practice encouraging people who are talking too much
to make space for others to speak, asking someone who isn’t listening
to paraphrase a colleague’s concerns before responding, or saying
something like, “We knew that there were going to be competing

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priorities on this project. Let’s spend a minute talking about how we

can incorporate what the quality assurance team needs into the plan.”

If one person’s behavior disrupts the whole team or the attacks become
personal, you won’t be able to manage the dynamic in the room. Take
time before meetings to speak with a contentious person about what
you need from them and to have a frank discussion about what might
derail them in the room. If unpleasant or unprofessional interactions
occur, give the person private feedback about how their behavior affects
the project. If problems persist, you might need to speak with the
person’s manager — not to complain or tattle on them — but to share
what’s been happening and ask for advice about how to get the best
from the person.

Influence Those with Power

Most project managers have tremendous accountability, but often lack

the formal authority to make the important calls. Instead, you have to
influence the formal decision-makers and executive sponsors who are
in control. When the required conflict is with someone who has more
power than you, it’s helpful to follow four guidelines:

• Connect your concerns to the stated goals of the project, preferably

the goals that the leader articulated. For example, “I know the most
important thing for you is that this is done on time. I’m concerned that
your proposed scope will jeopardize the timelines.” That way, you’re
making it clear that your objections are in service of the project.
• Translate your concerns into an objective description of the person’s
behavior. For example, if the executive sponsor is sucking the oxygen
out of the room, say, “When you give your opinion before others weigh
in, I notice that the conversation stops. How can we ensure that we
hear the issues now rather than later?”

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• If you need to raise a contentious point with someone in power, be

sure to state your goal in doing so. If a brass plaque on the office wall
says that the company values transparency, say, “I’m trying to live up
to our value of transparency.” If you are acting in the project’s best
interest, say, “It’s uncomfortable to broach this with you, but I think
it’s important if marketing is going to buy in.”
• Leave a way out by framing your recommendations as a question
rather than making emphatic assertions — think could, not should. For
example, you might say, “What if we were to leave that for Phase 2?”
By framing contrary opinions as questions, you leave room to change
course if the person in power has a strong adverse reaction.

As a project manager, you are the linchpin that holds together a team
of individuals who, without you, might spin off in all directions. Your
job is to harness the opposing forces and ensure that decisions are made
with the benefit of diverse perspectives, the full knowledge of their
impact, and the optimal trade-offs between various priorities. Fulfilling
that responsibility will require that you embrace productive conflict and
hone the associated skills.

This article was originally published online on October 20, 2023.

Liane Davey is a team effectiveness advisor and professional speaker.

LD She is the author of The Good Fight and You First, and the coauthor of
Leadership Solutions.

@LianeDavey

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This article is licensed for your personal use. Further posting, copying, or distribution is not permitted. Copyright Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved. Please contact
[email protected] or 800 988 0886 for additional copies.