What do you do if your engineering team is facing conflicts with clients or stakeholders?

In the software industry we often find ourselves building products for others. This is the essence of every decision making, whether to prioritize one deliverable over other or to pivot a design. Customers are important. It doesn't mean that teams should be pushovers. A healthy balance is very important. But the very first thing to do is active listening. When conflicts arise, more often than not it is due to misalignment on priority. Understanding the customer need without being defensive of your product is the key to success. After all, they are the consumers of your products. One thing to always avoid is to optimize arguments fo the sake of winning. Getting conflict resolved in your favor & losing the customer is useless.

Engineering teams ⚔️ Stakeholders?: Tune in, Turn up the Listening! Create a judgment-free zone of radical honesty where everyone feels safe to speak their truth and embrace vulnerability. In these conversations, be a learner, not a warrior. Dig Deep and ask questions beyond surface-level symptoms to uncover misalignments and misunderstandings, allowing you to see the real problems. If you need to disagree, then do it thoughtfully and with grace so that acts as a path to progress. Finally, reflect and make sure you validate their feelings by playing back what you've heard in a way that shows you value everyones’ perspectives. Practice is priceless. Strengthen these skills in low-stakes situations so you succeed when stakes are high!

For instance, suppose a client expresses dissatisfaction with a software solution delivered by the team. Instead of immediately defending the team's work, the manager should schedule a meeting with the client to fully understand their concerns. During the meeting, the manager actively listens to the client's feedback, asking clarifying questions to uncover the root cause of the dissatisfaction. This demonstrates respect and openness to resolving the issue collaboratively. Encourage the team to approach the feedback without defensiveness. For instance, in a team meeting, the manager can emphasize the importance of receiving feedback constructively, reminding team members that the goal is to understand the client's perspective fully.

For a leader it is very important to understand the reason behind the conflict. It helps to step away from the problem for a bit or consult a trusted third party for opinions. Start by acknowledging the bias, your natural instinct will be inclined towards your team, accept it. This will help you assess the situation objectively, rather than emotionally. Communicating constraints that might affect the decision is very important. Sometimes clients wouldn't know your internal challenges and this is where I had my worse conflict in my career. Due to a simple misalignment at the leadership level. Build the conversation constructively, this will allow the customer to show empathy as well.

First of all you need to take an analysis of the situation to understand the issues fueling the conflict between your Engineering team and clients or stakeholders. Identifying the root cause is essential for developing a strategic action plan aimed at effectively addressing and resolving the conflict. This plan should prioritize open communication, mutual understanding, and collaborative problem solving to find a resolution that aligns with both interested parties and project objectives.

Conflicts can only be solved when you find a solution that neither party hates. Win-win is important, but not possible 100%. Be innovative in the way you're approaching the solution and don't side with any one side completely. During these negotiations, it is also very important to engage heavily with both parties to understand their frustration. This will open up many doors for you to solve this one conflict.

This is a sensible process to follow. In my experience the initial step is written correspondence so I would recommend that after one or two iterations of written dialogue it’s worth organising face to face audio or video call to help get each side perspective.