Tell Me About a Time You Had a Conflict With a Co-Worker? Q & A

if you've ever Googled how to answer tell me by the time you had a conflict with a cooworker you've probably seen the same example answer repeated over

and over and over again we disagreed we talked and everything turned out great unfortunately that surface level answer just won't cut it in a real job

interview that answer tells me nothing about how you think it doesn't show how you manage competing priorities or how you navigate tension or how you protect

the outcome of a program project or initiative when working with somebody who you have conflicting ideas with or just sees things differently in this video I'm going to break down a detailed

example that shows you real depth in problem solving step by step you'll see how to walk through a conflict with honesty structure and Clarity and how to

connect it to the results that actually matter so let's Dive Right In this is an example from my time as a program manager at atlassian I was leading a

cross functional initiative to unify customer feedback systems between our product and customer support teams and I partnered closely with the senior product manager Alex who was responsible

for surfacing insights to inform the product road map and over time conflict emerged as Alex frequently bypassed agreed upon workflows dismissed

alignment meetings and challenged my decision in front of others causing confusion among team members and threatening our progress and so what I was tasked with doing was while I was

accountable for driving the program forward and meeting a six- week launch timeline I also had to resolve this issue with Alex and the bigger goal became restoring a productive working

relationship which was also critical to the team morale program success and stakeholder confidence so the first step I needed to take was was I began by

identifying the specific points of tension using data and just neutral observation so I reviewed slack threads jira activity and meeting recordings to

document where misalignments occurred such as Alex updating project priorities without consultation or reassigning owner mid-print I also gathered informational feedback from cross

functional leads to understand how the dynamic was affecting their work this gave me Clarity on patterns and helped me ensure I address fact not assumptions and then the next step I

needed to take was to reestablish trust through direct communication and clearer structure for collaboration so I drafted a private discussion agenda focused on

outcomes not blame and included examples to ancher the conversation I also outlined a proposal for shared accountability weekly syncs clearer

ownership and preapproval for changes so we could co-create a solution together my goal was to acknowledge his expertise while while reinforcing my role in maintaining execution

consistency then I scheduled a Ono one with Alex and opened the conversation with transparency and a willingness to listen I said I think we're both feeling some friction and I'd like to reset so

we can get back to Leading this initiative effectively and I shared examples calmly focusing on how the lack of coordination was slowing us down and affecting the team's confidence he

opened up about feeling out of the loop during early planning which gave me important context and we agreed to a working model where he had earlier visibility and I had clearer alignment

checkpoints so we tested the new collaboration model for two weeks with close observation and frequent touch points we implemented a shared taskboard in jira with explicit owner tags and

weekly reviews of status and blockers I ensured he had Early Access to decision Frameworks before meetings while he committed to notifying me of any proposed changes before communicating

them to others we also created a slack Channel just for us to flag issues in real time without needing to escalate unnecessarily with our working model gaining traction we moved into full

execution and brought our teams back into a unified workflow I scheduled bi-weekly stakeholder syns to ensure transparency and avoid scope creep Alex began leaning into our shared planning

dock to surface roadmap needs ahead of time and I invited him to co-lead two Sprint reviews to ensure he had inl fluence without disrupting delivery

Cadence I also tracked our alignment metrics like response times to blockers and meeting attendance which improved noticeability the system launched on

time and with a much stronger sense of shared ownership between us we co-presented the roll out at our department wide sync taking turns to walk through the problem solution and

collaboration it took to get there we even included a brief acknowledgement slide showing how our realignment benefits at the broader team next I compiled a post-launch deck for senior

leadership that showcased impact process improvements and collaboration outcomes we highlighted kpis such as a 21% drop

in duplicate customer tickets and faster feedback loop Integrations I also shared feedback from the team indicating that cross functional trust and Clarity had

improved which leadership valued just as much as our operational win The Last Action I took was I document not only the system updates but also the collaboration model we use to resolve

conflict and improve our delivery this included templates for shared ownership documents escalation protocols and a reset conversation guide now used by two

other programs I also set a quarterly retrospective Cadence between product and produ program teams to prevent similar issues in the future and the results were amazing by resolving the

conflict with Alex directly and constructively we not only hit our program goals but modeled effective conflict resolution for others we launched on time boosted team

Satisfaction by 24% and reduced implementation blockers by 30% the shift in our working Rel relationship was noticed by leadership and improved cross functional alignment across two other

initiatives and our co-created tools and habits became part of atlassian internal playbook for managing complex high-stake program

so as you can see always a robust answer but it isn't just about saying we disagreed we talked and everything turned out fine that's not how conflict

works in the real world it's definitely not how you show strategic thoughtful problem solving in a job interview the best answers show structur self-awareness specific actions and a

clear connection between the way you handled the relationship and how it impacted that program project or initiative if you want to stand out in your interviews you have to go in depth

don't be afraid to show that you navigated something hard and came out stronger that's what all great companies are looking for good luck