Dealing with Conflict in Your Startup

Anyone working on a startup has to be comfortable with the idea of conflict. After all, you’re competing against others in your space—and maybe even making them obsolete. “If you're going head to head against industries and trying to break them up or create new solutions that are potentially going to take them out, I think your entire daily existence is centered around conflict,” says Stephen Glicken, CEO of Project Admission.

But it’s one thing to challenge other industry players, and another to deal with conflict within your own business. When colleagues who are supposed to be on the same team are at odds, the resulting drama can damage morale, hamper efficiency or even derail a business altogether.

Here’s how to look out for conflict and resolve it.

How to Spot Conflict

For some founders, conflicts are obvious from day one. That was the case for Sanjit Singh, now CEO of Boltt, who’s also starting a business offering workshops to help teams address friction. When he was building AI startup LeadCrunch, he and his co-founder ran into disagreements almost from their first meeting.

That didn’t faze Singh, who didn’t realize how bad things could get. “I naively thought that there could be something positive from it, too—two people who are fighting for the best thing,” he says.

Of course, conflicts sometimes start out small and smolder for a while. That’s when you need to watch for the warning signs of escalation—like people forming alliances against each other, or seeking out third parties to gripe about a colleague. Singh experienced that toxic behavior first hand. “I was certainly guilty of it. I think he was guilty of it as well,” he says.

Another danger sign is a lack of trust. If you’re looking over your shoulder all the time, or you can’t walk away from a task and feel confident that your colleagues will pick up the slack, there’s probably some conflict brewing.

And then there’s the most deceptive sign: no apparent conflict at all. In a culture where nobody can bring up differences of opinion, resentment builds quickly.

When colleagues who are supposed to be on the same team are at odds, the resulting drama can damage morale, hamper efficiency or even derail a business altogether.

Types of Conflict

Conflict comes in many varieties.

First, there are interpersonal conflicts. Sometimes people just push each other’s buttons. If you’re fighting about something trivial, or if you fight about everything, you might be dealing with interpersonal friction. (For example, Singh and his co-founder argued about stuff like the furniture they would put in their new office space at the end of their A round.)

Then there are conflicts over different visions for a company. Glicken encountered that with a colleague when his startup evolved. “The reality over time was that one of the co-founders was no longer enjoying it. The business was not aiming in a direction that they particularly were interested and keen in,” he says.

Leadership styles can also be a source of conflict. Some people want work to be very buttoned-up and corporate, with a strict hierarchy; others want their workplace to be relaxed and allow for individual expression.

Conflicts can stem from processes and policies—like how you’re managing personnel. Singh and his co-founder clashed over an employee at the senior vice president level who performed well but didn’t get along with everyone. Singh wanted to work out the issues, but his co-founder fired the employee instead. “That was a huge bummer for me because I thought he was strong, and then we promoted somebody in his place that I didn't think was quite ready,” Singh says.

And you might run into conflict with people you’re working with closely outside your business, like contractors or vendors. Marie DeCosse, founder and CEO of NOMAD Travel Groups, found herself at odds with her legal team when they weren’t transparent about how much they were going to charge. “The bill ended up being upwards of $25,000, which for a startup at my stage, it's not okay,” DeCosse says.

How to Resolve Conflict

You’ve found a conflict—now what? Take a deep breath. Before confronting a colleague, you want to reflect on the source of the disagreement. Singh recommends asking, “How much of this is me and my own wounds and patterns and issues, and how much of it is really business-related?” Journaling or talking with a mentor can help you sort it out.

Next, talk to the other person. You might want to have a third party mediate so things stay on track. Keep the conversation focused on substance, and refrain from personal swipes. “You have to be open to hearing the other side and not be closed off,” Glicken says. If the talk gets heated, pause the conversation and come back when everyone has cooled down.

If the trouble stems from a disgruntled employee, you might first notice in a meeting or on a call. “If their shoulders start to slump, if there's an eye roll, if they're not paying attention and looking at their other screen the entire time, if they didn't start the phone call off generally in good spirits, and this is now a consistent thing—that is something that you should address,” DeCosse says. Wait to check in with them one-on-one so they feel respected and so others in the group aren’t drawn into the conflict.

Sometimes, contention isn’t between individuals. It might arise when two groups don’t see eye to eye on the best way forward, or when a process isn’t working for some team members. To prevent ongoing bickering, you should escalate the dispute so someone in a leadership role can settle the matter.

“When there's conflict between individuals who are in positions of authority, that can more often than not lead to success because there's a way for a decision with power to result from that conflict that helps refine the business,” DeCosse says

At the same time, you want to make sure that leaders actually consider both sides and that seniority isn’t always the deciding factor. Someone continually pulling rank can lead to high turnover, because people voluntarily leave or because the decision-maker forces them out. Singh says his co-founder (who was CEO) always won their arguments because Singh was just the COO. The outcome? The CEO demoted Singh, then stripped him of his responsibilities, then fired him.e

Building a Conflict-Proof Culture

It might be tempting to stamp out all sources of conflict. But if you quash conflict altogether, you miss out on the innovation it can inspire, and your business can suffer from groupthink.

So instead, you want your culture to be resilient enough that you can handle conflict without toxicity.

Being open and inclusive goes a long way. “It just gets down to, we're all human beings. We all have our own things going on. Let's just treat each other with respect,” DeCosse says.

It can help to consider potential for conflict when hiring. That could mean using personality assessments, or you might just want to ask candidates about their approaches to conflict. “Are they willing to talk through it and maybe negotiate or compromise, or are they really hard and fast and they're just going to hold the line and dig into a position?” Singh says.

Consider auditing your processes to root out situations where one person has an advantage over another. Glicken insists that before performance reviews, both the reviewer and the employee being evaluated have access to the same information. This prevents any “gotchas.” “Ensure that the review process is not directly tied as a one-to-one to a bonus or commercial gain, so that it is less about that and more about actual personal growth,” he says.

Clearly defining everyone’s roles and delegating can help ensure that people don’t butt heads while trying to accomplish the same goal. And giving everyone opportunities to bring up disagreements and criticisms early and often can prevent them from snowballing into bigger issues. “I get shut down all the time, which I think is super healthy,” Glicken says.

Conflict is sometimes a necessary part of running a business. With a resilient culture, you can manage conflicts so they don’t take on a life of their own.

As for Singh, he’s done a lot of introspection since his volatile experience. He and his former co-founder are still in touch and are now in a much better place. “We’ve gone out and had lunch and gone on bike rides and whatnot. So I don't have any hard feelings anymore,” Singh says. “I think we were under a lot of pressure and it was super stressful, and I think we were both doing the best we could.”