Peer Conflictbeginner
The Process Standoff
You and a peer disagree on how a cross-team workflow should run.
Practice this out loud, free
No account needed. We email you a link, then you talk by voice.
The situation
A peer and I have fundamentally different views on how our teams should collaborate on shared deliverables. They want to centralize control; I want distributed ownership. We need to find a working approach before the next quarter starts.
Who you will be talking to: Aggressive Peer
They'll try to dominate the conversation through interrupting, dismissing your points, or escalating emotionally. They may reframe the issue to put you on the defensive.
What tends to work
- Hold your ground without matching their intensity — calm firmness beats volume
- When they interrupt, pause and say "Let me finish my point"
- Acknowledge their frustration before redirecting to the issue
One way to open: “I want to address something directly because I think we're both frustrated, and avoiding it isn't working.”
Say it out loud, then see what you said
Reading about a hard conversation is not the same as having it. You talk to an AI counterpart by voice, like a phone call, and afterwards get a scorecard that quotes your own words: what helped, and what to try next time.