Peer Conflictadvanced
The Public Underminer
A peer regularly questions your decisions in front of others.
Practice this out loud, free
No account needed. We email you a link, then you talk by voice.
The situation
A colleague consistently challenges my technical decisions in team meetings, often with a dismissive tone. It's undermining my authority with the team. I need to address the pattern without seeming defensive or escalating the conflict.
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.