Common Sources of Conflict & Failure
One of the most intimidating behavioral questions we get in product interviews is related to disagreements with partners or cross-functional players in our world.
The Typical Reactions
I have seen candidates display the following behaviors when facing this question:
Talk about some complex task that totally avoids the question.
Talk about how they basically showed the other person they were wrong.
Pick a softball that tells the interviewer little about how they deal with conflict
Don’t he afraid of these types of questions, get a handle on them and own what you did wrong and right. As the product manager, you own making sure everyone gets along. Therefore, even if the problem wasn’t your ‘fault’ it is your responsibility to fix the problem on behalf of the larger team.
When tackling these questions, the following is a helpful list of ultimate reasons you can show you identified to solve the problem. (Special thanks to Dave Anderson for the list of political conflict questions.)
Do they and you have opposing goals?
Are they trying to achieve something which you're trying to stop?
Are you attempting to achieve something which threatens them in some way?
Did you offend them in the past, or suggest that you're not working in their best interest?
Now I will provide some basic examples of how this list translates in behavioral prompt setups
I am going to tell you about the time I realized the conflict was not personal but about the conflict of opposing goals between short-term revenue and longer-term productivity and thus longer-term revenue.
When I was working at ABC company, I had a disagreement with my engineering partner because they perceived my initiative was threatening their longer-term promotion path. I will walk you through how I identified the disconnect (perceived threat) and got our team back on track.
When I was working to solve X problem, my business development partner didn’t think it was in their best interest and started to block my efforts. Once I realized what was happening, I met with them privately and walked them through how this would actually double their goal in 18 months. Let me walk you through my process.
