Managing Tough Conversations: How to Work with People Who Don’t See Things the Same Way
Actionable insight from conversation with Santiana Brace.
No matter how skilled you are as a product manager (or software engineer), you will eventually run into situations where you and a colleague just aren’t on the same wavelength.
Maybe it’s an engineer who disagrees with your prioritization, a stakeholder pushing for a feature that doesn’t align with the roadmap or a designer who has a different vision for the user experience.
When these moments happen, it’s easy to feel stuck. You’re both trying to move forward, but it feels like you’re pulling in opposite directions.
The Key: Align on a Shared Goal
Santiana Brace, an experienced product manager, has a simple but effective way to get through these challenges:
“One of the things that I like to do in those situations is really just bring it back to the common goal we're trying to achieve. Everyone has a goal. They want the same thing in the end—they want success.”
Instead of focusing on the disagreement, shift the conversation back to the bigger picture. What is the ultimate goal? What problem are you both trying to solve? Once you reframe the discussion around shared objectives, it becomes easier to explore different solutions rather than just defending positions.
Active Listening and Empathy
Sometimes, misalignment happens because each person is looking at the problem from a different angle. Engineers might be focused on feasibility, while product managers are thinking about impact, and designers are prioritizing user experience.
Taking the time to truly listen to the other person’s perspective can make a huge difference. Santiana highlights the importance of empathy:
“I am very intentional about putting myself into their shoes to see their point of view. Once I feel like I have a good understanding of where everyone’s coming from - what their concerns are, what the opportunities are - then I try to bring the team back together with a path forward.”
This approach helps build trust and a sense of collaboration inside the team, rather than conflict.
Find a Path Forward (Even If It’s a Compromise)
Not every disagreement will have a perfect resolution, but most can be sorted with a compromise in mind. Maybe the engineer’s concern about technical debt means you break the feature into smaller releases. Or maybe a stakeholder’s request gets reshaped into a proof of concept instead of a full-scale feature launch.
Often disagreements are caused by us being blindfolded by some tiny details.
“Sometimes it's like weedy details that we don't need to be in. And then we don't really realize that until we take that step back and look at the bigger picture of the actual problem space we're in and what we're trying to solve for. And then we realize - Oh, okay. We have just spent an hour trying to think through this one thing.
By keeping communication open, staying flexible, and focusing on the success of the whole team, tough conversations don’t have to feel like battles.
They can be opportunities to refine ideas and in the end, build better products.
Tip: If you want to dive more into the product management world, Santiana recently started a great podcast called The Product Pivot!
Dive into the whole episode on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.