Talk it through with Aurelius
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Aurelius · Work & Leadership
Knowledge + Guidance

When two of your people are in conflict and you're avoiding it

Two of your direct reports are in conflict, and you've been hoping it'll resolve itself. It won't — it's spreading, the team is picking sides, and your avoidance is starting to look like weakness. But stepping into someone else's fight feels awkward, so you keep waiting.

◆ How this problem reads on the two dials
GuidanceKnowledge
Some coaching
More to learn
1:1 with AureliusWith others (a Pod)
You & the coach
Practise with peers
Mostly a manager's craft — naming it, finding the root, holding a standard (knowledge) — with a little nerve to step in (guidance). Inherently relational.
How the two dials adapt to you →
What’s really going on

Conflict between your people rarely self-resolves; unaddressed, it metastasizes into team dysfunction, and your silence reads as not-noticing or not-caring. Your job isn't to take a side or force a friendship — it's to make the conflict discussable and get them to a working relationship. We build the move: naming it, getting to the real issue underneath, and holding both to a professional standard even if they never like each other.

🔒 What you’ll build togetherUnlock by starting
KnowledgeWhy you can't wait it out
KnowledgeNot friends, but functional
KnowledgeGetting to the real issue under the fight
KnowledgeHolding both to a standard without picking a side
A moveName what you're avoiding by hoping it resolves itself — and what it's costing the team.
A moveMeet with each separately: what do they actually need from the other to work together?
PractiseThe mediation · a Pod of 4 · 30 min

What changes unlock by starting

  • You address the conflict instead of hoping it away.
  • Both are held to a professional standard, no sides taken.
  • You get them to functional, even without friendship.
  • The team stops picking sides and organizing around the rift.
One object, two jobs: a public answer to a real problem, and — the moment you start the chat — Aurelius’s live plan for your version of it.