When You Are Not the Conflict, But the Solution Google’s Project Aristotle research found that psychological safety, the ability to take risks without feeling insecure, was the top predictor of high-performing teams. When conflict within a team goes unresolved, that safety erodes quickly. This is why interviewers ask about mediation: they want people who restore … Read more
Walking the Line Between Pushover and Problem Jeff Bezos famously institutionalized “disagree and commit” at Amazon because he understood that the best ideas often come from constructive friction. Questions about disagreement with boss situations test whether you can navigate the tricky territory between blind compliance and disruptive rebellion. A VP of Engineering at Stripe shared … Read more
The Question That Tests Your Professionalism In over twelve years of interviewing candidates, I have heard hundreds of answers to the conflict with coworker question. The pattern that predicts failure is unmistakable: candidates who spend more time describing the other person’s faults than their own response almost never get hired. Last year, I interviewed two … Read more