How Not To Strangle Your Coworkers: Resolving Conflict with Collaboration
Channel: Arthur Doler
Date: 2024-01-20

This talk was given at Nebraska.Code in July, 2023. Sorry about the Very Orange, the room was not lit very well.

Talk Abstract:
Conflict at work is as inevitable as the tides - like the old joke says, if you put five software engineers in a room, you’ll have seven opinions. Whether the conflict is over what language to use, what frameworks are the new hotness, or even just tabs vs spaces, conflict can get ugly. Tempers flare, positions are staked out in absolute terms, feelings are hurt, working relationships are destroyed… if only there were a way to avoid the negative consequences.

What if I told you that there is? Let’s take a journey together towards a wholly different approach to conflict - a collaborative one. In this talk, you’ll learn how to use conflict to fuel better software, better teams, and better companies. You’ll learn how to structure your team’s environment to draw out good conflict, to squelch the bad conflict, and to handle conflict when it becomes personal. We’ll discuss how to manage different confrontational styles, avoid self-sealing prophecies, and even how to deal with conflict when you lack control. Conflict should fuel your progress, not hinder it - and after this talk, you can make that happen.