Navigating team tensions for better collaboration
Ever found yourself caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between design, product, and engineering teams? It’s a tale as old as tech itself, with each group pulling in different directions, believing their priorities must take precedence. But the real issue isn’t always conflicting goals—it’s often about a lack of empathy and communication.
To bridge these divides, let’s focus on understanding one another, building trust, and fostering friendship. Here’s how:
Understanding each other’s pain points
Taking the time to understand what challenges your teammates face is crucial. If you only focus on your problems, you’re missing half the story. Listening allows you to empathize and identify compromises, showing your colleagues that you value their success as much as your own.
Here’s a suggestion: next time you’re in a meeting, ask team members what their biggest challenges are. You’ll get insights that can transform the way you approach collaboration. Maybe you’ll discover that a tweak in design can ease an engineering burden, or vice versa. It’s all about seeing the bigger picture.
Building trust through consistency
Trust isn’t built overnight. It grows through consistent actions. When disagreements arise, a foundation of trust ensures everyone believes the team will address issues with empathy and mutual commitment.
A simple way to cultivate trust is by keeping your promises and delivering what you say you will. Whether it’s meeting deadlines or following through on decisions, consistency assures your colleagues that you’re reliable and dependable. This helps smooth over the rough patches that inevitably come up.
Investing in relationships
Ever heard that you don’t have to be friends with the people you work with? While that’s technically true, understanding your collaborators as people—and not just co-workers—can make things a whole lot easier. Friendliness and genuine interest go a long way in creating a harmonious workplace.
Try setting aside some time to socialize with team members. A coffee chat or a casual lunch outside the office (or even outside the Zoom window) can create bonds that improve teamwork. Knowing someone beyond their job title helps foster collaboration in a more human and less transactional way.
Designing with intent
For design leaders, it’s about aligning decisions with the broader goals. Help your non-design teammates—be they in engineering or product management—see the impact of your work by explaining the “why” behind your design choices. This means framing your design decisions in terms of business outcomes and user benefits. When you do this, team members are more likely to rally behind your vision.
Also, learn a bit about what engineering constraints they face, and consider these limitations when proposing design solutions. This doesn’t mean compromising on creativity, but understanding what’s feasible and advocating for what aligns with both user experience and technical possibilities.
Sharing early and often
Waiting until your work feels “perfect” before sharing might seem safe, but it can isolate your process from valuable feedback. Sharing early and often invites input and collaboration before paths are locked in, allowing for adjustments that benefit the project as a whole.
Translate feedback into actionable next steps rather than seeing it as criticism. This approach builds trust and keeps momentum going. It’s not about defending your ideas, but about refining them to fit into a shared vision.
Celebrating collaboration
Lastly, make collaboration a rewarding experience by celebrating small wins as a team. Whether it’s a successful launch or a resolved bottleneck, acknowledging achievements sparks joy and motivation, fostering a culture where working together doesn’t just feel necessary—it feels good.
