Conflict between two colleagues: when to step in and in what order

Echipa HR 365 · reviewed 2026-09-08 · 5 min read

The rule for intervening: not at the first disagreement, but as soon as the conflict starts affecting somebody else’s work. Until then, two people who do not like each other but deliver is a normal situation in a team; from the moment a third person has to choose who to ask, it is your problem.

The four signals that you have to intervene

• Information stops circulating: one of them finds things out late, because the other does not tell them.
• Others start avoiding one of them, so as not to get caught in the middle.
• Decisions get postponed because nobody wants to open a subject that involves both.
• The same things get reported to you separately, in two versions.

The order of the intervention

The frequent mistake is starting with the joint conversation, which looks efficient and is usually too early. Without separate preparation, the joint conversation becomes a confrontation in front of you, and both of them talk to you rather than to each other.

The four stages

1. 1. Separately, with each — what happened, from their perspective — facts, not characterisations; you promise nothing and take nobody’s side
2. 2. You check — what is disputed as fact and what is disputed as interpretation; they are very different things
3. 3. Jointly, if warranted — with a stated purpose: how we work from now on, not who was right
4. 4. Check back after two weeks — separately, with each; without it, the agreement made in the room does not hold

The second stage is what changes the approach. A conflict over facts — who was supposed to do what, who promised what — is resolved by clarifying the facts. One over interpretation — “the tone they used”, “they did not take me seriously” — never is, and trying to establish the truth deepens it.

The separate conversation: what you ask

The last question usually decides whether you are needed at all. If they have never spoken directly about it — and often they have not — the first step is not mediation but asking them to do so, with a deadline.

The joint conversation, if you get there

It opens with the purpose, explicitly: we are not establishing who was right, we are establishing how we work from now on. Without that sentence, the first ten minutes are consumed by two accounts nobody can reconcile.

It closes with two or three concrete, observable agreements: who tells whom and when, how decisions that touch both of them get made, what happens at the next disagreement. Not “we will respect each other” — nobody can verify that.

What you do not do

• Do not carry messages between them. You become a permanent channel and the conflict settles in.
• Do not tell one what the other said in the separate conversation, not even in summary.
• Do not resolve it by quietly reorganising, moving them onto different projects. It works for a month and teaches everyone that this is how it is done.
• Do not ignore it because “they are adults”. They are, and that does not help them open a subject both are avoiding.

What if one of them refuses the joint conversation?

You do not force it. You agree working rules with each separately and communicate both, identically. The joint conversation is a tool, not an obligation.

When do I involve HR?

When accusations go beyond a professional disagreement, when one of them asks for it, or when you have tried and nothing changed. Not as punitive escalation — as a second perspective.

Do I write anything down?

The agreements from the joint conversation, yes, and you send them to both. The content of the separate conversations, no — they were held on the expectation that they stay between you.

Where to start

Check first whether they have spoken directly about it. In half the cases the answer is no, and then your first intervention is to ask them to, not to mediate.

If they have spoken and it did not work, start separately, with the question about the last concrete moment. Not about the relationship — about what happened on Tuesday.

What a conflict teaches you about the team

A conflict between two people is rarely only about them. It usually surfaces a structural ambiguity the rest of the team handles informally: who decides when both are involved, who owns a borderline area, what happens when two priorities collide.

The confirming test: once you have resolved the case, ask yourself whether the same situation could recur with two other people. If it could, you have resolved a symptom. Clarifying the decision boundary is the real repair, and it benefits the whole team.

When it does not resolve

Sometimes, after two rounds of conversations and agreements, nothing changes. Then it is worth saying explicitly that this is no longer a communication problem but a behaviour one — and treating it as such, with clear expectations and consequences, separately, with each.

What does not work is a third round of mediation. Repeating the same conversation tells both of them that the process leads nowhere, and the rest of the team, watching, reaches the same conclusion about you.