CTC (Travel Agent Certifications): Two Team Leads, One Director

I would not open with a joint session. Both parties are still in positional mode, neither has named the conflict, and a facilitated meeting at this point invites each to perform for the mediator with a rehearsed case - which hardens positions rather than softening them.

Instead, two separate conversations, each framed as 'help me understand how the reporting is working' rather than 'tell me what she did.' The purpose is to get from positions (he bypassed me; she excluded me) to interests: Marcus likely wants his nine years of context and his relationship with the director recognised; Lena likely wants her remit to be real rather than nominal. Both may be true simultaneously.

I would also test the conflict type, because the intervention differs. If this is structural - unclear decision rights between two teams - no amount of communication training will fix it. If it is identity and status, a RACI chart will not either. The evidence so far (two symmetrical retaliations, no direct contact) points to a structural trigger sitting on top of a status threat.

I would also check my own read: 'fine' from both is a data point about the relationship, not a resolution.

Before the room: share the agenda in advance, state that the goal is a working protocol and not a verdict, and set ground rules including 'describe impact, not intent.' Asking each to state what the other needs to do their job well inverts the usual blame framing and is hard to do dishonestly.

In the room: I would keep the first half on the work, not the relationship. Where exactly do the two teams' decisions overlap? Who decides, who is consulted, who is informed? Run the specific incidents (the status email, the invite list) as symptoms of an undefined interface rather than as grievances to be adjudicated.

The fix: a written protocol with three parts - a single status route to the director that both contribute to and both are copied on, a decision-rights table for the three areas where the teams overlap, and a standing 20-minute fortnightly sync.

The test: a 30-day review with both of them present, evaluating the protocol and not their personalities. If incidents recur after that, this is a performance or conduct conversation, not a mediation.

Not yet - and I would say so clearly to them. Acting now would turn an unresolved interpersonal conflict into an organisational redesign, on evidence I have not tested, within a three-week window.

But I would not dismiss it either. Two independent requests is a signal, and the signal may not be about the Marcus–Lena dispute at all. It could be that Marcus's team is absorbing the digital team's overflow, or that the analysts have lost clarity about their own reporting line. I would hold a short, confidential conversation with each, asking what specifically they want to be different - the work, the manager, or the direction of the team - and make no promises about outcome. 'Informal' requests often dissolve once the actual dissatisfaction is named.

I would timebox this: gather the facts inside a week, fold anything structural into the protocol work, and only consider a move if a specific, nameable problem survives. What I must avoid is letting a staffing decision become the resolution mechanism for a conflict between two managers, because it rewards escalation and teaches the rest of the team that this is how you get moved.