The First Skill Cofounders Need For More Productive Conflict Management
Why cofounder coaching focuses on adding skills to improve difficult conversations.
The difference between the highest performing founding teams and everyone else is not an absence of conflict — it’s that the top-performing teams have learned to navigate conflicts more effectively.
This statement is not speculation — it’s based on five-plus years of experience I have coaching hundreds of founding teams to master their communication, teamwork, and decision-making.
I have worked with bootstrapped social media influencers, advertising agencies, and supported founders backed by Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, and many others in the tech space. This experience has provided me with a unique perspective on cofounder coaching — an emerging field of coaching aiming to improve cofounder conflict navigation — and helped me develop core competencies cofounders need to enhance teamwork and build resilience.
The problem
Many successful founders operate at a high level for months and years at a time. Like you, their ambition and work ethic fuels them to think quickly, speak quickly, and make fast decisions.
While fast-paced conversations tend to work well in business, they do not work well for disagreements and emotional conflicts, both of which are inevitable outcomes in a cofounder partnership due to the many stressors and transitions inherent in starting and scaling a company.
The solution
The first step involves learning the art of slowing down
Slowing down facilitates more insightful conversations by allowing each individual time and space to feel heard and reflect on their inner experience.
I know this because, despite an emphasis on facts over feelings and productivity over heart-to-hearts, cofounder strain contributes to 65% of high-growth startups closing shop.
I see the effects of internalized resentment and avoiding difficult conversations while building a rocket ship, and let me assure you, it is not a pretty sight.
If you want to avoid the toxic trap of cofounder fallout and spend the majority of your time building your business, you need to prioritize educating yourself on mastering cofounder communication.
To this end, I developed the Cofounder Levels Framework, which simplifies the complex psychological dynamics between founders. This maps well onto what Daniel Kahneman describes in his best-selling book Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow.
System 1 operates automatically and involves quick thinking. It is great for making fast business decisions. It focuses on facts, rational thinking, and is the default way most founders communicate.
System 2 requires deliberate reasoning and concentration. It is better for solving more complex problems that require additional context and consideration. It depletes more resources and is often used on bigger decisions, like fundraising and significant operational changes.
In my Cofounder Levels Framework, I call these Level I and Level II
Over the years working with countless cofounders, I’ve discovered one of the most significant barriers preventing more effective conversations is trying to use Level I instead of Level II when discussing the emotional components of business decisions.
While Level I may be effective for daily operations, Level II is required to navigate interpersonal issues with your cofounder.
Why? Because emotions are complicated.
When you experience prolonged periods of stress, your mind narrows attention and uses the least amount of energy required to solve a problem. In this state of energy conservation, you get stuck in Level I focusing on “facts” and tend to look for ways to reinforce your perspective.
When you and your partner are both stuck in Level I debating facts and information, neither of you feel heard. You end up having a recurring disagreement where you do not see eye to eye and can’t find common ground. It’s beyond frustrating — it deteriorates the foundation of trust upon which your partnership is built.
Most Level I conversations go something like this:
Accusation — Defensive justification — Mutual blame and criticism — Escalating conflict and withdraw.
These conversations are not only unpleasant, they are also unproductive
Discussions with escalating conflict followed by pulling away lead to exhaustion and resentment as each of you feels stuck wondering how to solve the problem.
You become so focused on solving this problem — this difference in your perspectives — that you fail to address the emotional dynamics creating the debate.
Said another way: When you argue with one another over tactics and strategy, it’s not about the tactics and strategies themselves. The underlying causes are often disagreements over recognition, power, and closeness.
Recurring arguments are caused by unaddressed emotions in Level II, not the topic of debate.
The worst part about these unspoken feelings is they lead to increased avoidance — you start tiptoeing around certain topics, keeping feedback to yourself, and building resentment because you feel unable to talk to your partner in the direct, honest way you’d like.
When you are in an ongoing state of tension, anger builds in Level III — your unconscious mind — and becomes palpable in the relationship.
Your anger may leak out as unintentional criticism, offhanded remarks, or through your tone of voice.
Over time, you feel silent discomfort and tension in the air; you lay awake at night thinking about how to turn things around. This ongoing state of tension reduces your focus, productivity, and effectiveness.
The solution is to slow down!
Yes, slowing down may be difficult, especially when you’re in a contentious conversation or wanting to find the solution to a disagreement. But if you want to have more productive conversations, you need to intentionally slow the pace.
Here are a five ways to slow down:
Monitor your level of emotional activation.
Slow your rate of speech and keep a calm tone of voice.
Convey to the other person that it is important for you both to slow down.
Share that you intend to make sure you both feel heard and understood.
Name that you are having an emotional reaction and would like to slow down to focus on this emotional content prior to resuming the business conversation.
Case Study
Today I met with two cofounders of a Series A tech company for the first time.
As they talked, they demonstrated a rapid style of communication full of interrupting, which made me feel quite confused about what they were arguing about — it was an entangled mess.
One person discussed growth-related problems while insinuating it was the other founder’s fault. The other reacted to this indirect accusation by becoming critical of the founder’s perspective and emphasizing the solution is to focus more on converting existing leads rather than increasing the top of the funnel. Then the first founder expressed anger for feeling blamed when he was seeking help.
This discussion contained more layers than were possible to address at the current rate of conversation. The shifting of blame and defensive posturing between the two was the unnamed process escalating emotions, quickening pace, and ensuring the outcome would involve disagreement and mutual frustration.
My first intervention was to teach them the importance of slowing down. This skill was a necessary prerequisite for them to discuss how they were communicating, which then would unlock their ability to return to their strategic disagreement.
You cannot have a productive conversation when experiencing excessive physiological activation.
Slowing down increases the possibility of accessing Level II conversations — discussing root causes — instead of getting stuck in the surface debates about content (Level I).
Without implementing this skill, the advanced techniques taught in cofounder coaching sessions will be rendered ineffective.
If you’d like to build a resilient founding team rooted in integrity and radical candor, start by reducing the pace of conversations. This skill will unlock your ability to access the deeper layers of how you are communicating rather than the what you are discussing.
After you resolve these relational and process-related tensions, you can revisit business decisions with greater clarity and purpose.