Case Study 1: Sam Diagnoses Tyler

A Practical Walkthrough of the Six-Step Conflict Diagnosis Framework

Background

Sam Nguyen is 35 years old and has been an operations manager at a mid-sized logistics firm for four years. He manages a team of six, including Tyler, a project analyst in his mid-twenties who joined the team eleven months ago. Tyler was hired primarily for his analytical skills — he came with strong technical credentials and performed well in interviews.

For the past four months, Tyler has been submitting project deliverables late. Not massively late — usually one to three days — but the pattern has become consistent enough that Sam is no longer surprised when a deadline passes without a submission. The rest of the team is aware of it. Sam has heard indirect comments. He has not yet spoken to Tyler directly about the pattern.

Sam has a performance review cycle coming up in six weeks. He knows this conversation can't wait any longer.

On a Thursday evening, Sam stays after everyone else has gone. He closes his office door, opens a new document on his computer, and begins working through the six-step Conflict Diagnosis Framework. What follows is his complete written analysis.

Step 1: Describe the Incident (Observable, Behavioral, Neutral)

Sam's first draft:

Tyler keeps missing deadlines. He doesn't seem to take the timelines seriously, and it's becoming a problem for the whole team. I'm tired of chasing him down.

Sam reads this back and recognizes immediately that it is not what Step 1 asks for. "Doesn't seem to take timelines seriously" is an inference about Tyler's attitude. "I'm tired of chasing him down" is an emotional state report about Sam. "It's becoming a problem for the whole team" is a consequences statement — true, but vague.

He rewrites:

Revised incident description: Over the past four months (weeks 3 through 18 of the Q3–Q4 project cycle), Tyler has submitted six project deliverables after their agreed-upon due dates. The Henderson report was due Monday, November 4; Tyler submitted it on Thursday, November 7 (three days late). The Millbrook summary was due Friday, October 11; submitted Saturday, October 12 (one day late). The Q4 capacity audit was due Wednesday, September 25; submitted Saturday, September 28 (three days late). The three additional late submissions were the Carver analysis (two days late), the regional dispatch summary (one day late), and the intake projections report (two days late). All six due dates were explicitly stated in the project briefs Tyler received in advance.

Analysis: The revised description is several times longer and feels, at first, more burdensome. But Sam notices something in the process of writing it: he is constructing a picture, and pictures have shapes. The shape of this picture already contains something unexpected. He notes the detail about due dates being "explicitly stated in the project briefs" — and feels a small hesitation. Were the due dates also discussed verbally? Were expectations confirmed by Tyler? Sam does not know. He makes a note to return to this.

Step 2: Identify the Trigger

Sam's analysis:

What made this conversation feel necessary right now?

The proximate trigger is the Henderson report — the most recent late submission, three days ago. That alone might not have been sufficient. What actually made this feel urgent was a comment from Carla, one of Sam's peer managers, at Tuesday's cross-functional meeting. She said — in a room of eight people — "Sam, are we going to see the November numbers from your team by end of month? I ask because the Henderson summary was supposed to feed our projections, and it came in late." Sam had said yes, it was done. What he felt in that moment was a familiar mix of defensiveness and embarrassment.

He writes:

Trigger: The Henderson report being late crossed into visibility outside my team. Carla's comment in the Tuesday cross-functional meeting made the pattern organizational, not just internal. I realized I could no longer manage this quietly. My own credibility is now implicated.

Analysis: Identifying this trigger is more useful than Sam expected. It reveals that two different things are motivating this conversation: a genuine concern about Tyler's performance and the impact on the team, and a reactive concern about Sam's own reputation. Both are real. But they are not the same, and they will not both be served by the same kind of conversation. If Sam approaches Tyler primarily from the second motivation — from embarrassment and the need to reassert control — the conversation will almost certainly go badly. The trigger analysis helps him see the distinction.

Step 3: Map the Pattern

Sam's pattern analysis:

He goes back to the list of six late deliverables and looks for the common denominator.

The Millbrook summary was late by one day — submitted on a Saturday. The capacity audit: three days. The Henderson report: three days. He looks at the nature of each project.

Millbrook was a one-off summary assignment — relatively straightforward, but it was Tyler's first time handling that client's format. The capacity audit was the first major report of the Q4 cycle. The Henderson report was the first project of the new monthly reporting structure that Sam implemented in October.

Sam stares at this list. He writes in his document:

Pattern observation: Every late deliverable was the first of its kind — either a new client format, a new reporting cycle, or a new project structure. The Carver analysis was the first time Tyler was asked to cross-reference two datasets simultaneously. The regional dispatch summary was Tyler's first time being primary author rather than contributor.

He keeps going:

Pattern hypothesis: The late deliverables are not randomly distributed. They cluster around novelty — situations where the task structure or expectations were new. This is not the pattern of a careless person. It is the pattern of someone who is uncertain.

He adds:

Contextual factor: When Tyler is working on repeat tasks — the weekly intake log, the standard capacity dashboard — he is reliably on time. Sometimes early. The late submissions are exclusively new-format or first-of-kind deliverables.

Pattern name (Sam's draft): "The first-time problem." Or: "The uncertainty cluster."

Analysis: This is the moment the diagnostic process significantly changes Sam's understanding of the situation. He had been mentally building a case about Tyler's attitude — his indifference to deadlines, his lack of urgency. The pattern map disassembles that case. Tyler is not late on routine work. Tyler is late on novel work. These two facts about the same person describe very different problems — and point to very different conversations.

Step 4: Identify Your Need

Sam's first pass:

I need Tyler to submit reports on time.

He recognizes immediately that this is a position, not a need. He tries again:

What would be different if this were resolved? I could tell Carla and others that deliverables will arrive on schedule. I could plan around Tyler's outputs without building in buffer time. I could stop feeling like I'm managing downward from a crisis.

He pushes further:

What do I actually need?

He writes:

Underlying need: I need to be able to trust that my team's deliverables will arrive when expected, so I can plan, report, and manage commitments to other parts of the organization with confidence. I also need to feel that I understand what is happening on my own team — that I am not repeatedly surprised by delays I should have seen coming.

He pauses, then adds:

There's something else here. I need to know whether I have done what a good manager does. The discomfort I feel right now is partly about Tyler, but it's also about the fact that I'm not sure I've set him up properly. If I've been failing him as a manager, I need to know that and fix it — not just fix his behavior.

Analysis: The second paragraph is harder to write. Sam includes it because the diagnostic framework asks for honesty, and that honesty is revealing something important. His need is not just operational — "deliverables on time." His need also includes managerial integrity: the need to know whether he has been doing his part well. That second need is going to be critical in Step 5.

Step 5: Identify What You Imagine Tyler's Need Is

Sam's first hypothesis (honest first draft):

Tyler needs someone to stop making excuses for him and to be held accountable.

He reads that back. He notes it is more of a wish than a hypothesis. It describes what Sam wants to provide, not what Tyler needs. He tries again:

Revised hypothesis: Tyler may need to understand, specifically and concretely, what is expected at each new type of task before he begins. He may be working from a level of ambiguity that makes any estimate unreliable — not because he doesn't care about deadlines, but because he doesn't have enough information to commit confidently to one. He may also need acknowledgment that his overall performance on routine work is strong, and that this conversation is about a specific pattern, not a global indictment.

He adds a second hypothesis:

Alternative hypothesis: It is also possible that Tyler is aware of the pattern, is embarrassed by it, and doesn't know how to raise it because he doesn't want to look like he can't handle his workload. He may need permission to say "I don't have enough context to give you a firm deadline on this yet" without that being treated as an excuse.

Analysis: Something shifts for Sam when he generates the alternative hypothesis. He imagines Tyler on the other end of this dynamic — receiving a new-format task with a due date already set, unsure what exactly is expected, not wanting to ask because asking might signal incompetence, then missing the deadline and absorbing the quiet awkwardness that follows. He recognizes that he himself has never explicitly invited Tyler to flag uncertainty. Sam runs a team that tends to value efficiency over process. Questions are implicitly discouraged.

He makes a note: Did I build a team culture that makes it hard to say "I need help"?

Step 6: Define What a "Good Outcome" Would Look Like

Sam's good outcome definition:

Behavioral: Tyler consistently submits deliverables on time. When he is working on a new-format task, he either (a) confirms the deadline after reviewing the requirements, or (b) flags concerns about the deadline before it arrives rather than missing it. I build a clearer onboarding structure for new task types — a brief expectation-setting conversation at the beginning of novel assignments.

Relational: Tyler understands that this conversation is about a specific, diagnosable pattern — not a global judgment about his capability or reliability. He knows that I see his strengths on routine work and that I am approaching this as a problem to solve together, not a verdict to deliver. He feels that the conversation was fair. I feel that I have addressed the issue cleanly and have also acknowledged my contribution.

Structural: We develop a brief "first-time task check-in" protocol: whenever Tyler is assigned a first-of-kind deliverable, we have a 10-minute conversation at the start to align on scope, requirements, and timeline. The goal is to reduce the conditions that produce the pattern — not just to address the pattern after the fact.

Analysis: Sam notices that the structural component requires something from him, not just from Tyler. The "first-time task check-in" is something Sam would implement — it is a change in his management practice. This is not a capitulation. The deadlines still need to be met. But the structural fix addresses the root cause rather than just the symptom.

What the Diagnosis Revealed: Sam's Reflection

Sam closes his document and sits back. The conversation he imagined having two hours ago — the one about consequences and documentation and making clear that this is unacceptable — is not the conversation the diagnosis points toward.

The diagnosis points toward something different: a conversation about clarity, about expectations, about what Tyler needs to succeed on novel tasks, and about what Sam has and has not been providing. It is a problem-solving conversation, not a disciplinary one.

This does not mean Tyler has no accountability. He does. The pattern is real, the impact on the team is real, and the expectation that deliverables will be submitted on time is legitimate and non-negotiable. All of that remains. But the conversation that will produce genuine, durable change is one that addresses the root cause — not one that applies pressure to the symptom.

Sam adds a final note to his document:

Level assessment: This conflict is operating at the interests level. The rights-level framing was available — Tyler's job description includes meeting deadlines; that is a documented expectation. But applying a rights-based approach (formal documentation, disciplinary record) to an interests-level problem (Tyler needs clarity; I need to provide it) would be using the wrong tool for the job. I would win an argument and lose a good analyst. And I would not have done the one thing that would actually fix this: changed the conditions that produce the pattern.

Discussion Questions

At what point in Sam's diagnostic process did his framing of the situation most significantly shift? What was the mechanism of that shift?
Sam identifies two motivations for the conversation: concern about Tyler's performance, and concern about his own reputation after Carla's comment. How should he handle those two motivations as he enters the actual conversation with Tyler?
The diagnostic process revealed that Sam may have contributed to the problem by creating a team culture that discourages asking for help. How should Sam address this in the conversation? Should he address it at all?
Sam concludes that this is an interests-level conflict. Under what circumstances would the same situation — repeated missed deadlines — legitimately call for a rights-level approach? What would need to be different?
Compare Sam's "first-draft" descriptions at each step with his revised descriptions. What changed? What does the pattern of revision reveal about the most common errors people make when diagnosing their own conflicts?