Solution: Empathy, not a cliché, but the discipline of collaboration

I treat every working conflict as a miscommunication problem. The fix is clearer explanation and shared definitions drawn from the other party's expertise.

The Marketing team's ask was reasonable. They were asking for something they could actually evaluate against their own expertise. So we sat down as a team and reset the process.

Technical prototypes left the working sessions, and we built mockups for every discussion with Marketing instead. Two teams began to operate as one front. Marketing team showed up as caring partner on the project once we found a shared language for the work.

When C-level stakeholders saw that alignment in the meetings, our process moved faster.