B2 · Upper-Intermediate · Managing Conflict · 537 words · ~3 min read

⚖️ Reading Between the Lines

Language focus: Reported speech · managing conflict

Act 1 · The Echo of London Tech

The fragile calm did not last. By midweek, a long-simmering feud between Marcus and the head of product, a sharp and ambitious woman named Saira, finally boiled over in the middle of the open-plan office. Saira accused the engineers of dragging their feet; Marcus retorted that her team kept changing the requirements without warning. Within minutes, half the company had stopped working to watch.

Elif intervened before things could escalate further. She did not take sides; instead, she ushered them both into a glass meeting room and let the door close on the curious onlookers. “Right,” she said evenly. “One at a time. Saira, tell me what you believe is going wrong — and try to describe the problem, not the person.”

Saira said that the engineers had promised a working prototype a fortnight earlier and that nothing had materialised. Marcus countered that his team had warned repeatedly the timeline was unrealistic, and that nobody upstairs had listened. As Elif listened, she realised the conflict was not really about deadlines at all; it was about two talented people who each felt their expertise was being quietly ignored.

“So let me make sure I’ve understood you both,” Elif said, paraphrasing carefully. “Saira, you feel left in the dark about technical constraints. Marcus, you feel that product commitments are made without consulting you. Is that a fair summary?” Reluctantly, they each conceded it was. Naming the underlying grievance, she had found, often took most of the heat out of an argument.

She proposed a simple but binding rule: no deadline would be promised to a client until both product and engineering had signed off on it together. It was hardly revolutionary, yet the symbolism mattered. For the first time, the two departments would be forced to speak the same language rather than talking past one another.

When the meeting broke up, Saira lingered. “I didn’t expect you to actually listen,” she said. “The last manager just told us to sort it out among ourselves.” Elif smiled faintly. “Conflict isn’t the enemy. Conflict that festers in silence is.” It was a principle that had served her well across three continents and a dozen difficult teams.

Yet the day held one final twist. As the office emptied, Marcus caught her eye and tilted his head almost imperceptibly towards the stairwell. There, away from the cameras and the open-plan ears, he finally opened up. “The modules you found,” he murmured. “Victor wrote them. The manager before the manager before you. He swore me to secrecy and then vanished.”

“Vanished?” Elif repeated. Marcus nodded grimly. “One Friday he was here; the following Monday his desk was cleared and his contract was terminated. Nobody will say why. And ever since, those functions have kept sending data out into the dark, like an echo of something we were never meant to hear.” For the second time that week, Elif felt the ground shift quietly beneath her feet. She thanked Marcus in a low voice, acutely aware that he had just taken a considerable professional risk by confiding in her at all. Whatever had truly happened to Victor Crane, she was now certain of one thing: the answer lay well beyond the four walls of Verda.

Key vocabulary (6 words)

feudnoun
A long and bitter argument between people or groups.
escalateverb
To become more serious or intense.
prototypenoun
An early model of a product, built to test ideas.
constraintnoun
A limitation or restriction.
grievancenoun
A real or imagined cause for complaint.
festerverb
To become worse, especially because it is ignored.

Phrasal verbs in this chapter

  • drag feet — To drag your feet means to do something slowly because you do not want to do it.
  • open up — To open up means to start talking honestly about something.
  • sort out — To sort out means to resolve a problem.

Comprehension quiz

  1. Who are the two people in conflict?

    • Marcus and Saira
    • Elif and Geoffrey
    • Victor and Hale
    Show answer

    Marcus and Saira

  2. “Boiled over” means the tension…

    • exploded into the open
    • disappeared
    • was cooked
    Show answer

    exploded into the open

  3. How does Elif handle the argument?

    • She listens to both without taking sides
    • She fires them
    • She ignores it
    Show answer

    She listens to both without taking sides

  4. What is the real cause of the conflict?

    • Each feels their expertise is ignored
    • Money
    • A holiday
    Show answer

    Each feels their expertise is ignored

  5. “Left in the dark” means Saira feels…

    • kept without information
    • frightened of the dark
    • well informed
    Show answer

    kept without information

  6. What new rule does Elif propose?

    • No deadline without both teams agreeing
    • No more meetings
    • Longer lunches
    Show answer

    No deadline without both teams agreeing

  7. “Drag their feet” means the engineers were said to…

    • work too slowly on purpose
    • dance
    • leave early
    Show answer

    work too slowly on purpose

  8. Who wrote the mysterious modules?

    • Victor, a former manager
    • Marcus
    • Saira
    Show answer

    Victor, a former manager

  9. What happened to Victor?

    • He vanished and was terminated
    • He was promoted
    • He retired happily
    Show answer

    He vanished and was terminated

  10. “A grievance” is…

    • a cause for complaint
    • a celebration
    • a contract
    Show answer

    a cause for complaint

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