Delegate based on strengths: Assign tasks according to each member's expertise to maximize efficiency and reduce friction.this what I do and motivate the team by remembering their strengths and guide them to words the goals.

In a hardware crunch, I lead by refocusing the team on our mission—scalable, clean hydrogen. I identify bottlenecks, prioritize critical tasks, and assign roles based on strengths. Conflict gets resolved quickly with fact-based mediation, keeping emotions out. I leverage AI and automation to remove inefficiencies, ensuring progress. Pressure reveals leaders, and I step up—grinding alongside the team, making tough calls, and recognizing those who perform. The storm will pass, but how we navigate it defines the strength of our ship moving forward.

A team reflects leadership, company culture, and competencies. Conflicts are natural, given diverse emotions, aspirations, backgrounds and skills. In high-pressure situations, 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 is key—encourage ideas, challenge assumptions, and align efforts toward a 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧. By working backward from the common goal, priorities shift from competition to connected, cooperating dependencies. When responsibilities align with competencies, execution becomes smoother. Generally in HW projects, external dependencies are more. Often, SOPs, internal policies, quality standards, leadership and company culture help resolve conflicts, ensuring efficiency even in challenging hardware project crunches.

Defining and Reaffirming the North Star greatly helps here, Every decision should support when reaffirming. Take the time to stepback and ground the discussion in customer needs, business objectives and project deadlines.

I'm usually preaching project goals like a mantra from the start, so that there is never a discussion where we need to be at any point of time. I think it is important that definitions of goals are not abstract, self-defined goals but are the definitions of stakeholder expectations. Clashes often arise when team members get overwhelmed by the amount of tasks required to achieve the goals in time to meet deadlines. Team member responses may be to give up and stall, while others try to rush things by skipping important steps that may come back later to bite us. The greater picture can also be too big to comprehend. Continuous communication and reinforcement of the common vision is key to prevent clashes in the first place.