Navigating creative differences among key team members can be as fraught as it is common. The key to building strong teams in production is to make room for the influence of your teams' input while staying true to vision of the client, the director and key stakeholders. If you make room in the discussion to ensure that everyone feels heard and respected, it will be much easier to navigate the inevitable turbulence resulting from spirited creative discussions. Giving respect to the voices of your team will reward you with their deference when you have to make the final call on what to execute. I'd much rather have a team full of spirited idea makers, passionate enough about the work to speak up, than a group with little personal investment who only want to do as directed with out caring enough to shape the content.
Working in the creative space, such as video production, there are bound to be, not only creative differences but personality clashes. In one particular instance, we hired someone who wasn’t quite listening to the specific details that the client was requesting. We soon realized that they were so wrapped up in their own vision of how they wanted it to be that they lost sight of what the client was wanting. The stress was high and the shoot day was approaching, so in order to course-correct without sinking the ship, we used the gentle approach. We listened to this particular teammate's frustrations, and truly took them to heart. Once they saw us receive their struggles, they were able to calm down and focus on the task at hand. Granted, we also learned a great lesson: do not let the pressure and stress of the job keep you from communicating effectively, and sometimes on an individualized level, early on.