From large-scale strategic discussions to day-to-day office interactions, conflict avoidance can sometimes be the main obstacle blocking your path to progress. Ok, then what?
- Reflect. How easily can you challenge ideas, share the bad news or create a degree of conflict? This is tough.
- Get feedback. Ask your friends, family and colleagues: do they agree with your conclusions from step 1? Get examples.
- Correct the problem — slowly. Try pushing back, speaking up and share feedback you might have held back before. Be clear that you're upping your conflict game ; )
Those tips are from a 2010 HBR article on what to do if your company culture is too nice. Sure its not entirely up to you but you can spark the change. Written with educators in mind, Elisa MacDonald wrote the following & inspired this week's subject ; )
While no one has the power to make a person or group change thinking and behaviors, teacher leaders who recognize the signs of a dysfunctional culture, respond proactively and in the moment, and follow up after a team collaborates can initiate moments that move the team beyond the culture of nice.
Going from a culture of nice to a culture of virtue is certainly audacious. Not infrequently I am certainly guilty of being too nice, I do try to defer to honest feedback and do my best to leverage conflict constructively. It ain't easy but taking on tough conversations achieves more pragmatic answers to problems and delivers more progress almost every time.
As always, thanks for reading,
Jon
p.s.
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Cycling
Old Skool x New School - Tom Ritchey
The first in the upcoming series of ‘Old Skool x New School’ events created by The Bicycle Academy.
A collaboration between the legends of the framebuilding world and the new wave of framebuilders creating the future of bicycle making.
Movers and Shakers: Meet the woman who saved Enve Composites from bankruptcy
In January 2010, things were looking pretty grim for Edge Composites. The high-end carbon fiber wheel and component company nowadays known as Enve Composites was nearly bankrupt, and 78 jobs were on the line as was the company’s reputation as they battled a trademark dispute in Europe.
Now You Can Buy And Fail At Building A Bicycle From Ikea, Too
Lesson? Support your local bike shop, duh...
To be fair, more bikes is always awesome right?
Startups
Komoot is hiring an International PR Manager
Komoot is already a big thing in the the international outdoor and cycling market. And only getting bigger. What a rad story to be able to tell everyday!
Growth Hacking Course London - 2 Day Growth Hacking London
Building products isn’t enough. Marketing channels are saturated. Learn Growth Marketing skills to beat the competition and keep growing! Sign up to Growth Tribe's 2-Day Growth Marketing Course in London on March 2nd & 3rd to upskill.
Give your community a face | Faces
- Faces provides a visual overview of the people within your community.
- Allow community members to easily find each other using quick filters.
- Host Faces on your own domain name, with your branding and logo.
Sales
Predictableuniversity.eu immersive 4-wk program
I recently had a coffee with Michael that teaches these courses along with Aaron Ross. I took a look and it the course looks badass. Sign up here. He's slated to speak at the next Sales Hacker Amsterdam in March too!
Most Startups Should be Deer Hunters – Mark Suster
When you start your company the very first question you need to ask yourself is which kind of customers do you want to serve. Many start-ups (and even growth firms) lack this discipline and they therefore serve customers off all sizes. This leads to suboptimal results for all.
This startup killed its most profitable product because customers were using it for evil — now it's worth $100 million
In 2015, Atlanta-based SalesLoft was mulling the death of Prospector, the company’s flagship product for finding sales leads.
Radness
Liz Seabrook — Freunde von Freunden
When looking at the images photographer Liz Seabrook creates, one gets the impression that she sees a side of the world that is often hidden—as though there is a neat yet imperfect order to things that pass by without us ever noticing.
I met Liz on a shoot in Mallorca for Vulpine. (we shot the entire Spring Summer range in an hour and three quarters on that trip) I'm always excited to see friends on Freunde von Freunden! Keep it up Liz!
Follow her on twitter, on insta & peek her website here : )
