Today the Harvard Business Review published an article, Why Peace and Harmony are Bad for Innovation by Andrew O’Connell. I hate it because it’s true, but I also loved this article because it’s the type of insight that I know from experience is so true. So I figure after two posts on cookies, naps and office synergy I can write a bit on less feel-good circumstances and instead on those arduous journeys that (ideally) bring us to some hard-won nap and cookie time.
Entrepreneurship is survival. If you’ve done it, you know it’s true. No ifs, ands or buts and no matter how much preparation is met with luck or opportunity, building something from nothing in this economy is a trying experience. There are moments in running my business day-to-day that are incredibly intense, frightening and of course rewarding. Nothing is ever certain. Once I start to believe that it is, some unexpected force rocks us into action and reaction.
I write a lot about office synergy lately because for many months, we didn’t have much of it. We started gaining momentum in this area when I made a rather bold move to bridge the gap between executive level detachment and production minutia, taking over both creative direction and the majority of the project management for the company. The transition took about two months to complete, but afterward, life at work was eerily calm. I actually started having some significant anxiety at this point, because that lack of stress was stressing me out. I felt like conflict was coming… Well it did, occasionally, but on a different fronts. Thankfully what started working exceptionally well in our office restructuring keeps working. But that doesn’t keep other annoyances from keeping my blood pressure relatively high.
A former employee once accused me of hating or avoiding conflict. I certainly don’t thrive on it like he did and others do, but it’s a fairly permanent condition of my life and my work. I’ve come to terms with this. I’m not a big fan of conflict, but I’m game for a good battle and I won’t roll over just to avoid a stressful situation. This is where my mad English major skills kick in, and I realize I probably should have been a lawyer. Which begs the question, if I was, would I be more or less stressed? Regardless, as a company, when we are approached with conflict, we invariably rally.
The social media industry is explosive and multi-faceted, and yet we work in a fairly isolated niche, with a specific formula that makes our company both successful and competitive. So every time competition gets too close and our livelihood is threatened in the slightest, an amazing thing happens. Our systems get tighter, our team becomes closer, and our search engine rankings go off the charts. (I blog when I’m stressed, my husband goes nuts with his SEO mustache twisting). The result is that there is a predictable cycle, once presented with conflict or challenge: we rally, and 4-6 months later suddenly our business is on an entirely new and exalted level professionally. I win!
O’Connell surmises, “Give me an assignment to innovate and put me in a nice, crumb-free hammock between tall trees, and I’d probably just nod off.” No doubt, complacency probably wouldn’t do us any favors. Challenge drives us humans, especially the type of humans who tend to start businesses. If we don’t meet the challenge and embrace the abrasion–creative and otherwise–we are missing half the fun of running a business, not to mention the great opportunities that present themselves when conflict is met with motivation, innovation and a healthy dose of cojones.
