Nature Lover and a City Boy
July 15, 2014, on the Lake Champlain ferry.
In 2011, Derek and I collaborated on a project for Ameriprise’s Northeast region.
- Shortly after one of our sessions, he sent me a link to Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” TED Talk and said, “You should watch this. This guy sounds like you.”
- That 18-minute video changed everything for me. I always knew that I was “weird”. Now I knew why and what to do about it.
- A couple of years later, Derek and I founded Inspire Network (INET) and became business partners.
Derek is a Minnesota guy. Derek is fascinated by nature.
- He is obsessed with responsible use of resources and protecting the ones that he cares about…
- Both people and the land.
I grew up in Sarajevo. I am fascinated by people and why they do what they do.
- I love the hustle and bustle of city living.
- I am obsessed with possibilities of people mixing together.
We have same core values and beliefs, but our natural tendencies often created conflict and slowed our progress.
Offense wins games, Defense wins championships
We were both working hard on figuring out how we can collaborate better and make bigger impact.
- I was frustrated because Derek was not performing well in my role.
- He was frustrated because I was not performing well in his role.
The bottom line: This conflict and the way we embraced it led us to create TUG cards.
Derek’s talent and unique genius is in defense.
- Protecting our business.
- Making sure that we run it in the most responsible way.
- And still grow.
Our coffee time often felt like boxing matches.
- Both of us had very strong opinions on how things should be done.
- We both knew that we were both right, but we were struggling to figure out a way to integrate both prospectives.
What’s next: I kept looking at the Derek’s TUG Card to make reads on how we could adapt to move forward.
- It was that pressure, and making reads, that made me realize we should have two distinctly separate roles in growing the business.
- As I lead the offense, he should lead the defense.
- That changed everything.
Use TUG Cards to balance your offense and defense
Partnerships are hard.
- They’re also the most rewarding way of building a business for me.
- If we were good at everything, we would not need each other.
The bottom line: We use TUG Cards to understand what roles we should play in a business and how to communicate better to embrace conflict in a healthy way.
