ZoomD

Business Development Manager

Department Head Making Slightly Toxic Environment

Work for an amazing company leading an amazing team of BDRs. They are so bright and energetic just need some coaching and guidance. I'm in a pretty fledging org and department. The person I report to and assist in building the department with is building a culture and environment I don't know I can be apart of anymore. Tension is high especially on a particular segment of the dept. What do I do?

😤 Conflict Resolution

🤘 Personal Growth

🧢 Sales Management

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bandabanda

Tycoon

Senior AE Mid Market

First, awesome to hear you have some stellar BDR’s! That can be rare.
A few questions for context:
- how long have you worked there?
-do you have a good relationship with this manager? As a leader, do they ask for feedback or are they open to it?
-is this somewhere you want to stay and are willing to fight for it and show some loyalty?
If the answers to the above are mostly positive, it sounds like it could be worth it to have candid conversation with them in a 1:1.
Format of the convo: Pillow. Rock. Pillow.
Pillow - Ask for permission to share feedback. Tell them the purpose and the goal of of said feedback - unity, growth, building a great culture and company.
Rock - share the hard stuff. Be direct but not insulting or attacking. Address the actions, not their character. Try to assume the best. Appeal to them as a leader…they want to be known for being a great leader right? These actions are undermining their own goals.
Pillow - reiterate your goal of the convo and why you wanted to share. Transparency, unity, and team success, etc.
In the end if it goes really south and worst case scenario you get fired? Sounds like a company you would have hated in the long-run anyway IMO. And you can be honest with your team and say “yeah this is why I was fired. I was trying to protect my people and help the team.”
Some may not agree with this approach but this is what I’d do after talking to some of my mentors.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Confront it head-on, or leave.

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

Leave?

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

How are they making the culture bad? Micromanaging? Sexual harassment? Too many mandatory zoom happy hours? Without details it's difficult to give any kind of substantial advice...

SQL

Contributor

Senior Manager of Sales

Without context hard to provide advice.
Aren’t most sales departments at SaaS companies slightly toxic?
Yet to find a company that isn’t toxic in some way shape or form.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Time to have a 1:1 and bring up possible solutions.

pirate

Big Shot

🦜☠️ Account Executive

Gather a document of concrete examples with times and dates and descriptions of what happened, evaluate how bad it is and share with HR? Or your direct manager or some other person in leadership? Frame it in a way that you felt bothered by these situations but you're not sure if you're overreacting or if this is something to be concerned about

I think if you love your team and company and what you do, then it makes sense to fight for it?

Also I'd think toxic environment would cause people to leave

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ZoomD

Department Head Making Slightly Toxic Environment

7 comments

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