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Five with Fry
Think of this podcast as your go-to for tackling the hard stuff with clarity and confidence. On Five with Fry, Dr. Jen Fry breaks down the rules, challenges the norms, and dives deep into the tough conversations that shape our lives—conflict, culture, family, sports, tech, and everything in between. This is where you learn to rely on yourself, embrace the messy, and come out stronger on the other side.
Five with Fry
22: The Real Test of Team Culture Isn’t Positivity—It’s Conflict
The Real Test of Team Culture Isn’t Positivity—It’s Conflict
It’s easy to talk about team culture when things are going well. But what about when they’re not?
In this episode, Dr. Jen Fry gets real about what truly defines a strong team culture—and it’s not just about staying positive. While a lot of teams focus on creating upbeat environments, many fall apart the moment tension hits. That’s because positivity alone doesn’t prepare you for the hard stuff: roommate drama, losing streaks, unmet expectations, or the awkward silence when someone’s upset but no one wants to name it.
True culture shows up when things go sideways. It’s in how teammates give and receive feedback. It’s in whether they can express emotions without fear. It’s in how they handle discomfort, not just how they celebrate wins.
Jen breaks down the difference between performative positivity and real cultural strength—and why teaching athletes to navigate conflict isn’t just good for the team, it’s essential for developing whole, emotionally intelligent humans.
Because if your team can’t handle small conflicts, how are they going to handle the big ones?
Let’s talk about it.
Subscribe, leave a review, and share the episode. Got a topic you want to hear next? Connect with Jen @JenFryTalks on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, or find her on LinkedIn at Dr. Jen Fry.
Friends, welcome to Five with Fry, where five is the magic number, whether it's five minutes, five questions or anything that fits in five. I dive into the big topics that matter, sometimes alone and other times with a friend. From navigating sports conflict to family dynamics, travel, tech, hard-hitting issues and even politics Nothing and I mean nothing's off the table. This is where curiosity meets conversation, and we always sit at an intersection. I'm your host. Dr Jen Fry of Jen Fry Talks. Let's get into it, friends. Welcome to the newest episode of Five with Fry.
Dr. Jen Fry:Today we're going to talk about culture and you know, the interesting thing when we talk about culture is how much so many people want to just talk about positive culture. They want to re-emphasize over and over again how important it is to have a positive culture and what having a positive culture can do, and on and on and on. Here's the thing that I believe. I believe that your culture isn't about being positive. It's about how do you handle when shit hits the fan. How do you handle bad things, how do you handle mistakes? That is what shows your culture, because many times, when people have a positive culture, they haven't prepared themselves for the hard and the bad things to occur. So when they happen, they just don't know what to do and they might go to the toxic positivity. They'll ignore it, they'll sweep it under the rug, they'll do everything other than hit it head on. How, when we're thinking about it, we need to think about how do we treat each other when we're losing. How do we treat each other when things get hard? How do we treat each other when I'm upset at my teammate? How do we treat each other in those type of situations when maybe you're my roommate and you haven't done the dishes yet again and I'm upset but I'm thinking about how do I not bring it onto the court or the field? Those are all things that develop your culture and those are all the things that help prepare teams when it gets to be really, really hard. Because you telling someone to stay positive, stay positive, stay positive.
Dr. Jen Fry:Well, I believe it can work, and I'm not ever saying that we shouldn't talk about positivity in a culture, but we should talk about kind of a well-rounded culture, that our culture is to be positive, to lift up our teammates. Our culture is also that when hard situations happen, that we talk through them, that we don't go to social media. We just don't go to our teammates, we talk through them. Our culture is that we have a transparency of emotion, meaning if I'm upset, just don't go to our teammates, we talk through them. Our culture is that we have a transparency of emotion, meaning if I'm upset, I don't just say I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. No, I actually explain what is going on, that we have a culture of giving and receiving honest feedback, not the culture where feedback is just thrown out with no specific but actual detail, specific feedback, and then we have a culture of being able to listen and learn from that feedback instead of immediately getting upset, mad or pissed off. Those are things that help you build a true culture that layers on with this idea of being positive, culture that layers on with this idea of being positive. But when you aren't ready to actually hit the hard things or have talked about the hard things, how are you positive? When you weren't even sure of how to navigate a conflict? How can you be positive when you're trying to talk to your teammate about something really hard or a frustration or a hurt, and they tell you no, forget about it, just be positive. Just be positive. At some point we have to understand how critical it is to help athletes be a holistic, well-rounded human. Holistic, well-rounded human and a part of that is having a culture where we understand that how we navigate hard things is a direct correlation to how we're going to treat each other when things get really, really tough, and we want to have a culture that deals with toughness.
Dr. Jen Fry:Well, friends, that's it for this episode of Five with Fry your dose of five insights, ideas and inspiration. If you love what you heard, don't forget to head over to where podcasts are played, to subscribe, share and leave a review. Got a topic you want us to tackle? Drop us a message. We love to hear from you. You can come follow me on IG, twitter, the TikTok at Jen Fry Talks, or join me on LinkedIn. Look for me at Dr Jen Fry. Until next time, stay curious, stay bold and keep the conversation going. See you on the next Five with Fry.