You have started avoiding someone
Meetings are rerouted and messages left, and the work is suffering quietly.
Courses
See what you would learn
Deal with a difficult colleague without avoiding them or blowing up.
A course on tension between peers. It covers understanding what the other person is protecting, choosing a conversation over a slow freeze, and keeping it constructive when neither of you can simply walk away.
Open Cadence on the App Store, type the sentence when it asks what you want to learn, and answer a few setup questions. Free to start. Android testers can request early access.
Type this when Cadence asks what you want to learn
I want to handle tension with a colleague without avoiding them or escalating the conflict. Help me understand competing needs and have a constructive conversation.
Change any word so it fits your situation. The course is built from what you type and a few setup questions.
- Best for
- Work relationships
- Prerequisites
- None. Bring the situation you have.
- Course length
- 7 to 30 lessons, sized to your goal
- Lesson pace
- About 10 minutes a day
- Format
- Read it, or play the audio
- Access
- Available on the App Store, with early features and Android testing access
Before the course is built
Setup asks about your situation first.
Lesson 1 opens on the moment you describe, and the examples use your role. For this request, expect questions like these.
- Is the tension with one person or a pattern with a few?
- Is it about how work gets done, about credit, or about something personal that leaked into work?
- Do you need to keep working closely with them, or mainly to stop dreading them?
Right for now
If any of this sounds familiar, start here.
It flared once and never settled
One sharp exchange sits between you and colours everything since.
You cannot tell if it is them or you
The dynamic is bad and you do not trust your own read of it.
Course arc
Where the course goes, in order.
Cadence writes the lessons for you, so the exact path follows your answers. This is the ground a course built from this sentence covers.
01 / 06What tension is made of
Competing needs, status, style and old history, and how to tell which is active.
Your part in it
Checking your own read honestly, without taking all the blame or none.
Avoidance and escalation
Why both feel safer than a conversation, and what they cost over months.
Opening the conversation
Naming the dynamic rather than the person, and inviting their view.
When it stays tense
Working agreements, boundaries and when to involve someone else.
Repairing over time
Small consistent moves that shift a relationship without a grand reconciliation.
What changes
What you will be able to do, and what you will stop believing.
You will be able to
Understand what the tension is about
See the competing needs underneath the friction.
Choose to talk, and how
Open a conversation about the dynamic without accusation.
Work together anyway
Agree how you will operate even if you never become friends.
Ideas this course corrects
Time will settle it
Unaddressed tension hardens. Time helps only after a conversation has happened.
You need to like each other
You need a way to work together. Liking is optional and often follows.
Course questions
What to know before you start.
Is this a fixed course?
No. Cadence builds the course when you type the sentence and answer a few setup questions, so the lessons follow your situation. This page describes what a course built from this request covers. You see the whole path before Lesson 1.
Who is this course for?
A course on tension between peers. It covers understanding what the other person is protecting, choosing a conversation over a slow freeze, and keeping it constructive when neither of you can simply walk away. It sits under Work relationships in the Work & ambitions part of the library.
Do I need any prior experience?
No. Setup asks what you already know and where you want to use it, and the course starts from there. Bring a real situation if you have one; the examples are built around it.
How long does it take?
Courses run 7 to 30 lessons of about 10 minutes, sized to what you asked for. One lesson a day is the intended pace, and you can go faster. Lessons can be read or played as audio.
Does this course award a certificate or degree?
No. Cadence is for practical self-learning and does not award accredited degrees or professional certification.
Start today
Type it, answer a few questions, open Lesson 1.
The sentence to type
I want to handle tension with a colleague without avoiding them or escalating the conflict. Help me understand competing needs and have a constructive conversation.
Open Cadence on the App Store, type the sentence when it asks what you want to learn, and answer a few setup questions. Free to start. Android testers can request early access.