When we
work with people of different interests, conflicts are bound to arise. Learning
to resolve such interpersonal conflicts has never been easy for me, be it with
people of similar or different status from me. I feel that the difficulty lies
in being able to make my stand yet not willing to spoil the professional
relationship I share with the implicated party.
The
conflict I am about to share happened to me recently. Last semester, I
participated in an exchange program to Canada and became good friends with my
roommate. We decided to group together with another guy, X for a school
project.
As time
progressed I started to get a good grasp of the two different working styles of
my roommate and X. X is someone who is result-driven and believes in finishing
the task on hand as soon as possible. On the other hand, my roommate prefers to
embrace the life of an exchange student and believes in living for the moment. Inevitably,
their different working styles soon led to a quarrel between them halfway
through the project.
As an onlooker,
I am able to make unbiased judgements behind the cause of the quarrel. However,
the difficulty lies in expressing my opinions and yet maintaining the
friendship I share with both of them. In addition, I also faced difficulty then
in getting them to put aside their differences and work on the project.
What
should I have done?
Hi Min Yu,
ReplyDeleteI think you could have tried to voice out your opinions, talking to each of them separately as a friend, explaining to each of them the other's person point of view, and asking them to tolerate more on each other since each of them have different priorities in life. All of you should be able to come together and set a deadline somewhere in the middle (not too early and not too late), so that your roommate could still enjoy herself and the project could still be finished on time.
Talking to each of them separately as a friend is a better idea in my opinion as it won't make any of them think that you are on the other's side. Also, it gives them time to think before they say anything to the other party, compared to when you voice it out when 3 of you are together.
Hello Josephine,
DeleteYup, I do like your advice and will probably try it out if something similar happens in the future!
Thank you!
hi min yu!
ReplyDeleteFirstly it is important to calm both of your friends down as anger has the power to destroy the best of friendships. Once their anger towards each other were kept at bay, you should voice out your opinions. It is likely that they would rationally consider your opinions once they had calmed down.
Personally, I feel that instead of maintainig a third party perspective, you should step into their shoes so that all of you can make progress in discussion and joint decision-making.
I enjoyed reading your concise blog post. However, I do have issues with its concreteness and correctness.
It is rather tough thinking of a resolution to your interpersonal conflict as your conflict lacked specific details on the quarrel between your friends.
In addition, there may be an issue of tenses in the last paragraph. Instead of 'As an onlooker, I am able to make unbiased judgements behind the cause of the quarrel', perhaps it should be 'As an onlooker, I was able to make judgements...'.
Overall, this is an enjoyable and coherent blog post! (:
Hello! Thank you for your comments! I do agree that I have not elaborated much on the actual situation as it did happen quite a while ago and I cant remember the exact details!
DeleteCheers, Min Yu
Hello Min Yu!
ReplyDeleteMy proposed solution will be that you initiate to talk to your roommate and X separately in private to help them understand from each other’s point of view and recognize the other party’s emotions. Next, you can suggest to them to try to be more open and accepting of the other party’s perspectives and needs, and then seek to come to a compromise harmoniously from both parties. This way, with better understanding and empathy for one another, the group will be likely to proceed on with the project amicably and deliver the final submission successfully.
Thank you for the concise post you made, which made reading and understanding the crux of the issue easy!
However, like Amira, I feel that perhaps you could have included more examples to elaborate on how your two friends were different in their working styles, what exactly triggered the first argument they had, and some details on the arguments that took place. With these, it would make your post more complete and concrete. This way, it would also be more effective for your readers to give you more constructive solutions to the issue, tackling the main problem that really took place rather than they having to imagine themselves what could have happened between your two friends.
In addition, I thought that maybe your sentence "As time progressed I started to get a good..." should be "As time progressed, I started to get a good...".
In summation, your post had a good flow of thoughts and framework, which made the delivery of your message clear and easy to comprehend! Probably more narration on the events that took place can provide a better picture of the interpersonal conflict to your readers! :)
Hello Jieying,
DeleteThank you for your lengthy comment! I should have included more details about the actual situation but it did happen a while ago that I could not exactly remember what happened. But thanks for your advice! If something similar happened again, I will probably employ what you said! :D
This is very clear and concise, Min Yu. In a short post you've created the characters in a fashion that is memorable, and you've presented a tight problem scenario. You've also garnered lots of useful, insightful feedback.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the effort!
Thank you Brad! I am glad that my classmates are able to provide such insightful solutions and will be trying them out if something similar happens again!
Delete