Many people fear conflicts with others, yet conflicts are common for people. As we proceed with daily life, there is always something that will trigger us, and a conflict will happen. Interpersonal conflict, as for how it is called, is the conflict between two people. How to manage interpersonal conflicts becomes one of the most important skills for workplaces.
I personally had a terrible experience about interpersonal conflict during my polytechnic school time. It was my year 2 and I was studying Diploma in Information Technology. We had a year long module that we had to find someone to team up and do it together for a year. Someone, I should address him as A want to join my group because we were short of one person so we agreed. So there were 3 people in the team, my friend, A and me. Then...A disappeared.
I was shocked when I heard A was under medical care at home to the extent that he cannot come to school, yet I saw him playing DOTA in steam( I added his steam account). He could not come to school so he was always absent on project meeting, so my friend and I had to do the year-long project by ourselves. I was really upset when I saw him playing games in steam yet giving excuses when we invite him to the team meeting, however, I am really bad at managing conflict so I chose to avoid conflict by ignoring him and take on his job. After three months he was completely MIA from the project, and we nearly forgot about A. Of course, at the end he failed this year long module which has 10 credits. Both my friend and A got A for this module.
However, I felt bad because I could have helped him to pass if I have a good interpersonal conflict solving skill or if I had taken COM150 before this, we could work together and less burden will be taken by my friend and I. Due to my lack of interpersonal conflict solving skill, I missed this chance we had to work day and night to finish the project. I chose to avoid the matter and in the end, it was a LOSE-LOSE situation. However, it is really hard for an introvert to speak up and tell him directly, I know this is bad but I could not help. Is there any suggestion from you guys that can help me to improve this fear to speak up?
