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?
Hi Zhihua,
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion, pertaining to your case, is to try to empathise with his situation. To be at home under medical care for so long, A must have went through major surgery hence the long recovery process. He could be feeling really down and resorted to gaming to distract himself from thinking all the negative feelings.
Since the conflict has passed, may this serves as a reminder that if anyone from your project group fails to perform or even participate in meetings, try to empathise.
Once you empathise with that person, naturally you will want to help and that will overcome the fear of speaking up.
Good luck,
Singgee
Hi ZhiHua,
ReplyDeleteI can understand how you feel towards this situation, as I am also introvert and always keep avoiding conflict. But we should learn how to deal with conflict rather than running away from it. When we choose not to face our problem, the problem still exists or might even become worst. Therefore, we should step out of our comfort zone.
My suggestion for improving your fear to speak up is try and understand the other parties point of view. This is because that things that we see are only on the surface and the other parties might have their explanation to their action. Therefore, we should always share how we feel about the situation so that everyone will know what is really going on. Rather than everyone is playing the guessing game and think negatively about the other parties.
Hence, I feel that most of the conflict can be resolve simply just by clearing up the misunderstanding. Hope that this can help you in the future!
All the best,
Wan Jie
Hi Zhihua,
ReplyDeleteReflect on your fear of speaking up. Where does your fear come from?