A Personal
Experience
Here
I will share my own experience of interpersonal conflict. It happened when I
was still a polytechnic student back in Singapore Polytechnic (SP). As you
might be aware, each student is required to form a group for their Final Year
Project (FYP). So like everyone else, I sought out my friends to form a group
with. I’ll admit we weren’t the closest of friends but we have certainly worked
on other academic projects together before. For the sake of confidentiality,
let’s call them Sara, Michael, Zul, and Halim.
Before
I go any further, I think I should give a little bit more details on our group
dynamics. Halim was our group leader, of which I am particularly close to. I find
it a lot easier to talk with him as he is very open to ideas and suggestions. Michael
is charismatic (to an extent) and could be a very persuasive talker. He was
also the man that brought the team together in the early stages. I only got to
know Zul after this project and we have remained close ever since. He is
someone you’ll describe as “awkwardly funny”. Then there is Sara, the lovely
flower among the thorns. Always bubbly, Zul and she were always able to lighten
things up a bit when the stress became unbearable.
Throughout
the entire project, we had our ups and downs. Moments of victory and defeat. Highs
and lows. But I will point to a particular period of time which I personally
think was the flashing point in our group’s relationship. In this particular
incident, I was finishing up on a technical drawing (yeap, engineer stuff)
which needed to be completed soon. We were already behind schedule. I was up
all night the previous day so the exhaustion definitely played a part. Halim
was with me to finish up the drawing as well and was well aware of my lack of
sleep. Michael was tasked to purchase an electric motor while the other two
were on a separate errand. So I received a phone call from Michael. It was bad
news, hardly the thing I needed at that moment. It turned out that he doesn’t
quite know which particular electric motor to purchase and asked for my
suggestion. What happened next was utter disaster.
Tired
and sleepy, I raised my voice. I questioned his lack of preparation. Why didn’t
he do some homework before going out to make the purchase? Why must he shove
the work to me instead? Why couldn’t he be more responsible for the assignments
that were given to him? (There were similar issues previously but that is a
different story.) Enraged at such an outburst, he raised his voice as well. So
a very loud argument ensued. Halim, who was beside me the entire time, had to
calm me down and asked that the both of us continue this conversation once he
was back. During the entire time, he acted calmly and decisively so kudos to
him. Once Michael was back, both he and I had a very good talk where we
expressed our feelings and agreed to put aside our differences for the sake of
our group. Things got a lot better after that as we have learned our lesson to
calm down and not let our emotions get the better of us before we speak with
one another. We were able to work much better with one another and the project
ended pretty successfully I might say.
Looking
back at it, I realized that a large part of the fault belongs to me. I have
learned a lot ever since about communicating with other people, both in a
professional group and generally with other people. Dissecting that particular
incident, I realized that several factors contributed to the entire outburst. First
and foremost, there was a lack of emotional control on my part. Had I been calmer
with matters, things will not have gotten so bad. Next is my misinterpretation of
Michael’s body language. When I received his call, he sounded nonchalant about
the matter which I perceived as a lack of interest in his task. At that very moment,
I felt that my anger is justified and that he should have shown more commitment
in his work. What I learned from that was to never make assumptions without
sufficient information and certainly never to condemn someone based on an
assumption.
Well
that concludes my first ever blog post. It turned out to be a lot longer than I initially
thought it will be. It might be a bit draggy but I hope you enjoy reading it! I
have learned a lot from this particular incident but have always felt that I could
have done better. Was there a side to this story that I missed? Any particular
area in which I could have done better? Do share with me on your own opinion as
I would really appreciate it. Thanks guys! =)
