I will write about 1 such relationship between 2 friends, Sam and Tom. It was back in secondary school, when we were tasked with a group project. Sam, who was the smart, domineering personality type, often made decisions for Tom, the average, submissive type. During that period, we were overloaded with many assignments. Tom, who took a longer time than others to complete his work, suddenly found himself under the pressure of time. On the other hand, Sam, who had finished his assignments, wanted to start on the project immediately. Naturally, Sam, who expected Tom to begin work on the project as well, ran into a need conflict with Tom because Tom was not able to deliver his part of the project.
Sam: Tom, we need to start on the project now.
Tom: I still have unfinished work. Can we hold off on the project?
Sam: No, we cannot. The project is due next month.
Tom: I'm really busy with work though.
Sam: No means no. We will start on this project, and don't you put this project as a final priority.
Tom: ... I'll see what I can do.
The final result was that Tom never got his work done, the project ended up in a failure, and I never saw the friends hang out again. Sam, who took a competing style of conflict resolution, wanted Tom to adhere to his schedule, and would not take Tom's work into consideration. On the other hand, Tom, who took an avoiding style of conflict resolution, tried to delay the project as long as he could, but ended up failing to deliver his part of the project.
Clearly, the choice of conflict resolution was not wise. I believe both parties should have tried to reach a compromise with each other. Sam should have offered to help Tom with his work, instead of demanding Tom to hurry up. On the other hand, Tom should have been more assertive with the issue, instead of trying to avoid Sam until it was too late.
Commented:
Arman
Izaac
Wei Xiong
Commented:
Arman
Izaac
Wei Xiong
A good short analyze of the relationship between Sam and Tom.
ReplyDeleteUsually when someone says "I'll try", "I'll see what I can do" and etc, gets a bad ending based on my experience.
Tom should have managed his time better in order to finish up the project while Sam should try to help out Tom as much as possible such as looking at what he has on task list that is not done before he can move on to the project.
Tom should also prioritize on the project if the submission/presentation is earlier than all of the other project/assignments. He could also voice out and seek for assistance for his workload/assignments/project so he that he can wrap up early and get the project done.
Demanding work to be done is a bad bad bad issue, Sam should have realize that if he had calm down and think rationally.
It is sad that both of them could not get the project done due to poor communications and methods of resolving conflict was not used at all.
Hey, Marc.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I'd like to mention how interestingly your post highlights the style of conflict resolution we take based on our personality. Understanding how our personality and the resolution style we default correlate will lead to better conflict resolution as a whole. Clearly, your friends did not take that into consideration, understandably so as they were young lads at the time. Keeping this incident in mind has hopefully served them better in the present time with regards to resolution conflict.
Tom or Sam should've taken an initiative to conform to the other's style. Had at least one of them taken the first step, they might still be friends today. In light of this, it's still hard to blame either of them as it's apparent that their personalities overshadowed their ability to be objective in solving this conflict. Suppressing the need to default to our biased judgment in situations as touchy as this tends to be very difficult.
Cheers,
Arman.
Hi Marc,
ReplyDeleteIn this situation, I feel that Tom should have elaborated on what work he had unfinished and explained what the situation was on his side of things.
On his side, Sam acted as if nothing else mattered to him except for his project and as such did not think to take in to consideration why Tom was unable to start on the project now. A better approach for him would be to talk it out with Tom, find out what is preventing him from starting work on the project and see how they can find ways to work around it.