Interpersonal conflicts can arise in any situation, whether at home or at school, or between family members or friends.
For this case, an interpersonal conflict occurred between Jason and Tim, two colleagues working in the same marketing team. Both are of around the same age but Jason is the head of the team and has a dominant personality. On the other hand, Tim is merely a team member.
During a recent marketing campaign for an important client company, Jason submitted his report to his boss, thinking that it was the best and had all the relevant points, without consulting the rest of his team. After finding out about this, Tim became upset and resentful that Jason had made the decision for the team without discussing it with them. He felt that the rest of the team were entitled to their opinions as well and could perhaps have added more good ideas to the report.
As a result, Tim started persuading other team-mates to join him and gang up against Jason during meetings so that there would be a majority vote on his side against Jason’s decisions.
However, this in turn led to a feeling of anger and ostracism on the part of Jason as he felt that he was being unfairly attacked by his team. Consequently, he became defensive and accused Tim of trying to get his position as team-head. This certainly did not help matters. Since then, the work relationship between these two has worsened, with tensions running high during group meetings.
As a fellow team-mate and close friend of the two people concerned, I ignored the problem between them. What could I have done instead to help resolve the interpersonal conflict between them?
Final Reflection
14 years ago
I think Jason needs a lesson on the spirit of teamwork while Tim needs one on respecting leader. And I recommend extra classes on self-awareness and anger management for both of them.
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note, I doubt you could interfere in this dispute which seemed to have got out of hand. You mentioned that Jason felt he was attacked by his team, which unfortunately means you were also part of the gang working against him. I guess the only thing you can do is to advise Tim to have a talk with Jason to voice his unhappiness over Jason's self-dominant attitude. If that doesn't work, you and your team mates should really consider having a new leader who can work in a team.
I felt that both Tim and Jason were rather childish. They went about complaining, whining and staging a boycott when talking to each other would be much easier. In the worst situation, both of them might be fired for bringing disharmony to the workplace.
ReplyDeleteLike what Wan Wei suggested, i think that you could be the mediator since you are a close friend to both of them. Bring them together and let them talk. When the discussion gets heated, you can step in to cool them down as a third party. Remind them of the goals of the team. Let them know what the other party is thinking and how the current situation is not going to benefit any of them. Hopefully, they can settle their differences.
-Chee Siang
Tim’s action to gang up against Jason was totally uncalled for. If his motive was to portray Jason as an incapable leader during meetings, he was doing it at the expense of the company’s interest. This would not reflect well on him if the management were to find out. If his intention was merely to voice out his resentment, he should have explored other more effective and amicable communication channels. It was not sensible to create conflict and sour work relationship.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, I feel that females have amazing persuasive and mediation powers. I agree with Wan Wei and Chee Siang that you could have played a mediator role. Meanwhile, you could have helped Tim to control his anger and dissuade him from taking the wrong action.
I think that Jason might have some untold difficulties. Given the benefit of doubt, perhaps there was a very tight schedule for the marketing campaign or he did it alone by himself without wanting to overwork his team. However, Jason lacked of a little self-awareness whereby he did not really think in the shoes of his team members and thought of the possible consequences. As a result, sparks flied and Tim got mad over Jason’s selfish action.
ReplyDeleteIt is normal for one to be angry, but Tim got a little overboard when he decided to take things into his own hands. Tim’s ability to persuade the other team mates shows that he must have some particular form of relationship management whereby he could relate himself very well with the other members. Note that he was just a team member in the marketing team. However, the relationship management was used in a wrong way and Tim was not able to self-regulate his emotions. Instead of taking a step back and thought matters through, Tim let his anger got the better of him.
Jason reciprocated to Tim’s animosity and spouted false accusations of Tim wanting to abscond his position as team-leader. Supposedly in a managerial position, Jason should know better than Tim the importance of self-management of one’s emotions when facing a conflict. He could have simply used the velvet hammer approach, whereby the conflict could be handled more positively. This could have greatly alleviated much tension for subsequent group meetings. On the other hand, Tim could have taken the pulley approach and try to give and take in this situation. Trying to understand what Jason had in mind and then amicably approach him for a short talk about what he has done would have served a better way of expressing his feelings.
On the side note, it is better for alleged parties to resolve matters amongst themselves.
Regards,
Ivan
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very completely described scenario, Abby. You paint a clear picture of the characters involved and the conflict itself. You've also generated fine feedback from your blogging mates. Thank you for a very good post!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that as I read this, I thought to myself that it sounds like a rather typically American scenario with fragile egos involved (this from my experience working in several American universities).
Are these characters Asians?
Thank you all for your comments. I think that you have all thought deeply about the situation and applied really sound methods.
ReplyDeleteAs for Brad's question, I would have to say that yes, they are Asians. This conflict actually occurred to my group in one of my business modules, however, I modified the scenario slightly for confidential purposes.
If I had gotten such great advice previously, our interpersonal conflict might have been resolved before our group actually fell apart.
Thanks.
-Abigail
Hello abby!
ReplyDeleteWow it really sounds like a familiar situation to me because it had happened before in my CCA.
I feel that Jason was lacking empathy on his part. His EQ is pretty low as he did not consider his members' feelings for not informing them. This is, in fact, lack of communication which will eventually churn out a big problem at the end!
On the other hand, I feel that Tim is really childish in trying to stage a revenge against Jason. He did not exercise self-regulation of his emotions by letting his emotions get the better of him! He did not realise that by doing this, he is actually ruining the working relationship further instead of trying to salvage it.
In order to prevent such a situation, Tim could have used "The Glue" technique. Tim should have managed this difficult situation by connecting and understanding Jason's emotions. By doing so, he can employ a more diplomatic method of resolving problems by having a face-to-face conversation with him to discuss issues between them instead of being defensive about himself!