John is a highly motivated and active person. He frequently does his work in a well organised manner. This includes a detailed planning of the steps taken to accomplish each task. He organise each task in a book and expects people under his command to do the same. He is the president of the student council and ex-president of the debate club, therefore is more of a leader than a follower.
Peter, on the other hand, is the more laid back person. He takes things less seriously and is more impromptu in his work. He likes to go with the flow as it makes his mind think better and more effectively. He memorise each instruction given to him and do not really follow the methodology of solving. (This creates an opportunity for creativity.) On the surface, Peter is observed by people as a slack individual but deep inside, he does his work diligently with excellence.
When both are partnered together for an engineering project, interpersonal conflict arises. John, being the more commanding one, takes things too seriously. He is the one telling Peter what to do, instructing him on exactly what to do. Peter, on the other hand, just lay back listening to what John said without jotting down notes. Peter also disagrees with the methodology of carrying out each task set by John. This annoyed John very much and soon, John finally burst into anger and rebukes Peter. This infuriates Peter and he blasted back at John.
Let’s study each individual’s feelings. John thinks that Peter is not listening to him and takes things too lightly. John is also particular about deadlines. By looking at Peter’s attitude, he makes an assumption that Peter will not be able to meet the deadline.
Peter, on the other hand, thinks that John is being too pushy. John’s action towards him tells him that John cannot trust his own team member, a quality that is much required in a team. Peter feels demoralised to do his work after the incident.
In this situation, what could be the possible factors that lead to this conflict? If they actually managed to reconcile, what could happen if each of them still have the same personality?
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Dear Ferrino,
ReplyDeleteThat’s a pretty good conflict scenario. As we have to frequently work in teams especially in our working life, I find your conflict scenario to be highly relevant.
One of the factors that may have caused the conflict is the difference in working style. John prefers to keep everything organized and prepared well before the deadline. He is also slightly bossy. Peter on the other hand, tends to procrastinate and have unorthodox methods of getting things done. In another words, their working styles are the complete opposite of each other. Thus, it is very easy for conflicts to occur. Another factor could be the stress of trying to do well for the project. It is extremely easy to get angry while working under pressure.
I think that in this scenario, the most important thing is to not get angry. Getting angry only worsens the situation. What we need to do now is to calm down. After that, both John and Peter should apologize to each other for bursting out in anger. Then, a compromise should be made. They could agree on deadlines to complete each part of the project. As long as Peter gets his part done on time, John should not disturb him.
Regards,
Russell
Dear Ferrino,
ReplyDeleteA very common problem you've got there. I myself have experienced it with people in both roles. I have worked with people who are less organised than me and with those who are much more particular about things.
However, my take away from such encounters is that there is no right or wrong way of doing things. Both Peter and John are right in what they believe and the conflict arises only because two people of different working style are put to work together, to no fault of their own.
Such a situation requires compromise by both parties. It would be unfair of John to expect Peter to work like him. John may be a perfectionist but he must learn to accommodate for people who are not as organised as him.
On Peter's side, he must realise that even though he may be able to complete the work in time, some leaders require their team members to finish work well before the deadline so that there is no panic towards the end and so that other people may contribute to it too. He must understand the immense pressure a leader undergoes. It is natural for leaders to be worried about their team mates' work.
Being a huge FRIENDS fan, I cannot resist mentioning how Chandler and Monica had such different personalities and still got together. It was compromise on both their parts that helped them maintain their relationship.
Cheers,
Anuj
Hi Ferrino,
ReplyDeleteYour blog post is somehow similar to my blogging group member Joon Wai. Anyway, in this situation, i think they should know each other first before start working on their project.In this scenerio, i think when they start team up together, they straight away do their project without getting to know their team member better.This show that they both don't have good communication skill.They both also don't have good EQ because they easily burst into anger when someone critic their working style.
In this situation, the possible factors that lead to this conflict is poor communication skills and poor EQ. If they actually managed to reconcile, i think there are 2 possible case will happen.
The first case is, conflict happen again and it will be less serious this time because they already suffer the consequence of the conflict before, and might know when to back out. If they still continue quarreling, in the end they will do the project individually without even care of the other partner.
The Second case is, they manage to understand each other more and get along well. As they work with each other for sometimes,they will able to see all the quality and strong points of their partner.
I think the whole conflict happen is because both of them cannot control their anger well. If they have high EQ and good communication skill , conflicts like this wont happen even you are working with people with different working style.
Dear Ferrino,
ReplyDeleteLet me answer your question one by one.
In my opinion, I think the main factor of this conflict is the time. The conflict arises because both Peter and John do not spend enough time getting to know each other. Suppose they familiarized themselves with the others' personalities and styles of working, they would either not work together in one project or cooperate smoothly by maximizing their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses. However, they are so different by nature and the time they take to approach each other is so short that it necessarily follows that a conflict will arise.
Such conflicts, in my opinion, are normal, and can be resolved by a little gentle but straightforward talk with each other.In such a talk, they should first apologize to each other because of their bad behaviours; then, maybe they can speak more about their characteristics and working conditions. As John is a good leader, he should realze that his attitudes towards Peter are improper and will assign Peter with appropriate tasks. Peter, at the same time, should learn how to be a good fellow by finishing his assigned on time and put up with John’s attitudes.
Cheers,
Dam Long
Dear Ferrino,
ReplyDeleteAs both Russell and Anuj have said, the scenario you described in your post is a common scenario and is very relevant to our working life. This makes discussing it quite meaningful.
Conflict arises from differences. It occurs whenever people disagree over their values, motivations, perceptions, ideas, or desires. In light of this vision, the major cause of this conflict should be the different and more precisely the opposite personality type of Peter and John. They could not accept, could not understand, and hence disagreed over each other’s work style.
To solve this, first of all, both of them should keep calm and make the benefit of the team hence their relationships as teammates the priority. They should make sure that what do in the team and for the team are for the team’s corporate interests. Only after they can come to this consensus will their communication be effective, otherwise their communication is simply disagreements and antagonisms filled with bias.
The second step is that both of them should try to understand the other better and make himself better understood through communication, because this can eventually make it possible for them to come up with a solution that is practical and both of them can agree on.
Then at last, they should come up with such a solution. Both of their working style may or may not be very extreme. But it doesn’t mean that the problem will be unsolvable if they still have the same working style, because as long as they can figure out a practical and effective way to make them work together as a team despite their different working style the conflict can be solved and the barrier keeps them from working effectively together will be removed.
These are only some general suggestions on how to solve their conflict. To really solve it, they will have to figure out the specific implementations themselves.
Regards,
Shiyan