Nowadays, more and more students from mainland will
choose to acquire further study in HK because of the high education
quality. In the same time, the study styles are different between mainland
and HK. One of the example is that students study in HK need to form teams
among different courses. Students should finish the course projects or
assignments in the form of groups. This way can help students learn from each
other and cultivate team spirit of cooperation. However, different team members
have different background, different cultures, different personalities and so
on.It is inevitable for team members having conflicts.
Scenario:
In the first class of course X, Tom, Sam and Lily
happened to seat together. They talked to each other. They found they both come
from mainland and had a lot of common interests. When the form of a group, they
decided to be the team members.
However, in the second and third class, Lisa didn't come
to class. Sam and Lily realized that Tom was not willing to attend classes.
He always said he had many other things to do in the class time. But they
were a team. They need to finish in class exercises together. Finally, Tom
came to class next week. But he didn't want to do presentation. What was
worse, he always sticked to his opinions in the group discussions. It was hard
for them to achieve a same point. Time passed, they had more and more conflicts. Can
they resolve their conflicts and finish the course X successfully? video address: https://youtu.be/ZyGt_jdNFKc
Methodologies:
Conflict Resolution Modes
Groups’ uses of March and
Simon’s [4J modes of conflict resolution (problem-solving, persuasion,
bargaining, and politicking), were assessed, again via a constant- sum scale, using
an adaptation of nine conflict resolution statements developed by Patchen [5], and
Renwick [6]. The statements used were:
1. When differences arose,
more information was obtained and/or further analyzed.
2. In group meetings or other
interaction, members played down differences and emphasized common points of
view.
3. The decision was reached
through negotiations and bargaining.
4.When differences arose,
there was a search for an immediate position; a compromise was sought.
5.Problems were brought out
into the open and carried out to resolution even though feelings were hurt.
6.One or more individuals used
the power of their knowledge to win acceptance of their point of view.
7.A survey of opinion was
taken and the majority ruled in making the decision.
8.Group politics played a
dominant role in the decision making.
9.Everyone in the group makes
a valuable contribution to decisions.
Objective:
We want to solve the common
conflicts among team members across different kinds of conflict management.
This letter is based on a real story of one
of our member, who had a tough time with his/her roommates. Of course we did
some modification. But most of the cases in the letter are what really
happened. The letter mainly complained about the conflicts between roommates, the
feelings of the complainer to his/her roommates and the following measures
suggested.
Dear Jim:
I’m very sorry to have to write you this letter, but you have left me no
other choice. I have tried to discuss this issue with you in person, but you
always come back home late or you are sleeping in daytime. As such, I have forwarded
this letter to you in an attempt to get these issues resolved.
You always come back home late, usually after 11:00 at night. Sometimes,
you even live outside. You have few words with us. When you come back, you will
open your computer and play computer games with your friends. You will wear a
headphone and talk to your friends. We can hear what you say clearly from our
bedrooms. Usually, you will play for about two or three hours, then you will go
to sleep. On the second day, you will sleep until midday. Your living room is
in a mess. We can see clothes, socks or pants everywhere. You never clean your
room.
You
always slam your door with a very loud voice. And you never wash your dishes
after dinner. Sometimes you even use my dishes and leave them unwashed so that
I have to go out to eat. I remember once, you pushed me to clean the washbasin.
After I cleaning the washbasin, I vomited. I told you I didn’t feel well, why
didn’t you listen to me? And I even don’t understand why you gave me tens of
coins as the electricity fee every time. I got more than 100 coins from you
until now.
As my roommate, I understand that you have an equal right to enjoy the
space we live in. However, I really want to tell you that your behaviors
bothered me a lot.The voice of your playing
computer at midnight and talking to your friends really drives me crazy. Don’t
you know that other people were sleeping when you were playing your games? Your
voice has seriously disturbed our rest. And I feel really disappointed with
your mess living room. Every time I pass your place, I would be stuck by your
stuff and I really hate that. I can’t even bring my friends to our home. You
should think more about other people, taking others’ feeling into
consideration. This is the place where we live together, right?
If you want to use
something of other’s, why don’t you ask for other’s consents in the first
place? I feel very angry about your using my stuff unauthorized, for I feel not
being respected. Only if you respect others can others respect you. We are all
from one-child families, I think we need more mutual understanding instead of
self-centered. If you want to get a clean room or a clean environment, do not
rely on others. You should earn the respect from others by yourself. I guess
you want to spend your coins since they are too heavy. But they are also heavy
to me! And I cannot give all these coins to people who charge the fee. How can
you not consider my feeling? Frankly speaking, I was really pissed off by your
selfish behaviors.
If
this situation continues, I have to take measures to solve this problem, since
it did affect my living condition. Actually, I need to talk to you and all of
us three have to sit together to have a conference. To negotiate how we should
act in a proper way. We should list the facts that we did not perform properly
and the facts that we cannot give up. By discussion, we may have a clear way to
correct ourselves behavior and all of us should take into action. Then our relationship
would get better and more furnished.
Also,
there is still one way that I can figure out. In the case of you feel the injustice;
you may invite someone as the third party to watch the process. If there is
anything that is unfair to you, the person can speak it out for you. We also do
not want others to say we two challenge you with power. This conversation will
be the most formal between us, which allows us exchange the ideas and repair
our relationship. We take it significant to reform the damaged rules and please
consider it equally significant as we reckon. Do not miss the last chance to
resolve your grievances and set new orders with our willing. We will also
appreciate your devotion both in time and effort.
Or, if you do not spare any effort to do the correction, Jack and I
would teach you and give you another chance. If you still do nothing to comfort
us, we would no longer show tolerance toward you. Also, if you do not attend
the conference, we will no longer be friends or so-called roommates. There is
no necessary conversation between us, which we both parties do not want to
witness.
Yours Mike
Analysis
About
the aims of the letter
I think this class can provide us a good
way to express our real feelings and thoughts through this kind of assignment.
Although the letter is adapted from a true story, we do not expect the letter
would solve the conflict between the team member and his/her roommates. We just
want to show the facts that happened and want to express the real feelings.
Actually no one can be perfectly objective or possess absolute rationality. We
have tried our best to have a fair and objective perspective to tell the story.
We hope this letter will cause some thinking on how to communicate with people
and how to get along well with people. And we also welcome the follow-up
discussion on this problem.
About
the writing process
At the beginning we discussed for a long
time on how to determine the topic. Then we decided to write a complaint letter
for roommates because dormitory conflicts seems to be a very popular topic and
some of our team members suffered similar problems. So we thought this topic is
a good idea and it aroused our sympathy.
Ladder
of inference.
Actually a number of facts are listed in the
first part and Mike tried to tell things in a narrative way. But as a matter of
fact, Mike might have already been in the ladder of inference because what Mike
saw might have been selected in his head. He had his assumptions before and
drew a conclusion on Jim, so what he saw is based on the assumptions and conclusions
in his head. Since Jim didn't leave a good image on him (few words/back home
late), his impression on Jim can’t be good. And what happened next just worsen
the image. So ladder of inference will create bad judgement on a person. And
that was only one possible situation.
Ladder of inference is a graphically
illustration of how Mental model affects people to form conclusions and
beliefs. Mental model is first proposed in 1943 by a Scottish psychologist
Kenneth Craik. Peter Senge defines it as: deep-rooted presence in people's
minds, influence how people understand the world (including ourselves, others,
the organization and the world), as well as how to take action based on many
assumptions, prejudices, logic, rules, and even images impression, etc.
So
the ladder of inference is just a type of manifestations of how your entrenched
ideas affect your understanding and reaction. And wrong thoughts will create
conflicts to your life and that was what we are trying to avoid. So Jim was
deemed to be a person who loves playing games and never taking care of others
and somewhat doesn’t respect others.
Lacking
Communication
One of the reasons that causes conflicts might
be from the ladder of inference, Another one might be from the lacking of
communication. As mentioned before, Jim left people an impression of uncommunicative
and love playing games, also a little bit mean and dirty. This image can be
changed by doing more communication. The thing is they do not even have a
chance to talk to each other about the problem, since these people do not have
a unified schedule. Jim always comes back home when his roommates are asleep. So
conflicts are just like a snowball, keep growing. We strongly believe that if
there was enough communication, their relationship wouldn't be that bad.
Conflicts are always there. It is just that we can’t make it grow. Huge
conflicts finally make Mike burst out. He showed strong feelings of angry and disappointment
in the middle of the letter.
Measures to improve the situation
Reflection
Reflection can provide both sides a way to
re-examine the issue. Without complaining about others, find the answer from our
own. Through reflection, we may find omissions. As old Chinese saying goes:” 静坐常思己过” Sitting
quietly, often reflect on your own fault. People always like to see other’s
fault first instead of looking inside their own, right? But looking outside, conflicts
are more likely to be created. When you look inside, peace and truth are more
likely to be created. Actually, there is a term called Vipassana which is
from ancient India. Translated into Chinese is“内观“. That is to say,
to look inside your heart and somehow you might find out the answer of the truth. You
may notice what you ignored and that find out that you might be thoughtless.
Perspective
thinking
Seeing things from other’s perspective can
be
really helpful in some cases. Just pretend to be Jim and start to analyze the
whole thing. Maybe Mike also has done something wrong before. And what he
suffered is just Jim’s revenge. Or he didn't notice that his behavior disturbed
his roommates because he couldn't hear his own voice by wearing headphones. That
sounds like finding excuses for him. But that helps to think out of the box.
Deep
communication
In the last part of the letter, we
mentioned that a third party can play an important role in improving the
communication. The existence of a third party will relieve the tension to some
extent. Both sides would get a certain degree of security so that they are willing to
create a dialogue. Deep communication is meant to establish common sense, not
to create opposition. In the conversation, people will abandon prejudice and
use rational thinking and listening to find out real truth that hidden behind
things. I guess through this kind of communication, more things will come
clear. Some conflicts will be avoided.
Other
insights
Resolve conflicts when they are not serious
and develop a rule at the very beginning
Do not accumulate conflicts. Most of the
time, Chinese people prefer to tolerant others when they feel offended. Then
this feeling will grow like a cancer with the time goes by. Just put the
problem on the table and speak out the feelings at beginning of the
relationship instead of bursting out when it is irremediable.
Develop the rule in the first place so that
everybody would know what is the boundary and which line should not be crossed.
Similarly, that’s why the society needs law. People’s behaviors need to be
regulated or else conflicts will happen.
Scenario 1 depicts
a relatively depressing group discussion. It is a more traditional group
discussion because the supervisor is responsible for controlling the pace and
has the power to decide and judge. When we do the exercise, Tianxiao was the
supervisor of the group. She demonstrated a strong and tough image who can
interrupted and broke anyone’s word so as to control the pace. Naijia played
the role of M1 and Chen played the role of M2. At the very beginning, Chen
wanted to state his opinion while the supervisor designated Naijia as the first
member to speak out her opinion. However, the supervisor mercilessly
interrupted her speech and let Chen to talk next. Every time a member came up
with an idea, she would always find some disadvantages which was very annoying.
Scenario 2 show
the totally opposite way of discussion. Everyone in this group can speak out
any ideas they’d like to say without anyone’s permission. We played the roles
of 3 group members. We were more relaxed in the discussion and lots of good
ideas came out. It is not stiff at all and everyone was willing to express. So
the idea of promoting an innovative kitchen was presented and then the other members
started to think about the pros and cons and finally they reached an agreement.
Movie Script:
Scenario 1：
S：today, we will have a meeting on how to sell our melon cutter, which I direct whole process. Without my permission, nobody could speak randomly, everyone has 30s to present your ideas. If you do not obey the rules, there willbe a bad record.
M2: S, Shall I state my opinion?
S: Nope, In order, M1 speak first.
M1: Well…… summer is coming, watermelon is on a good sale, that the people want a tool which can cut the melons conveniently. Here is the time that we can satisfy the public needs. I will introduce the specific function of our newly developed device: First of all, melon cutter is another kind of knife, which has the same function but more professional. As a knife, the biggest advantage is sharp and durable. Our……
S：Stop! Time’s up, it is M2 turn.
M2: Okay, our melon cutter is safe that there is a separation between your hands and blade. In other words, we add a handle to the melon cutter. Moreover, we exploit stainless material which is not easily get mold no matter how damp the weather is.
S: Well…let me do a brief summary for you first and I will comment on M1 then. You mentioned safe handle. Won’t it raise the cost? How much is a melon cutter? And How much are 2 handles?And that accounts for a good feature? I really doubt that. You should have found a better selling point.
M1, Knife must be sharp, and you are talking nonsense. You do not need to say it in the report. And you speak too slow and without highlights. I really can’t see your point.
Next I will give you one chance to speak, M1, you first.
M1: Our melon cutter has automatic mode. You just need to put it on the watermelon and it will automatically move downwards until the whole melon is done.
M2:That’s right, this function is the most fascinating one!
S: M2, I didn’t call you…..
Scenario 2:
M1: Hi, I have a good idea about our new product.
M2: you always have lots of ideas.
M3: Come on, speak out.
M1: last week, my wife invited a lot of friends to our home. I cut two watermelons for our friends. You know, watermelons were so juicy that each time I cut the juice was splashed out everywhere. And it was hard for me to cut each piece equally. Then I have watched a TV show, I saw a tool that can strip pecan shell easily and quickly. So I start to think if I can design a device that can cut watermelon easily and equally.
M3: wow, it’s a good idea. Now it is summer, it’s the peak season of watermelon selling. We can take this chance to push our new product to the market. And we are the first company to product the cut watermelon device. We can make money.
M2: is it safe enough when people use it?
M1: of course, it is. We will match protective sleeve with this device and when people use it, where people tough is handle not the device itself.
M2: we need to calculate the cost of producing this product and find out if we can reduce the cost to the lowest.
M3: well, my job is to do a good advertisement and make this product reach as many as potential customers.
M1: I believe it will be very popular this summer in China.
Inhibition of arriving at the optimal goal in team work
A positive atmosphere is crucial to team work. If the team members are not allowed to laugh out when it needs, it must be spiritless. Also it may not enlighten other member to generate creative ideas.
Motivation is also critical to the team work. If the supervisor is capable to give positive comments rather than bad judgments, which may excite the team members and make them enjoy their job.
In the first pitch, I was inhibited by the order of giving speech. I have to get the permission of the supervisor and share my thoughts. While, many times the thoughts are flashed which cannot be caught, when I asked for share the thoughts almost gone. In other words, the restriction kills ideas.
Facilitation of arriving at the optimal goal in team work
For exercise A1, our supervisor has very rich working experience in this industry so that he can make the right decision most times based on our ideas or suggestions. Besides, each time the supervisor decides something is a good idea he also has to point out two negative aspects. That means he has a long-term perspective and debate positive way of thinking.
For exercise A2, everyone can speak out his or her ideas and opinions freely. Like a brain storming, we can have many creative ideas from different aspects in a short time. This way encourages innovation. After the discussion, we can get the optimal idea and all the team member can learn from each other through the discussion.
The facilitation of group discussion
In exercise 2, the rights of sharing opinions are equal to everyone that each of us can give suggestions. The sparkles of hot discussion collide and generate more new ideas.
Communication skill is more significant than that in exercise 1, since it is a collaborative discussion. In the case, team member should not only expresses his own opinion but also listen to other suggestions or judgments. Making a note to record the meeting which is more convenient to make a decision to a new product.
feelings and perceptions
In exercise A1, when deciding the order of the speech or controlling the pace of the discussion the supervisor may feel the power, while we members would feel frustrated. I think in the deep heart people need to be recognized, which can derive strength for them. However, when you are not recognized, what will happen? That’s right, people will gradually lose passion or enthusiasm. Then who wants to say anything?Can’t we just be straight from the heart and not to be disturbed? Sure. In exercise A2, people just say what they want to say and there was no uncomfortable feelings at all when we do exercise A2.
Contradiction
Actually there do exist contradictions. In exercise A1, no one liked the supervisor because she was so mean on everyone and so picky. But on her perspective, everything she did was aiming at the goal. She was the boss and she was the one to responsible for the whole team.
To solve this kind of contradiction, the understanding of the group members as well as the personal communication skills of the leader are equally important.
Another contradiction that cannot be ignored is the rule of the company. The supervisor has to point out disadvantages of every good idea. And that contradiction was not from the supervisor herself but the environmental factors. Here is the rule, you can talk and I must pick holes.
Anticipation and expectation
The supervisor in exercise A1 wanted to control the discussion process and to be the decision maker. Her duty was to provide smooth progress and constructive comments. We members in the group just wanted to put up our ideas. But only supervisor got what she wanted. Personally speaking, I didn’t feel respected. Besides, I felt really nervous when she called me.
On the opposite, I felt relaxed and burst of inspiration when in the second situation. What I expect is to speak out my idea smoothly, being respected and trusted. I got what I wanted.
Understanding of the readings
First of all, Collaboration is the basic need for most of the team to work well. Actually writing blog is also a type of communication. When we want to do the pitch, I think the most important thing lies in whether we have a common sense to work as a team. That is to say, we devote ourselves to the team instead of working individually.
But how to build collaboration? I think the essential need is trust. The thing is when do you choose to trust someone? There are many factors that influence trust between people. Risk tolerance, Level of adjustment, Relative power, Security, Number of similarities, Alignment of interests, Benevolent concern, Capability, Predictability and Integrity and Level of Communication.
So in a team of obvious power difference like in exercise 1, trustees of lower authority will feel less comfortable to trust. So maybe in this situation team members' ideas will be oppressed which will not be conductive to the creativity of the team. But if the team leader show benevolent concern for others and are of high capability. what's more, if team members share high alignment of interests and can also communicate freely in this team, things may become different. In exercise 2, there is no supervisor. And the members will feel more similarities between each other. And there is no relative power between them which indicate that they will be more likely to trust others .Under this kind of trust, people are more willing to express their own opinion, for they won't be criticized by people of authority. And that will help to establish an environment that everyone can speak freely which may contribute to the creativity of the whole team.
Under conditions of high trust, problem solving tends to be creative and productive. Under conditions of low trust, problem solving tends to be degenerative and ineffective.
R. Wayne Boss, 1977
Harvard Business Review,
Trust plays an important role in:
Anticipating the emotional effects that decisions and actions might have on others.
Responding tactfully and respectfully in emotional situations.
Eliciting the perceptions, feelings, and concerns of others.
Recognizing that conflict is inevitable and using it to strengthen relationships.
And we make a comparison between case 1 and case 2 in trust from these aspects. First, in the case 1, if the supervisor has some emotional effects to one member in the team, his idea may not be accepted though it is a good idea. But in the case 2, everyone is equal and the last decision is made by the result that all the members discuss. That means, the supervisor should be a person who controls emotion well. Second, in the case 1, the supervisor is the god. He makes all the decisions so that he doesn’t allow the existing of conflicts. But in the case 2, the conflicts are the most common things. The more conflicts may lead to better ideas at last.
Creativity
Case 1
Case 2
Freedom
Somewhat restricted
No restriction
Ego
Less self-concern
Self-concern
Type of Consciousness
Tighter mode; convergent
Looser mode; divergent
Emotional capability
Blocks/Vulnerability/Negative emotions
persistence, tolerance of ambiguity and intuition; willingness to take risk
Encouragement
A supervisor who don’t support
No supervisor,
Ladder of inference
Organizational encouragement
A culture that don’t support creativity and communicates a shared vision of organization
Support creativity and communicates
We made a comparison between case 1 and case 2 from the view of creativity.
It is obvious that case 1 showed more freedom of case 2 since in case 1 everybody has to report their idea to the supervisor and then let the supervisor to make a decision. The atmosphere of case 2 seems more relaxed because “everyone is created equal “and people have fewer restrictions.
Another thing is that under this sort of supervision mechanism of case 1, people seem to “lose self”, for people maybe focus more on the whole team instead of themselves. While in the situation of case 2, there will be higher self-concern.
As a matter of fact, there are two types of thinking mode. People in case 1 are more close to the tighter mode while people in case 2 are more like the looser one. The difference is that Case 1 is more likely to produce a more convergent thinking whereas case 2 a more divergent thinking.
From the emotional view, there may have more emotional blocks for the group. The supervisor is sure to point out disadvantages of every good idea members come up with which will result in emotional vulnerability and cause negative emotions of members. Case 2 doesn’t seem to have this problem because members possess a higher tolerance of ambiguity between each other. And they are willing to take risk of speaking out different ideas.
Besides, encouragement of these 2 cases are totally different. Case 1 is actually under a circumstance of no support. What the supervisor did is suppressing the opinions of members and they may feel frustrated. In case 2, there is no supervisor at all. Members can speak freely. What’s more, under a more relaxed and free circumstance, the group is likely to avoid arbitrary decision. Group members will have chances to illustrate and to avoid the listeners to jump up the ladder.
One thing we should not omit is that the culture of the case 1 actually doesn’t support creativity and communicate a shared vision of organization. So they lack organizational encouragement. Case 2 potentially created an environment of encouragement and that helps to bring out more creativity.
Teamwork
Case 1
Case 2
reliability
Supervisor is dominant in the discussion, absolute authority
Need time to build competency in discussion
Promise
Clear performer , clear team member clear finish line
Clear team member
Routines
unclear finish line
sincerity
Absolute power
Relative equal
Team work:
Reliability: The supervisor has the dominant competency in discussion. Team members have to believe in him and have little chance to say “no”. When they want to speak out their belief, they had to get the agreement of supervisor.
However, in case 2, they build the reliability according to the analysis by themselves. By listening to the others’ ideas, whether the idea is practicable and predicable can be known. The leader who allocates most reliability comes out automatically.
Promise: The performer is the supervisor, and the expectation and satisfaction condition is clear, since they are all judged by supervisor.
The finish line may be not that clear due to their hot discussion in case 2. Finally, they may not get a result as a conclusion.
Sincerity: In case 1, team members may hesitate to speak out their ideas in the power of supervisor. Supervisor always deny them which may lead to unspoken conversation. It has the great possibility of keeping silence that everybody is reluctant to say a word.
In case 2, the problem can be solved by asking details openly, without fear for any power and punishment.
Some reverse thinking
We found some examples of videos that show
good team work and bad team work.
From the bad example, we can see that although
leader is very important in influencing the teamwork. But the members also have significant
impact on teamwork.
From the good example, we can see that
there still exist some good teamwork with good supervisor.
Conclusion
To build a good teamwork, we
need the collaboration from both team leader and team members.
And we need to build trust
at the initial step and give support and encouragement from emotional, psychological
and technical aspects to both leaders and team members.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
