Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Below is a hypothetical scenario, which I believe is one classic example of an interpersonal conflict.

Mark and Henry were colleagues working under the same section in a business company. Mark was a veteran, having served the company for more than twenty years, starting from the lowest position and working his way up steadily. He was very hardworking and had a traditional mindset that believes hardwork will always pay off one day. Henry, on the other hand, was a much younger employee who had just joined in only a few weeks ago. Despite his inexperience, Henry was very talented. As Henry had entered the company as a fresh university graduate in business studies, he had been promoted to the same position as Mark within the few weeks since his entry into the company. Of course when Mark had heard about Henry's promotion, he was not happy to see someone so young and inexperienced to be promoted so quickly, whereas it took years for him to achieve his current position.

Mark was still a bachelor, mainly because he was so hardworking that he had no time for romantic relationship. He was always serious in his works, so his superiors often entrusted him with alot of projects. Due to his always serious attitude, he was not very popular to his colleagues, but he was well respected for his experience.

Henry, on the other hand, was a rather relaxed and carefree individual. He was very friendly with good sense of humour, making him a very popular and well-liked person among his colleagues, except for Mark who felt that his carefree attitude was a sign of laziness. He was also married, and recently, he became into a father.

Mark and Henry had been tasked into working together on a very important project. As usual, Mark treated this project very seriously. However, when the deadline was closing in, Mark realised that he was having trouble in finishing the project within the deadline. He already had a handful of other projects to finish. To make matters worse, Mark felt that Henry did not have his fair share of his work in the project. Very often, he would leave the office early and head straight back to home, unlike Mark who worked overtime almost everyday for the project. The truth was; Henry also took the project seriously and tried to contribute as best as he could, but he had just became into a father and he had to rush back to home everyday to take care of his wife and baby.

One evening, Henry was preparing to rush back to home as usual. There were only five days left before the project deadline, and the project was only half done. Finally fed up with Henry's actions, Mark snapped and begin to shout at and accuse Henry for his lack of commitment in the project. In his rage, Mark also insulted Henry that he should never have deserved his promotion and he was nothing but an arrogant and lazy brat. Henry was shocked by the sudden outburst by Mark, and was left speechless for half a minute.

This is just one classic example of an interpersonal conflict. There are many factors that have caused this above conflict.

One of the main factor is generation gap. Mark belongs to an older generation of workers who have been taught of the traditional moral value of working hard to earn a living. When he saw that Henry managed to get his new position within the few weeks since joining the company, Mark would have felt envious and thought that it was unfair because Henry did not work as hard as he did to earn the position. Henry, on the other hand, would have felt that it was alright for him to earn his new position, since he had proven himself with his talents and he had already studied hard in his university and earned himself a good testimonial through his degree. The generation gap and the difference in mindset between Mark and Henry would have been the first spark of this conflict between the two individuals.

The generation gap would have caused the two colleagues to misunderstand each other, which in turn becomes the next factor for this conflict. As Mark always had a discrimination against Henry and was only paying attention to his own work, Mark did not bother to know more about his younger colleague. If he had known more about Henry personal life, he would have learnt that Henry was married and there was a reason why he had to rush back home everyday.

If I would to be one of their superiors who had happened to overhear their argument, I would first meet each one of them one by one to know more about the incident in their own individual point of view. From each of their own point of view, I would figure out the root cause of the incident, which in this case is the misunderstanding between the two of them, especially Mark. I would later advise them to meet each other face to face so that they can both settle their misunderstandings and hope they will learn to understand each other so that they can work better with each other in the future.

What about you, readers? What would you do if you are to resolve this interpersonal relationship.

Why is effective communication is important to me?

What is effective commnuication? To me, an effective communication will mean that both the speaker and the receiver can be able to pass all information to each other without any misunderstanding so that both parties will be able to fully comprehend each other's points. In an effective communication, the communicating parties will not just be passing information with each other through words, other factors such as body language, facial expression and speech mannerism are also accurately passed to each other. Both sides will be communicating with each other real time, not strictly with just one speaker and just one receiver. In the end, both communicating parties must be able to receive the correct information from each other without misintepretation.

Back to the main topic; the main reason why effective communication is important to me is because having effective communication skills is essential in this modern day society. The world is becoming into a global village, where travelling and communicating from one country to another can be performed in less than a day regardless of the distance apart. Thanks to the advances in infocomm technology, one can easily communicate with another through platforms such as internet chat rooms or social networking sites, allowing the communicating parties to exchange informations with each other real time without any delay. However, even though the world is becoming into a global village, there are still some barriers that prevent one to accurately pass the correct information to the receiver. Barriers such as cultural difference, language issues and generation gaps can still cause misintepretation of information between two communicating parties even in today.

One good example of the importance of effective communication can be seen in the Battle of Singapore during World War 2. The British general, Arthur A. E. Percival, ordered his troops to only retreat to town centre if necessary when the Japanese invaded. Unfortunately, Percival's officers misintepreted Percival's orders as immediate retreat. As a result, the defending British forces retreated without a fight, allowing the Japanese forces to advance deep into Singapore, causing the eventual defeat of the British troops. From this example, it can be shown the importance of effective communication. If the Percival's officers could interpret Percival's orders correctly and commanded their troops to stand their grounds instead of immediate retreat, the outcome of the battle might be very different and history might have changed.

We, as Homo sapiens sapiens, are social beings. As social beings, the ability to communicate with others correctly is highly important for us. Misunderstandings of information during communication can sometimes lead to disastrous results, such as broken relationships. When I mean broken relationships, I can refer to any kind of relationships, such as business, family, friends, romance, colleague, etc. The inability of effective communication would lead to one being left alone in the society, and as social beings, one would find it hard to survive on their own.

Hence, I believe that effective communication is not just important to me alone, but also important to everyone. We are living in the information age, and the ability to make effective communication is a key to allow us to interact with others. With effective communication, we can understand with one another without creating unnecessary conflicts.

A little bit about myself

Hellow everyone! My name is Riyan, a Singaporean undergraduate student in National University of Singapore. I am currently studying in Year 2 under Life Science major. Hopefully, one day I would end up working for a government sector, maybe the AVA (Agri-food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore)or the Singapore Wildlife Reserves.

I am a guy who likes to face my computer, and does internet surfing or computer gaming as my favourite pastimes. Some will say that I am quite a nerd to be staring at my computer all day, but honestly, I do not care how others feel about my favourite hobbies. My favourite games are the PC RTS (real-time strategy) games, especially the Command and Conquer series and the Starcraft series.

Besides gaming and net surfing, I also enjoy studying, especially on the topics that interest me the most. One of them is zoology. I have studied a lot about animals and zoology from books, magazines, and even newspaper articles, although mostly is actually from documentary aired in Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic Channel. Besides zoology, another one of my most interested topic is paleontology, the study of prehistoric life, such as dinosaurs.

Due to my preference in studies, the type of movies that I enjoy the most are the monster movie genres. My favourite type of television programs are all documentaries, and occasionally sports events such as World Cup and Olympic Games. I do not listen to music much, since I am not such an artistic person, but I do enjoy listening to some musics of any genres that I find pleasant to listen.

Truth to be told, the main reason why I start this blog is because it is essential for my ES2007S: Professional Communication module. In this module, it is a must for me to post an article about the topics covered throughout the course. Still, I will consider continue blogging even after the course has ended.

This is all I have to say about myself. Thank you for visiting!

PS: Occasionally, I do write fan fictions for fun. I am now writing a fan fiction story (a crossover between Command &Conquer and Starcraft). If you are interested, you may like to take a peek if you want: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6077005/1/Starcraft_AU_Tiberium_Galaxy