The conflict between Anne and Harry is really an interesting example for group dynamics. It seems impossible to avoid conflict within any organizations because people have different personalities, communication skills, working abilities and perspectives. When working together, someone like Harry, acting somewhat arrogant and condescending, is going to create unpleasant experience. Even he has great experience and strong working skills, it seems he is tend to over control the marketing plans and is exclusive to other opinions.
Actually from my own experience, I haven't experienced serious conflict within organizations. But recently, in my RSO Intercultural Community Development Initiative (ICDI), I've experienced some conflict ideas. Since I'm the assistant treasurer, I'm working with group members and fundraising chair to get prepare for our first fundraising event on the quad. In our proposal we planned to sell cookies, tea eggs (which is a traditional Chinese snacks), and bubble tea. So in the last general meeting when I presented our fundraising proposal, some members thought that selling tea eggs is not a good idea because it might make people label us just a "Chinese related organization", which we are not. The identity of being recognized as "intercultural" is really important for our organization because our purpose is be inclusive for every culture, instead of showing up as a specific cultural organization.
After member showed disagreement in this problem, I thought about that after the meeting for some time and tried to promote this proposal as how it was originally. I understood what members were worrying about but my point is that we don't have to deliberately avoid some specific cultural related things. First of all, cookies and bubble tea, which we also want to sell is not related to Chines culture at all. Secondly, what we can do is selling other cultural related foods in our future fundraising events to avoid being labeled, such as tacos, hot dogs, pizzas, sushi, etc. Also, I don't think people label us by looking at what we do for fundraising but by what we really do in our workshops. I sent the email to board members and discussed with vice president and other members as well. Actually some members also think it was not a problem at all. While, still, after about four and five days I received the e-mail from board member saying that we'll just stick to cookies and bubble tea. It actually was frustrating. Since I think tea eggs might attract some students to try and bring more opportunities to raise more money. At the same time, I found the communication between organization wasn't that smooth and efficient. But since the board member explained the reason and concerns, I totally understand that they tried to make a safer decision for the whole group.
Now I'm working on the fundraising event and other funding resources. This conflict in different opinions in our RSO actually is not fierce but truly made me think a lot about how to be inconclusive to all the opinions and how to present my reasons to others. It actually helps me to understand gift exchange in a total different perspectives. As we discussed in class, the example of gift exchange could be performance above minimum requirement as an employee. In my RSO situation, people who against the idea in proposal would feel being respected and inclusive in decision making. They are trying to help promoting the organization forward because they contribute to what is not their responsibility to pay efforts to. For people who like the idea of selling tea eggs, they also feel being considered and given opportunities to make some changes, though it didn't work out. This kind of respect and inclusive in decision making is a kind of gift exchange happening in our organization and I really appreciate it. Given that we're a small group with about 25 members in total, more inclusive ways in decision making would probably helps us to make more efficient decisions and improve our performance overall.
Actually from my own experience, I haven't experienced serious conflict within organizations. But recently, in my RSO Intercultural Community Development Initiative (ICDI), I've experienced some conflict ideas. Since I'm the assistant treasurer, I'm working with group members and fundraising chair to get prepare for our first fundraising event on the quad. In our proposal we planned to sell cookies, tea eggs (which is a traditional Chinese snacks), and bubble tea. So in the last general meeting when I presented our fundraising proposal, some members thought that selling tea eggs is not a good idea because it might make people label us just a "Chinese related organization", which we are not. The identity of being recognized as "intercultural" is really important for our organization because our purpose is be inclusive for every culture, instead of showing up as a specific cultural organization.
After member showed disagreement in this problem, I thought about that after the meeting for some time and tried to promote this proposal as how it was originally. I understood what members were worrying about but my point is that we don't have to deliberately avoid some specific cultural related things. First of all, cookies and bubble tea, which we also want to sell is not related to Chines culture at all. Secondly, what we can do is selling other cultural related foods in our future fundraising events to avoid being labeled, such as tacos, hot dogs, pizzas, sushi, etc. Also, I don't think people label us by looking at what we do for fundraising but by what we really do in our workshops. I sent the email to board members and discussed with vice president and other members as well. Actually some members also think it was not a problem at all. While, still, after about four and five days I received the e-mail from board member saying that we'll just stick to cookies and bubble tea. It actually was frustrating. Since I think tea eggs might attract some students to try and bring more opportunities to raise more money. At the same time, I found the communication between organization wasn't that smooth and efficient. But since the board member explained the reason and concerns, I totally understand that they tried to make a safer decision for the whole group.
Now I'm working on the fundraising event and other funding resources. This conflict in different opinions in our RSO actually is not fierce but truly made me think a lot about how to be inconclusive to all the opinions and how to present my reasons to others. It actually helps me to understand gift exchange in a total different perspectives. As we discussed in class, the example of gift exchange could be performance above minimum requirement as an employee. In my RSO situation, people who against the idea in proposal would feel being respected and inclusive in decision making. They are trying to help promoting the organization forward because they contribute to what is not their responsibility to pay efforts to. For people who like the idea of selling tea eggs, they also feel being considered and given opportunities to make some changes, though it didn't work out. This kind of respect and inclusive in decision making is a kind of gift exchange happening in our organization and I really appreciate it. Given that we're a small group with about 25 members in total, more inclusive ways in decision making would probably helps us to make more efficient decisions and improve our performance overall.
The story as you wrote it I interpreted in two parts. The first part was a disagreement among the RSO members about what foods to sell at the fundraiser. Note that a disagreement based on differences in point of view is not itself conflict. The second part is how the the group decided what it would actually do.
ReplyDeleteThe part of the story that you didn't tell is how the RSO decides things more generally. Is it majority rule within the whole RSO, majority rule within the Board only, or some other decision making process? The other part of the story is that you omitted is whether there really was a majority for your point of view.
It seems to me that if the Board makes the decisions in general, there really wasn't conflict here as long as they were aware of the concerns of other members. Conflict would emerge in this case only if they deliberately didn't listen to those concerns.
A related question is whether people change their minds on these matters or if that is rare or never happens. I can understand you being disappointed that your view didn't win the day, but that is not real conflict in itself.
Yep now I realized that disagreement is different from conflict. In my case we're more trying to figure out the truth and argue instead of trying to win. And for the decision process, typically we'll discuss in general meeting to decide. In this time, when we presented the proposal, someone raised the problem might concerning, but decision is not actually made during the meeting. The decision was made after having discussion within board members. Actually I'm not sure about the majority because in this time we didn't really vote for this decision.
ReplyDeleteThough I don't think selling tea eggs is inappropriate but since there are people concerning about this then I feel ok to change the plan. So basically I understand their concerns and respect their opinions. Other members and board members show respect at the same time. Therefore it is just a disagreement instead of conflict.