Interpersonal conflicts can happen when there is a clash of interest or feelings and the breakdown of subsequent communication of parties involved. Such conflicts can occur in both our personal lives and professional lives. The spark of conflicts can be intentional or unintentional and the other party can be a nemesis, co-worker, classmate, friends or even close buddies. Therefore, interpersonal conflicts can happen so easily once we are not mindful of the communication, emotions and interests involved. The scenario that I am about to describe involves a wide range of factors that I categorized above. Enjoy =)
The conflict happened in the year 2008, the second year of my national service in the Air Force. The parties involved were my superior, my colleagues, my best friend and I. On one occasion, my superior wanted me to take charge of a certain preparation and gave me the authority over some of my colleagues since I was a team leader. He also handed me some important stuff to complete the preparation. However, I developed a high fever later on the same day due to an overnight operation in the rain on the previous day. Therefore, I travelled back to base camp to hand over the important staff to my 2IC (second in-charge) and passed the authority of the preparation to him. I thought that he would lead the other colleagues to complete the job.
At the third day of my medical leave, I was shocked when my superior called me and reprimanded me for not completing the job and stated that the uncompleted preparation would land him in deep trouble. I apologized quickly without knowing the exact situation and immediately called my 2IC. To my great disappointment, he just casually said that the whole group totally forgotten about the task. I was speechless as I even made the effort to travel back to base camp to hand over the job despite the high fever and my colleagues did not even remember the job. My 2IC apologized and thus I held back my temper and just said I was sad but I will handle the aftermath after I recovered. I told him to get the job done quickly to make up for the lost time.
When I got back to camp, I was shocked for the second time. I knew that there was still time for preparations to be made and my superior would not be as mad as he sounded in the phone. News pertaining about his fury got to me. After my superior realized the preparation was far behind time, he kind of ‘bitched’ with some of my friends and it was my best friend who added the fuel to the fire by casually commenting that I was being irresponsible and selfish. Thus, the already agitated superior became very angry and thus made that call.
After I did my investigation on the very conversation that sparked off the whole episode, I called my best friend and lashed out at him. Thus, we fell out over this incident. I felt extremely hurt as it was my best friend who bad mouthed me in front of my superior. If a political rival was to bad mouth me, it would just be a ‘pain in the ass’ and I would say it was just a part of the routine political ‘warfare’. However, such an action from a best friend was a ‘torn in the heart’ and the emotional damage was tremendous.
To make things simple, I summarize the case as per following:
1. My superior – the job was behind progress and his promotion could be jeopardized
2. My colleagues – they could be punished along with me
3. My best friend – a friendship at stake and it has gotten intertwined with work.
4. Me: I have to appease my superior, cover for the team that I was leading and amend for the damaged friendship with my best friend.
I will post the actual action taken back then and the improved solution from my current point of view. I made a lot of mistakes and some of them were, in fact, pretty stupid. I am glad I have grown thus far and learnt from these mistakes. The price of learning about the ways of life is high but it was worth it.
Q: If you were to be in my shoes back then, how would you react to salvage the friendship with my best friend and to deal with the work related situation?
yes I can finally be the first one to post one of these things!
ReplyDeletequick comment. Shouldn't you end with a question?
oh btw Happy CNY!
haha Faizal cheap thrill huh? :P
ReplyDeletelol
ReplyDeleteFaizal is a good guy!
This situation is multi-faceted, with each of the parties involved lacking in one or more elements of emotional intelligence.
ReplyDeleteThe superior, being concerned with the task and his promotion at stake, was easily affected by the words said by his best friend. This clouded his judgment and prevented him from finding out what actually happened. This highlights a lack of self-regulation to rein in his emotions and a lack of empathy to understand the situation from Yu Tian’s viewpoint.
The colleagues were too apathetic about the situation and lacked the motivation to explain themselves to the superior. Social skills are absent as they failed to be team players and were only concerned about their own interests.
The best friend partook in the discussion without knowing the whole truth and by adding his comments, he showed a lack of self-regulation to control his feelings about Yu Tian. Furthermore, as his best friend, he should be defending him and putting in a good word for him but instead, he did otherwise. It clearly shows his social skills of maintaining a relationship and managing disputes are deficient.
On your part, you had a responsibility as a team leader to delegate the tasks properly and to follow up regularly with your 2IC and superior over the period of time you were sick. You should have informed your best friend about your illness. This would have at least prevented the situation between you and him. By lashing out at him, you did not control your emotions and also did not understand the situation from his point of view. Being overly emotional caused the relationship to turn sour.
A possible solution would be for you is to explain the situation clearly to your superior that you did delegate the task to your colleagues but perhaps you should have done more to ensure they completed it. You should understand that though your best friend was wrong in badmouthing you, he was ignorant about the actual situation. You and your best friend should apologise to each other for your respective behaviour and look to mend the relationship.
Cheers!
Hi Yu Tian, I’m not sure what you would like us to do since you did not write a question for us to consider. Hence please allow me to offer my own perspective on what could be done to mend this unfortunate situation.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, your colleagues are at fault for forgetting to do the important task which you have entrusted them to do. However, unless they are really close to you, I would advise forgiving them without actually going to see them, and trying to get them to apologize to you by explaining to them what they did wrong. Forgiving others even though they are in the wrong would actually benefit us, as it helps us to cleanse our mind from anger and helps us to have a more positive outlook on life. This would then help to improve our emotional health and help us to have a more positive NS experience.
Secondly, your best friend is also in the wrong for backstabbing you like that. I do feel for you and I would definitely hate it if my best friend were to betray me in front of my superior. However, in interpersonal conflict, it takes two hands to clap and in my opinion, lashing out at him was not the correct thing. Considering that his friendship is valuable to you by virtue of his status as your best friend, I’m sure forgiving him would also help right? This is because forgiveness will help to preserve your friendship with him. Hence I believe it would be wise to apologize to him for your outburst and tell him that you would control your emotions more effectively in the future. In addition, I think that it would also be wise to sit down with him and tactfully explain to him that you are unhappy with him criticizing you behind your back, in front of your superior. Also you could state that you were disappointed in him not completing the assigned task, which is what caused this entire ruckus in the first place. Hopefully your words would make him realize that he has done wrong and apologize to you. If he proves to be rather close minded and ignore what you say, even after your explanation, then in my opinion, he is not a true friend. This is because he is unwilling to behave honorably by accepting his share of the blame in this situation. In my opinion, I believe it would wise to just treat him cordially from now on. However, it would be prudent to keep him at a distance and prevent your friendship from deepening to the level that it once was. After all, you probably need to have a positive working relationship with him during what remains of your NS obligation, but it would not be wise to allow yourself to be hurt again by people who do not behave in a morally upright fashion right?
One and all,
ReplyDeleteIt seems like more and more people are writing as superbly in their comments as Issac does in his and also in his own personal posts! How pleasantly well is that!!
I think Eunice and Jonathan gave comments only professional psychologists do; that is so much incredible and most pleasant yet again!! I couldnt more be in awe with Eunice and Jonathan, with their very detailed and well-constructed advice, that I even think they gave better advice that I normally do.
But I also urge everybody to start taking notice of the beauty in the pair of Eunice's and Jonathan's writing skills. Theirs is an example is what they call close writing, or close control of their writing. I'm not sure I can describe it better, so that you can understand what 'close' is. But it is close, you either see it, or you dont! You could enquire about 'close' from Eunice and Jonathan, or Issac and Faizal, the people who I feel demonstrate LINEAR close control in their arguments in their writing, if you have no clue still, what close it.
Cheers
apologies in the 3rd paragraph above and 2nd sentence, it should read:
ReplyDelete"Theirs is an example of what I call close writing "
Hi Faizal. Thank for spotting the missing question.
ReplyDeleteHi Eunice, I am grateful for your advice. The analysis you gave really reflected the analysis I had in my mind back then. However, it was regrettable that my emotions clouded my logical judgment and I did not act appropriate back then. This was one of the major incidents that spurred me to improve my EQ actively in recent years.
Hi Jon. Great advice! I believe you will be a great help to your friends. I remembered you mentioned you want to learn communication skills so that you can help your friends. Too bad I did not have friends like you back then.
Hi Mark. I agree with you that both Eunice and Jon have displayed great skills in their comments. Isn't it great to know there are more competent writers and advisors in the course than we expected?
I shall wait for more comments before posting my actual course of action back then.
I agree that in army there was a lot of political "warfare" and it was hard for you to escape. At times people of high rank will reprimand you for no good reason and complaining about your superiors would just complicate the situation further. The only thing you can do is "suck thumb"(accept the situation and adapt to it).
ReplyDeleteAs for your example, you should reconsider what you think the qualities of a "best friend" are. Your friend might have a good reason for aggravating the situation, so you should find him and have a good talk and decide from there.
and last but not least, happy new year!
Hi Yu Tian,
ReplyDeleteYou did right on most counts. From the beginning, by going back to camp to hand over your work despite your illness, to defuse the initial situation through apologies, and to refrain from playing the blame game with your 2IC. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that you have done your job but was accused of not doing so! Although it is a tough situation to be in, I think you have handled it very well.
If I were to be in your shoes, (before I scolded my best friend), I'll just avoid / ignore him for a while. Until he comes and apologises to me. The apology is not a signal that he loses and I win, but rather, a signal that he is willing to shoulder the blame and is willing to not be defensive. But just as he expects to be scolded badly by me, I say that you forgive him fully and have left the issue behind. In this way, he will be able to see the efforts that you are putting into preserving this friendship, and if he's a decent person, readjust the value he places on this friendship. Of course, easier said than done. The feeling of thrashing things out is good, and so is the feeling of harbouring anger and resentment. Should it persist, it may fester and get aggravated to become a disease that will cripple one for a whole life. (wow.. didn't know I was capable of such drama. HAHA)
But well, I'm sure you chose the diseaseless way. =) Looking forward to hear how you resolved it and what were the mistakes you made!
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ReplyDeleteThank you, Yu Tian, for sharing this scenario. In the passion of your description I can sense still your sense of shock at your friend's turnabout. You do a good job of relating the details and making clear the complexity of the context, but your post is 3 times longer than the prescribed length. That lack of conciseness aside, you do a good job of setting the stage for the conflict with clear story- telling and then framing a potential reader response with apt questions. Much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteAs for how you might have shortened this, I'd start by cutting that opening paragraph, then perhaps the bulleted summary at the end.
As for language, there are a few areas to take note of:
a) He also handed me some important stuff/to hand over the important staff >>> which?
b) the whole group totally forgotten >>> ?
c) My 2IC apologized and thus I held back my temper and just said I was sad but I will handle the aftermath after I recovered. >>>
My 2IC apologized. Thus, I held back my temper and just said I was sad, but THAT I WOULD handle the aftermath after I recovered.
d) ‘torn in the heart’ >>> tear in the heart
Your story has inspired lots of feedback. Thanks for sharing!