Conflict resolution

Conflict exists in every organization and to a certain extent indicates a healthy exchange of ideas and creativity. However, counter-productive conflict can result in employee dissatisfaction, reduced productivity, poor service to clients, absenteeism and increased employee turnover, increased work-related stress or, worse case scenario, litigation based on claims of harassment or a hostile work environment.

At the end of the month we are required to give in a report, I cannot complete my report until my co-worker gets all of the numbers to me. Unfortunately, I thought my co-worker believed in procrastinating until the last minute, forcing me to perform a rushed job, which increased my stress and makes me fear that that I will look bad to the boss. My co-worker feels like I put too much pressure on both of us, and sets unrealistic deadlines. Since I felt this was causing unnecessary conflict and our productivity and efficiency to decrease, I asked a meeting to resolve our feelings, where we both expressed our need to resolve the issue. 

Prior to this week, the conflict would have remained as is, I recognized the importance of being respectful of others opinion, and maintaining a professional manner.  I wanted to get a handle on the tension that was building and prevent overt conflict by quickly resolving the issue using a Third side conflict resolution technique  “Conflict is not a bad thing” it is how we manage conflict that counts.

Who Am I as a Communicator?

Quite a fascinating topic this week with even more interesting results. Personally when it comes to these aptitude kind of tests I try to relax and focus on the questions and answer as honestly as I can. This week I gave the the tests to my co-worker and to my mother, my co-worker has known me for the past year and my mother, well all my life. After I completed the questionnaire I was a little nervous as to the type of communicator they perceived me as.
How would I be perceived? I awaited the results with baited breath.

My result as in my communication anxiety test from both individuals were mild and from myself moderate. Although I have performed in front of larger audiences from the outsider I may seem to be together but my own feelings are sometimes the opposite.

My results for my verbal aggressiveness tests from myself and both individuals rated me as 'low'. I do not think of myself as overly aggressive, I like to think of how to address a situation before reacting to it.





Two insights I have gathered this week:

• I can become a better communicator by being aware of my actions.
• I can develop my self-concept when I see how I react to situations and watch how others react to me.

Communicating with others

I am aware of different ways that I communicate with others. I communicate differently with my parents, my co-workers and my friends. I am communicate more vocally with my friends than I do my co-workers. I communicate using a dialect of English with my parents and sometimes my friends. I am more vocal, more animated, I use my hands to gesture a lot more. If I were to have my co-workers in the same room when I speak with my parents they would probably ask me who that person was.

I think because of my comfort level with a particular set of people will influence my means of communicating.

Working in the some schools, I have learnt that children with special needs can communicate and although they may not be able to do so verbally, there are ways that they caregivers understand there language and so they are able to verbalize on their behalf.

In order to practice effective communication with each other we must:

Improve our listening ability, the most effective communication can take place when all the people in a conversation is actively listening

Communicating the most important information whether verbally or written,

Following the Platinum rule, treat others the way they want to be treated

Communication

For this assignment I decided to watch a show by the name "Storage Hunters" I have never seen the show before, I only had a slight premise as to the objective of the show. I watched it with the volume down for about 5 minutes, in the beginning I saw two men on the side of a gate, one had a crow bar lifting it up and down hitting it against his palm then a crowd of people walked towards the two men, it appeared  as if the two sets of people were about to fight due to the intensity of the steers. However, everyone walked towards a storage container, the man with the crow bar opened the door and inside was a body bag, immediately some storage hunters looked surprised. One man turned to the camera and shook his head, another man turned to the camera and he raised his one of his eyebrows, another couple spoke to the camera and while the man spoke the woman shook her head up and down and the auctioneer had a smile on his face

As I began to re-watch the five minutes, when the men on the side of the gate reached the crowd of people, he said Welcome to Storage Hunters with a genuine deposition, he introduced the man with the crow bar as Green Mile, "the friendly giant". As they walked to the storage bin, they said "Lets get started", when the storage collectors reached to the storage bin, Green Mile used the crow bar to open the lock using it as a tool, as the storage bin opened, the man who turned to the camera said because of the hooks he was not interested while shaking his head, the man who raised his eyebrows said this would be interesting and the couple began to rationalize all the tools inside the bin and realized it was possible to turn a profit, the woman agreed by saying 'yes' and shaking her head and decided that they would try to outbid the competition.

For me this was an interesting experience, because as I watched the beginning with the body movement, I thought they were about to engage in a psychical altercation. Interesting how we can make assumptions from body movements, hand gestures, facial expressions and be wrong about it. 

An Admired Communicator

A person who I admire for her effective communication and listening skills is my co-worker. She is exuded a level of authenticity, trustworthiness and honesty. She she is always willing to listen to both sides, she takes her time to assess the situation and remains unbiased. There have been occasions where a teacher will take the side of their student because that student is in their class without listening to the other students side. She takes her time and identifies the underlying reasoning for why the situation started in the first place. I greatly admire and respect her, as do other members of the staff. She offers insight as well on how to positively change a situation, especially with very opinionated families.

I strive to model her communication methods in my professional capacity, it is important that as I work with families and their children that I communicate in an effective, honest and respectful manner.