Conflict Management in Action
By Carlos Garcia
Heidi expertly stated “the honeymoon will last about a week” during the final debriefing of the GAP class. She may have overstated the week. As expected, with six guys living together every second of the day and night, slight differences eventually accumulated and resulted in conflicts. Not “Real World” material, but certainly situations more intense than the tender interactions that take place inside the confines of Fisher.
We managed our differences expertly on an individual basis, as well as in full blown group interventions. The individual conflicts were, of course, easy and quick. “Hey, I’m tired of this…” or “I really think that you should stop doing…” were not uncommon. After the small shake downs, everything was fine. However, the small superficial brushes covering the underlining differences could not keep the boat afloat.
The sit down session and throwing everything out there was the solution to the conflicts. As is the case in the work environment, conflicts have to be dealt with in a group setting while formulating solutions to the problems at hand. Our session was not excessively long, nor devastatingly harsh. Shortly after the heated exchanges, we were laughing again and playing poker. Poker become our bonding time. Nothing settles the annoyances of the day better than bluffing the other party out of a good hand.
All is good and we all survived. Cheers.
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