We all have different personalities and different ways of expressing our emotions. It is not possible for everyone to accept another's personality and agree with all those around them and ultimately conflicts occur because of these differences. In order to avoid conflicts, one needs to develop EQ which is “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action” (Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer). With time and practice, we master this tricky skill. However, it is easier said than done, sometimes emotions run high and things get ugly.
Here' s situation I faced:
A group of friends and I arranged to go Malaysia for a trip. We were supposed to board the bus at 1.30pm and therefore decided to meet at the station at 12pm to give us sufficient time for lunch and the necessary buffer time. Only B was late and when we called her, she said that she was on her way.
But, after waiting for 45mins, she was nowhere in sight so we gave her another call. She did not sound like she was in a rush and when we asked her where she was, no specific answer came. As the bus was going to leave soon, we were all panicky. She, however, sounded calm and said that she was reaching. With no idea how long she would take, we waited like cats on hot bricks. Realizing that we were going to miss the bus if we waited any longer and we had to pay extra charges to change the timing of the bus, we decided to take the bus first. We called B and found her still far from the arranged destination, so we told her that she could take the later bus and meet us there straight. She agreed.
When we met her in Malaysia, she was obviously cheesed off. When we asked her what was wrong, she said that she was very dismayed that we left without her. We were surprised because not only did she not apologize for making us wait for more than 1 hour and caused us to miss lunch, she turned the tables and blamed us for leaving her behind when she had agreed to our plan. We felt that it was her responsibility to be on time, hence we did not apologize.
If you were me, how would you have resolved this conflict without directly confronting her and making things sour?
Hey Ally!
ReplyDeleteIt's a little tricky situation you've got there! Though it's rather obvious that the one in the wrong is your friend, yet because she is your friend, you really don't want to spoil the trip or make things turn bad. Well, if that happens to me, I would take her away from the group and talk to her in private. I believe that is the only way to make her understand her mistake. I wouldn't expect or demand her to apologize to the rest of the group, but rather, I would be prepared to let it go as long as she acknowledge her mistake and not insist on it. That would suffice for me. However, if she's still unmoved by that, then I guess the future conflicts would be inevitable. But it's okay, we can't avoid all conflicts in life. if this conflict can help you to sieve out the good and bad, conflicts ain't such a bad thing afterall. But one more thing, haha, i'm not trying to sow discord between you and your friend, haha, you should always try to work it out first though. hehe.
Hi Ally,
ReplyDeleteBefore attending this course, I will not apologize and ignore the friend during the trip if he/she is unreasonable. Luckily, this course help us to learn to communicate more effectively. Now, I will try to talk to her nicely, and mentioned that we both are at fault. (although in my mind i still think that he/she is at fault) This is to ease the situation and hopefully will make everybody happy for the whole trip.
However, this is after a period of process through my brain before answering your question. If the situation happen at that moment, I hope that I will be able to use the "6 seconds" rules to regulate my emotion and thinking.
I think there are many kinds of people in this world, she just happened to be one of the kind with issues of urgency? Maybe I would have just waited for someone else to enlighten her about her issues. Personally, I do not like conflicts and will try not to be involved in one.
ReplyDeleteAnother method would be to sit down together with some close friends and thrash things out diplomatically to make her realised that everyone was affected by her attitude and the trip did not turn out pleasant.
We tend to lose our cool when we get involved in situation we cannot handle properly. Being able to step back and relook at the situation again would be better before expressing our unhappiness would have reduced the damage significantly. We often say things without considering and these will eventually come back to haunt us.
Hey Perry! Yes tricky isn't it? In the end, we all cooled down and let the moment pass. Luckily for us, she didn't stay angry for too long either. Perhaps she realised she was at fault too? Hmm.
ReplyDeleteHey Junwen! Ah I missed the class about the 6 seconds rule, shall go check that out. Thanks!
Hey Kenneth! I'm actually someone who prefers to avoid conflict if possible as well because I don't like to argue! It drains me and makes everyone frustrated. :/ I try to get everyone to suit compromise BEFORE any conflict can happen. Nip in the bud I guess! :)