This is a recall of a personal conflict that happened to my group when I was in Polytechnic that was never resolved. I gave up on this groupmate of ours and decided that we contribute to the project on our own without that particular groupmate and exclude that groupmate out of minor discussions. We pushed our ideas during group meetings to not have further “disturbance” in the project.
The reason for it was that the particular groupmate would debate on any ideas presented upon but never gave a proper solution to any problems. That groupmate of ours also messes things up during other projects that he/she had teamed up with. For examples, that person would edit the word document and made the outcome worse, that person would give unimportant opinions during discussions and most of the time messed up the entire project idea through his/her inputs. We eventually gave up trying to work together as a full group, this decision was also enforced with past experiences with that person in other projects too. We couldn’t care much about that person anymore and strive to complete the project on our own. Within a few weeks, tension can be felt and that groupmate also decided to take a step back as the person felt hostility during group discussion.
Over the semester, most of this particular project was done by me as I was the group leader group. I stood strong throughout the entire period and held up well in my opinion. It turned out well for us as we all attained a good grade for it.
Our intention was to just shut off this person from the project and proceed on with it as it will be more time consuming to have long and draggy meetings with someone who will only be a nuisance.
What could I have done to make this situation turned out better?
What will you guys do if you are in my shoes?
Tackling the problem
Here are some of the plausible steps that I could take to turn things out better:
- I could have been more open and flexible and not shut off the person even though the person was disruptive. Listening and really hearing the person’s opinion and asking questions to gather more information on what the person is debating about could, in turn, helped out the situation at that moment.
- Be much more assertive and not aggressive in how I face the problem. It would turn out better if I could ignore the past issues and communicate directly to the person to correct his/her behavior.
- Forgiving could have a large impact on the situation as well. Resentment often does not solve problems and instead make things worst.
All of these steps might be a better approach than what I had done, that was to ignore the person’s behavior and continuing the project indirectly without the person.
Reference:
Marter. J. (2014). 10 Tips for Resolving Conflict. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joyce-marter-/conscious-relationships_b_4504510.html
Edited: 9 July 2017
COM150 Blog 
Hey Alvin, your post was concise and I enjoyed reading it. I couldn’t help it but recall some of my polytechnic experiences with such team mates. I believe we all have such experience where team mates who disagree with the idea and does not come up with a solution.
Being the leader of the group, I would personally approach this team member and have a chat with him regarding his actions. I would feedback what the team felt about him and advise him to change for the better. During the next few meetings, I would still ask him regarding his opinions about the project. However if he still persist to debate with other team mates and not have constructive solution to solve it, I would then speak to the supervisor in charge of my team regarding the teammate.
To conclude, being a leader is no easy task especially when you meet difficult teammate like this. I hope that after reading my feedback, you are able to deal with difficult teammate if you encounter them regardless of being the team leader or not. It should be a team effort to keep the team together and not just relying on the team leader.
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Hi Syu Lynn,
Thanks for your input! I will integrate your feedback into my life when a problem of such arises and dealing with a difficult teammate in a better way. Thank you for taking time to read.
– Alvin
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Hi Alvin, I could relate to your post. I believe most people had the same experience as you. I understand that having constant rejection from someone might not be ideal, however I feel that how you handled the situation perfectly. I am glad that you managed to get a decent grade eventually, however you are just lucky this time round. The next time when you encounter such group mates, I think that you should not be so time-orientated, instead listen to him with an open heart. Yes, he might not have the solution to your problem, but he might have already tried the solution you are suggested and failed. A good analogy would be, this guy might be excellent in Maths, scoring full marks constantly, but he can’t teach. I believe you have met some teachers who are like that.
Also, you should be more positive, take it as he is doing a critic’s role, being someone who has the ability to criticise, not helping you to change yet having high expectations from you. This way you could gain respect from the other teammates and also be able to train your emotional intelligence.
In conclusion, I feel that you shouldn’t be too task oriented and be misled by “Leadership is getting the job done – that’s all that matters”. A good leader should influence his team to learn, improve and be able to understand their differences, leaving no man behind. I hope that after reading my feedback, you would consider using my suggested approach with similar scenarios in the future!
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Hi Eugene,
Thanks for your input! In my particular the case, the person wasn’t someone who people will look up to and listening to the person will eventually turn to be a waste of time. You may be right on being positive about it and taking it as he/she is doing the critic’s role.
-Alvin
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Hi Alvin!
Regarding the conflict that you faced, I would have done the same if I were rushing out a product. However, as we are a team, we should be working together instead of leaving a group member out due to differences.
I feel that with his debate it means that the idea that was proposed would not be a 100% working solution. Hence, he debated about the idea, saying that it is not up to standard. However, if you think of it in another perspective, we could find out the reasons from him on why he did not agree with the proposed idea.
Just by saying he does not agree, does not mean that he has a solution for it at that particular moment. As a team, you should have sat down and thought about the rejection and then work on the solution together. This period will be called the brainstorming period, solutions are not found immediately with a snap of the finger. Ideas will be thrown out, rejected, more ideas thrown, and more get rejected. As a result, the ideas that stayed will be the ones that will be integrated together to become a solution.
Yes, you may have gotten the result that you wanted, so did the rest of the teammates. Nonetheless, the outcome could have been different if the rest of the teammates did not agree with your action. They could do the same by ignoring you and have “revenge” on you by reporting your actions to the lecturer-in-charge, saying that you did not do your job as a group leader.
Therefore, to make this a win-win situation for the team and the particular member, it would be better if you talked to him about it. I believe that he would have reflected upon himself and make changes because he could feel the tension that he was not welcome in the group anymore.
I hope that with my suggestions, you would be able to handle the situation better when you encounter such teammates in the future! I wish you luck!
– Lim Sing Yiing
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Hi Sing Yiing,
Thanks for your input!
I agree that I shouldn’t leave the person out due to differences and we should have brainstorm together as a team. It will be better to have a win-win situation for the team as well.
-Alvin
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Thank you, Alvin, for this reflection on a problem scenario from a previous group project. I appreciate your honest sharing. You clearly list the many reasons why you found the groupmate problematic. I wonder though if you could ‘step back’ from the experience and describe it more objectively. While you explain in detail why you felt annoyed, you don’t give attention to possible motivations on his part. You also state that you were able to do well in the project once you had excluded the ‘bad guy.’ So what was the problem? Did you lose a friend? Did you intend to help this guy? The ‘problem’ isn’t clear if in fact you simply dumped a guy who you didn’t care about and who didn’t care about you. On the other hand, if you really wanted him to succeed, then you could argue that you had made an effort. From this description, I don’t see that effort.
There are also some language issues here:
1) Phrasing issues
— that we contribute to the project our own
— I feel that with his debate it means that the idea that was proposed would not be a 100% working solution.
—
2) Verb tense inconsistency (throughout the essay)
— We pushed our ideas during group meetings to not further have any “disturbance” in the project. The reason for it is that particular groupmate would debate on any ideas presented upon but never really give a proper solution to any problems.
— Hence, he debated about the idea, saying that it is not up to standard.
3) use of “you”/ too conversational
— However, if you think of it in another perspective….
Shall we work on this?
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Hi Brad,
Thanks for your valuable input! Will take note of the language pointers that you gave and update my post.
In the future, I will make the effort to resolve conflicts and not just leaving the person out as it is more detrimental to the team as compared to a full team working together. Thank you for taking time to read my post too.
-Alvin
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Hi Alvin,
Your conflict is something I could easily relate to but in this conflict, it is about you and I should look and resolve the conflict in your perspective, I would need to go into in-depth analysis of the scenario and come up with a resolution to the conflict between you and the groupmate you gave up on. After reading the scenario, I can assert that you are avoiding the conflict with the groupmate.
By cutting off communication, it will not resolve any conflict. By avoiding communication, it will only place unnecessary awkwardness between the relationship of the group and that groupmate. I would apply rationalism on this conflict, from the article on Interpersonal Conflict and Effective Communication (Bellafiore, D. R.). First, I would identify the problem, if what I heard is true and if it is because he isn’t a good team player; If it isn’t true, I would ask my team to stop excluding him out of the project; If it is because he isn’t a team player, I would have to teach him some common decency as a team, such as not editing the word document without letting the team know.
These aren’t the only solution you could come out with, there are several more solution such as requesting a meeting with the facilitator and the entire group sitting down to resolve this conflict or trying to get him to understand his issue and get him to improve himself on it. After coming up with several viable solutions, you would need to evaluate them one by one, consider the pros and cons of each solution. Finally, decide on the best solution and implement it. If the conflict is not resolve after a period, look for other possible solution again, evaluate and implement the best solution.
Resolving conflicts aren’t easy, we must keep on trying until it has a resolution to the problem. I would recommend applying rationalism to identify the problem, evaluate possible solution and implement the best solution and keep trying until the conflict can be resolved.
Reference
Bellafiore, D. R. (16 April 2016). Interpersonal Conflict and Effective Communication. Retrieved from http://www.drbalternatives.com/articles/cc2.html.
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Thanks, Kok Leong,
I have taken note of the solutions I can use when I faced a similar situation in the future. Well appreciated!
I agree that I shouldn’t have avoided the conflict as the team leader and should address the issue accordingly.
-Alvin
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I appreciate your effort here, Alvin, and that of your readers in commenting. For a start, I can see you have put in some work to improve language use and to make the problem scenario flow better and be more informative. Problems still exist though in both areas.
There is really good feedback from Kok Leong for your scenario, as he has referenced the approach for conflict resolution from the Bellafiore article. You seem to ignore such feedback (and that of your other commentators) though, even while you do appear to find support from Marter’s step by step approach. At the same time, you don’t reference any material as you describe your solution. Also, you don’t utilize any in-text citations.
It’s true that the main focus of this assignment is for the problem description and solution. Another important aspect though is providing us readers with the sense that you have considered various perspectives — those of your peers and outside sources — as you formulated your final solution. It’s on that front that this post still needs work.
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Hi Brad,
Thanks for looking at my updated post and letting me know there are more issues to my english. I agree that Kok Leong had given a good feedback but I did my post before he commented, hence not taking note of his comment.
-Alvin
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