People who are working together for one goal hold different backgrounds and perspectives; therefore, it is very likely to have conflicts when they are cooperating. I have joined in a variety of activities, both in school and out of school and all of these experiences involve some levels of conflicts in the middle. Generally, I would like to say that most of experiences during my internships were peaceful and fruitful but some experiences in the school with students and friends had more arguments.
During the three-month internship, I hardly had any conflicts with group members and supervisors. I believe the major reason for this fact was all interns appreciated the opportunity to work in the firm and wanted to leave great impressions for others. For instance, when we had different ideas with each other in group works, we tended to illustrate and analyze all points of view before reaching the conclusion. Meanwhile, we were nice to each other. Also, when seniors assigned tasks for us, all people tried their best. I would like to say that we had really harmonious working enviornment. However, I do not believe this harmony has anything to do with personalities or backgrounds; instead, interns tried to perform nice in order to leave great impressions to leaders. The other reason for us to have agreeable working condition was the function of seniors. Since seniors had more experiences and skills than most of our interns, they could resolve small conflicts among us very quickly; therefore, we would be on the right track again.
However, based on my experiences in school activities, I indeed found out that people were frequently engaged in conflicts. The primary reason for those conflicts that I can think of is that students do not care too much about others' attitudes toward them. To be detailed, is seniors in the company do not have good impressions about interns, these interns are unlikely to have opportunities to work for the company again; however, if students are a little bit harsh on their classmates during a group project, the consequence is very small. The other reason might be that there is no "absolute leader" in school activities; students are freely to express their own opinions without any concerns. Therefore, it is more likely to engage in unpleasant arguments in school activities.
In conclusion, I believe different situations influence a lot on whether people would engage in conflicts a lot. Other factors such as personalities, talents and commitments indeed are influential as well.
It is interesting that you feel conflict can be controlled if there is some more experienced person who keeps problems from escalating. Also, that some people will be nastier with others when they don't expect repercussions from doing so. On the first, I wonder if it is always true or if sometimes, when the animus is sufficiently great, that the elder can't keep things under control. I have been the elder in some situations where things nonetheless got out of hand. On the second, I wonder if there must be some other trigger to get the conflict started. My impression is that most people prefer cordial if not friendly interaction and will take that as their starting place, unless something else causes them to do otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that your group conflicts tend to fluctuate based on the structure behind them. Like Professor Arvan touches on, I find it very intriguing that experienced individuals can keep problems in control within the group. Could this also relate to the classroom though? I understand that group work within the classroom is much less organized than it would be for an internship with a prominent organization, but couldn't some group conflict be resolved by including the teacher? They could clarify any confusing areas that arise within group work, which in turn would provide a more easily identifiable goal that would slightly mitigate conflicts that may arise between group members
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to understand that interns want to leave good impressions, so therefore conflict may occur less frequently. However, students share a common goal as well, they all want a good grade. Working better within the group should lead to a higher grade. The reason why this aspect does not dominate in your experience however, may be because of the loose structure of groups you mentioned, within the classroom.
I have not compared the structure in internship with classroom before. For me, I think professor or teacher cannot change students' grades if they have conflicts with their classmates; however, supervisors have this kind of power and intents.
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