Analyzing Conflict, Failure, and Negative Experiences

Analyzing Conflict, Failure, and Negative Experiences

Part 1

Groups comprise of different people with different views. Groups come together to achieve a specific task or accomplish a set of goals. Managing groups can be challenging, especially when the leader lacks particular skills to lead the group, poor communication among members hinders groups from achieving the set goals.

I recall being a member of a team assigned to develop the organization’s strategic plan .All the team members were middle managers from different departments .the team was led by the assistant director.   We spent most of the time arguing about the content. Everyone wanted their suggestions to be included in the final draft. The team leader picked on specific departments leaving out others. Some team members felt excluded and did not actively participate in meetings . as a result, the task was accomplished as expected..

Part two

One of the events that led to unsuccessful completion of the task was poor communication. The task was not completed because the team was not adequately directed; the team leader did not include everyone in the discussion. One of the root causes of conflict was poor communication by the team leader. Another cause of friction was the lack of  persuasive skills  to create a balance where everyone would feel valued even if their opinion were not taken into consideration

Communication played a significant role in the conflict because the team leader lacked knowledge of what was expected of him. The ineffective flow of information was affected by the whole process, as other people were ignored.

Concepts and theories of communications that were missing g effective communication. The useful concept of communication is about the exchange of information between two or more entities that leads to the desired outcome. The information should be conveyed and received efficiently without any barriers. Skills such as attentive listening and the ability to understand are essential for communication to take place, thus, to avoid any disagreement means understanding one another, which helps in convincing others. However, this was missing because the team leader ignored others and only focused on specific departments.

I was a good follower because I listened patiently to other group members presenting their ideas and arguing out their opinion without interrupting or openly disagreeing. The communication challenges in the group were lack of persuasion and involvement of others. The team leader was biased to others, he failed to be interactive, and instead, he was more directive. .the leader avoided those whom he felt could oppose his proposals by not allowing speaking. He did not do much to motivate the team members. He only gave room for feedback, which could be done through email but discouraged any discussion on critical essential issues.

The group held weekly meetings, and reminders were sent through email with little room for discussion and exploration of other ideas. The conflict was solved by replacing members who felt their needs were n towel addressed .the team leader used convincing skills to change the outcome.

Some of the valuable lessons I learned through this experience was that a leader should be flexible and be fair .the experience was negative because those who were replaced felt discriminated. The part that had the most significant impact as a leader was the idea to exclude people who do not share the same opinion with the leader. As a leader, I would not belittle people of intimidating them to accept the popular idea.  Some of the critical concept and theories that I believe are essential in solving conflict is effective communication, which entails, being an attentive listener and having the ability to understand others.

In any group, the successful completion of the set goals requires effective communication. Leaders acquire communication skills to lead the team effectively. to minimize conflict in a group meaning finding ways of accommodating the different views for every group member to feel valued.