Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Let's just say that this is a hypothetical situation.

Person A is the chairperson of a school club and there is a group of fellow school mates of various nationalities working under him. Person A also has a Singaporean vice-chairperson who has suddenly said that he is leaving for an exchange program in a month's time. Now, the main conflict lies in the fact that A has an extremely busy schedule other than his club's activities and thus is always delegating duties to the other members of the management committee working with him. Person A normally does not hang around with the committee members and is seldom seen at the club. Given his heavy schedule, A also does not like to be involved in non-official social activities. Initially, the committee was still able to function adequately to ensure the smooth implementation of club activities and projects. However, A soon felt distant from his committee members and started to face difficulties in convincing his fellow committee members to finish their tasks on time. On the other hand, the rest of the committee felt that their leader was only capable of delegating work and did not really do any significant work. However, they have overlooked the fact that A is always involved with activities of the "higher scale" such as meetings with the school authorities and other clubs. In addition, the rest of the committee was also unaware that A was feeling overwhelmed by all his activities which include giving tuitions and doing some voluntary work. It also did not help that his vice-chairperson was not contributing much to the management of the club activities as he was busy with his preparation for the exchange program.

If you were Person A, what will you do to alleviate this tense and tricky situation?

Effective Communication For One and All

In my humble opinion, effective communication skills are probably as important for anyone else as it is  for me. However, to put it in my context, I probably need them quite urgently as I am currently in my final year and before I know it, I would have graduated and (hopefully) joined Singapore's workforce. Then again, logically speaking, I will definitely need to exhibit my best communication skills to be able to succinctly and "vocally" prove my capabilities to my future employers. Surely, being confident at the interview would speak volumes about the worthiness of a candidate. This is just what I need to be some time later.

Having said the above, there are certainly also many other instances where effective communication would be put to worthy usages.

Imagine this: You are at a party and there is this sharing session on a recent piece of big news. You are very excited because you have a lot of information at the back of your mind. You started speaking excitedly, trying very hard to convey your ideas to some of your friends crowding around you. However, at the end of it, you saw many confused faces and heard someone says, "Sorry, I think we didn't really catch you. Would you mind repeating?” Others nod in agreement. How miserable would you feel?

Worse still, imagine this scenario: You are a Quality Assurance Engineering intern and you realised that there are some quality issues with the products of your company. You try to speak to your supervisor and he just brushes you aside. (Let's put the cause as pure miscommunication) After some time, the issue with the standard of the products resurfaces and as a result, injuries and casualties resulted. You would be regretting  for not communicating more effectively previously.

Last one (the worst): Imagine you are going to approach a girl that you have admired for long, you finally mustered all the courage inside you and approached her...Then, all you got is one tight slap on your face! (You told her that she was not of the prettiest but at least, you two were a good fit.)

Okay. The above examples may seem a bit far-fetched and may not have necessarily happened to me. (I'm not admitting to anything!) However, what I am trying to say here is that communication is really the basis of all inter-personal relationships and being effective at it will certainly serve everyone well in any situation in the long run.

Effective Communication?

Official Opening of this blog for module ES2007S

I hereby declare the birth of this blog. Cheers.