An interpersonal conflict Case Study

Role A-Incredible Sulk
You are a third year student doing an engineering design project with four other members. Your project is to design and manufacture a wheelchair. After the design has been finalized, you have been tasked to come up with the steps involved in the manufacturing process. After brainstorming for days and being bothered by the task for weeks, you have meticulously drawn up the required steps for manufacture. Being in charge of the manufacturing process, you assigned the other members to cut the raw materials to size before assembly. During the assembly, you realized that one of your members have not followed your instructions and cut the part wrongly. To make things worse, there is no spare material left for a re-cut and the project is due in two weeks time. You kicked up a big fuss and shouted at him. In the process, you scolded him “STUPID Idiot.”

Role B- Stupid Idiot
You are one of the members in the group. You know that Incredible Sulk is a very difficult person to work with. He is not receptive to ideas and is someone difficult to communicate with. In addition, he has quite a temper when things are not done his way. You have been tasked to cut a part to size according to a piece of shabby scratch drawn by him. You made a mistake as a result and were insulted.

Question1: If you are role B, how would you react to the rant and insult by Incredible Sulk? What could you do to prevent the incident from happening?
Question2: If you are the leader of the group, what would you do to mediate the situation?

Why developing effective communication skills is important for me?

The problem of ineffective communication happens at all levels. In the workplace, what the manager speaks and what the employee perceives can be very different. Using the announcement of the job offer in the Saudi Arabia, perhaps the idea the manager wanted to convey was that the opportunity to work in Saudi Arabia is great and he has chosen the employee among others as the best candidate with a great chance of promotion when he returns. But if he had communicated in a dull and solemn manner, the employee might perceive the same message as something otherwise. In school, when we work in groups, there are times when we feel that we have a good idea to put across, but if we convey the idea ineffectively, the good idea will most likely be rejected due to poor clarity and things like that. At a personal level, ineffective communication may lead to shouting matches with your friends or loved ones making everyone angry with each other. Therefore developing our communication skills can help us convey our ideas effectively in many situations.
In my opinion, talking is different from speaking and hearing is different from listening. Engaging in effective communication is not just talking about your ideas and hearing what the other party has to say. Speaking involves a process to clarify the idea in your mind before conveying it to the concerned party while listening involves an effort to register in your mind what the speaker has to say. For example in lectures, I can hear 100% of what lecturer has to say but only listened up to 10% . How then can we speak effectively and listened attentively? Maybe the answer is in “The Science of Effective Communication in the Workplace”. J