I have joined a new RSO this year that focuses on giving
international students consulting opportunities related to agricultural
business that is normally harder to find for international students on campus. Since
this organization is relatively new and is still working out a lot of values,
goals, and logistics. To give a little background about the organization, it is
broken down into two teams: consulting and advertising.
I am part of the consulting team that consists of 6 other
members who are mostly Agricultural Consumer Economics majors. Although I had
little knowledge about agricultural business, one of the board members (my
friend) thought that this organization would be beneficial for me and the
organization given my economic background. Our consulting team works closely
with a company that deals with a lot of agricultural data. When I first joined
the organization, they were in the process of solidifying out a lot of values,
goals, and logistics (when to have regular meetings, board meetings, deadline
for projects).
In the beginning, I was very excited to be part of this new
and upcoming organization, but I soon found that there were many obstacles that
our team would need to overcome. One of the difficulties about this team was
that there was no clear direction when a task was given and I had a hard time
grasping the final product our project manager had in mind. The frustration was
on both ends in that I was dissatisfied with how vague the manger’s directions
were even when I would ask clarifying questions and the manger was frustrated
that I wasn’t able to product the work that met his expectations.
Another problem with had was the lack of transparency we had
among the team. I would often go days or weeks not being updated on our project
and would even sometimes go into meeting with the company representative with
my team members not knowing a single relevant information regarding what needs
to be achieved through the meeting. Our ultimate problem came down to what many
organizations face: communication.
As I’ve stated in my previous blog post, I have a relatively
easy-going and passive personality. I’m not the type to confront or take the
initiative into solving the issue. However, I soon found that bottling up our
issues resulted in both of us behaving passive-aggressively and making
unnecessary comments during meetings that hurt each other’s feelings and
negatively affected our team. This conflict regarding the task and the relationship
within the continued to progress. Quality work was not being done because we
were not able to communicate effectively. In addition, the relationship between
the manager and I continued to suffer as we were frustrated with each other but
didn’t say anything. This tension started caused awkwardness within the entire
team as other members sensed something was wrong between us. There was a
definite low group morale overall.
After weeks of being frustrated with each other, I finally
decided to initiate a meet up and talk out all the frustrations and
misunderstandings that we had towards each other. The outcome that we both
wanted was for the organization to do well and to do it required both of us to
put aside our pride and think more objectively. I would say that we ended up
cooperating to solve this. It required a lot of time and a little awkwardness
in the beginning to address the issue at hand, but it worked out in the end. There
were clear solutions that came out of that meeting: the manager will try his
best to be clear with the work he wants from me and keep me updated on how the
project is going overall and I would be sure to ask questions when needed.
In the end, there were benefits to this conflict in that we
were able to learn more about how to communicate with one another and learn how
to alleviate conflict the next time it arises. Also, I would say that after
this conflict we got a lot more comfortable around each other and it was easier
to be ourselves during meetings.
I find it very interesting that you are in a RSO that just started. At the company where I work back home, I also see a lot of things developing, since it is a starting company. I think those experience are more valuable than we sometimes think. You are talking about a communication problem with the project manager, but you write this was with the whole team. However, you also wrote that you only set up a meeting with you and the project manager. I wonder if that will solve the communication problem within the RSO as a whole or if you are working on creating a communication system that works for everyone in the team.
ReplyDeleteThe part about your story that is most revealing, and I think typical of where conflict does occur, is your talking about being easy going, so wanting to let the issues slides and see if they would rectify themselves, yet that not happening. As you said, that led to passive-aggressive behaviors by you and the manager.
ReplyDeleteIt is a tough judgment call to identify a one-off not good situation, but where repetition is unlikely, sometimes that is referred to as a bad hair day, from an ongoing situation where the tension mounts because of the history, so each new episode contributes to that. If you tend to be quiet and reserved, being proactive to resolve issues is challenging. Truly, the obligation is more on the manager. But, since you are both students, you might envision it being similar for him.
A part of the story that you told only partially is whether your other teammates felt the same way or did they have more of a sense of direction because of their Ag Econ backgrounds. In the first instance, there really should have been an all group discussion about the issue.
In the second, and in spite of your economics background, maybe you weren't a good fit for the group. That is is a possibility. Conflict sometimes happens because people are poorly matched to the work. When that happens, the best solution may be to sever the relationship.
I agree that there should have been a group discussion about the issue, but because this organization was so new, new members were joining at awkward times and it was at a point when a lot of the members didn't know each other. We simply thought that it was best to resolve it between the two of us to save the new members from being involved in the conflict.
DeleteThe last paragraph brings up a good point. To be quite honest, his directions are still somewhat vague and unclear and I'm finding myself really going out of my comfort zone to keep asking him clarifying questions. But now I'm wondering if maybe I'm just a poor fit for the group like you said and is considering to sever the relationship all together. Perhaps the group would also be well off recruiting a member with more relevant knowledge. However, a part of me wants to continue persevering and continue learning about this new industry as I'm finding the work quite interesting.
It was very interesting to read about your experience with a new RSO. I could understand that figuring out logistics would be extremely difficult. I am also a somewhat shy and passive person, so when it comes to confrontation, I tend to avoid it as well. Being forced to confront your manager in an RSO setting was probably good experience for you so that if you ever do face another difficult conflict in the real world, you at least have some practice with resolution techniques.
ReplyDelete