Week 13: Discussion Question #2

2). Briefly outline an example of collaborative conflict resolution that you have engaged in. Contrast that with competitive conflict. Which was more satisfying to you? To the other party?

Collaborative conflict and/or consensus are a resolution strategy for any given group or persons, which is a win-win situation. In this particular situation everyone comes to an agreement, nobody is right or wrong. I feel that throughout my life I have encountered many different conflicts. The interesting thing to me is, I have felt that you should pick and chose your situations of conflict depending on the person and the relationship. This way there is less conflict and better communication in the relationship.

An example in my life when I have experienced collaborative conflict was the other day when I was doing my laundry at home. I had been doing laundry for a few hours and wanted to get it all done, considering it was my day off and it was the only time that I had to do it. Well a problem arose, my sister needed to do her laundry as well. She had to have her uniform washed for tomorrow's game. Since I had errands I needed to run I was worried that when I came home my laundry would not be finished because my sister would pull my clothes out of the wash. So I spoke with her and said that she could wait until I was done to my laundry to finish hers. In the meantime if she need her uniform washed she could put it in with my clothes, this way she could get the necessary things washed and I could continue washing mine. She was okay with this and I continued washing my clothes and she even helped to change loads for me when I was doing errands so the process would be faster and she could start her laundry later. We both were happy with the end results.

Competitive conflict is a resolution strategy for a given group or persons where it is a win-lose situation. Not everyone is always happy in this situation because it is more about self-interest, what makes you happy. Someone will always be satisfied and another will be dissatisfied. I feel that this type of strategy is more common that we expect it to be. Many people are most interest in their personal self-interested then having the satisfaction of others and themselves.

I have also experienced many situations like this. You can look at it as a selfless action or look at it in the sense that someone will have to win and the other may lose because you cannot always come to a perfect agreement. I went through this situation last night. My girlfriends and I went out to dinner and had drinks in Campbell. After dinner we tried to decide where we wanted to go. I did not really want to go out considering I had to up really early. My other friends did not really want to drive so they asked me to. I said no because one I did not want to be up late and two I did not want to go where they were going. We ending up just settling for an alternative that not everyone was satisfied with but it worked out in the end. In this situation I won because I got to go do what I wanted and my friends lost because they had to do something different then what they really wanted.

In some situations I agree that the win-lose situation can be the most satisfying if you are on the winning end. But, I do think that there are going to be many times in your life that you will not always be on the winning end. So you do have to make compromises and sacrifices. In a win-win situation everyone is happy and I think that this is the most satisfying for both parties. Everyone is happy and there are no worries about people being disappointed. This cannot always occur but if the win-lose situations can be avoided why not try to satisfy everyone when possible.