Reference no: EM133285784

Passage: Student groups are a staple of university and college campuses and are often included in planning campus extracurricular activities, such as bringing in outside speakers to complement the learning that takes place in the classroom. On the surface, this kind of planning may appear straightforward and free of conflict, but often it is not. Lori, Kevin, Chris, Diedre, and Tony are members of a university Speaker Committee charged with planning their campus's speaker series. Kevin, Chris, Diedre, and Tony have volunteered for this group. Lori, as the elected student senator from the College of Arts and Humanities, chairs this committee.

Lori encouraged Tony to join the group because his interest in politics gives him access to numerous contacts locally and nationally. Tony talked her into encouraging his friend Kevin to volunteer after Chris and Diedre had volunteered. The group needed a fifth person and Kevin was eager to join. Lori hesitated because she questioned Kevin's commitment, but ultimately trusted Tony's judgment. Their first meeting did not begin well at all. Kevin, as Lori predicted, did not show up or contact anyone about his absence. Tony was quiet because he did not want to upset Lori any more than she already was and did not want to hurt his friendship with Kevin. When Lori asked for ideas for next year's speakers, she quickly learned that the rest of the members had different ideas about speakers than she did. Tony gently suggested that he and other students were tired of the same old "political" and education topics of immigration and terrorism issues. He thought it was time for some fun and hoped they could schedule entertaining speakers. Diedre confronted Tony directly by expressing a strong opinion that the speakers had to have educational value. Chris tried to mediate the conflicting opinions. Lori adjourned the meeting and called for everyone to bring more ideas to the next meeting. As she was leaving, she sarcastically remarked, "This is going to be fun!" Tony promised to get Kevin to the next meeting, after which Lori replied, "Good luck."

Small groups with different member qualities, affiliations, and viewpoints are ideally suited to produce the best decisions. However, the very characteristics that give the group diversity also provide the seeds of conflict. How to get along in this rapidly changing and diverse world is a topic on just about everyone's agenda. Pick up any popular general interest magazine and you will probably see an article about how to get along at work, at home, with friends. Sometimes, what you read may give you the impression that conflict should be avoided at all costs! The truth is that whenever individuals come together in any sort of social context, disagreement and conflict are inevitable. Trying to avoid conflict is futile and unwise.

Conflict is necessary to effective decision making and problem solving. Conflict should occur during group problem solving; if it doesn't, the group members aren't taking advantage of their diversity and are being swayed by their personal and informational biases Failure to express disagreement and avoiding discussion of conflict-producing issues lead directly to ineffective problem solving and poor decision making.

Although too much conflict can hurt a group or even destroy it, our experience has been that groups of students have too little rather than too much conflict. Most of our students are afraid of disagreement and prefer groups with little or no conflict. The more conflict members experience, the more negatively the view the group experience. Kerwin and her colleagues found that members of nonprofit group steer clear of labeling their contentious talk as conflict, preferring to call it "disagreement." For these reasons, we focus on how to manage your group's conflict in ways that benefit rather than destroy the group.

Questions:

1. How do their conflict styles clash? What are the patterns of their tactics? What kinds of consequences occur in light of these patterns?

2. How could each member better follow the ethical principles for disagreement?