Haley's October Experience

One of my best communication strengths is that I am really straightforward and honest. My greatest weakness is that I like to avoid conflict at all costs. To better communicate, I could work on changing the way I deal with conflict and face conflicts more head on. To be a better leader, I’m definitely going to have to work on the way that I handle conflict because leaders can’t avoid conflict. A good leader needs to know how to face it and work to compromise in order to resolve it.

Grace's October Experience

I liked how our class presentation last week was framing conflict as a necessary and good part of life. I don’t think anyone particularly likes conflict, but our presenter Ed Derr is right in stating that we grow from conflict and that is what inspires us to change and move forward. At least I do not think that anyone would give up a system if it was working just fine; it is conflict that points out there is something that could be improved and conflict that makes the system accommodate and change.

For our team, we each have a different conflict style. Mine was tied three ways: I am the accommodating teddy bear, the compromising fox, or the collaborating owl. In each case it seems I range from “I lose, you win” to “I bend, you bend” or “I win, you win” depending on the situation. Two of my suite mates are accommodating teddy bears as well. Our third suite mate is a shark, which is “I win, you lose” attitude. For the most part this has not been a problem at all to us.

I think our greatest strength is that we try to accommodate for one another, but this is also our greatest weakness because no one is tempted to step up and say “hey, this is really bothering me”.  We could improve our Summit group if we all actually communicated with each other more and ask if we can change something or divvy out chores if it is bothering everyone. We have been doing this for the most part, (with the actual project we have divided when we are getting materials and building each section of the stage and so on) but it usually takes us a while because we are more likely to let the situation get bad before we do anything about it. As far as the actual conflict itself goes we could improve by discussing it more with everyone face to face and work on assigning specific tasks with deadlines to make sure things get done.