In my early twenties I managed a
cosmetics and skin care store in a busy mall. Teenage girls, especially teenage girls who view themselves
as gorgeous, are ripe with interpersonal conflicts. Throw into that picture girls who attend high school
together and often belong to different social scenes or cliques, and then put
them all into a beauty store together where they have to work in harmony with
one another and the harmonious atmosphere must remain intact regardless of what
happened at school that day or what outside person walks into the store. Managing interpersonal conflict is how
I learned active listening skills, how I learned to temper emotional climates,
how I learned to choose words carefully for their power, and how I learned to
successfully cope in every other interpersonal relationship I've had
since. These girls could test the
limits of anyone's peace making attempts and I had to do better than maintain
peace, I had to make them like each other.
Prelude
The
first challenge I faced on managing interpersonal conflict was the little goth
girl on her first introduction to our newly hired cheerleader. I hired outgoing, enthusiastic,
well-spoken people to add the most value to my staff. I did not anticipate the conflict of mixing style genre in
the store. The two cheerfully
smiled at each other, but my goth girl had been with me for awhile and I
instantly noticed the artificially set smile and the adjustment to her
composure upon seeing our new cheerleader walk in and be introduced. And the cheerleader gave a large smile
as well, but I instantly noticed the contemptuous gleem in her eyes as she
viewed my top seller all dressed in black with artfully died hair, pale cheeks,
and darkly lined eyes. Nonverbal
cues play a large role in communication (Nystul, 2006). Just by reading the unspoken signs I
could predict a potential problem between the two girls.
Trigger
As
the weeks went by our new cheerleader's sales started to outshine the goth's
sales by a landslide. I was
thrilled with the increase, but could feel the tension brewing. All too soon catty remarks started to
slip out of either mouth here and there and conflict started to develop when
the fight for sales started to be visible to the customers.
Initiation
One
day I left the key holder in charge of the store so I could take my top two
sellers out for coffee as a "treat" for their performance. In conflict between two people one of
the involved parties will initiate the process by addressing the fact that
there is a conflict (Abigail & Cahn, 2011). In this conflict, as store manager, I had to personally make
sure the conflict was addressed and mediated to a positive resolution.
Differentiation
The
girls involved in the conflict were increasingly unpleasant toward each other
and their behavior was affecting everyone else in the store. I could not let the pattern continue to
its own conclusion; I had to intervene.
I
started by telling both girls what a great job they were doing, which they
already knew. Then because my goth
girl had been there longer and needed to feel better about being outshone in
sales I asked her if she could offer suggestions for the rest of the
staff. Then I asked my cheerleader
what her secret was to starting out with such a high sales rate. Then I asked them, away from the store
to tell me if they went to school together. I got lucky, they did.
I asked them a few questions that got them talking and they started to
see how similar they were, begrudgingly.
Then I assigned them a project, their job would be to work together to
coach the rest of our team on selling technique.
Resolution
It
was actually a gamble, but the two were so excited by the responsibility I gave
them that they started talking excitedly about ideas. When we returned to the store they had transformed into
instant friends and started offering each other suggestions as well as what
they would do to motivate the rest of the staff. They always were competitive with each other, but the
competition took on a healthy fun edge instead of the tension we previously
faced. I learned through this that
when people have no reason not to like each other, but still do not, if they
are given a common goal they start to view each other as allies.
Conclusion
Fortunately
I have always had pragmatic instincts when it comes to communication. Pragmatic communication is like a chess
match between two players. Both
parties involved feed off of the reactions of the other (Trenholm, 2011). Because of my understanding of the
patterns that emerge I am able to mediate conflict between people very easily. In my own communications I resolve
conflicts almost immediately, so rarely does anything escalate. I am also adept at recognizing when
someone has a conflict with me.
When this happens I don’t wait for the other person to initiate, I
address their concerns and open up dialogue so the person with an issue feels
comfortable bringing it to my attention.
References
Abigail,
R.A. and Cahn, D.D. (2011). Managing Conflict Through Communication (4th Ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Nystul,
M.S. (2006). Introduction to Counseling: An art and science perspective (3rd. Ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.
Trenholm,
S. (2011). Thinking Through Communication: An introduction to the study of
human communication (6th Ed.).
United States of America: Allyn & Bacon.
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