Interpersonal Conflicts

       Conflict. Its inevitable in the realm of interpersonal relationships. After all, the only thing everyone can agree upon is that when there is an opinion, someone will disagree with it. Human nature, or specifically the core individualism within us, often gives us different perspectives on the same issue. There's nothing wrong with this, of course. The various views, when considered on the merit of their substantiations help provide a plethora of perspectives on an issue and therefore help in decision making processes. This is especially useful in organisations which require decisions to be made as problems which had not been hitherto considered, might be brought to attention. The main problem with interpersonal conflict however, is the human habit of weaving emotion into perspective. This often degrades the ability of people to see the merits of the argument of others.

I served my two years of national service in the army. And as many of the readers who served similarly will attest, the army is a hotbed of interpersonal conflict. I served as a sergeant and in that capacity was often invited to sit in at meetings, so as to act as a proxy for my men. In this particular case, a person of higher rank than me made a suggestion regarding a routine operating procedure. The senior management (officers and their ilk) were suitably impressed with the suggestion. It saved on manpower, money and other resources which the procedure required. They began, in their enthusiasm, to press for this modification to be submitted to the headquarters(HQ). In the army, you see, one had to obtain approval to change procedure. The HQ was required to approve the change and and then allow it to to be included in the Standard Operating Procedure. But my fellow sergeants and I saw a problem with the proposal immediately, a problem that could compromise the safety of our men. We spoke up suggesting that perhaps the matter should be examined fully in order to assess the risk to the men using it. Instead of engaging in discussion as to how this might be the case, we were told that we were trying to be lazy and didn't want to teach the procedure to our men. We explained our stance but were instead told that our objections were far too vociferous and that they bordered on insubordination. I was silently fuming that day when I went home.

A week later, HQ identified the problems to safety regarding the new procedure and in no uncertain terms, told my unit to revert to the original, safer procedure. The sergeants were vindicated but it came at a price of the senior men thinking that we "were out to get them". The working relationship rapidly soured.

In my opinion the problem could have solved simply by considering the viewpoints. After all, workplace seniority does not mean that they had examined all possible consequences before proposing a solution. While I was glad that none of my men was injured by implementing the flawed procedure, it also meant that it would be harder to get things approved by senior personnel in the unit. The consequences of interpersonal conflict would then rely on the objectivity of both parties in assessing each other's views.