Back in the unit on “exhaling” (1/2 of a breathing metaphor for interpersonal communication), we began to talk about ideas for the Team Projects. As I wrote individual feedback to each of you, a process of negotiation began – a dialogue, if you will – about how to craft the criteria for this project in ways that make the expectations clear and the content suitable to the course objectives.
Here is one of my first explanations of the project: “If you/your Team can select a topic and trace its development across many examples and instances you might be able to show how one thing leads to the next. For instance, if you took “assertiveness” and found examples and analyzed each example for evidence of “listening, nexting, and consequentiality,” in the end you might be able to say something about longer-term effects (of repetition, or context, or accumulation, or who knows what but something that makes sense in the context of interpersonal relating).”
The examples are to come from our course and the public archives of the Group Dynamics course that I taught last spring. The evidence are the actual words, phrases, turns and developments in conversation that justify the example. The relational connections are what makes the subject matter real. Outerbodyboi wrote something that resonated with my vision for this Team Project:
“. . . we are communicating about communicating too much. People seem to be at a stand still, and are just continually repeating ourselves over and over again. I first felt that I was learning a lot, now I am not so sure. It’s not very fun to listen about listening or communicating about communicating. I think we should start discussing real issues, then analyze how we went about the communication flow, and what we could have done better. I feel that the discussions are almost becoming too abstract and without substance.”
Now that you have seen the Group Dynamics course archive, and you’ve been through most of a semester with me, you realize that what you leave behind (your accumulated “exhales” for this course) are a resource for the future. (As you may recall, you can delete your WordPress weblog after the course is done, although I – quite selfishly, I admit! – hope that you will not. Even more ambitiously, I hope you might return! “Fat chance of that,” do I sense a grumble…?) 
The point is, your communication has an existence: in cyberspace the evidence can be obscured, but the consequentiality persists.
Jumping ahead a few units to the initial data collection from the Group Dynamics course, several of you generated some excellent models. Ninjacook invites us to take a little journey down the path of anticipation. She takes us through a series of entries, starting with what I wrote about different kinds of anticipation, to King’s House, who mused, “…you can say what you feel and what you want to achieve, but that is not the same as communicating it.” Ninjacook loops back then, to something else I said about the link between anticipation and consequentiality, before moving on to AP1115’s comment that going through stuff together is part of what generates relational bonds. Finally, Ninjacook’s trip down consequentiality lane ends with a corroborating statement from ontherecliner. The path involves five people (three people cited once, one person returned to twice, and the author) who are saying something that – taken in isolation, by which I mean, read separately later, by someone not involved in the conversation – can be shown to have some interpersonal communication principles in common. Here’s what I wrote back to Ninjacook:
“If you can trace some kind of turn-taking or exchange among several people over a period of time that illustrates the theme – THAT is the ultimate goal!”
Does that make sense? If the team that includes Ninjacook decided to study the anticipation-consequentiality dynamic, for instance, the ideal would be to identify four or five people and track their actual dialogue over time, pulling out the quotes that show evidence of (in this case) anticipation in the exhale and evidence of (in this case) consequentiality in the inhale. Then, do this two to three times with our class material, and two to three times with material from the Group Dynamics course. In other words, a total of 4-6 examples, 2-3 each from our course and the Group Dynamics course, with each example as developed as possible from the beginning to the end of the whole conversation/interaction. (This is not the whole Project, but we are becoming increasingly clear on its core substance, yes?)
I gave similar feedback to President Makalele (on a variety of ways to approach self-disclosure), emphasizing that “the evidence and example has to come from people “exhales”. Meaning, don’t just find a bunch of random instances of a particular phenomena – we’re actually after the structure of our interpersonal communication. Jaggerbunny picks on me (!) and my expression of emotion; I replied with a nudge for elaboration. “Another way to think about this might be, what “nexts” follow from mine (in that particular case, and you’ll have to find others).” JimiGarcia actually wrote this exact prescription:
” . . . use the ideas of listening incorporated with how we have progressively been responding to each other . . . If we study through each response made to each other how we have learned to “listen” to each other and use the other terms learned from class to complete our midterm I think we will find success.”
Gym goes deeper into the flow of our communication, as OuterBodyBoi suggested, in terms of self-analyzing her journey along the path of open-mindedness. This allowed me to explain
“. . . how I am using your specific words to show a kind of logic… That logic is what you are to make plain with the team project. One of the beautiful things you’ve done is make a personal reference: you could go back (as an example rife with evidence for the presentation) to the exact quotes you made before and show the evolution in your responses as you have changed during the course of our “confusing” continual complex interpersonal communication process . . . does that make sense? Do you see what I’m getting at?”
Now, I would add that the influences inhaled would need to be part of the chain: you need to lay out all sides of the interaction.
I mentioned, above, that the potential legacy of your work here is not only as a learner, but also as a teacher and a reference for others. OuterBodyBoi found the informed consent process in last semester’s Group Dynamics course – I would like to ask the same of all of you, too. Would you let me try to publish something about the teaching and learning that has been accomplished in this class? (Oh, and I have a note here – for Outer Body Boi and your team, if you’re interested, and vice-versa – that Deliver Me Summer wrote along the lines of time and the development of relationships.)
Finally, I was excited to discover that Spicey Noodle Soup located my colleague’s exceptional explanation of How Words Create Reality. It is a different assignment than our Team Projects, but the notion of “unpacking a simple word” is a related activity. The description explains the process of making a piece or part of lived experience (something normal and taken-for-granted) appear strange or problematic. You might relate this specifically to some of the comments I have made about diction. The process of deconstruction is similar to the analysis and critique that is required for our Team Projects.
For your replies, please double-check the assignment criteria in the course website. I’ll be looking for questions and insights about what we’re trying to accomplish, and also your advice as to what reading assignments to use for the individual FINAL (which will be done after the Team Project). Please look in Part IV of our text and make an argument as to which section (not which particular author or article selection) but which entire Chapter, seems to you (today) most indicated as the best reading for us to end with: “Recognizing Communication Walls,” “Managing Conflict by Turning Walls into Bridges,” “Bridging Cultural Differences,” or more from “Promoting Dialogue”? Give your reasons and include at least one quote from that chapter’s 1-2 page introduction!
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 9:06 am
Section one recognizing communication walls seems to be a good direction to go in. the idea for the chapter is to turn “walls” into “bridges”. I feel like most arguments have to do with people not communicating well. I agree with “outofbodybio” that there has been a lot of talk about communication and listening but it might be worth exploring how this effects real word situations a little but more. Discussing these situations and then tracking what happened in the discussion might help further my understanding of both subjects.
In the chapter “Recognizing Communication Walls” Stewart explains what type of communication hurts the most. “The most hurtful messages tend to be the ones that we can do the leat to respond to” (p402 8th edition Stewart). This is way a negative message involving a romantic relationship ending is going to hurt a lot because one cannot do much about being rejected. This is why we tent to make up excuses for the message and in doing so seem to continue living with a wall in place of a bridge.
Most messages that hurt involve people that we care about, the closer that we are to a person the more a negative message will affect us. For reasons such as this I feel like this chapter really sets up some communication issues we can all relate to. It would be nice to take some of the things we have learned and use them with a subject that is not also communication. “The potential for destructive words is clearly great” (p403 8th edition Stewart). This research is by Anita L. Vangelisti and again I think it hits home I feel like sometimes we tent to think about hurt full messages more than complements.
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 11:44 am
I would like to build a case for the David W. Johnson article on Building Relationships with Diverse Others (chapter 11). I believe this will be a suitable article for our class, because I am sure everyone in one point in time has experienced difficulty communicating with people due to cultural differences. “ We live in one world. The problems that face each person, each community, each country cannot be solved without global cooperation and joint action” (pg543 9th edition Stewart). The article also has similar concepts to what we have been learning in class, such as listening, nexting, exhaling, and fierce conversations. These concepts apply when the author describes how we need to accept ourselves, lowering the barriers to building relationships with diverse peers, recognizing that diversity exists and is a valuable resource, and clarifying misunderstandings.
http://saboy82.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/teaming/
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 12:11 pm
After reading the opening page of each of the sections, I would like to see our final to be on the section written by John Stewart and Carole Logan, entitled Deception, Betrayal, and Aggression. I don’t feel as if there is any deception, betrayal, or aggression in neither my team, or the course in general, but this is what interests me most. Personally, when I read “Deception can also be unintentional, as when someone mis-remembers or mistakenly forgets or omits information” that struck a cord with me, because that is something I’ve been known to do, and I have felt the consequences. Also, something that I noticed was in the section of aggression, “When communication exhibits imbalances in power and a concern for self at the expense of another, the patterns sometimes include aggression, or even physical violence.” When I read that, I instantly thought about the two tensions of dialogue, which we’ve discussed, “holding your own ground” and “letting others happen to you”, and the theme of balance is brought back into picture, that when there is an imbalance, certain things happen as a result. I just find that so interesting, and I would love research that more.
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I think the most interesting and worthwhile chapter in Part IV is “Bridging Cultural Differences.“ It covers a wider array of topics than the title would suggest, and even touches on a number of topics discussed in the other chapters within the section. The section highlights four of the six steps for building relationships with diverse peers, “Accept yourself, lower barriers, recognize that diversity is a valuable resource, and work to clarify misunderstandings(pg. 520 8th ed. Stewart).” I think that if we spend more time on this chapter we could get valuable perspective on some of the earlier readings. The first that came to mind was James’ “When Miss America Was Always White”, but there are many others that we could compare and contrast, and then evaluate for the final. All readings within Chapter 11 should be read with this in mind, “Cultural differences have created human problems since recorded history began (pg. 520 8th ed. Stewart).” The introduction is started with that phrasing to set the tone of the forthcoming readings. There is a certain gravity to the readings when the overall goal of the thought process is a common good that adheres to no superficial or cultural separations. With this much solid material I think we would be in good shape for the upcoming final.
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Like topofthemorn and Masr27, I would like the final to be on Recognizing Communication Walls (Chapter 9). This chapter talks about how to turn walls into bridges. Walls meaning deception, betrayal, aggression, hurtful messages, disconfirmation, power, and verbal abuse. I think this chapter is important for all of us because we’re all going to have trouble communicating in certain situations. An interesting idea according to John Stewart is that, “Lying is a joint action. Some people make it relatively easy for other to to lie to them, and others make it desirable. This is not to “blame the victim” of deception, but only to remind communicators that it takes more than one person to lie.” After reading that, I never thought of lying in that kind of context. I think it would be interesting to see how others feel about lying and if it is a useful tool to find some kind of compromise between people.
What I also like about this chapter is the discussion of psychological abuse and physical violence. Being a Psychology major, I think that it would be an important section to look into because the actions that you take out onto someone else can affect them for the rest of their lives. I think it is important for everyone to be educated and aware that actions do have consequences and to be smart about your choices.
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Chapter 12 Promoting dialogue has so much to do with this class, in the article it says “teachers on campuses across the country want less lecturing and more active involvement and open communication in their classrooms.”(p.569)
Steph encourages us to interact with each other so much in this class she always asks us not to ask her for help. She would much rather we converse with each other. I have taken many classes were the teacher hates standing up in front of the class and talking the whole time. For instance I took an philosophy class last spring at OSU my teacher used to have to practically be us to give her feed back or she would just be up there the whole time talking. Teachers really want the students to speak up so they can hear what are thoughts are on things and see if we really get the information that is being fed to us. The whole article isn’t just about students being more involved in the classroom it gives many scenarios where dialogue really needs to be improved at. If everyone one in our class would be able to communicate with each with out having some type of argument things would be much smoother. People would be more willing to speak more openly to each other not having to worry about someone freaking out on them. Deborah Tannen the 1988 best selling author refers to North Americans as the “argument culture.”(569) Ms.Tannen is “encouraging people to replace argument with dialogue.”
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 3:11 pm
As we move toward the final days in anticipation of our group project there are no “conflicts” that I can find which we are or have experienced as a team. At this point I feel what we really need is to stay connected and continue having more conversations. The only chapter I feel that has any relevance to where we are at is chapter 12 from Bridges Not Walls on “Promoting Dialogue” because I really feel that is what we need more than anything right now. The chapter’s first paragraph says, “Especially over the past ten years, many elected officials, teachers, trainers, managers, and community activists have been calling out for ‘more dialogue’,….better two way communication…teachers on campuses across the country want less lecturing and more active involvement and open communication in their classrooms(591).” I feel like that that is what we are working towards achieving. My question is how do we improve it? Do we asks better questions? It almost seemed like there was more dialogue in the beginning of the class. Now there seems to be less “dialogue” and it is primarily centered around the “project”. So how do we tear down the “walls” and build “dialogue” at this point?
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I chose chapter 10, “Managing Conflict by Turning Walls into Bridges (450/451).” I embrace the thought that we can turn conflict into a bridge of communication instead of a wall. We have all experienced conflicts with family, friends, coworkers, and community members. It is our approach to the situation that defines the outcome.
The chapter “distinguishes from productive and destructive conflict interaction.” The authors clarify the difference of productive conflict as “flexible” and destructive conflicts as “inflexible.” Productive conflict is also believed to recognized to meet some goals and dedicated to resolving their issues, while destructive is more of a win/lose situation.
It is discussed in the article that “every move mad in a conflict has impact on other parties.” Probably all of us have experienced this personally. We can manage conflict by how we individually react to a circumstance; productive or destructive.
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I agree with three of our other classmates that chapter nine is a wise selection for our final. John Stewart and Carole Logan’s article “Deception, Betrayal, and Aggression” isn’t only a topic of interest but also relates to our class. I agree with TennisFan when they talks about how our communication will be like turning bridges into walls. They say, “I think this chapter is important for all of us because we’re all going to have trouble communicating in certain situations.” I think this is an important point to be realized, the walls are even bigger because we are only online. Stewart talks a lot about deception and the different ways that it is used. Most people would think that deception and lying will always be a negative thing but researchers Dan O’Hair and Michael Cody show how deception can be a positive thing in interpersonal communication as well. One of the six motives or reasons that these researchers give for why people lie is called utility motive. O’Hair and Cody say, “A utility motive for deception means that the deceiver wants to improve, enhance, escalate, or repair the relationship with the other person.” I think this is a good point because it reminds of “nexting” and doing things in conversation to keep it going or “escalate it.”
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 8:32 pm
After perusing the opening statements of each of the final chapters in Part IV of the textbook, my nomination for Final chapter is Managing Conflict by Turning Walls into Bridges (Chapter 10). Before I make my case for this chapter, I would first like to make my argument against the others.
Chapter 9, Recognizing Communication Walls, appears to merely give the readers insight into how to discover a problem, without giving a means to resolving said dilemma. “Chapter 9 focuses on what some people call the ‘dark side’ of interpersonal communication.” (p 402, Stewart, 8th Ed.) I mean, its great that I know when I have found a conflict, but what will I do when I get to that point???
Chapter 11, Bridging the Cultural Differences, is frankly too specified. While it might be a great add-on topic if we had the time in this class, because intercultural communication difference resolution is more and more a pertinent topic in this day and age, there are simply more pressing issues at hand that should be covered before this topic, especially if only one topic may be selected. It’s not that I don’t want to learn about intercultural communication, but I would rather use something more prevalent in my current situation (don’t we have a group project to do???).
Chapter 12, Promoting Dialogue, as Beaver32 says, “has so much to do with this class.” It is the capstone chapter in this textbook. “This chapter draws from and contributes to a significant movement that’s underway in many countries around the world, and it also summarizes a great deal of the rest of this book.” (p 569, Stewart, 8th Ed.) So why would I not want to read this chapter? It’s too soon for this chapter. Just as with Chapter 11, this course of topics would be a great add-on to the regiment that we have had thus far, but I feel that it would not cover enough of the final topic that we need to focus on.
And that topic is…..
Chapter 10, Managing Conflict by Turning Walls into Bridges, will teach us, as newly refined interpersonal communicators, the art of conflict resolution. What we have learned so far – listening, nexting, inhaling, exhaling, consequentiality, assertiveness, self-disclosure, tensionality, letting others happen to you, standing your own ground – none of it has covered what we should do when we encounter interpersonal communication conflicts. “The central section of this chapter distinguishes productive from destructive conflict interaction;” I guess “there are actually some benefits to conflict.” (p 450, Stewart, 8th Ed.)
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I think our class would benefit most from more readings from Chapter 12: Promoting Dialogue (Bridges Not Walls, ed. Stewart). I personally feel as though my team has been losing steam lately with the group project approaching. Perhaps we could benefit from some readings that might inspire deeper conversations and dialogue. In the introduction to this chapter, John Stewart delivers a seemingly foolproof argument for promoting dialogue: “how might people bridge cultural differences? With dialogue. What often works in conflict? Dialogue. What’s one useful and helpful way to define interpersonal communication? As dialogue.” (591) Stewart also notes that the principles of dialogue relate in some way to much of the rest of the Bridges Not Walls and the various principles therein.
Considering Stewart’s reasons above, I think it would be difficult to argue any negative, or detrimental aspects of dialogue. The ideas he presents portray dialogue as being an overwhelmingly positive and useful tool in interpersonal communication. I believe that our class, particularly myself and my group, has some significant “walls” to “bridge” in terms of opening up meaningful dialogue for the group projects. We seem, my team at least, to be lacking the fundamental “push-pull” dynamic in our conversations when we tend to agree with each other and the material. I feel as though some more readings on effective dialogic communication might help as all get closer to that “ideal” and produce higher quality “exhalations” in terms of making our relationships with each other more dynamic, controversial, and most importantly, meaningful.
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 8:59 pm
I have found that I am most interested in section one. This reading about recognizing communication walls, brings up something that I feel would be most enjoyable to work with. The idea of turning “walls” into “bridges” is something that I feel is a virtue to us all. We have all experienced some sort of arguments and I’m sure all of us have left the argument with a particular grudge or bad feeling toward whomever we argued with. Stewart gives us a great idea as to what communication we have to be aware of as “hurtful” for us. The reason we have to understand this is because typically this ‘hurtful’ type of communication is that brings about problems in arguments. According to Stewart we tend to turn our shoulder to these messages and try to get over them with excuses as padding for how we’ve been hurt. By doing so we create a “wall” which is by no means good for any type of relationship, whether it be friendly or romantic, therefore we need to work to make ‘bridges.’ TopoftheMourn says that “The closer that we are to a person the more a negative message will affect us.” I completely agree with this statement, and I feel that this would be the best section for our class to focus on, because I feel that the majority-if not all of us would love to learn about this topic. Especially so we can relate this to our personal experiences with those people who are closest to us. Lying is something that can potentially hurt everyone, and everyone is capable of doing it. The author tells us that one researcher claims “that there are no positive motives for lying” (p.404, Stewart 9th ed.). This statement can be argued, and many time’s is arguable. I feel that this only adds to how our class could work well with this section, there are many different parts of this section that would make for great conversations amongst our class.
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Out of all of the chapters in part IV I think Chapter 10: Turning Bridges Into Walls is the most relevant to our class. The opening discusses conflict and how people deal with conflict while illustrating the bad and “potentially good” side of conflict in IPC situations. This goal of this chapter is to manage conflict and it gives us the concept of realistic and nonrealistic conflicts. Realistic conflicts are productive when in contrast nonrealistic conflicts are destructive and only represent a win/lose situation. This applies to our class (moreover our team interactions) because of the group dynamic of having a common goal to achieve, but to achieve this common goal individually. I say “individually achieve a common goal” because essentially that is what we are doing, trying to identify each of our goals for the next few days in order to succeed as a whole by Saturday. In the chat room today with my team the productive and realistic conflict of what topic to do was being discussed. We arrived at a decision because, “…productive conflicts are realistic, which means that they focus on substantive problems the parties can potentially solve, while nonrealistic conflicts are mainly expressions of aggression designed to defeat or hurt the other”. (Stewart 8th Ed, p 450) There is no place for hostility in our class and therefore conflicts with the goal of defeat or hurt are not prevalent. It is all productive conflict for this project from deciding on a topic, to organizing individual work and finally right down to determining a team representative to compile the project for everyone. If we can all deal with these conflicts in a controlled and realistic manner the project should “flow” nicely. Stewart writes, “if you see conflict as something entirely negative, you’ll behave accordingly…” (he continues), “the more you believe it’s awful, the worse it will get.” (Stewart 8th Ed, p 450) Since what we are presented with (the project) is not all that awful I think we all understand that productive conflict will help us realize some of our goals. It will work because productive conflict only occurs when all parties are committed to working through their differences and our team experiences seem to reflect this commitment. (Stewart 8th Ed, p 450)
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Managing Conflict
The chapter that I chose is Chapter 10, “Managing Conflict by Turning Walls into Bridges”. All the chapters are interesting, and discuss topics in which we can all relate to in our everyday lives. What caught my attention from Chapter 10 is that it presents ways in how to “do conflict better”. Everyone has to deal with conflicts one way or another. It can be at the job, at home with the family, in a personal relationship, or even when trying to get a burger at the nearest fast food restaurant. Many of us are either in college, or just graduating, and I believe its very important to know how to deal with conflicts that we will with face in the “real” world.
The result of a conflict can be affected by the “self-fulfilling prophecy” (the way we think about conflicts) that we have before entering a conflict. Meaning that “…the more you believe it’s awful, the worse it will get” (450). The authors in this chapter offer one way to overcome this problems, “…to be open to the positive values of conflict …”(450). Sounds like a simple thing to do, think positive and positive things will occur, but most of us have never even thought about this. I would like to study the “positive values of a conflict” along with other solutions that can help us “do” conflict better.
Work Cited (Book):
Stewart, John, ed. Bridges Not Walls (Chapter 10). New York: Phillp A Butcher, 2002.
WordPress URL:
http://gym411.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/managing-conflict/
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 9:33 pm
When reading these chapter descriptions, I felt that one jumped out at me very quickly for our group. Chapter 12 was the blatant choice for me, especially given the recent events (or lack thereof?). I’m not saying our group is in a terrible position, I would have just expected more conversation and interaction recently. Deborah Tannen sat in on a classroom where on the surface it looked like the students were having a great heated debate. The problem is that only a few students are partaking, and the conversation is adversarial. “She traces this educational approach to the Greeks and early Europeans who modeled schooling after training exercises for war. She contrasts this model with Chinese and Indian educational approaches that emphasized enlightenment rather than overwhelming one’s opponent.” (Stewart 8th Ed. p. 569) That’s a little bit how it feels right now, but I’m sure that once it gets time to crack down, the quieter ones will step up and probably provide some of the best insight for the project. I have no fears that we will break down the wall of silence and start a real dialogue through which we will all get the project completed.
I only really have one question after quickly glazing over the next assignment. Is the project based on the chapter we have chosen, or will the group decide as a whole which to do?
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Is it such a bad thing?
Overall, I’m happy with how my team has been communicating. We’ve all been in touch with one another at various points and (though we’ve not had the opportunity to all get together at the same time) have conversed with little or no “conflict” – which, as I’m about to argue, may or may not be a good thing.
After reading through the chapter summaries, I’ve selected Chapter 10 – “Managing Conflict By Turning Walls Into Bridges.” The chapter itself has a very captivating name – however, I was extremely surprised by the actual definition of conflict. Folger, Poole, and Stutman write, “Conflict is the interaction of interdependent people who perceive incompatible goals and interference from each other in achieving those goals.” I argue, however, that this definition is too narrow and creates a negative connotation of “conflict.” It is my belief that (and I’ll be the first to admit that this certainly does not apply to all conflict, but) some conflict can actually be a good thing.
First, I disagree with the wording that conflict takes place between “… people who perceive incompatible goals…” (Folger, Poole, and Stutman, p. 478). I believe that conflict can occur between people who have similar goals or motives, and it is in this particular circumstance that conflict can become an extremely positive exercise. Take, for instance, the group work for this class. In deciding upon a topic, one member may disagree with what I would like to focus on. Sure, we may disagree and argue (thus, experiencing conflict) – but ultimately we share the same goal (to successfully complete the assignment).
One may argue that this fails to meet the definition of conflict because we do have “compatible” goals. And while I do agree with this to some extent (I fear I may be contradicting myself a little bit, so hang in there), I feel that conflict can exist in a situation where people share common goals. In fact, I argue that this is the very basis of “productive” conflict. In Chapter 10, Folger et al. redeemingly define “productive” conflict as interpersonal communication “guided by the belief that all factions can attain important goals” (p. 483). I support this definition and want to strengthen his argument by saying that “productive” conflict may very well lead to (more) successful resolution of problems, creative brainstorming of solutions, and better outcomes of people who work together to achieve common goals (but may not agree on the means to do so).
So, what does this have to do with group projects? Well, I simply want to point out that conflict can be a good thing. To specify, conflict in interactions between people who share common goals may lead to more positive outcomes (whether it be through facilitation of brainstorming, identification of creative options, or interplay/building of ideas). That being said, (as long as our interactions remain respectful, employing active listening, assertive versus aggressive attitudes) feel free to pick at that wound… play “Devil’s Advocate,” create some (dare I say it) excitement. It’s my belief that the material produced from these interactions will be richer and more thoughtful for it.
Wednesday August 13, 2008 at 10:54 pm
After reading introductions of part IV, I have learned a new thing. The chapter 10 of “Bridges not walls” by John Stewart is based on an idea of managing conflict by turning walls into Bridges. Before reading this introduction, I have always considered conflict as in terms of negative way. However, Stewart is saying that “one of the places where it is most challenging and most important to turn communication walls into bridges is in conflict” (Chapter 10, “Bridges not walls”) When I think of my group, we have not had any conflicts. Keeping that Stewart’s quote in my mind, I was curious about the possibilities of my team members to still experiencing walls rather than bridges when they are interacting with the other members. Also, the conflict can be divided into two different sides: productive conflicts and destructive conflict. Stewart states that “Productive conflict management is grounded in the belief that all parties can realize at least some of their goals, while destructive conflict is thoroughly win/lose”(Chapter 10, “Bridges not walls”) Productive conflict is something new to me, because I usually thought there was only a conflict called destructive conflict. Stewart also adds that “productive conflict happens when the parties are committed to working through their differences rather than either avoiding them or simply favoring one position over the others” After reading this quote, I thought that my group might have not had much chance to produce productive conflict in order to completely destroy the walls between us. While working as a group, I thought my group was slowly learning the otherness of each others, and starting to build bridges. This introduction gives me an idea that my team can have more strong bridges by creating productive conflict.
Thursday August 14, 2008 at 10:26 am
I am not so sure that we can use chapter 9 as the one that we focus on because it doesn’t completely relate to our group. This chapter is really focused on aggression and heated communication, and nobody in our group has voiced these sentiments, or at least not in a threatening way or aggressive way. It also focuses on deception, which could represent our group, but that’s a difficult thing to examine and measure unless people are willing to be completely honest (didn’t think so). At the heart of this chapter is aggression, anger and deception. This one doesn’t really summarize our participation. Neither is the theme of chapter 10, which is conflict.
I’m not sure about chapter 11 either, because the focus is on cultural differences, and although we all do have cultural differences, I believe we changed our words so that it would be a more universal line of communication. From my memory, we didn’t really discuss much cultural difference other than it should be respected. I am going to have to agree with Grant2u, that the chapter with the most relevance is chapter 12. Although we have ahead a good amount of interaction, I still feel that we are holding back for many different reasons. There hasn’t been a great cohesiveness between us, which is partly my fault, so I am not pointing fingers. It’s very difficult in this situation of online learning for everyone to get on the same page at the same time. Sometimes things have been a little off, and things get stretched out. Some of us are doing things early and others get things done late, so this leaves gaps in the flow of communication. I can safely agree that we haven’t lived up to our potential, but it’s not too late!
Saturday August 16, 2008 at 10:55 am
[...] for the Projects. (Also, most of the quotes are from comments to the previous lecture, “conversing toward team projects,” but I have provided the links to each student’s individual weblog.) Some students [...]