A few weeks ago, Professor Charlton asked a question in class: “Who thinks conflict is good or necessary?” A believer of the fact that lack of conflict implies the presence of conflict itself, I stood forward in agreement. Weeks since, I found myself in conflict with my COMM 292 group members.

The conflict was regarding the grades, in terms of percentage, that each member should get for their relevant contribution towards our most recent case project. There were conflicting views about the amount of percentage each group member had to get for the project. Some felt that they had done more work than other members, and should hence receive a higher grade.

Taking a note out of our professor’s book, our team decided to go through the ‘Negotiation Process’ we had just learnt about in class the other day. We decided to follow the five steps, and eventually, this led to the resolutions of this conflict.

In our first stage, we developed a strategy and defined ground rules. Each member let the team know of their expectations regarding the grade, letting members know the lowest number they would accept, the minimum they were expecting, and the highest range that they would accept. Our strategy was to rank each member according to levels of work done. The ranks were high, medium and low.

After assigning each other to these relevant ranks, we discussed and justified each members position in their relevant ranks. This led to a lot of clarification and discussion about the amount of work each member had put in towards the project. Hence, members of the group were given their respective ranks.

Our final step was to decide the relevant percentage each rank would get. This was the bargaining and problem-solving phase. The team moved on to discussing percentages, taking into considerations the initial ‘rules’ set out.
A conclusion was hence reached, meaning that the team signed the document and that every member was satisfied that their relevant percentages reflected the work that they had put in for the project.

It interests me how the simple application of class concepts can take us a long way. Guess, team 4 really did benefit from R.J Lewicki’s concept.

Word Count: 368

1. R.J. Lewicki, “Bargaining and Negotiation, “Exchange: The Organisational Behavior Teaching Journal 6, no.2(1981), pp. 39-40