Conflict

I have participated in many kinds of organizations and also I have experience a plenty of conflicts. For this blog, I want to share my experience in tennis club. There are a great deal of small or huge conflicts in the tennis club. 

My tennis club consists of more than sixty people and regular practice meetings are held on Saturday. We use six courts for four hours. Each member is able to vote for which session during those four hours to participate to play double matches. We play double matches so someone needs to create the game set for twenty four sets' double match based on the player's proficiency and preference. A lot of conflicts are made from making the sets of the games. Because every member tends to think that each own proficiency is higher than other whose proficiency is similar to him or her. In other words, people tend to believe that they are playing better than they really are. It spawns a lot of problems in making matches. In addition to this, relationship between each people also matter when making the games. Some people have a bad relationship with certain people. If the game maker does not know about this relationship situation, then it can also triggers the problems. Therefore, it has a lot of things to consider when creating the game sets for each week. 

In this sense, Jason claimed the complaints about the game sets. His main argument was that he always played with people who are playing worse than him. Also, he thought that he is playing fewer than he voted for. However, the game maker, Tom, who has intimate relationship with Jason, thought that he is actually not playing better as much as Jason thought and Tom thought it was fair to play. The proficiency of tennis is very difficult to measure. A great deal of things can have influence on the result of game such wind, luck, condition, sense, and so on. Especially, tennis is one of the very sensitive sports, which means that it is difficult to decide who is playing better or worse objectively. It is even more when those two comparable players have about same proficiency. Jason was mad at Tom's game making, so he just did not show up for games even though he was designated to play. This was very disrespectful way to express his feeling and thoughts because his pair and opponents were also not able to play for those session and they were judged by him that they play worse than him in a bad way. 

Tom and Jason were ready to fight again each other. They started to avoid the situation to meet with each other. However, one day, Tom who is older than Jason tried to grab a beer and talk about this situation. Tom explained him how he felt about Jason's behavior. Tom suggested him to apologize for tennis club members for the behavior and making loud problems. Tom and Jason was quite in a good mood and the situation seems to be about to end. 

However, after that day, Jason started to avoid him. Jason never talks to him and did not greet to him. Jason just ignored him. He might be such a person who has too strong pride. He just did not like someone advised him and made suggestion for him. After that day, Jason never even looked at Tom. Tom's reaction was disappointment. He was disappointed of him very much because the reason he invited him to drink some beer and talked about the situation is that he has at least some affectionate to him. However, his had was perfectly ignored and Tom also started to avoid him as well.  They were now strangers each other.

This relationship started to be apparent in other members. People are not trying to show their opinion but they are somewhat dividing into two groups. It was very bad for tennis club atmosphere. If Jason acted with more polite and consideration with complaining, it did not happen. Jason was too aggressive about the gam sets. The purpose of the tennis club is to leisurely play tennis with each other and help each other to play well. At least Tom tried to resolve the solution by having some heart to heart conversation at the end, however, Jason reacted negatively. If Tom understood that his pride was too high to accept advise, maybe he could find another way to resolve it as well. 

Discipline and Punishment

I have encountered a great deal of situation that also contains some discipline and punishment. As a son in my family, as a student in my classroom, as a member in military, I have seen or involved in the situation of disciple and punishment. Especially, I want to talk about my experience at military about punishment.

In military, there are specific and strict rules to follow, which applies to all soldiers in the organization. If the rules are not obeyed, the people who are against the rules, will be punished according to the accredited rules guideline. It is like a law in the society. For example, if a soldier is convicted as a driver under influence, he or she cannot be promoted, decrease monthly salary, statement submission, and so on. The specific amount is followed by the rules and details can be decided by highest rank of that squadron or organization. In addition to this, if it is related to violating law, then it is connected to the department which takes care of laws related issues.

I agree with that this strictly ruled punishment has a great deal of influence on the organization itself. It surely maintains the organization from any unexpected problems that are harmful to the organization. However, I think that the more important thing is discipline than punishment. In my opinion, the definition of discipline is broader than punishment. Discipline can involve some punishment. But discipline also contains the whole process of educating, which can be extension of punishment.

As an example, there was an airman who newly coming to our flight group office. Even though he was trained in the training camp, there should be something that is still vague or unfamiliar to him. He made a security accident at the first week of his placement to our office. In the flight group office, for security reason, it is prohibited to insert any kind of USB cable to computer without permission. It was somewhat basic common sense in the military community. However, he inserted his MP3 player USB cable to the office computer to charge his device. This is a pretty scary moment. Right after he inserted it, the information security department called to our office and figured out what is going on. Then, he got punished as the following rules such as reducing vacation days. The crucial thing in this situation is to realize him to make sure he is not going do this kind of problem again. But the method was wrong, in my opinion, from this point (after punishment). Every member in the office started to label him as a problematic person. They treated him like the transparent, which means that they ignored him. They blamed all the problems including subtle things on him, which was almost bullying. It was obviously not a proper method to discipline him.

If I were the man who has the authority to discipline him, I would have conversation with him at first than shouting and ignoring his opinion. He was new to the organization, which means that he needs some time to adjust the circumstance. After  the ruled punishment, I would help him to adjust the circumstance as person to person. I would teach him about responsibility as getting punished, then make him understand what he has done.

He who was treated like the transparent or a problematic person, had very long time to adjust to the office due to wrong method of discipline. Therefore, it is very important to make moderate or adequate discipline and punishment in the organization for itself and each member in it as well.

Team production with gift exchange

There are a great deal of experiences that I participated in the team and work together to make accomplishments. For example, I have involved in the team projects for presentation about starting up the new store in Urbana and Champaign area, or making a new board game and so on. These team activities were interesting and productive.

However, the team that has the most diversity and variety of people is my military team. In military, there are a great deal of background of people because they are collected from all over the nation without requiring strict limitations such as education level. In addition to this, it is mandatory to take a military service in the age between twenty to thirty, which makes sense that literally random people over the nation are gathered in the military. The reason why I stated this is because I realized that people around me (or hangout with me) are at least partially similar to me. For example, if I met a person in the class, then the person and I have at least have same education level, which we both decided to go to university to learn something. On the other hand, people that I met in the military are very different in that wise. One guy was a professional marathon player, and another guys were a plumber, electrician, heating specialist, students from electrical engineering, computer science, English, French, business, and so on. In addition to this, each one's characteristics were very different. Some people are very active and outgoing. Another people are quiet and serious. We were so different. Therefore, I want to talk about this team production with gift exchange.

In our team, one of the important duty was to prepare for welcoming foreign guests at Seoul Airbase. To welcome them, we spread red carpet, warm up or cool down the temperature in indoor facility, trim the garden and flowers, check if anything wrong with lights or electrical related issues, interpret between foreign people and our team if needed, and so on. In this situation, our gift were beautifully exchanged to make a great job. People who had background of  driving trucks, manlifts, and other ground work vehicles helped with moving a heavy stuff such as red carpets. People who had back ground of maintaining facilities was in charge of indoor temperature, people from electrical engineering and electrician background checked all the electrical related conditions for the building and facilities. People from gardener background took care of the garden cleanness and beauty. And I helped with interpreting conversation between Immigration officers and flying crews or pilots.

In addition to the background, there were many different characteristics. Some people are gifted to lead the work. They have stern voice, understand the situation, and have many experiences. On the other hand, another people are good at listening to others, behave rapidly, and respect other opinions. If there were only type of people who like to lead another people, this team might be hard to be successful. Besides the background and speciality, a good combination of characteristic is very important as well. I can say that these characteristics are also the gifts and this is also the important gift exchanges.

In this situation, I realized that there are no such a thing that can be superior to other things. One gift cannot make the huge accomplishments. People from a variety of gifts can make the bigger accomplishments if it were successful. If the team consists of the similar gift, this job cannot be done. It was possible because each people have own gifts and collaborate them.