Group Dynamics

A personal experience I have had with conflict in a group dynamics within a work setting was during my two-three month internship at a company in Rome.  For background information, the company I interned for worked on making the processes of getting foods from farms directly to restaurants and stores much more efficient through the use of data analysis and automation.  The company had three main sectors which were, the delivery sector, the trading sector, and the technology sector.  I worked on a team within the technology sector which was working on the processes of data analysis and automating the ordering/processes of the food. And the team I worked in had five interns including myself which I will name David, Kevin, Ryan, Lucy, and Harold for myself.  Also all the interns had a data analysis and coding background to some degree, some of the interns were more experienced in the data analysis while others were more experienced in coding.  

The team worked in a corner area of a room that held two other teams as well.  And we would also had team meetings with our manager two times a week in a separate designated private meeting room.  During the first month of my internship, there really wasn't any big conflicts, however there were occasionally some small arguments between David and Kevin about how the work should be done during our meetings which I guess was the frustration building up before the real conflict occurred. 

The real conflict occurred during middle of the second month of the internship when our manager had to go on a business trip to Sicily for a week and half.  During one of our meetings without the manager, David and Kevin started yelling at each other, arguing about how the code for the platform should be coded.  And then that argument about how to code should be written stemmed to the two harassing each other about things that were not even related to the work.  The two other interns including myself didn't really know what to do at the moment when the conflict broke out but after about three minutes I decided to intervene and end the meeting because I thought it was just going to get worse. 

In my opinion, the source of the argument was due of the conflicting personalities David and Kevin have.  Both thought they were the most experienced in coding and both thought they were kind of the most superior under the manager on the team.  As a result from this conflict, the team's work progress slowed down significantly for about two weeks because the two best coders on our team were not working together anymore and the two other interns and I didn't really want to make confront the situation.  The whole team dynamic was weird because we all had to still work in our designated area in the room so it was just awkward being around everyone after the argument.  Also for those two weeks, I basically had to keep acting as the middle man to prevent anymore big arguments from occurring while the other two interns, Ryan and Lucy, didn't really do anything and just kept their distance. 

When the manager came back from his business trip, the conflict somewhat died down between David and Kevin because they both didn't want to start trouble when the manager was there.  Nobody ever told the manager about the conflict so I'm not sure if he was even aware of it.  But as time went on the team dynamic eventually became less awkward but the damage was already done.

I think the whole conflict could have been avoided if the Kevin and David were both more open-minded people who were more willing to listen to different ideas.  Also, maybe if the manager never left for his business trip, then the conflict may have never even happened.

Comments

  1. Professor ArvanNovember 16, 2019 at 3:15 PM

    Reading your last paragraph, you should know the line - with ifs you can put Paris in a bottle. So the issue is whether this could have gone better without the ifs.

    One part of the internship that you haven't talked about would be helpful here. Did the other interns consider this a possible job after they finished with college? If so, did the conflict matter for that. You said the manager never learned about this. I didn't understand why that way. Maybe you could explain it. Obviously, if nobody higher up knows about the situation, it can't matter, except maybe as a threat if they both were viewing it as a potential job.

    If neither of them thought of this as anything but summer work, and if they thought that their performance during the summer wouldn't follow them around later, then a pure economic incentive argument would suggest they wouldn't restrain themselves for there seems to be little downside from engaging in the conflict. This makes the power of the manager's presence a little mysterious. I don't doubt that the two behaved better when the manager returned. But what is needed in your story is some explanation as to why that happened. If you can tell a convincing story that way, it would make the entire piece more interesting to read.

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    Replies
    1. WesleyAuNovember 17, 2019 at 12:28 AM

      Although it may seem odd that the manager never found out, but I just don't think anybody told him or everyone else thought that somebody else was going to tell him so in the end nobody actually told him. I personally didn't want to say anything to the manager unless he specifically asked me about it because I didn't want to become a target of the conflict by bringing trouble to the two as I didn't see any benefit in getting into any conflict. And Ryan and Lucy may have been thinking along the same lines or they just thought I was going to tell the manager because I was the one acting as the middle man the whole time.

      Also, nobody on the team was European so I don't think that they would be interested in job at the company after the internship. Maybe, the two just didn't want to get in trouble with company so they didn't make trouble when the manager was there. Or maybe they wanted some sort of work recommendation from the manager in the future or they just didn't see the point in making conflict anymore so they stopped.

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