Prompt: Have you ever been on a team whose members either avoided conflict to the group’s detriment or engaged in destructive conflict? Explain. OR Have you ever been on a team in which you noted a problem with a teammate’s work but didn’t point it out? What stopped you from providing feedback? For BOTH: write about some strategies you might employ to work through this issue. Explain how you might go about negotiating conflict with group members in this class.

Response: I’ve been on a team where I’ve noticed a problem with a teammate’s work, but I didn’t point it out. In this specific situation, this person had typically been well-organized and consistently produced good work, so it wasn’t like this was in the person’s nature to be lazy or apathetic to the assignment. Around the end of the assignment, before my team turned it in, I noticed that this person’s final portion was missing critical information that the teacher had asked for, but I didn’t say anything because there wasn’t any time left to correct the error. This taught me that it is important to double-check what your teammates have written before the due date. I also learned that anyone can make mistakes and forget things, even if they’ve shown themselves to be productive. I think that it will be good to set checks on each team member by checking on each other constantly. Conflict should be solved in a mature way. If there are issues, they need to be addressed with the whole group, unless it is a personal issue. Then, if an agreement can’t be made, a compromise should be made, and if that doesn’t work, then the team may have to step back and rethink strategies. I think it’s important that everyone thinks over important decisions before deciding anything permanent, which will hopefully solve conflicts before they happen. Above all, I really think that most conflicts can be resolved through conversation, and that everyone needs to be open about their thoughts and opinions. Teams are built on compromises as well!