Week of November 12-18

2). Briefly outline an example of collaborative conflict resolution that you have engaged in. Contrast that with competitive conflict. Which was more satisfying to you? To the other party?

If the ideal conflict resolution strategy for any group os one of win-win, or consensus then we would all be living under sunshine and rainbows and drinking mu thai's. Unfortunately the world is not like that, this strategy does have a little bit of conflict just not as personal as the others. A time that I engaged in a collaborative conflict resolution occurred during when I was in the Marines. We had to secure a hill over in Afghanistan and unfortunately we had heard that this place was known to have enemy sniper living in the hills and holes. There were some team leaders that wanted to wait until morning to go begin this mission and some that wanted to complete it asap that way it can be over with already. Each team leader gave the reason why they thought they should go now and other team leaders gave their reasons why they shouldn't go. I was one of the that wanted to wait, not because I was afraid well I was little but because just two days ago we had seen numerous heads and bodies come back blown to bits. I thought that area was still hot and didn't eant to sacrifice Marines lives just so some Captain can get his silver star. Well if you read this I must say that we went out that night and engaged in some skirmishes with the enemy and later on that day that Captain got an earful by the General for sending us out on a reckless mission. He ended up having to clean our plates when we went to chow.
The competitive conflict is a win lose situation. Sometimes people have a bad relation with this. I guess it has to do with the fact that if you happen to be on the losing end of the stick. No one likes to lose but unfortunately it happens. It is how you adapt to ensure you wont lose again is what matters. What I like about this concept is  the "healthy competition" portion of it.I used the competition to find out who would be the next squad leader in my platoon. I asked the cook in the kitchen in the if we could use his refrigerator as a battle ground. Here I placed all five Marines in and said the winner is the one who comes out first. two things you had to do, 1. You had do whatever you had to do to make sure the other Marine didn't get out 2. You had to fight. I did this because I wanted to make sure I had the toughest guy leading my squad. At the end after everyone was battered and bloody we all knew who the winner was and were satisfied with the results.