Reflection on an Interpersonal Communication Issue
Dear Brad,
My interpersonal communication problem happened during my internship while I was working in a professional events organisation in 2015. This issue involved my marketing manager and my conference manager who I shall address as Person A and Person B respectively, and myself.
It was a difficult work experience as my different bosses had different work styles and I was constantly caught in-between. At that time, I was working very closely with the conference side to work on the event programme in terms of cleaning up the raw copy of the programme that Person A curates so that Person B has the latest updated version for the show website.
From one job assignment of bridging the differences because I’m the middleman that cleans up the conference programme content so that it is usable for the marketing side, I was often caught between both these managers. There was a lack of communication between Person A and Person B such that they would not directly talk to each other and would often ask me for the different files and documents instead. For example, Person A needs a file that Person B has. Instead of directly asking it, I was asked to find the file. But when I couldn’t find it, Person A would ask me to ask Person B for it when this could all be solved by Person A asking Person B directly.
What do you think I should have done instead of constantly chasing these two managers for things that each of them want from each other?
Thank you!
Best regards,
Christine
Commented on:
- Swathi
- Syairah
- Afifah and Hannah (in class)
- Afifah and Hannah (in class)
Hi Christine,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your experience. I am sorry that you have been in the situation whereby you are constantly caught in the middle. Even though I have not encounter such problem but I can imagine how stressful and challenging it is to ensure that information are communicated effectively. However, if I encounter such problem, I would have a talk with both of the bosses individually to explain my situation and thoughts about the situation. I believe that in order for the event to run smoothly, effective communication is crucial especially among the upper management and having a middle-man as a communication bridge might be prone to communication errors such as content misinterpretation due to lack of knowledge. With that, I strongly feel that you should conduct a informal chatting session with your bosses and I hope you will be able to resolve this issue soon.
Cheers
Cheryl
Hi Cheryl,
DeleteThank you for your advice.
As an intern at that point of time, I did not think it was my place to complaint about the situation so I did not even try to talk to the bosses individually to explain my situation and how I felt about it.
Instead, I just accepted my position as an intern and continued to be their middlemen.
If Person B asked for something that Person A might have, I would just ask Person A for the document and directly email Person B whatever she wanted. I even created a system where I would take Person A's raw work and edit it according to Person B's requirement and rename the file and save it in a new folder for Person A since Person A was anal-retentive.
In the end, I learnt to deal with this organised chaos in my own way and I believe this incident indeed taught me the power of effective communication such where I do not put someone else through this difficult team dynamic.
Regards,
Christine
Dear Christine,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry that you encountered this issue. It seems as though you were stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Having learned about the conflict resolution styles in class, I believe that the best style would be Compromising. As they are both technically working together, with you as the middleman, it will be harder on you to apply the Accommodating style; the style which you initially applied in this situation. Whenever Person A asks for me to find a file, I would ask Person B first whether they have it before searching for it elsewhere. I would also cc both managers in our emails to keep them updated about each other’s progress.
I am looking forward to you reply as I am dying to know what happened afterwards.
Cheers,
Afifah (with Hannah’s help)
Hi Afifiah and Hannah,
DeleteThank you for your advice.
As an intern at that point of time, I did not think it was my place to anything else but to accommodate to their various demands separately. I would have loved for them both to come to a compromised without me but instead, I just accepted my position as an intern and continued to be their middlemen where I created a system where I would take Person A's raw work and edit it according to Person B's requirement and rename the file and save it in a new folder for Person A since Person A was anal-retentive.
I also did exactly what you said where whenever Person A asks for me to find a file, I would ask Person B first whether they have it before searching for it elsewhere. I would also cc both managers in the emails to keep them updated about what is going on.
In the end, I learnt to deal with this organised chaos.
Regards,
Christine
Dear Christine,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this common but still interesting problem situation. I can imagine that it was a bit stressful for you.
I see that you have gotten useful feedback from your peers, though only the two ladies referenced the conflict resolution frameworks that we discussed in class. I'd like to now know what you would do to handle the situation.
Cheers,
Brad
Dear Brad,
DeleteI agree that my peers did offer some quality advice regarding the situation. As for my response to the situation, I simply accommodated to their demands and continued to be their middlemen where I created a system where I would take Person A's raw work and edit it according to Person B's requirement and rename the file and save it in a new folder for Person A since Person A was anal-retentive.
In the future, I would find a way to referenced the conflict resolution frameworks instead.
Cheers,
Christine
Thanks, Christine.
Delete