Final Group Assignment: Conflict in Work-Life Balance

Over the last few months, our team has been working perfectly in a harmonious atmosphere. Within the whole course, the three of us have not encountered in any conflicts nor arguments. The only difficulty we have faced was that we did not have enough time to discuss our projects as we are all busy with our work. Within bounded hours, we had to deliver coursework without any delays. On the other hand, we have friends and family to take care of. As a result, the squeezed schedule has led to a conflict of work-life balance instead of conflict between us.

Work-life balance is a concept including proper prioritisation between "work" (career and ambition) and "life" (health, leisure, family and spiritual development). Having good work-life balance can prevent us from burning out. A recent research has already pointed out that workplaces have become the single greatest source of stress (CQ Researcher Online). And because all of us are part time students who are dealing with work and study at the same time, the stress that is faced would be even higher. It is indeed a challenge for us to collaborate smoothly.

Conflict Process

The conflict process deals with five steps that help alleviate disagreement and problems within organizations. In our case, it is also applicable among each individuals' self conflict in work-life balance.

Stage 1: Potential Opposition or Incompatibility

As all of us are part-time students, we have to work during the daytime and study 2 to 3 nights per week. Thus, our leisure time has become so valuable. It is understandable among the three of us that we prefer not to use our leisure time to discuss our group projects. 

Stage 2: Cognition and Personalisation

Although we have reached mutual consensus that we would avoid occupying each other's leisure time, we are all aware of the fact that finishing our projects and assignments on time is a must. To compromise on a solution, we have agreed to stay in the classroom for few minutes after class every week or take our break time to discuss our outstanding projects. Unfortunately, meeting on weekends was not an option as one of us need to work during weekends. As a result, the meeting times were too short and were not enough for us to dig deep enough for a consent on our final output. 

Stage 3: Intentions

While realising that we did not have much time to finish our projects that cannot be done without discussion, we still wish to obtain good grades in our work. Hence there is a need to find new ways to overcome the hurdles. We spent some time to have a brief discussion one night after class and have agreed to use communication applications like WhatsApp and WeChat for discussing the projects. Since we only have 3 people in the group, communication has been clear without much confusion. We have also agreed to work on Google Doc, the most popular real-time collaborative platform nowadays, so that our work can be consolidated in one place.

Stage 4: Behaviour

In the behaviour step, the conflict becomes visible as we have already identified our cognitive thinking. The behavioural stage is a dynamic process of interaction. At the beginning, not all of us have agreed to use mobile applications as some believed that face-to-face communication is the most effective way when it comes to the discussion of project details. However, we also knew that it is even more important to achieve high performance collaborations, which is the core value of our course. We were all clear about our goals - to do our best in studies. Have said that, we determined to cope with the best agreed way to work together. With the support from each other, we have set up new working protocols and it is easy to get along with our new communication methods.

Stage 5: Outcomes

Because of the time restriction, our decision of making use of mobile applications instead of holding meetings during weekends to discuss our projects have proved to be a good method that saves our time. We can tell the others anytime and anywhere when we have ideas through the apps, and there is no need to wait for every Tuesday night to talk after class. By browsing the conversation history, we can recall our ideas clearly. When we have different opinion, we can voice out immediately and choose the best way to compromise. 

Conclusion

To conclude, after agreeing to use mobile apps and Google Doc to communicate, we did not have to spend long hours in meetings before handing in the projects. We could still fully utilize our leisure time. Of course, when we have different opinion on some important areas, we have to discuss it after class to make sure our directions are the same. Make use of mobile apps is convenient when time is limited, and it could even improve our relationships. Such working context has provided relevant insight on similar work groups and is even applicable to people working in different places around the globe.

References:

1. 5 Stages of Conflict Process. (n.d.). Retrieved April 28, 2015, from http://www.edunote.info/2013/01/5-stages-of-conflict-process.html
2. CPP - The People Development People. (n.d.). Retrieved April 28, 2015, from https://www.cpp.com/products/tki/index.aspx
3. Job Stress. (n.d.). Retrieved April 28, 2015, from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1995080400

Individual Blogs
Ashley: Final Outcome Expectation Conflict
Beatrice: Responsibilities Conflict
Tracy: Deadline Conflict