Interpersonal conflict situation

A group was formed and assigned a project to design medical devices. Xiao Ling was the group project leader while John and Sabrina made up the members of the group. As such, Xiao Ling majors in engineering, while John and Sabrina majors in Business and Arts respectively. In their first meeting, all group members gathered for brainstorming, and eventually came up with a few designs. After collaborating and assembling all the ideas, they dropped a few ideas which seemed not viable. Then, they voted for the best design. Eventually, two designs were selected. However, they encountered a problem in choosing the best design amongst two designs. One of design came from Xiao Ling and the other design was voted by John and Sabrina coherently. As the group leader, Xiao Ling commented that she had the best design because she had a strong knowledge foundation and vast experience in that area. Nevertheless, John and Sabrina chose the alterative design which appeared to be aesthetic and functional as well as Xiao Ling’s preferred design. In this situation, if John and Sabrina’s design was chosen, Xiao Ling would feel indignant as she seems to have more superior knowledge with regards to engineering. However, if they chose the alterative design, it would be contradicting as most votes always win. In short, as a group leader Xiao Ling, what would you do to solve this problem, which design will you adopt?

Why developing effective communication skills is important for me?

This module provides a platform for us to communicate confidently in front of public or friends. In working world, many times a company requires us to perform presentation professionally. If it is a marketing presentation, messages should be conveyed concisely and persuasively as it is going to affect the company’s sales, subsequently it affects my job too. If it is just a presentation related report, I want to ensure everyone understands as much as they could. There is not much platform for me to practise presentation skill when I was studying secondary school in Malaysia. Therefore, I hope to leverage on this module to hone my presentation skill.

I think persuasive oral communication is a crucial skill if we acquire, we can achieve our goal easier. For example, a famous entrepreneur in China, Ma Yun, he is the founder of commercial website namely Alibaba and Taobao. When he started the business, he was alone. However, he was so good in communication that when Sun Dan Yu looked for MaYun so that MaYun would invest in his advertisement, Sun Dan Yu did not secure a deal, instead he became a capable aide of MaYun. When Chua Chong Xin invited MaYun to invest, Chua Chong Xin changed his career to become MaYun’s chief financial officer. After listening to MaYun’s speech, 35 Harvard MBA competed for the opportunity to work under MaYun. Therefore, it is important to acquire persuading skill.

Communication in our everyday life is vital too, because most of the time, miscommunication leads to fight, dispute, lawsuit, confusion, and dismay. It can also cause a good project to fail. For example, I was in a design group last year with two group members from Boston. The problem lied in allotment of task. Me and my other group member thought they volunteered for the job of editing and writing introduction. However, after clarification, we found out that they were very frustrated as they did most of the work. Other than this, we also argued on the issue of time for presentation. I suggested allocating more time for explaining design, but he preferred everyone utilised same amount of time. In the end, we could not finish the presentation on time. If we had known how to communicate diplomatically, things would have turned out the other way around.

I will end with a famous quote: “No man is an island”. We are highly sociable living things; therefore we shall capitalize on this advantage which is communication to show our fullest potential.