I thought that I would talk about something a little different for this blog post. I was doing research for another class, COM 320, about conflict management styles and thought it was very interesting. We have not yet started to work in groups for COM 435 yet but we will in the future, so it is good to know about group conflict and how it is handled.

I am going to use an example from the TV show The Office for this blog post. What happens in this scene is that Jim steals Andy's cell phone and hides it in the ceiling of the office so that everytime it rings, everyone can hear it but Andy cannot find it. The main point of showing this video clip is to discuss the different types of styles for managing conflict. Here is the link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wPn5JsZiMg&feature=related

There are five styles in avoiding conflict. They are avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise, and collaboration. The only style I see portrayed by Andy in this video is competition. Andy knows that someone has taken his phone and hidden it from him, but instead of cooperating with his fellow office workers or talking to them politely, he yells at his coworkers and blames them for his phone going missing. He even punches a hole into the wall! Andy falls under the category of competition because of his desire to win the conflict, being defensive, and feeling adamant that he has the correct information and not allowing anyone else to help him. This might be a stretch on the definition of "competition" but I still believe it applies to this situation.

In this case I think Andy is frustrated because he is competing for attention at work. He has always wanted to be number two behind his boss, Michael Scott, but has never quite made it up to that level. Dwight and Jim usually have the upper hand on him, for various reasons. All of this combined with Andy not knowing the location of his cell phone builds up and makes him explode on his coworkers unnecessarily. Instead, it would have been better for him to use a collaborating strategy to find his phone. That way he could have felt better about the situation and not accused his coworkers of stealing from him. Collaboration is usually the best solution for managing conflict.

I think we have all been in Andy's shoes before and understand his frustration. I have been in situations like that before as well where I felt out of control and wanted to know what was going on. However, that does not mean that he should yell at his coworkers or punch a hole in the wall. There are much better ways to handle the situation. I have learned first hand that it is better to collaborate with someone rather to accuse them of something. When you collaborate with someone it keeps them from feeling alienated and builds cohesiveness and cooperativeness within a group.