In a committee formed by a group of fifteen people, we have characters A, B and C. A is the chairperson of the committee, B is the project leader for an event and C is the in-charge for logistics for this particular event.
B has a very close group of friends in the committee and together, they form a clique in the committee. The clique often makes decisions together and stands by each other for support while the rest of the committee members are individualistic and independent. A and C fall in the second group.
One portion of the event required the committee members to transport the participants’ belongings from NUS to East Coast Park. The total load to be transported was circa 80 haversacks. For this portion, B allocated three committee members for one task while she and A remained at the headquarters to oversee the entire event. C, together with 3 other persons, was responsible for the transportation of the belongings. The rest of the committee was free, but had to stand by for emergency. It also happened that those who were free were in the same clique as B.
C believed that he was short-handed and asked B for more manpower since there were people who had no job allocation. However, B insisted that she has allocated sufficient manpower to C and that the remaining party were meant for emergency.
After his request was turned down, C approached A for help, since A was the only person who had the status to speak to B. Moreover, A has handled logistics before and had a better understanding of the situation.
After listening to C, A speaks to B. B was insistent on her point and A thought that since B was the project leader, A should not try to over-ride her decisions based on his position as the committee chairperson. A then reverts to C with a negative answer, giving the same reason that B gave. A also explains that he wanted to respect B’s decisions as the project leader.
At this point of time, C is furious that A was of no help and tells A that he is disappointed in him. Nevertheless, despite the disagreement, C makes do with the number of people he was allocated and completes the task with delay.
What should A have done? Should A have challenged B’s decisions to fight for C? Or has he done the right thing by respecting B’s decisions?
B has a very close group of friends in the committee and together, they form a clique in the committee. The clique often makes decisions together and stands by each other for support while the rest of the committee members are individualistic and independent. A and C fall in the second group.
One portion of the event required the committee members to transport the participants’ belongings from NUS to East Coast Park. The total load to be transported was circa 80 haversacks. For this portion, B allocated three committee members for one task while she and A remained at the headquarters to oversee the entire event. C, together with 3 other persons, was responsible for the transportation of the belongings. The rest of the committee was free, but had to stand by for emergency. It also happened that those who were free were in the same clique as B.
C believed that he was short-handed and asked B for more manpower since there were people who had no job allocation. However, B insisted that she has allocated sufficient manpower to C and that the remaining party were meant for emergency.
After his request was turned down, C approached A for help, since A was the only person who had the status to speak to B. Moreover, A has handled logistics before and had a better understanding of the situation.
After listening to C, A speaks to B. B was insistent on her point and A thought that since B was the project leader, A should not try to over-ride her decisions based on his position as the committee chairperson. A then reverts to C with a negative answer, giving the same reason that B gave. A also explains that he wanted to respect B’s decisions as the project leader.
At this point of time, C is furious that A was of no help and tells A that he is disappointed in him. Nevertheless, despite the disagreement, C makes do with the number of people he was allocated and completes the task with delay.
What should A have done? Should A have challenged B’s decisions to fight for C? Or has he done the right thing by respecting B’s decisions?
3 comments:
Hi Peiyu, I do understand the context of this scenario as I had been overseeing projects before.
I believe that A should really talk to B and sort of come to a compromise. Since the load of 80 haversacks can be considered really heavy, I believe that should A reason out with B, B would definitely send more resources to help out in the transfer of haversacks, for the welfare of the members helping out. This is also for the good of the overall smooth running of the activities.
Of course, this involves the feelings of the members who are directly involved of the carrying of the haversacks. They will most probably be feeling that they are working their socks off and the rest are just "on stand by" in the headquarters.
As mentioned earlier, this issue involves the direct feelings of the whole committee. Therefore, A should really reason with B and for the interest of the project, send more resources down to East Coast Park to assist.
Hi Peiyu! I'm Jia Yi.
If I did not interpret your conflict situation wrongly, exluding A, B and C were 3 members to transport the 80 haversacks, 3 members to transport the belongings and 3 members on "standby"?
I think that B is inviting gossip by assigning her clique to the "standby" committee. Rejecting C on his request for more manpower further escalates the suspicion. She should have been more cautious when assigning the roles. Perhaps 3 is a little too many for emergency?
Since A has handled logistics before, C could have gone with A to speak to B and discuss as a group. By going alone, B may think that C has went to A to complain about her and making A to influence B with his position. However, by going together, the plan may also backfire, making B feel stressed and being coerced to give way.
I feel that A has done the correct thing by speaking to B, yet respecting B's decision as the project leader after getting a negative response. C should have been more understanding. After the event, they can have a meeting to reflect on the problems they faced and come up with a solution in case the same problem surface in future events.
Hey Pei Yu,
I believe that A did the right thing to respect B's decision as B is the team leader. By over-riding B's decision, A may set a precedent for future leaders in his team to do so which would lead to internal conflict. This is because most leaders would have gone through alot of planning to execute their task. By over-riding their decision at the last minute may put them in a difficult situation when they are caught unawares or it may nullify the planning that they had spent their time doing.
I would suggest that A speaks to B after the camp to reason with B the bias that was present in his decision making to prevent future problems from occurring again. Also, by speaking to C to explain to C why he had not changed B's decision would help to ease tension between C towards A and B.
Finally, I believe that being a leader, one has to be a servant too. If there was really a power shortage that A could see when C asked for help, A could have gone down personally to help if he was not caught up with other tasks.
Hui Ming
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