Resolving interpersonal conflict

During the 7 months break between my A' levels and entering university, I was working part-time at an ice cream shop. My lady boss is an incredulously stingy woman who fusses over little things like us(employees) using too much serviettes or scooping too much ice cream for customers.

I remember this incident when a customer made a scene at the shop, which attracted much attention from the public. Everyone who worked at the shop was given strict instructions as to how much ice cream we were to scoop into each cup, and I would say it was not a generous amount. However, as good employees, we adhere to this instruction when we carrying out our duties. There was this particular customer that I served who was extremely unhappy with the amount of ice cream I scooped, saying that I was trying to cheat his money. I told him nicely, with a big smile on my face, that this is the company's policy and I scoop as much for every customer. He continued to shout at me and insisted on having more ice cream. I did not give in, and he eventually started scolding vulgarities at me until the security guards came to pull him away.

The main problem is: he feels cheated because he thinks that $2.80 is worth a lot more ice cream than what I've given him. I, on the other hand, was bound by my boss's instructions and could not give him more ice cream because that would be unfair to the other customers in the queue, unless I decided I didn't want my job anymore and gave all of them generous amounts of ice cream. We could not understand each others' point of view, and neither of us gave in. I felt really helpless, and when he started scolding me with unpleasant words, I felt angry.

On hindsight, maybe I should have just given him more ice cream to appease him. But does that also mean that my job is at stake when my lady boss finds out what I have done? If I had bent over, would I be obliged to give all the customers in the queue a larger serving of ice cream too?

The importance of effective communication

It is not difficult to communicate with others, but how many of us exercise effective communication? Honestly, I don’t think I do. Be it choice of words, speaking tone, or even body language, I often find myself falling short of communicating effectively with others in an engaging and interesting way.

Never did I know that there were so many components in communication until I surveyed the textbook. They can be broadly categorized into four areas, such as active listening, interpreting nonverbal communication cues, building interpersonal communication and fostering intercultural communication. Learning more about effective communication serves a very practical purpose in organizing and expressing my ideas, especially when I should be stepping into the working world soon.

Being an active listener is pivotal, since communication is never a unidirectional process. However, it is always a challenge to overcome the many barriers in active listening, such as mental, environmental, emotional and socio-cultural barriers. Some strategies to active listening could be focusing on the goals and purposes of the conversation and paraphrasing the speaker’s thoughts. I find this very useful because not only can I restate the speaker’s ideas in my own words (which means I understood what he/she meant), I could also check if I got any of the parts wrong.

Nonverbal communication is also an important component in effective communication because they are the little things that our body expresses, sometimes without us consciously knowing about it. I’m guilty of this, because my face is a blank slate and my emotions are usually written all over it! I cross my arms when I’m angry, roll my eyes when I think you’re being ridiculous, and slouch most of the time. These things are awful aren’t they? Developing effective communication skills are therefore important to me because not only do I see them useful in helping me communicate with my colleagues in future, I think it also makes me a better person on the whole.

Effective communication also helps to build relationships, be it with the older or younger generations, with our future spouses, and also with our bosses and colleagues. How you carry yourself in a conversation seems to be the first impression that you give others as well. In a relationship, we’ve also got to be empathetic and sensitive to issues and taboos that come with different ethnic groups. With the “shirking world” due to globalization, it would be inevitable that we would meet people from different parts of the world, hence knowing their culture and customs would enable us to communicate more effectively with them. This also has an immediate application closer to home since Singapore is a multi-cultural society, and racial harmony is something our society values very much.

Identifying the steps to effective communication is the first stage to developing it. Now, it’ll take a lot of conscious effort and practice on my part to try to master them.

Pilot

Hello everybody!

Never in my life had I thought I would be blogging as part of my module requirement, but here I am! Since this is my first (yet unofficial) post, I would give a short introduction about myself. I'm a year 4 life-science student, and currently spending most of my time working on my final year project in the laboratory. I have many loves in my life, and they include God, my family and friends, sports, singing, romantic comedy movies, coffee, desserts, and the list goes on.

Ok, that's all I'm going to write about myself since it's meant to be short. If you want to know more, ask me in class. :)

Watch this space, my friends!