Hello All,
With the build season complete and the competition season gearing up, many teams are struggling to handle the stress. I would like for us all to share some of our best ways of mitigating conflict.
While we are at it, if you have some humorous conflict failures please share. Please keep the names anonymous as to not hurt any feelings.
I hope to include some of the posts in this thread in a FRC team conflict resolution guide.
Most cases I’ve seen have involved multiple people, so usually I send out a group message after the fact along the lines of “Hey, in X situation, Y and Z are not appropriate. Do U and/or V instead.” This seems to work out fine.
One gem that will always stick with me, directed at a programmer: “I don’t give a [redacted] about your cosine.” when it was explained why an arm didn’t behave like expected. It wasn’t all that funny in the heat of competition, but it makes so little sense looking back.
Had one where some team members were getting a little, er, “pushy” about something or other near the end of a build session. So I told them that it was time to clean the shop, we could solve the issue the next day, and broke out a couple of brooms. They got the point and started cleaning up.
Seems like breaking up the “debate” with a little cleaning for all involved gives everybody time to dial down, y’know?
I was recently having a discussion with a mentor on my team about the various merits and demerits of the 5th and 6th CIMs on our drivetrain. I think most adults and experienced students are mature enough to handle those kinds of situations in a reasonable manner - keep it civil, so to speak. The discussion ended when I was called upon for a different task, but I like to think that we both walked away from the table with mutual respect, if not agreement. At the very least, I did.
I don’t think we necessarily need to avoid disagreement or confrontation. Our goal should be to control them by ensuring that everyone maintains respect and civility. Under these circumstances, disagreement has the potential to create important learning opportunities.