An interpersonal conflict can be defined as a disagreement or difference in views between two individuals over a particular idea, thought or action. Very often in life, we encounter situations where we cannot bring ourselves to agree with certain people and this latent irritation and frustration manifests itself in many ways. In this post, I will talk about an interpersonal conflict that I have had in the recent past.
Last semester, the computer engineering cohort was assigned an electrical engineering project. The task was to build an unmanned autonomous vehicle(UAV) using basic circuit elements and integrated circuits(ICs). Teams were randomly allocated and I was assigned two team members. I knew my team members as we had interacted during the first semester on several occasions. We divided tasks and began working. The project was difficult and required considerable effort. During our second lab session, I realised that one of the members of my team didn't wan't to do any work. He merely delegated tasks and did his own work while we worked continuously. He made excuses and left the lab early on almost every occasion. By the fourth week, I was frustrated and made my irritation evident by limiting my interaction with him. I assigned him certain tasks and tried to take control of the situation but he always managed to shirk off responsibility and leave early.
Towards the end of the semester, we were supposed to get the entire vehicle functional. We were one of the most unprepared teams. Many teams who had started badly had overtaken us yet our third member frequently came late and missed class frequently. My second member and I decided that depending on him was pointless and began putting our car together. After working on it seven days a week for up to five hours a day. Our fellow computer engineering batch-mates helped us out and we somehow managed to get the vehicle working partially. Meanwhile, our third member would message us on Facebook with false concern. We asked him to attend a group meeting but he said that he had other work. We complained to our Lab tutor who was seeing what was going on. She empathized and asked us to give him a very bad peer review.
The dreaded evaluation day came and our third member decided to turn up and claim credit for a device he knew absolutely nothing about. He tried interacting with the professors evaluating us to make a good impression but my other team member and I made sure we made it evident that we had done all the work. The car worked and as soon as our demonstration was over,out third member left immediately saying he had other work.
The question I pose to my readers is : Should we give him zero for his peer review or be considerate and give him average marks. The harrowing situation we went through makes me want to give him a zero but I feel guilty thinking that this can affect his marks and subsequently his future.
This is one tough decision to make. I can understand the kind of irritated feeling you must have felt last semester.
ReplyDeleteIf it was me, I would give him very low peer review marks, and commented that he had no part in the car-making, but not exactly 0 marks as it would seem a little too much. I am not sure if your Lab Tutor is the one marking your project, or whether she had any say in the assessment of the car, but if she does, I believe she would have given him a really poor review. After all, your lab tutor is aware of this issue. Another thing is that, since that third member had no part in the car, he must have gone off track or sounded unprepared during the evaluation.
During the semester, you could try to talk to him and see if he had any legitimate reasons for not turning up for the meetings and not doing any work. But of course, no matter what reasons he had, he should have done his part for his project. At times like this, I would try to understand more about the person to see if he or she is under any distress, or simply being lazy and expect us to be his “grade-slaves”.
It is common to have such group mate once in a while. However, I believe that with such bad experience, you would know how to manage a group even better and what measures to take if similar situations were to happen again. I am sure you have gotten an A grade for that module!
Thank you Shi Ying :) We ended up giving him average marks in the peer review so we managed to find middle ground in the dilemma
ReplyDeleteHi Rohit,
ReplyDeleteThe first thought that came into my mind after reading your post was to give him zero mark. However, on second thought, I do not think that I will actually do it if I were you. After all, he is still your team mate and it will affect his marks as well.
Personally, I will give him a score lower than the average instead of the average mark that you gave him in the end. In addition, I will add in a paragraph of personal comment for him (if possible) to let him or the professor know the reason for giving him such a low mark. It is not very fair for you and the other team mate to receive same marks as him since he did not contribute to the project at all. Worst of all, he even tried to claim credit during evaluation day.
I understand that it is not very nice to give him low marks but it will actually be beneficial for him to learn his lesson now. His current working attitude will definitely not be accepted in his work in the future. By giving him an average peer review will only encourage him to continue his way. Hence, I will choose to give him a poor peer review so that he will learn to be responsible and change his bad habit of pushing all the work to the other group members.
I didn't give him a poor review because although it was the logical "right" thing to do, I put myself in his shoes. I don't know him very well and he may have been going through a personal crisis or something equally hard and I wanted to be empathetic but serious.
DeleteHi Rohit,
ReplyDeleteI was there during your project. The impact this post had on me was a lot more because of that. I can still recollect those days when you and Edwin used to sit the whole night setting up the car and I was thanking the Gods for having gotten a fine group. Coming back to your question, I think I would have given him an average mark too. Let us not play God. It is generally humane to not jeopardize the grades of another class mate. And in the process you are being subtly evil too :P!! He is going to clear the module and move further in the course without having his basics covered. So he is going to find it difficult somewhere down the line. What goes around comes around. I thought you handled it in a very mature way without a lot of fuss and drama and you were aptly rewarded with an A. You did all that you must, to avoid the entire incident. You spoke to him, the lab assistant and the lecturer. Yet, the guy has remained callous about the whole thing. Wow, this guy has serious guts :D Having worked with such a project mate, you know that there can't be an even worse situation and things can only get better. The entire episode would have made you a much more responsible and mature person for sure. All the best Rohit :)
Thank you :) It really did, I understood team dynamics and how to allocate work effectively
DeleteI really like this post, Rohit. You've related the story of your car project with flawless prose, fine clarity and a perfect combination of conciseness and completeness. You've described just enough of the lazy teammate for us to understand that he really deserves a fail, but that like any student, he probably was overloaded. You then boil all the drama down to a very specific question that puts the decision squarely on the reader's shoulders.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent post!
Thanks, man!
Thank you Brad :) Wanted to stay on track as much as possible with this post
ReplyDeleteHi Rohit,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mr. Brad's observation. You have your ways with words and I am impressed and a tad jealous about this skill of yours.
It is good that you encountered this type of people early in your education. I have learnt that these are increasingly common problems that NUS students face in group project. I had one experience with this type of person before and in the end I insisted on all group members including the person signing a letter which we attach to the back of the project listing the works and the contributions each member have made to the project. He needed to be forced to sign but peer pressure paid off in the end.
Unlike other readers, I disagreed taking the soft approach in dealing with this type of people. They are clearly a seasoned slacker who are shameless enough to take credit for other people's work. There are times when civil words just fail to work their wonders as Neville Chamberlain could testify. Thus, I guess giving him his due through proper channel of peer review is the only way.
And again you amaze me by your post. It is simple(something i love) and good description. You write in a way that I feel like I'm seeing everything. I think you did the right ting by giving him average mark, but actually you should have talked to him and told him that if he doesn't do something now that you will grade him zero. Since he doesn't deserve anything else actually, and everyone has allot of work to do but they still help out when its group work.. So talk to him if he docent wanna participate then it will be zero, he should learn to take the responsibilities in group work. I know it sucks to have a group member like that.
ReplyDeleteJust keep writing like this and you will become a author and not a engineer. Good luck!