A few years ago I
was working as the Installation Deployment Officer in Germany. This position is fairly unique in the way it
is set up. I fall within a flight but
also work directly for the Wing Commander.
Due to the complicated nature of this position and the missions we often
work on it can be easy to leave out the Deployment and Distribution Flight
Commander. About 6 months after
entering this position we hired a much more experienced civilian to
come in and do the job while I would stay and become the Assistant Installation Deployment Officer. A job much for suitable for a young Lieutenant. I was grateful
and relieved as I was not anywhere near qualified to be doing this. We were so busy and I had become
knowledgeable enough in the job that we were able to split the work. We worked well together and often worked with
the Squadron Commander and the Wing Commander.
Around this time we
had a new Flight Commander take lead of the flight. He was difficult to work with and often tried
to take charge of situations that he didn't know anything about. He would often talk poorly about other
sections in the flight and even complain about a Chief he worked with to the
rest of us. Because of this we all
stopped talking to the flight commander and avoided him when possible. This conflict made it very difficult for the
flight to function effectively and efficiently as a team. One of
the ten principles of thinking that Stewart Levine talks about in his book Getting to Resolution: Turning Conflict Into
Collaboration is secrecy. Because
of our dislike towards our new flight commander we would often avoid keying him
in on situations that could have benefited him.
Because of this somewhat unintentional secrecy we didn't disclose information and feelings that
could have potentially resolved a lot of the conflict that was taking place
between our section and the flight commander.
In the book Levine states, "Information is king. Whoever has it can hoard, use, and manipulate
it" (Levine, 2009). While we never
refused to give the flight commander information we definitely did not offer it
up freely. Levine also states,
"This game of nondisclosure dilutes the ability to get to the
resolution" (Levine, 2009). At the
time we assumed the flight commander was so bad at his job that offering up
information would only make things worse.
Rather than acting in this way it would have been better to provide
information and training and openly discuss a way ahead rather than shutting
him out like we did.
This conflict also
meant that we were wasting possibly valuable resources. We were often overwhelmed with the amount of
work coming our way and could have used help.
By disclosing information and forming a relationship we could have
created a partnership that would have benefited all of us. Levine also states in his book, "People
who are working together often waste resources because they do not have a
clearly articulated vision of where they are going and how they will get
there" (Levine, 2009). In this case
our flight commander was a resource that we could have used to help us
accomplish the mission in a more effective way while possibly taking some of
the work off our shoulders. By harboring
anger and not giving up information we wasted a great deal of time and a
possibly valuable resource. Had we
openly discussed our issues and worked on creating a mutually beneficial
collaboration we could have gotten a lot more work done in less time and
done a better job at accomplishing the missions we had been assigned
to. Rather than working to collaborate
we further fostered conflict. This was
detrimental to us all as it slowed down our processes and our ability to get information where it needed to be. The flight commander would sometimes even pass on bad information because we had not given up new and updated information. This meant that we had to deconflict the bad information with the new, good information that we should have given to the flight commander in the first place.
If I had the ability
to do it over again I would approach the flight commander in a different way
and work with my team to be a bridge if possible. I would work to educate the flight commander
on what we did and the complicated matter of the things we were working. I would also inform him when the decisions he
was making and his actions were hurting our ability to get the job done. I would work to share information
appropriately and create a collaborative relationship that would allow us all
to work together efficiently and creatively.
Much of our job was problem solving and required a great deal of
creativity. Had we collaborated more
openly with the flight commander we may have done a better job at solving these
problems.
Since that time, as
I have come in contact with people that I have not gotten along with I have
been more willing to openly work with them.
I have tried to build sustainable relationships that are based on trust, sharing of
feelings and information.
Forming these relationships, even with people that are difficult to work
with has always been a much more effective way of getting the job done.
Bibliography
Levine,
S. (2009). Getting to Resolution: Turning
Conflict Into Collaboration. San Fransisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers,
Inc.
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