"THISJUSTIN"

Group Value- Controversy with Civility

"By committing themselves to understand the nature of the disagreement and to seek a satisfactory resolution ‘with civility,’ the group provides a ‘safe’ environment for acting with congruence and for enhancing knowledge of self and of others."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Controversy with Civility is something that I have struggled with for a long time because of my bold and strong personality.  In high school, it was often difficult to see the nature of a disagreement and hated to be "wrong."  However, I fully believe that Virginia Tech is one of the best places to learn and practice controversy with civility.  Often the first instinct is to avoid conflict situations, by giving in, walking away, ignoring it, or staying silent. In many of my leadership classes, we have learned the importance of controversy with civility while working in groups, and it can lead to more success.  Controversy is a disagreement on an idea that allows for the open discussion of those differences without creating an argument where one person’s goal is to win over the other. Civility means responding to a disagreement in a way that respects the point of view of others. Freshman year I had the opportunity to run to be a Class Officer for the Class of 2015 and was lucky to win the election.  Soon after being elected, the eight class officers started to become extremely close and had to work with eachother for multiple events and projects.  I looked at these eight individuals as some of my closest friends and respected all of the hard work that they put into making our class have the best time here possible.  Being class officers, we were expected to have high standards for ourselves and the entire team.  After about a year of being a class officer, there was an incident where one class officer got into trouble with the school and the Corp of Cadets.  It was put into our hands to decide what was best option for the individual, the team, and the class.  This was one of the hardest positions any of us had been in because it put us in a tough decision to decide between a close friend that we knew was passionate about this position, and the entire Class of 2015.  This put a lot of stress on the class officers and the first couple of meetings led to a lot of disagreements, arguments, and no resolution.  However, we decided the best option was to take a little time to reflect and understand the nature of the disagreement.  We realized that although we were all friends, we were in a professional position and we needed to think past what was best for ourselves to get to a resolution.  After we took this time, we were able to come together in an open environment and finally began to see eachother's ideas and views.  Because we were able to understand the root of controversy and took time to understand positively engage in dialouge, we were able to all come to a resolution that we were comfortable with.  We now are able to handle each situation with the knowledge we learned from this and although this situation was extremely tough, it taught us an unbelievable amount about controversy with civility.  Controversy is an inevitable part of group interactions which can lead to positive collaboration in an environment of civility.  In my future, it will be cruical to use these tools, especially when arguments or disagreements come up in the corporate world.  Being able to act with congruence with a group and other employees will continue to enhance the knowledge of self and of others.

 

 

 

"Civility is not about dousing strongly held views. It's about making sure that people are willing to respect other perspectives."