Kishan punched Karthik’s face and
pushed him hard. The boisterous crowd suddenly turned tongue-tied. A drop of
sweat trickled down Kishan’s glaring eyes. And then, he walked out of the
ground hastily. I was shocked at the sight of two good friends fighting. Seated
at the corner of the SRC ground I looked back at what happened a few minutes
back, the ES2007S way.
It was just a friendly game of cricket.
But, Kishan was serious about winning it. Although his team did not perform well,
he was braving strained muscles and single-handedly keeping the hopes of his
team alive. However he controlled the pressure well until wrongly adjudicated out
by the referee Karthik.
He was shocked at the decision and walked
straight to Karthik, contesting the decision with a frustrated tone, and categorically
questioned Karthik’s credentials as a referee. Soon rest of the players
surrounded them and were voicing their opinions on the decision. Although Karthik
realised that his decision was wrong, his ego was insulted by Kishan’s comment which
led him to shout back, further escalating the issue. Unable to control his
emotions, Kishan physically confronted Karthik.
From Kishan’s perspective, his
efforts were wasted by a wrong decision. However the issue wouldn’t have blown
out of proportion if he had appealed politely to karthik and explained his
point of view. This would have prevented Karthik from being pushed into his ego
zone and would have made him feel more comfortable to reconsider his decision.
Issue based conflict are more
representative of calm negotiations while people focussed conflicts are based
on emotions and tend to get personal. These interpersonal conflicts generally
arise due to personal differences, Information deficiencies, role
incompatibility or environmentally induced stress. In this scenario, there is
an issue (wrong decision) which is the root of the conflict. However, it
manifested into a personal conflict due to pressure from teammates
(environmental stress).
From Karthik’s point of view his
reputation was under stake. Kishan’s comment questioned Karthik’s abilities. Karthik’s
ego prevented him from reconsidering his decision. This was a direct personal
attack that provoked karthik’s emotions and led to him disagreeing with and
confronting Kishan. Karthik could have handled this better by gently asking
kishan to explain his case, placing his arms on Kishan’s shoulders, easing
Kishan of his stress. This would have calmed down a furious Kishan and perhaps
made him reflect on his harsh comments, resulting in a win-win.
The whole incident itself transpired within a few minutes but this could very well be the beginning of a strained relationship between two good friends. My take on this issue is that both of them were equally to be blamed and both of them had a chance to prevent the situation from escalating into an ugly fight.
How do you think this scenario could
have been better handled from either perspective?
