Resolving Inter-personal Conflicts

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?