A VERY Difficult Decision Making

• “This is nuts!” – That was the very first thing I thought when the professor told us about this new decision. Trying to put more than 40 people on the same terms in less than 30 minutes and especially on such a serious topic like your midterm grade??? Are you serious?

• To my surprise, we did get to a final decision. To my surprise, no one got hurt!

• From the five way people handle conflict, I have to admit that I used 2: Avoidance and Collaboration. I was very hopeless at first went I heard the assignment and I immediately gave up. I thought it was going to be something close to impossible so I just withdrew the challenge. But later, I saw how little by little the classroom was getting more organized and more people were really willing to fight for a final decision. It is here when I also decided to cooperate. I kept raising my hand to give more alternatives of solution and I did the same when they were asking to vote for one of them. I was actively talking to people next to me to encourage them to participate as well and not lose such a valuable opportunity.

• If I could go back to that day, I would have definitely chosen the “Compete to win” way. If I had a positive mind from the beginning, I would probably be more productive for the group. Now, if all of us had the same positive mind from the beginning I am more than sure that it would have taken us less time to get to a final and successful decision!