Eiffel Over

Tag: Competition

  • Free body conflict/a vector joke

    A final thought on conflict. This time, how the different modes of conflict (competition, accommodation, avoidance and collaboration) can be thought of as free-body collisions.

    Avoidance – the two bodies miss each other, and also miss the chance to influence each other

    Competition x Acceptance – This is essentially a dominant collision, where one particle’s direction overpowers the other.

    Collaboration: This behaves like a vector addition, where the resultant trajectory reflects the combined contributions of both particles.

    Maybe the best answers are the product of differences. Whether it’s a cross product depends on how angry you are feeling (sorry couldn’t resist the vector gag)

  • Avoidance

    My job today is to convince you that avoidance is a mode of conflict, alongside the others we’ve considered this week: competition and acceptance.

    I could try to convince you. I really could. But, you know what? I don’t want to. You’ve probably got your own views. Maybe they’re strongly held. That’s fine. I’m not particularly interested.

    And while I do have a clear and well-articulated model of avoidance in my head, I don’t feel especially compelled to share it with you.

    So, let’s just avoid the discussion altogether.

  • Dealing with competition in design

    • “I don’t care what you think; you’re wrong because…”
    • “They didn’t ask what I thought; they just told me what to do.”
    • “I raised objections, but I was told we’re sticking to the schedule regardless.”

    In this series of posts, I’m exploring conflict in design, which, for these purposes, is what happens when two people have different views on a subject.

    In each of the scenarios above, two people disagree. And in each case, one person asserts their view without showing interest in the other person’s perspective.

    This is the definition of competition in the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Instrument model: high levels of assertion, paired with low levels of interest in the other person’s view.

    In my experience, competition is a very common mode of operation in construction.

    Some people thrive on competition. Others prefer to steer clear of it entirely.

    How we deal with conflict depends on both our preferences and our goals. But first, we need to explore the other modes of conflict. More on that tomorrow.