Conflict
I once was stationed with a company in which the department in which I worked was exceedingly small and consisted of me and one other individual who was my immediate superior. He took exception to some of my working habits and instead of personally conveying them to me, wrote a series of unpleasant emails. I initially attempted to ignore them, but after he failed to stop I eventually responded to him with a similar email that was unpleasant in tone. In this regard, the communication process was vital in both escalating the situation and in eventually resolving it, since communications is one of the four main principles of peace keeping (Myers, 2010, p. 499).
After seeing my email he eventually talked to me in person about the issues, which were less a matter of proprietary right and wrong and more a matter of personal preference. The result of that verbal communication was unequivocally positive, since neither one of us was unpleasant in person and acknowledged the fact that the lack of face-to-face communication was the source of the perceived email unpleasantness. He told me that he perceived that I was upset via my email (although he never acknowledged his role in making me upset). But the resolution was positive because we both realized how valuable face-to-face communication is -- even when there is a "power imbalance between disputees" (Osgood, 1999, p. 60). Therefore, I have made a point to incorporate such a direct, in person conflict resolution style into my communication whenever doing so is possible, because I realize it is possible for situations to escalate when you are not speaking to someone directly.
References
Myers, D.G. (2010). Social Psychology. New York: McGraw Hill.
Osgood, D. (1999). Book review: Mediation and Conflict Resolution in Social Work and Human Services. The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education. 1(2), 60.
