WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST...GET ALONG?

Often times, decision making is not an easy task. Add more people to that decision making process and the task only becomes more complicated and chaotic. Once this conflict arises there are different ways to go about handling it. In the class decision making exercise the method that I used to handle the chaotic situation is one called Collaboration. This method requires bargaining and negotiating among the group. It requires a lot of insight from different group members. I chose this method because the task required us to all come to an agreement eventually. I felt the best way to all come to an agreement would be to discuss the situation and possible solutions with the entire group. The more people that feel like the contributed and said what they wanted to say, the more chances that everyone will come to an agreement in the end. I felt that this was an effective method because the class came to an agreement eventually. A more effective approach, however, would have probably been a method of Compromise. If I would have known earlier in the task that the situation would be so tense I would have wanted to initially treat all members of the group as equal. This method, it seems, would have helped the class to reach an agreement sooner and easier. This is because if every member felt as if they were just as important and had just as much say, they would be willing to listen to and consider their peers' opinions more.