Insights from class 1/18/07

1. One insight I had was when Bro. Adams was talking about having two sides: the A side and the B side. They each want something different and there may be some conflict between them. But like he said if they do more than compromise than we get C which is both A and B coming together to make something higher. That really made sense to me. In the Columbia case I thought about how there were two teams: the Debris Assessment Team and the Mission Management Team. The DAT decided that what they needed were better photographs to analyze the damage better. The MMT on the other hand decided that there was "not much we can do about it." It was also the MMT's chairperson, Ham, that cancelled the order for the photographs the DAT needed. If these two teams had communicated better and came together with both of their ideas they could have created C or a better way to solve the problems with the Columbia. If this had happened, they possibly could have come up with a plan that would get the astronauts on the ship safely back to Earth and would have saved NASA a lot of trouble and money.
One way this idea can relate to our church is through the seperate organizations we have within our church. There are sometimes conflicts between maybe the Relief Society and Young Womens, or Elders Quorum and Activites Committee. They may both want a certain thing to happen, but if they communicate and come together, they can make something better for both of the organizations.

2. Another insight I had was the win/win graph and how on the top left hand corner we have w/l which can sometimes be ruthlessness. This made me think of the managers at NASA. They had courage, but no compassion and they were ruthless. They knew what they were wanted and at some points it seemed as if they weren't going to let anything get in the way of that. They were on a schedule and if Columbia didn't come home on time, their schedule would be messed up. So they went to measure such as cancelling photograph orders and saying that even if they're was a problem, there was nothing they could do about it. This to me is ruthless courage with no consideration.
An example that I thought of within our church was something that happened to me at girl's camp one year. The girl's camp leaders had girl's camp planned out exactly how they wanted it to happen. Every little detail, which included what we wore and every activity we did. This was unlike a lot of the other years we had had at girls camp. It was in a way ruthless. Because of the strictness of this girl's camp, some girls opted out on coming and lost this great opportunity. If the leaders had taken into consideration the girl's a little more, we could have had more of a win/win situation.

3. I also related the six C's Bro. Adam's talked about in class to the case study. I found examples of competing, comparing, complaining, criticizing, contending, and conflict in this case. One thing that I was thinking is that if there had been better communication going on during this whole process, a whole bunch of those C's wouldn't have had to be there. Conflict can be a good thing and we have conflict even with good communication. But I just kept thinking how much easier it would be to solve conflict or work it through without all the other C's being there.
In the church we find a lot of these C's also. And sometimes it ruins the whole purpose of church. I once had a Relief Society teacher who some people would complain and criticize about and a lot of the times the Spirit wasn't there when she was giving that lesson because I had been listening to these people and sometimes participating. If we would have had better communication skills and could have solved the conflict with communication instead of using these other C's, then we would have benefited a lot more.