TRIP Essay
Conflict Resolution

Who Do We Hire?
Participants: John, Jim (the Director), Laura, Karl, Keith and Celeste
Setting: Mental health center
Situation: An opening for a full-time therapist has been created by one of the staff therapists quitting.
Questions
1. Name at least one topic (T) issue, one relational (R) issue, one identity (I) issue, and one process (P) issue of this conflict.
T Issue = The most obvious topic issue during this conflict is the need to fill the position for a therapist to replace Lee. “Topic goals can be easily seen and talked about; they are external to us – we can point to them and say, “I want that.” While they might be categorizes as “objective, “feelings still infuse these topics”
Her goals changed to wanting Jim to know her feelings about how the conflict seemed to be playing out and that she felt her opinion was not valued.
Karl = Karl’s goals in the beginning stages of the conflict were to support Laura’s idea of getting the best person for the job and not just handing over the job to Nikki. I think due to Keith’s push back about Karl agreeing with Laura it made Karl’s goals more concrete about not just hiring anyone.
Celeste = Celeste’s beginning goal is to persuade the team and specially Jim not to hire Nikki for the position. Her goal changed to making Jim aware that he was not making a team decision, and last her goal changed to saving face.
4. What suggestions do you have for the parties in this conflict?
It seems this is supposed to be a team and not a group. If their decision to hire for a new position is supposed to be decided by the team there should be a structured process and meeting about hiring for a new position. This way each team member could openly express his or her view on the subject on hiring a new person. On the other hand if Jim was just interested in getting the groups input about the situation maybe he should have approached this situation differently, again this would be process. He could have talked with a few people one on one as to avoid heated discussions and head butting with the group, once his decision was made announce