Conflicts can happen anytime, anywhere and through any communication channels.

I had a very long argument over MSN with a friend, who is studying in Australia now, a while ago. Both of us are in the same choir and on that particular day, we were discussing about issues regarding our choir.

We had very different perspectives on the different issues and we were too affected by our emotions. On a simple topic like whether to have an official email for our choir, we had very different opinions and cannot agree with each other. He believed that having email is “RETARDED” because he thinks that friends in our choir do not check their emails and what more the official email? Moreover, he believed that someone can just take on the responsibility to email everyone about updates or any potential organizations for performances. However, I believed that having an official email will enhance our professionalism. Having an official email also means that we have a proper space to store important emails.

Besides that issue, we also argued about stress and leadership. He was the leader of the choir but he stepped down after a few months. However, he still felt much stressed after that because he thinks that he still is the leader of the choir. I argued that he felt stressed because he takes on too much unnecessary responsibility especially when he sees himself as the “leader” of the choir. I told him that he is taking this label too seriously but he insisted that he did not want to be the leader but is the situation which forced him to take up the role and he emphasized that I will not understand how he feels because he assumed that I was never a leader before.

We had diverging opinions on all the issues we talked about. Most of the conversation was typed in capital letters which showed that both of us were angry and agitated at that point of time. His use of words such as retarded also made the situation worst.

In order to work effectively together in the choir, we need to resolve the conflict between us, but how can we reach a mutual understanding or agree with each other?