Coaching entry for week 6_Suspension

Chi Phuong NGUYEN

I tried to talk with a friend that I worked in a team project to practice suspension. It was a little bit hard to work with that guy because we had very different opinions and we often spent time to defend our position during our meetings. I know that sometimes my opinions are not the best for the project, but I had the fear to reject my ideas and to make myself feel that I couldn’t contribute to the teamwork. Our project was just so interesting and I tried to give a lot of suggestions with justification to contribute to that project. And then in our meeting, he often just ignored my ideas and suggested to just delete the slides that I spent time to create in order to put everything in his way. Once, I lost my temper and became angry with him. I doubted and questioned myself that he had enough working experience in dealing with the issues of the project. Therefore, I decided to meet him face-to-face to talk, trying to understand a little bit more about him, his thinking or perhaps to improve our relationship as we were still friends.

The day I came to see him, I had some thoughts in my mind about his behavior, how he could deny all what I might say. It would be difficult to talk with him. I thought that he didn’t like me. I invited him to take a coffee outside. I started the conversation with hesitation. We started talking about our program, what we planned to do after graduation. And I took a little bit time to notice my feeling and reactions. My legs were twisted around, and I had my arms crossed in front of my chest. I was in a position of defend, to give me more confidence and to stay a safe distance away from him. My voice was monotone, and I didn’t show any sign of excitement or interest in the beginning of our conversation. However, I hold all my judgments appeared in my mind before coming to see him, telling myself to not to focus on the thought that he hated me or my ideas. And the more we talked, the better I felt. I realized the change in my attitude towards him. At the beginning of our conversation, it was more to be polite but step by step there was a growing connection linking us to our conversation. Actually both of us had the same concern about our project, our program and life after graduation. We shared our deeply thoughts about life, work. My body leaned forward to him, I changed my voice, laughing at a story that he told me, my eyes turned to be bigger. More interesting, I found out that he was really worried to get a good grade for our project. And he wanted to make sure that everything should be consistent in the report of the project, going in the same flow. I told him in a mildly tone that sometimes he denied my ideas and that triggered my defensiveness as I wanted to prove my contribution to the project. I told him about my feeling, how I felt upset and nervous in those meetings. He listened carefully and explained to me that he just wanted to make the project perfectly, without any doubt or confusion. Therefore, sometimes he was too worried that our teacher or the jury for the presentation of the project could raise some questions on certain points. Getting his explanation made me feel so comfortable and it changed my attitude toward him. And one thing for sure, we improved our relationship, meaning our teamwork would benefit from that relationship. I was influenced by the conversation and the practice of suspension but in a positive manner. Suspending all the judgments, listening to my reactions and being open to discuss changed the attitude that I reserved for him and brought an out-of-expectation outcome for me. And I did that without having the feeling of giving up my power. I didn’t beg him to listen to my thinking or how he should change his attitude but we improved our relationship naturally after our discussion.