Conflict and Group Dynamics


This conflict occurred in a work situation, although this time it was not between myself and a co-worker. Back working at the pool (the place I have been talking about in previous posts), I also was a swim coach. The club I worked at competed in a small, semi-competitive swim league that consisted of five other clubs from around the northern/western suburbs. I say semi-competitive because ultimately, we don’t care about winning and just want the kids to have fun, but there are two competitive championship meets at the end of the season where awards are given out. Some clubs (us, for example) didn’t really care about winning any of these awards, while others (usually those who have the better swimmers) will actively try to win these championship meets.

Anyway, just for some background before I describe the conflict, I was the oldest coach (besides the head coach, who was also the club manager Matt), so I was viewed as the “senior” coach since I was the oldest and had been coaching the longest. My coaching style was to make sure the kids had fun in practice, make sure they were learning various skills related to competitive swimming to some degree, and being somewhat stern to kids who were goofing around too much or who were being disrespectful at any time (to me or to each other). My age group was seven and eight year old boys, so they were a rambunctious group from time-to-time. I never really “yelled” at any one individually during a practice or a meet, I usually tried to maintain a stern attitude without seeming too upset (for example: when the kids were not listening in practice, I would raise my voice a little and be up-front with them regarding how them not listening is preventing THEM from learning and having fun while doing so). I found this style quite effective, but a situation occurred when I seemingly lost my temper and ended up actually yelling at the team as a whole, not just my age group. My co-workers do play a role in this, but they were not the direct source of the conflict I am about to explain.

We were competing in a dual meet towards the end of the season. A dual meet is considered a “regular-season” competition. We have five of them a year (one against each team) before the championship meets. I should probably mention that the age distribution of our team was kids ages five to fifteen, with about 75% of the team being twelve or younger (we didn’t have many “older” kids at the time). It is tradition that before each meet, each team gathers in a location around the pool deck, the head coach does some sort of pep talk, and then we do a team cheer. In this meet, after we had already done all that, all of our swimmers were still gathered in our spot, and we could hear the other team doing their cheer. After they finished, to my dismay, a lot of our kids (and a bunch that were in my age group) started booing pretty loudly. This was a very disrespectful gesture from our kids, and I almost lost it. I raised my voice and actually was yelling, trying to get a very important message across to the entire team, coaching staff included. The message was along the lines of “that was absolutely unacceptable” and “it is extremely disrespectful to do that, and shows absolutely zero indication of sportsmanship”. Those are not direct quotes I used, just a paraphrase of what my message was. I don’t think I’ve ever been more upset in my time coaching at the club (which was a total of six summers).

The source of the problem was the kids showing disrespect towards the other team, and my high standard for being good sports and showing respect to your opponent. I thought that my actions at the time were necessary, because it was unacceptable to act like that, especially for an amateur competition that didn’t mean anything in terms of awards or anything. I’m sure that some of the kids were pretty frightened initially, because none of them had ever seen or heard me yell that loud before. I had never raised my voice past a stern, serious tone, and the kids probably took it as a shock. The other coaches (my co-workers) also seemed a bit startled, I’m sure because they didn’t think I would every consider yelling at seven and eight year old kids. But I was also somewhat upset at the coaches, who also made no effort to disapprove of the booing. Additional perspectives were noticed however, as I had multiple parents (who probably overhead – it was quite loud) come up to me and sort of “thank” me for getting their kids in order and for reinforcing the non-competitive, sportsmanlike values that we preach. I was visibly upset for about 30 minutes after this happened, and as a “punishment” I didn’t give any of my kids candy after they were finished swimming that day (I usually did that after every meet). I thought the initial reaction to my outburst was one of shock, but as the dust settled, I think the reaction was positive. I don’t think I permanently damaged the relationship I had with any of the swimmers. Throughout the rest of the meet that day, I settled down and calmly reinforced my motives to the kids, reminding them why we aren’t supposed to act that way (in a much nicer tone than the original outburst). I think that this conflict was resolved well, as there was not another instance of booing afterwards. This conflict was definitely not inevitable and could have been avoided, but I think that other subsequent conflicts would have arisen had I not acted immediately. Obviously if the kids had not booed my action would not have been necessary, but we also have to keep in mind that kids that age are still developing (maturity wise) and actions like this are not even remotely uncommon. I still stand by my actions, and none of my relationships with the co-workers (who I was upset with, along with the kids) were damaged. I feel like this was more of a reinforcement of team values, if anything.

Comments

  1. Professor ArvanNovember 18, 2019 at 1:00 PM

    Let me note something before getting to your post. Standards of acceptable behavior do apparently change over time. I was a sports fan growing up and talking trash was not part of the ethos in the 1960s. By the late 1970s, and surely in the 1980s, it became more acceptable. Likewise my sense is that parenting and what counts as good behavior has changed. I don't know where kids learn bad sportsmanship now, but I would guess the Internet offers plenty of opportunities for that. Alternatively, watching some sports on TV the visiting teams often get booed by the home crowd, who can be quite nasty to certain players, in particular.

    Now a point about your story and the use of the word conflict. Was there any carry over from this episode to your interactions with the other coaches after this happened? If not, I wouldn't call this conflict. There was an in the moment outburst that may have put the other coaches on the defensive, as you were indirectly criticizing them of not being responsible for the swimmers in their charge, but if they didn't give the cold shoulder after that, then it was just that episode. In contrast, if you got some pushback from some of theme later, to the effect - who the H___ are you to tell me how to do my job, so the response was definitely an expression of anger, then you could call it conflict. In other words, it would be good to explain what happened after this.

    Now a different issue to think about. You reacted immediately to the provocation and it sounded like you let your anger get the better of you. If you could have anticipated the booing in advance, so could have planned your response before the fact, would you have done some things differently? It sounded like some of the parents thought your anger a good thing. I wonder if others thought maybe it was too much. If so, and they told you that, how would you have responded to them?

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    1. George Stigler Econ 490 fall 2019November 25, 2019 at 1:46 PM

      For the following explanation, it helps to know the make-up of the rest of the coaches. There were a bunch who I had worked with for a while, and I was good friends with them. They knew my coaching style and knew how I would react in situations similar (but not as intense) to this one. There were a couple of new coaches who I was not as close with, and I definitely recall them not being as communicative with me after this outburst. I'm sure that they were taken aback by my actions just because they had never seen me even moderately angry before. I never got a direct reaction because my actions were not pointed directly at the coaches (it was at the kids), but I think the dust settled quickly after the outburst. Although, I could tell that some of the other coaches viewed me differently after the fact.

      I never would have anticipated the booing because I had a greater expectation for the swimmers I coached. The team always stressed fun and sportsmanship over winning and competition. I had never seen any sort of disrespect like this in all of my years coaching there, so it was shocking to see this kind of behavior from what was a previously respectful group of kids (as respectful as seven and eight year olds can be). If I were able to anticipate it, first of all, I probably would have distracted them (like talking to them about the meet) while the other team was doing their cheer. I would have made sure that the attention of the kids was on making themselves better swimmers and better individuals, instead of worrying so much about the other team. If some of the parents thought this was too much, there would have been no way for me to know. Nobody talked to me personally saying that it was "too much", but if that did happen, I would have explained my reasoning. I truly felt embarrassed by what they did and it showed an incredible amount of disrespect to a team that was just doing their team cheer and having some fun. There really can't be any tolerance for that kind of disrespect ESPECIALLY at that young age.

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