Gridiron is a name that athletes, especially football players like to call the football field. I personally know's not too much about foot ball except it is very intensive and calls for team work. "Gridiron Gang" is the first movie about foot ball that I ever watched. The movie is actually based on a true story about a supervisor in a juvenile detention center wanting to help the miss guided teenagers by playing foot ball. All of the teenagers came from different neighborhood. Under the affect of the gangs in their neighborhood, there is a hate between different kids. In the movie, they were made to work as a team so conflict will be an issue. Two particular players conflict is more fierce than others. One player is a running back, the other is his left tackle. In a regular case, the left tackle should always cover the running back. The problem in this particular case is the gang in their neighborhood have taken the other player's family member.
On some level, the conflict might not be solved because there is no way for them to have a decent communication the tension is very hard to resolve. In this situation, the coach used a method that accidentally let the two players communicated. Coach was trying let the running back run over him as a way of conquer the fear and gain the confident in the running back. Eventually, the running back did it and it somehow gain the respect from his left tackle. In reset of the matches in the season, the running back and the tackle worked perfectly with each other.
Even though the team never made to the playoffs, all the players learned many great lessons which helped them to move on with their lives. In the movie, it is not just telling a great story, it is also telling the importance of communicating. Communicating is not just to sit down with everyone and start talking about the problem face to face, it is about finding the right way to commute as effective as possible. In the situation that was described in the movie, the conflict was inevitable because of some objective facts that it wasn't easy for them to get over something that related to a person's lost in their family. In both the players mind that they could never work as a team because they think the other person is representing of what has been done and holding them responsible. People on the team has no particular feelings, only they have been feeling this the same way to somebody else. When the coach first noticed this situation, he tried to ask a truce for the two, but this got them nowhere. The way that actually worked out did happen under accident, but it did explain how important it is to find a right way to communicate
This is a movie I haven't seen. It matches the prompt regarding the conflict between the two players, but it doesn't seem to match it in terms of this happening within an organization. The conflict seems like a personality fight, not based on any other issue. The kids don't like each other from their gang connections. They had a prior disposition against one another before the football team formed. There wasn't something that happened within the football team that triggered the conflict (in the story as you tell it). So I'm not sure whether there is any lesson here for the rest of the class about conflict in the work place.
ReplyDeleteAll struggles and issues in the movie is actually based on which neighborhood they come from, so it might not match to what happens between organizations. However, I think companies that develop technologies might be more close to this situation because each company represent where they come from, what they actually do, this could cause two companies be enemies.
DeleteAlso, I wanted to say that every time I saw your comments I noticed that I still have a lot to learn, but I really wanted to do better on my blog post so sometimes I see the comment I feel kind of frustrated.