The conflict I will be writing about is regarding the tv show Suits, which revolves around the lives of a few top lawyers in new york from one if the most prestigious law firms. To detail the conflict, I will first give a few details and backstory of the main characters in the tv show and how their story line is essential for the conflict. Mike is a sharp and smart man, who has eidetic memory and is also a brilliant lawyer. However, due to some illegal activities (taking the LSATS for other people), he was expelled from college and barred from taking the LSAT himself and thus could not become a lawyer. Due to his exceptional talent and passion for becoming a lawyer, he managed to impress Harvey Spectre, one of the top lawyers and get hired, despite the lack of credentials. The series thus follows Mike and Harvey as they work case to case, while also dealing with the growth of the company and their rising positions, while keeping his secret under wraps.
The majority of workplace conflict is inter-personal conflict arising from miscommunication, misunderstanding and inappropriate behaviors. This type of conflict is common as it would hard to eliminate such errors due to the nature of human communication itself. However, some conflict arises from when people in the firm want two different objectives and thus compete aginst one another to get their desired or more favorable outcome. The conflict I will be talking about will cover both of these issues at the same time.
The conflict is that during one case Mike and Harvey are working on, they are to prosecute an illegal lawyer who due to not having a certification had his license revoked and thus would be sent to jail and all the cases he worked on reopened if they managed to prosecute him. This one case provided a lot of conflict between the two main characters, Mike and Harvey as they had different methods of going about the case. In addition, Mike, due to his own background felt sympathy for the lawyer and was in two minds to help solve the case in the first place or not. The conflict initially arises because Mike felt that Harvey was too harsh and this one case would ruin the man's career. He was a good lawyer, who was about to retire in a few months and just because of a few certifications, he would be arrested on grounds of malpractice. Mike thought that since most of his work was good, they should just let the case slip thereby saving the man's reputation and all the cases he's worked on. This arose conflict as Harvey wanted to take the case as try to finish it like a professional without showing any empathy.
Now from an outsiders perspective, which aligns with the two perspectives of the main characters it is a morally ambiguous situation. The lawyer in question was a good one, who was on the end of his career. If they let it go like Mike wanted, then his reputation and the cases would remain as is, thus not causing too much damage. (Note, he was a good lawyer and thus the cases he solved would mostly be correct and the outcome would not change even if it were looked at again by another lawyer). Contrary to this argument is the one that Harvey has, as lawyer themselves they should take professional duty and responsibility above all else and even if he was good lawyer, he was still breaking the laws which exist to protect the people and thus should take the case and do it to best of their abilities.
The other point to be made was the emotional side of the conflict, which brings into question of Mike owns situation which in some respects is very similar if not exactly the same. Mike feels angry at Harvey for simply following the case, and questions whether he would receive the same treatment as well. This conflict festered until a breaking point as there was no middle ground to be taken, thus Harvey being the senior lawyer and morally right got his way, and the lawyer was prosecuted. The conflict ended, but with Mike feeling more vulnerable about his position, with just a few spoken assurances from Harvey that he won't let a similar situation befall Mike. I feel this conflict was inevitable given the background of the candidates and the nature of the case being so similar to what Mike is doing (fraud). I also feel the outcome of this conflict was more geared towards how it ended as Mike would just have to make peace with his wrongdoings and hope there would be a way out of his situation in the future. Another way this conflict would not arise would be if Harvey never hired Mike in the first episode of the series. For all the talk about taking morally correct decisions, Harvey should not have hired Mike knowing he lacks the certifications in order to become a legal lawyer, he was however blown aways by Mike's brilliance and made an error in judgment. Thus if Harvey never hired Mike the conflict would not arise, then again the entire show would not exist as well.
The majority of workplace conflict is inter-personal conflict arising from miscommunication, misunderstanding and inappropriate behaviors. This type of conflict is common as it would hard to eliminate such errors due to the nature of human communication itself. However, some conflict arises from when people in the firm want two different objectives and thus compete aginst one another to get their desired or more favorable outcome. The conflict I will be talking about will cover both of these issues at the same time.
The conflict is that during one case Mike and Harvey are working on, they are to prosecute an illegal lawyer who due to not having a certification had his license revoked and thus would be sent to jail and all the cases he worked on reopened if they managed to prosecute him. This one case provided a lot of conflict between the two main characters, Mike and Harvey as they had different methods of going about the case. In addition, Mike, due to his own background felt sympathy for the lawyer and was in two minds to help solve the case in the first place or not. The conflict initially arises because Mike felt that Harvey was too harsh and this one case would ruin the man's career. He was a good lawyer, who was about to retire in a few months and just because of a few certifications, he would be arrested on grounds of malpractice. Mike thought that since most of his work was good, they should just let the case slip thereby saving the man's reputation and all the cases he's worked on. This arose conflict as Harvey wanted to take the case as try to finish it like a professional without showing any empathy.
Now from an outsiders perspective, which aligns with the two perspectives of the main characters it is a morally ambiguous situation. The lawyer in question was a good one, who was on the end of his career. If they let it go like Mike wanted, then his reputation and the cases would remain as is, thus not causing too much damage. (Note, he was a good lawyer and thus the cases he solved would mostly be correct and the outcome would not change even if it were looked at again by another lawyer). Contrary to this argument is the one that Harvey has, as lawyer themselves they should take professional duty and responsibility above all else and even if he was good lawyer, he was still breaking the laws which exist to protect the people and thus should take the case and do it to best of their abilities.
The other point to be made was the emotional side of the conflict, which brings into question of Mike owns situation which in some respects is very similar if not exactly the same. Mike feels angry at Harvey for simply following the case, and questions whether he would receive the same treatment as well. This conflict festered until a breaking point as there was no middle ground to be taken, thus Harvey being the senior lawyer and morally right got his way, and the lawyer was prosecuted. The conflict ended, but with Mike feeling more vulnerable about his position, with just a few spoken assurances from Harvey that he won't let a similar situation befall Mike. I feel this conflict was inevitable given the background of the candidates and the nature of the case being so similar to what Mike is doing (fraud). I also feel the outcome of this conflict was more geared towards how it ended as Mike would just have to make peace with his wrongdoings and hope there would be a way out of his situation in the future. Another way this conflict would not arise would be if Harvey never hired Mike in the first episode of the series. For all the talk about taking morally correct decisions, Harvey should not have hired Mike knowing he lacks the certifications in order to become a legal lawyer, he was however blown aways by Mike's brilliance and made an error in judgment. Thus if Harvey never hired Mike the conflict would not arise, then again the entire show would not exist as well.
You are the second student that is writing about this show (which I have not watched). Your description was better, so I have some feel for what the show is about.
ReplyDeleteYet you need to do something with this post to make it more compelling. Conflict is not the same as disagreement. Reasonable people can disagree and often do disagree. If they are co-workers, they will then negotiate through the disagreement to something they can both live with, a compromise if you will. They don't "win" in this case. But they can go on and believe the other is still a reasonable person.
Conflict is different from disagreement. It typically is about winning and if one side achieves that it makes the other side losers. Conflict often doesn't resolve for this reason. It simply festers until there is fracture.
Now because this is a TV show, you need to decide whether what you describe really is conflict between Mike and Harvey or not. You also need to decide whether for dramatic effect the tension between the is over emphasized. The story itself seems highly unlikely in its premise, which may be how current entertainment works. But if that is true, then the issue is whether there are any lessons for us to be used in our class. It's not clear to me whether there are.
In your post you wrote "The majority of workplace conflict is inter-personal conflict arising from miscommunication, misunderstanding and inappropriate behaviors". While I agree that conflict can be created through miscommunication and misunderstanding, I feel like those two stems create conflicts that can potentially be easily resolved by putting parties in conflict in a room to rid the situation of false information.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to inappropriate behavior, I feel like that could be somewhat relative at times. Sure, there are MANY cookie cutter conflicts that stem because one or more parties are acting out of how they "should" in a given setting. However, I find that sometimes the behavior we expect from other people isn't the same as the behavior they expect from us. That can be as a result of being raised differently, being apart of different cultures, or perhaps just natural ignorance. Either way, what is deemed "inappropriate" (aside from the obvious such as sexual harassment, bullying, scamming, stealing, cheating, etc.) may be relative in many cases.