A Complaint Letter:
Kathy Complained Her Plastic Surgery Result to Dr. Anderson
Dear Dr. Anderson,
I am writing to complain about the result of the plastic surgery operated on my eyelids in your hospital in Jan. 2015; and your attitude.
The operation results are not up to the requirements signed in the contract. Here below is the comparison of my current eyes with the result of what I expected and confirmed by you:
You and I spent a long time to communicate the effect of my eyelid-lifting operation. I believed that we had sufficient exchange of ideas about what kind of effect I looked forward to. Firstly, I described the ideal eyelids I would like to have, and presented a picture of a pair of model eyes to you; you then took out a catalog of eyelids and selected the most similar eyelids to my description for me to choose from. I picked three of them which I considered perfect according to my aesthetic appreciation; you explained clearly and patiently about which types of eyelids were suitable for my physical conditions. Finally, we had reached an agreement on one Korean style of eyelids. I thought there was no ambiguity about my expectation and your understanding.
Nevertheless, the operation result failed me, because my now eyelids don’t look like the style we have agreed upon. What made me more irritating is your attitude. You defensed your position by asserting that your operation is of no error and the operation was also conducted to make the eyelid style we consented. You said it was my physical condition that had made my rehabilitation less efficient than other people, but the difference was within acceptable range. After I expressed my discontent to you several times, you not only declined my visit but also hung up my phone call. I have no choice, but to write you this complaint letter.
I am very upset about the operation result and feel terrible about the way you handled this issue. I feel that I am a checked-out customer worthless to be treated with respect and dignity. I thought it was your fault for misunderstanding my requirements. However, you made me illusionary that you had fully understood what I wanted. There was no evidence to prove that the operation was successful according to your definition. Whereas, it is obvious for everyone to see my eyelids are different from the model picture we chose. Being a professional, it is of no excuse to treat a customer in the way like you did. I don’t believe you are a competent and respectful doctor. You have hurt the reputation of your hospital and even the hospital’s business sustainability.
I want a personal apology from you; and a compensation for the failure of my operation. Otherwise, I will ask for arbitration. When you read this letter, I hope you can arrange a visit to me immediately and apologize sincerely with compensation of at least 50,000 US dollars. It doesn’t deserve to hurt your professional career with this kind of negative matter.
Yours Faithfully
Kathy Cheng
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When you think yourself “might” being offended, you should…
Step One: Separate Facts with Judgment and Feelings
David Steele & Darlene Steele (2014) stated that the simplest difference between facts, judgment and feelings is:
• Facts – things that happen to you which usually, is measurable
• Judgments – your “stories” about the facts
• Feelings – how you emotionally and sensationally process the judgments
Usually, “we make judgments about something and try to turn it into a fact”. But David & Darlene believed that if we are able to react consciously, we are able to separate the facts from our feelings and judgments, and we can then decide what meanings to take into consideration and what actions to take. To react consciously, stop and breath, then follow the 4 steps:
1. Review the facts
2. Review your judgments
3. Identify your feelings
4. Make a conscious choice by understanding and dividing each of the above
When you start making a decision, it is better to make yourself become as calm as possible. Once you have reviewed and collected the facts & judgments, then check your feelings. The more information you learn, the better decision you will be able to make. List out or draft a complaint letter is one of the best ways to help you go through all the above 4 steps. But, you should also pay attention to your HUNCH, which is sometimes called a “gut feeling”. And it’s time for you to think about the influence of the ladder of inference.
Source:http://www.brandlauncher.com/Business-GPS/Article/dont-miss-cartoon
Step Two: Accept the truth that “everyone”, you & others too, are climbing up the ladder of inference, then reflect, advocacy & inquiry
Climbing the Ladder of inference is dangerous. Drawing conclusion by starting the data you’ve selected. The whole process is so personal, so subjective and so arbitrary that you think you know and right about everything. The evidence, apparently it’s only the surface part, that you have is so true, so sufficient to make up your right judgment.
How to avoid
Accept the truth that “everyone”, you & others too, are climbing up the ladder of inference – It is human nature to make direct judgment based on their observation, knowledge and past experience. When you start making a judgment, think about the following suggestions given by Rick Ross (skillsyouneed.com):
1. Reflection/ Reflection practice: Be more aware of your own thinking and reasoning process
2. Advocacy: Make sure others understand how your thinking and reasoning
3. Inquiry: Ask what others are thinking and use these information to test your assumption
When you are making your own reflection, make attention on what specific piece of information that you have taken into consideration the most. Build up your own personal reflection system/gallery, helping you to be more aware of how you select, think and judge.
Also, to prevent you and others climbing up the ladder, one of the best ways is to ask questions. We are neither God nor a seer. We should gather as many as evidence to make own judgment. In terms of what questions to be asked, open-ended way is highly suggested. The advantages of open are, allowing both parties to:
• Make unlimited number of possible answers
• Answer in detail and can qualify and clarify responses
• Question in detail and can qualify and clarify questions
• Discover unanticipated findings
• Provide adequate answers to complex issues
• Provide creativity, self-expression, and richness of detail
• Reveal own and understand others’ logic, thinking process, and frame of reference
• Rationally Pursue another mutually agreeable dispute resolution option, if needed
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/ICO-Consulting/mindful-systems-inquiry-c
When is 3rd Party Intervention needed?
Above, we mention the power of inquiry. When we are able to go through STEP ONE & STEP TWO, by use of inquiry, we are able to prevent or even to solve a conflict between you and the offender. But in reality, not all people are able, or willing to go through Step One or/and Step Two. People are too confident, too emotionally and sometimes irrationally believing in their personal judgment. They may believe that that they are no longer able to handle the conflict on their own. Or may be in some situation, even both parties are able to go through STEP ONE & STEP TWO, but they are so lack of trust to believe the other side will act upon the final agreement. And 3rd party intervention would be helpful in such situations. They are useful in:
1) helping to understand and overcome the barriers;
2) acting as the witness; and
3) if 3rd party has legal power, providing legal approach to solve the conflict
However, when using 3rd party intervention, we need to pay attention that it may also present certain disadvantages such as, fail to build or rebuild relationship among the negotiators, inability to grow, i.e. not able to manage own feelings and hence increase the possibility of having conflicts in the future. (Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D. M., Minton, J. W., & Lewicki, R. J. N., 2001)(Lambert, J., & Myers, S., 1999)
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Kinds of conflict:
1. Task conflict: conflicts over content and goals of the work
2. Process conflict: conflict over how work gets done
3. Relationship conflict: conflict based on interpersonal relationships
The conflicts that we mostly confront with can be roughly categorized into three groups based on the sources the conflicts generating from. Conflict is the first- phase manifestation when two parties hold different opinions, and it will turn to complaint issue if conflict cannot be well handled. The complaint letter we present just now is a conflict between a patient and doctor which represents two types of conflict: task conflict and process conflict. Task conflict refers to that the patient regards the successful surgery as the one achieving the set-style she had agreed upon together with doctor, whereas the doctor declares that the difference is subject to the patient’s physical conditions and the difference is within acceptable range. Process conflict mainly reflects that patient considers that doctor should meet her requirements exactly, whereas the doctor thinks he has the decision-making power determining the final solution to the patient based on his professionalism.
How do the complaints and grievances arise from?
1. Omission and different understandings of facts
Omission that no matter happened intentionally or unintentionally both can lead to “task conflict” which related to the content and goals of the work. In our case, there seems to be some omissions that have negative impacts on the doctor-patient relationship and it lead to complaint issue eventually for lacking of effective conflict-resolving solutions.
• Patient should emphasis that the surgery result must stick to the agreement she has agree upon with the doctor before the surgery.
• Doctor should assert that he resolve the right determining the final solution to patient, and there would be some variance of final result and set-style.
• Must-have items during the deal-making period above should be recorded in a written contract to avoid conflict.
Misunderstandings will inevitably occur when providers and customers come together from different backgrounds, organizations, countries, or genders, but we still can try to reduce even eliminate misunderstanding between two parties. For our case, there are different understandings towards a successful surgery between doctor and patient.
• The patient don’t really understand the right of a doctor, and don’t aware that doctor has right to make decision based on the professionalism.
• The doctor don’t aware that the patient is determine to realize the set-style and cannot accept any variance.
2. Differences in values and perceptions
Values are defined as something explicitly or implicitly desirable to an individual or group that influences attitudes and decisions. (Corey, Christy M.1, Fok, Lillian Y.1Payne, Dinah M.1, 2014) Values will vary from individual to individual for the sake of education, culture, gender and so on, and influence the attitude towards conflict as well as the ultimate outcome. In our case, the difference in values and perceptions is embodied as following aspects:
• Patient appreciates Korea style of eyelids a lot comparing to other models, and it represents her aesthetic value which rooted deeply in her mother culture. Doctor asserts that any kind of beautification should be suitable with physical conditions and there is no universal standard that is workable for each person.
• Doctor sticks to the value that he should represent the professionalism and rationality.
How do complaint letter help to communicate directly?
With the help of complaint letter, the party that get defeated has got a channel directly express its dissenting opinion and treatment suggestion upon the conflict. We will analyze how effective do complaint letter help to communicate directly both from different understandings of facts perspective and from difference in values and perception perspective.
• Omission and different understandings of facts:
omposing a complaint letter do help to communicate directly by clarifying what has been omitted before and by which there would be ambiguous. In our case, the patient declares that they had sufficient exchange of ideas about what kind of effect she looked forward to in order to avoid ambiguity. At the end of complaint letter, the patient also concisely states her personal expectations on conflict-resolution arrangement to prevent misunderstanding.
• Differences in values and perceptions:
Different from omission and different understanding of facts, differences in values and perceptions are more abstract and subjective to be described in words due to its own nature. In our case, the patient have little words on the thinking processes and how differently they perceived the surgery outcome.
Reference:
Corey, Christy M.1, Fok, Lillian Y.1Payne, Dinah M.1 ,
(2014) Cross-culture differences in values , and
conflict management: A comparison of U.S. and
Puerto Rico. Journal of Organizational Culture,
Communications & Conflict. 2014, Vol. 18 Issue 2,
p59-78. 20p. 5 Charts.
Lambert, J., & Myers, S. (1999). 50 Activities for
Conflict Resolution. Amherst, Massachusetts: HRD
Press.
Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D. M., Minton, J. W., &
Lewicki, R. J. N. (2001). Essentials of negotiation.
Boston, Mass: Irwin/McGraw-Hill.
David Steele, Darlene Steele. (2014). Radical
Marriage: Your Relationship as Your Greatest
Adventure. United States of America: CNN Press
skillsyouneed.com (n.d.). The Ladder of Inference.
skillsyouneed.com. Retrieved from
http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/ladder-of-
inference.html
The conflict stuck the project proceedings that we
cannot reach a consensus on working methods which determine the work plan and
milestones. How did we solve the conflict? Firstly, we identified the source of
the conflict was because of different ideologies, and the conflict cannot be
overlooked for it had severe impact on the works thereafter. Secondly, we had
to choose a strategy to resolve the conflict. For the interest of the team as a
whole, we needed to evaluate each method to find out the most suitable method
to work out our project. We applied the combination of strategies “Compromising”
and “Problem Solving”. “Problem Solving” focuses on evaluation of varying
points of view to defeat the problem and not each other. On the other hand, the
strategy “Compromising” made team members to reach an agreement to maximize the
group interest without hurting each other.
