CASE STUDY 4.1 CONFLICT STYLES IN THE PARKING LOT SCUFFLE We will consider conflict styles in the interaction between Tim and Jay, reprinted , here for your reference: 1 Tim: What's your problem? What the hell did you do to my Honda? I said, "What did you do? 2 Jay: I drove into my spot and didn't see your bike. What was it doing parked there? 3 Tim: Look, my tire's flot. I can't move the wheel Crushed in and doesn't move , 4 Jay: I didn't see it until I was on top of it 5 Tim: You are going to have to pay for this. I can't afford this 6 Jay What was it doing in a parking space? ? Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction 109 7 Tim: What's your problem? it was parked Look at the wheel. You came around pretty good a Jay: Listen, this is my spot I didn't see it, and it shouldn't have been there You're lucky I stopped when I did. Look at my bumper What was it doing there? 9 Tim. You ass. Who cares whose spot it is? Some jerk like you drives over my Honda and says, "This is my spot. I don't care who you are You will fix my Honda! 10 Jay: You are the one with a problem. Do you work here? 11 Tim: What does that have to do with anything? Stop looking at your bumper, it looks fine. I want your driver's license and insurance 12 Jay: Who in the hell do you think you are? (Starts walking away) 13 Tim: You are not going anywhere. (Grabs Jay's arm) 14 Jay: Let go of me. You are screwed, I'm calling the police. (Tums to move toward the office.) 15 Tu slugs Jay from behind. The two scutfile for a few moments until others arrive to break them apart. From the outset Tim used a competing style, high in assertiveness and low in cooperativeness. This is indicated by his strong language, his demands for puy. ment, and his refusal to consider Jay's point of view. Jay initially began with a collaborating style; he did not apologize or give in to Tim, which would signal an accommodating or possibly, avoiding style. He attempted to develop an under- standing of what happened that could be the foundation for collaborating Tim's continued confrontations were answered with firm resistance in line 8. Here Jay clearly stated his unwillingness to accommodate ("Look, this is my spot.") and tried to retrame the situation when he said, "You're lucky I stopped when I did. This signaled a continued attempt at collaborating that might have led to an integrative solution or a compromise had Tim followed this lead This in tum illustrates an important feature of collaborating, it does not nec essarily mean that people are "nice" to each other. Often collaborating involves asertive moves that signal firmess and resolve. As indicated in Chapter 1 differentiation requires parties to acknowledge the validity of their differences, which sometimes requires one party to show the other that he or she will not be pushed around. By line 10. Jay has abandoned collaborating and switched to a competing style ("You are the one with the problem. Do you work here?). He may have concluded that Tim would never be reasonable and decided that the only way to obtain an acceptable outcome was to argue to a standoff. He may also intend to continue collaborating, in which case the point here was to further signal resolve and to register a mild threat that Jay could attack right back if he wanted to Or Jay may have just been sucked into the confrontation through a matching process. Aroused by Tim's anger, Jay's aggressive impulses and anxiety about the situation may have provoked a "light" response whereby Jay becomes just as competitive as Tim. Whatever the case. by line 12 Jay lashed back at Tim and attempted to leave the scene-"Who in the hell do you think you are? (Starts walking away "Taken aut of context, this move might appear to enact an accommodating or avoiding style. In this context, however, it seems to be part of a larger strategy to win through retreat. Jay snarled at Tim and tried to have the last word by walking away. As we have noted, there are variants of the five basic styles that identify different approaches to the same basic strategy. Tim's reaction cemented the competition when he grabbed Jay. Jay continued with his retreat-and-win strategy, and Tim slugged him. Tim may have done this because he realized the situation was slipping away with Jay's impending retreat. O, Tim may simply have been too incensed to "let go of his attitude. If this was the case, he channeled his aggression into violence, which ended in the scuffle. Discussion Questions How did the styles adopted by these two feed into the conflict? Could Jay have taken a different tack that would have resulted in a more productive conflict