Brown and Stacy were close friends and trusted each other until Brown sold a laptop to Stacy, who was in dire need of one to do her school project. The laptop crashed within one week of purchase. Stacy was angry, and being an introvert chose to remain quiet and avoided Brown both in class and outside. Brown noticed the change of attitude that Stacy developed towards him and tried seeking answers from her. Every time that Brown attempted to talk to Mary, he was met with a snide remark or a cold shoulder. From the look of things, the conflict was coincidental and occasioned by failure on the part of Brown to inform Stacy that the laptop had RAM issues. Brown was devastated by the turn of events and feared losing their friendship. The surface problem was that Stacy felt cheated by Brown in the laptop deal while the underlying problem was Brown’ omission to inform Stacy that it had memory issues when closing the deal.
While Stacy chose the competing, conflicting management strategy, Brown preferred to create room for collaboration by seeking avenues to understand the source of her problems. Although she has a conservative character, Stacy could not stand Brown's attempts to befriend her again, thus denying him a chance to explain himself. After days, Stacy was able to yield to Brown's pleas, and Brown explained to her what had happened. The conflict management strategies changed after Stacy agreed to tell Brown why she was mad, thus allowing room for dialogue. Stacy assumed a collaborating approach that allowed each part to assertively present their cases (Özyildirim & Kayikçi, 2017). Brown had to explain why he sold a defective laptop to Mary.
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After each had an opportunity to explain their actions, Brown agreed to replace the defective memory stick at his own cost. In this case, both Stacy and Brown were the winners since they maintained their friendship while Stacy got a new memory for her laptop. Their friendship emerged stronger from the conflict. If Stacy had chosen to approach Brown directly, then they could have solved the issue early, and their friendship could not have been strained. Differently, if Brown had checked the state of his laptop before selling, he could have detected the defective memory stick and replaced it.
References
Özyildirim, G., & Kayikçi, K. (2017). The Conflict Management Strategies of School Administrators While Conflicting with Their Supervisors. European Journal of Education Studies.
