Moving from Rigid to Flexible Thinking to Resolve Business, Workplace and Partnership Conflicts
- Shiv Martin
- 17 hours ago
- 6 min read
Professionals navigating business, partnership and workplace conflict often enter these situations with a high degree of certainty about what has occurred, who bears responsibility, and what a fair or appropriate outcome should be. This certainty is understandable. Disputes in professional contexts frequently involve financial exposure, reputational risk, authority, and long-term working relationships, all of which place significant pressure on decision-making. In these conditions, clear positions can feel stabilising and even necessary.
However, across mediation, facilitation and conflict coaching practice, rigid or black-and-white thinking consistently emerges as one of the most significant barriers to effective resolution. When parties become anchored to fixed interpretations of events or outcomes, the scope for constructive negotiation narrows and disputes are more likely to escalate in cost, complexity and relational damage. By contrast, those who are able to tolerate a degree of uncertainty and engage with ambiguity tend to make more strategic, informed and sustainable decisions.
This article draws on mediation practice, decision-making research and neuroscience to explain why embracing the grey leads to better outcomes in business, partnership, management and workplace disputes, and offers practical reflection questions and conversation starters to support more flexible thinking.
How rigid thinking escalates business and workplace disputes
Rigid thinking appears across many types of professional conflict, including disputes between business partners, senior managers, boards, executives and employees. It often shows up as a strong attachment to a single narrative or outcome, such as:
“There’s only one acceptable resolution.”
“If we give ground here, we lose authority or credibility.”
“This is a matter of principle, not negotiation.”
“They are clearly in breach, and that’s the end of it.”
While these positions may feel justified, they quickly become non-negotiable. Once certainty hardens into defence, conversations narrow and parties focus on protecting their position rather than solving the problem. At this point, disputes often shift from strategic decision-making to identity protection, precedent-setting or blame allocation.
In contrast, when professionals are able to hold the possibility that there may be multiple reasonable interpretations or more than one workable outcome, the conversation changes.
Options re-emerge, risk can be assessed more accurately, and negotiation becomes possible
again.
Reflection question: Where in this dispute are you treating certainty as protection rather than as a strategy?
Conversation starter
“What would this look like if there were several workable outcomes rather than just one?”
The neuroscience of certainty, threat and confirmation bias
There are strong neurological drivers behind rigid thinking in conflict. When a dispute threatens financial security, status, authority or reputation, the brain shifts into threat mode. The amygdala becomes more active, narrowing attention and increasing the drive for certainty and control. This response is automatic and largely unconscious.
At the same time, confirmation bias takes hold. Confirmation bias is the brain’s tendency to seek out information that confirms existing beliefs and to discount information that challenges them. Under stress, this bias intensifies, reducing cognitive flexibility and reinforcing a single narrative of events.
In business and partnership disputes, confirmation bias often appears as selective recall of past behaviour, rigid interpretations of contracts or agreements, overconfidence in predicted outcomes, or dismissal of relational and reputational risks. The brain is not seeking accuracy; it is seeking certainty.
Flexible thinking engages the prefrontal cortex, which supports reasoning, perspective-taking and decision-making. When people feel safe enough to tolerate uncertainty, they are better able to weigh options, assess risk and negotiate outcomes that hold up over time.
Reflection question: What information would genuinely challenge your current view, and how open are you to considering it?
Conversation starter
“If an independent third party reviewed this situation, what might they see differently?”
Why uncertainty is a strength in business and workplace conflict
In professional environments, certainty is often rewarded. Leaders are expected to be decisive, managers to provide clarity, and advisors to offer strong recommendations. However, decisiveness is not the same as rigidity.
In finance and business, diversification is widely accepted as sound practice precisely because the future is uncertain. Placing everything on a single outcome might deliver short- term gains, but over time it increases risk. Conflict operates in much the same way.
When disputes are approached as black-and-white contests, parties tend to over-invest in a single outcome and under-prepare for alternatives. When disputes are approached as complex systems with uncertainty, trade-offs and probabilities, professionals make better decisions. They protect relationships, manage risk and preserve future opportunities.
Reflection question: If this dispute continues for six or twelve months, what risks increase for you or your organisation?
Conversation starter
“What would a workable, not perfect, outcome look like from here?”
Want practical tools to support flexible thinking in real conversations?
Our DIY Mediation Quick Guide offers simple structures and prompts to move from fixed positions to workable outcomes in workplace conflict. Download your free Guide here
How mediators create productive doubt without undermining confidence
In mediation, facilitation and conflict coaching, the goal is not to tell people they are wrong. Instead, skilled practitioners introduce productive doubt, softening certainty just enough to allow flexibility without threatening credibility or authority.
Some of the most effective techniques include:
Reality testing rather than persuasion
Instead of challenging positions directly, mediators explore assumptions, consequences and feasibility through neutral questioning.
Reflection question: What assumptions are you making about how this will unfold?
Conversation starter
“What happens if this doesn’t go the way you expect?”
Introducing multiple narratives
Acknowledging that more than one reasonable interpretation can exist reduces defensiveness and broadens perspective.
Reflection question: What is the strongest alternative explanation for the other party’s actions?
Conversation starter
“What else could reasonably be going on here?”
Shifting from absolutes to probabilities
Moving away from “always” and “never” language encourages risk-based thinking rather than moral certainty.
Reflection question: How confident are you, realistically, that this outcome is achievable?
Conversation starter
“What does success look like on a spectrum rather than as a single point?”
Normalising ambiguity
Explicitly naming uncertainty as a normal feature of complex decisions reduces the urge to force premature conclusions.
Reflection question: Where are you seeking certainty primarily to reduce discomfort rather than risk?
Conversation starter
“There seem to be a few unknowns here. How do we want to work with them?”
Separating identity from outcome
Many professionals hold onto positions because changing them feels like a loss of authority or face. Mediators help decouple identity from stance.
Reflection question: What does reconsidering this position feel like it would say about you?
Conversation starter
“How can we rethink this without anyone losing credibility?”
Why embracing the grey leads to better outcomes in professional conflict
Across business, partnership, management and workplace disputes, one pattern appears consistently: individuals and organisations that engage with flexibility walk away with better outcomes. Not because they concede more, but because they negotiate more intelligently.
They assess risk more accurately, preserve relationships, and make decisions that stand up over time. In professional conflict, the goal is rarely to prove who is right. It is to determine what is workable, sustainable and proportionate given the realities of the situation.
Embracing the grey is not about indecision. It is about strategic thinking in uncertain conditions. In conflict, as in investment, placing everything on black is rarely the most effective long-term strategy.
Struggling with entrenched positions or high-stakes conflict? Shiv Martin Consulting supports organisations, leaders and professionals to navigate complex disputes through mediation, conflict coaching and tailored dispute resolution training.
👉 Get in touch to explore support for your team or organisation.
Hi, I’m Shiv Martin. I’m a nationally accredited mediator, lawyer, conciliator, and conflict management specialist with over a decade of experience working across government, business, and community settings. I support teams to navigate complex and emotionally charged situations through mediation and conciliation, conflict skills training, facilitation, and practical advice on policies and processes. My approach is grounded in law, psychology, and real-world dispute resolution, with a strong focus on clarity, fairness, and workable outcomes.
If you’d like to talk about how I can help you or your organisation, you can get in touch here: 👉 Book a free confidential discovery call
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