Every so often, a friend shares entertaining stories about conflicts he’s had — mostly with customers — and how he resolves them. He strikes me as a strong negotiator. My (possibly unfair) perception is that he leans toward a more combative approach and doesn’t typically flex much from that style.
He says he’s never been through negotiation training, though based on what I’ve seen, I’m not entirely convinced. It’s possible he picked it up from his father, who, I believe, did our programme years ago.
His most recent story surprised me. Not because of what he did — his resolution was highly effective — but because of the flexibility he showed in his approach.
In every interaction, we each have a preferred behavioural style and a degree of flexibility. That is, a natural way of handling situations and relationships shaped by life experience. This style influences how we negotiate — making some behaviours feel intuitive, while others take effort.
At Scotwork, we assess people’s preferred approaches to conflict and negotiation and give insight into natural styles. One such continuum we evaluate is collaborative versus combative, along with how flexible someone is moving from one to the other.
My friend’s story (with some details changed for confidentiality) was that a customer missed a Direct Debit payment and received a late payment notification. The customer responded combatively - possibly their preferred style – with an aggressive email accusing my friend of harassment and demanding an extension.
Before my friend could respond, the customer sent another email, this time more conciliatory but giving value away for free by making a part-payment and promising to clear the balance by a specific date. Perhaps panic had started to set in.
Assuming the customer has some flexibility in their style (they might not), they could have taken a more collaborative approach from the outset – acknowledging the missed payment, explaining their situation (if reasonable) and politely requesting an extension.
And if that didn’t work, making a conditional proposal – such as ‘If you can agree to an extension, I can make a partial payment now and settle the remaining balance by a specific date. Would that be acceptable?’
This approach might have preserved goodwill and achieved the same outcome — without the friction.
Back to my friend. And true to form, he didn’t back away from the conflict. But rather than responding like-for-like, his reply was masterful:
‘Please note that chasing payment when it is contractually due does not constitute harassment; it is yourself who is in breach of contract and your payment history shows repeated late/missed instalments. Further breaches of this nature may result in enforcement action and further costs as outlined in your agreement. The £125 plus VAT Failed Direct Debit fee is now applicable. This has not yet been applied but we reserve the right to do so. Please respond today to let us know the payment has been cleared in full, as we will need to manually reconcile your payment against your unpaid invoice’.
Surprisingly collaborative. Assertive. And more importantly, highly effective.
He pointed out the necessary (the contract, the breach, the history of breaches), the specific consequence (failed payment fee) and his expected outcome (full and immediate payment), while signalling potential flexibility to remove the failed payment fee should full payment be immediately made.
Ten minutes later, the customer responded — the balance had been paid in full. It’s also reasonable to assume they’ll now make future payments on time.
Even for those with a combative preference, flexibility matters. Being assertive doesn’t mean being combative. And knowing when — and how — to flex toward collaborative can turn conflict into resolution.
