You don't solve polarization, you learn to navigate it.

In my work, I often facilitate processes where opposing interests, mutual distrust, and entrenched relationships are predominant. That is precisely why I read the book with extraordinary interest. Mastery of Polarization – Break Through the Us-vs.-Them Dynamic, released by publisher Story with Impact on October 31, 2025.

It is the second book by polarization expert Bart Brandsma and builds on his influential first work from 2016. In this new work, he emphatically shifts the focus from understanding to doing. Nevertheless, you don't need to have read the first book, as Brandsma provides a clear summary of his previous book in the first 75 pages. That is both nice and necessary, as this book systematically builds upon it.

The Framework: Three Laws, Five Roles, One Crucial Insight

The three basic laws are known, but deserve repetition:

1. Polarization is a thought construct, it's in your head, not in the facts.
2. Polarization needs fuel; if you cut off the supply, it will subside.
3. Polarization is a dynamic of feeling, not the logos counts, but the pathos.

The five positions: pusher, joiner, silent, bridgebuilder, and scapegoat, are (apart from the unnecessary English) clear and understandable. Crucial is Brandsma’s insight that the poles do not combat each other to convince the other, but to mobilize the middle. Polarization is therefore not about the flanks, but about the struggle for the middle. That insight helps me every time I see it reflected in practice.

Conflict: The Little Brother

The distinction between conflict and polarization is also analytically strong. A conflict has a place, a time, and identifiable problem owners, and according to Brandsma, it has seven phases, four stages, and an interaction with polarization.

Polarization transcends borders: it's a field, not an incident. This has direct consequences for how you intervene as a professional.

From conflict to dialogue

Brandsma gives a clear plea regarding the usefulness and necessity of dialogue, but simultaneously warns against its blind application. Not every phase calls for a (similar) conversation. He links the different forms of dialogue to the previously described stages of conflict, with a helpful table that illustrates which timing and characteristics of effective dialogue fit each stage. This is precisely the nuance that is so often lost in practice: the intervention method must be appropriate for the phase.

Four Game Changers for Depolarization

Brandsma introduces four game changers that can turn polarization into depolarization. He is honest about it: they are simple to describe, but have many pitfalls.

1. Change target audience: you polarize by paying attention to the poles. You depolarize by investing in the middle.
2. Change of subject: extend a focused and sincere invitation to share dilemmas. Dilemmas bind by their very nature.
3. Change position: this requires someone in a leadership position who provides the silent middle of a story and gives voice to dilemmas.
4. Shift in tone: a move towards peace, connection, and wisdom. By truly listening as a giving movement and by looking through the eyes of another.

The sixth position, the most innovative element

The sixth position is the core of this book. A supplement to the previously described 5 positions. This new position is about leadership from the middle. So not the position of a bridge-builder above opposing parties that Brandsma already wrote about, but independent and with empathy from the dilemmas and issues in the middle.

Brandsma initially emphatically contrasts the sixth position with that of the bridge-builder, with some qualifications for each role. He subsequently states that we need both roles in processes, but they still seem like two registers with stark contrasts. In pragmatic reality, we almost always encounter them in mixed forms. That is my main criticism of this chapter: it is interesting and encouraging, but also somewhat confusing.

What I do find valuable: Brandsma explicitly asks for attention to moderating our analytical abilities and strengthening our visual abilities. Expertise and analytical IQ are necessary for the bridge builder. But for the sixth position, visual ability is also required; the ability to see what is moving beneath the surface before it is put into words.

Seven steps as a practical hook

Brandsma concludes with seven steps that make polarization issues manageable:

1. Start with the list of conflicts and incidents.
2. Recognize and note the fuel.
3. Line up the "we"s and "they"s.
4. Trace the emotional dynamics and dare to make decisions.
5. Take the time factor into account.
6. Make polarization maps.
7. Develop a strategy.

Brandsma first dabbles with the question of whether this is a method, a framework, or a toolkit. Whatever it is, I find it a fair and useful list.

Judgment

Anyone looking for a step-by-step plan to resolve polarization is reading the wrong book. Brandsma is honest about this: he doesn't provide a recipe. But if you want to learn how to navigate a field of forces, this is a good book to have. Environmental managers, administrators, negotiators, facilitators... I think they will all benefit from this framework.

The Mutual Gains Approach talks about negotiating underlying needs, concerns, and fears (interests) instead of stubbornly sticking to a position. Brandsma argues that polarization isn't about interests, but about desires. And also those of the quiet middle. The art, according to him, is to listen to those desires from within.

I find the layered approach Brandsma brings to his book beautiful, but I wouldn't want it to become too semantic. The question “what does the middle want?” reveals that the middle often internalizes multiple interests and is unwilling or unable to make a choice. By descending from viewpoints to interests and then to norms, values, and desires, I believe we combine Fisher, Ury, and Patton's MGA vision with Brandsma's Polarization Framework. To me, it's not a contradiction, it's an elaboration.

The sixth position is the strongest and most innovative element of this book. The execution is made more difficult in places than necessary, with the contrasts to the bridge-builder being too sharply emphasized. But the direction is correct: leadership in polarization requires something different from leadership in conflict. It demands calmness, independence, imagination, and the courage to name dilemmas without taking sides.

A measure of mastery, as Brandsma himself writes, is whether we can remain loving without letting go of our convictions. And whether we can assert the values that are important to us with conviction, without becoming harsh. That is a beautiful starting point that I wholeheartedly endorse.

Senior consultant

Bas Liebeek