When it comes to the direction your company is headed, neither an overly bearish nor an overly bullish frame of mind will help. Letting the pendulum swing wildly to either east or west will affect your outlook and may narrow the opportunities. Case in point: you are approached by a competitor who wishes to join forces on a project, or would like to discuss merging possibilities.

If you are dead-set on going through it alone or, on the flip side, if you are uncertain about your company's viability right now, you may feel threatened or weak at the knees, respectively. You are not likely to know where the talks will lead unless you engage in them with an open mind.

Sometimes, others see a harvest where we haven't sown yet. Your team may have developed a streamlined project management tool which would greatly improve processes for other companies, or R&D is stuck on a technicality which is preventing new research from moving on - and an association with a competitor or partner from a complementary industry might get you over the bump.

Neutrality does not mean you have no direction. It just means you are ready to see opportunities for what they are - not what you want them to be.