Screen Negotiating
Screen Negotiating is the capacity to develop common agreements when opposing parties or individuals are searching for compromise in a business context. This may be among members of a same team, different teams, amongst different companies, or even in a sales, support, or warranty context.
Screen Negotiating does not refer to political or labor-oriented negotiations.
How it's Different
Reading the signs of your counterpart in a face-to-face negotiation is key to understanding needs and even hidden agendas. Body language contradictions with verbal messages, silence and pausing, deciphering nervous ticks, or gestures in reaction to offers and counterproposals is part of the negotiator’s skill set. These signs are often hard to spot or even invisible on the screen.
Why it's Important
Without correct assessment of the other party too much or too little can be given or taken without need. Establishing a trusting relationship over the screen is even more essential as we can no longer “feel” the atmosphere and “read” the other person’s intents. Reading hidden signs of the other party while not misinterpreting them from the screen is crucial to understanding the other party.
How to do it Better
By being more prepared in understanding what expectations and acceptations the other party has, you can focus more on reaching a common agreement without relying too heavily on interpreting physical signs.
Pausing and silence on the screen is not the same and walk-away threats do not have the same effect.
To better “feel” the other parties you can rely on the emotions in their voice tones.
To have a stronger impact with your ideas and proposals you can strategically employ different Screen Voices.
Nothing is better that preparation and being able to know what you can exchange is valid in both the face-to-face and the screen-to-screen world.
