It’s a dilemma that negotiators face with increasing frequency: growing economic globalization offers a multitude of new opportunities yet often necessitates alternatives to face-to-face meetings, such as phone calls, email messages, video-conferencing, or instant messaging.
Newly available technologies can be powerful negotiating tools that save time and money, but if not managed properly, they also come with some predictable pitfalls, such as misunderstandings and mutual distrust. What’s more, your choice of communication medium is likely to affect the quality of the relationship, the amount of information shared, and the efficiency of the negotiated agreement.
In this article, we present a range of strategies to help you navigate various types of communication mediation in long-distance negotiations. Specifically, our “MEDIA approach” advises negotiators to:
Manage effects of communication characteristics
Enrich technology and relations
DIAgnose the other party’s comfort zone in relation to your goals
