Recently I came upon an older article written by Tammy Lenski entitled, “Face to Face negotiation better than e-mail.” (“Lenski”) While the article was originally published in December 2003, its points are probably truer today than fifteen years ago. The last decade and a half has seen an explosion in communication by every means imaginable other than face to face. For this reason, I believe its points are worth revisiting.

Ms. Lenski begins by noting that research in 2000 revealed that 50% of negotiations conducted by e-mail end in impasse while only 19% of negotiations conducted face to face end that way. Indeed, a blog post (“Conflict and Negotiation Case Study: The Pitfalls of Negotiations over Email”) dated September 19, 2017 on the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School’s website (“Blog Post”) makes this same point. Negotiation by e-mail, “…often poses more problems than solutions when it comes to relationships, information exchange, and outcomes in conflict resolution negotiation scenarios.” (Id.)

Both Ms. Lenski and the Blog Post point out that establishing “social rapport via e-mail can be challenging.” (Id. at Blog Post.)  Why? For one thing, as Ms. Lenski points out, we tend to share far less information in an e-mail than we would in a telephone conversation. Not only do we not share information about the subject matter at hand, we do not share personal information, or engage in chit chat. As a result, our negotiations are based on much more limited information and knowledge about the other person. (Id. at Lenski.) Moreover, Ms. Lenski points out that we tend to be more willing to be deceptive in an e-mail than we would be in a face to face negotiation and more willing to escalate a conflict in an e-mail exchange than if we were facing the other person. (Id.)

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