How to Negotiate on Zoom
First a quick word
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Reaching agreement even when you’re miles apart
My Harvard Business School colleague Deepak Malhotra is the author of several influential books on negotiation, including Negotiating the Impossible. Now he also has a great 11-minute video on how to negotiate effectively on Zoom, Meetings, and other popular platforms.
First. Deepak highlights what’s better about meeting face-to-face, namely:
In that setting, silence is okay—maybe even a positive at times. It gives you a chance to pause and reflect before responding. But online, silence is awkward.
Direct conversations in the same setting are more open-ended. They’re nonlinear, as Deepak puts it, and that opens up people’s creativity in crafting agreement.
Suggesting a break also is common at in-person sessions. Each team can huddle privately and compare notes. Online it’s possible, but harder.
Finally, when people travel to take a meeting—even just across the street—they’re more persistent. They get things done. By contrast, when you start to tire on Zoom, it’s more tempting to bail out.
That’s the bad news. Deepak brings good news, too in the form of strategies and techniques to foster engagement and productive exchange. Anticipating the potential problems is a big first step in avoiding them.
Check out his How to Negotiate on Zoom: Challenges and Solutions!
Housekeeping
Just by signing up for Jazz of Negotiation, you’ll get free access to a full article, plus a shorter posts like this 50 weeks a year, delivered by email. Paid subscribers get additional content: Q and A threads, videos, and from time to time short exercises, with more to come. Next week we’ll look at how AI and other computer-based technologies are impacting negotiation in other ways.
Please share the news with people in your network who may want to sharpen their negotiation skills. It would be great, of course, if you can subscribe and support this venture yourself. Right now, there’s a special discount for “early adopters” who are on board by February 21.
Many thanks!
Mike