Negotiating by e-mail

WHO has not banged out an angry reply to an apparently brusque e-mail message, hit the send button—and then regretted it? Surely no technology has led to so many rifts and fractured friendships (not to mention subpoenas) as electronic mail. But nowhere is e-mail more perilous than in negotiations. Experiments by Michael Morris, an academic at Stanford Business School, and a group of colleagues have now demonstrated what many people instinctively suspect: negotiations are more likely to go well if they are conducted, at least in part, face to face, rather than between strangers armed with keyboards and screens.

E-mail is not invariably a bad way to negotiate, but the research suggests that it needs to be used carefully. Together with Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg Graduate Business School at Northwestern University, and several other academics, Mr. Morris studied mock negotiations that used only e-mail and compared them with ones preceded by a brief getting-to-know-you telephone call. The second type went more smoothly. Other experiments found that electronic negotiations were easier when the negotiators began by swapping photographs and personal details; or when they already knew each other.

Why is e-mail such a snare? Heidi Roizen, a Silicon Valley veteran who now works for Softbank Venture Capital, thinks that part of the problem is that “most people are lousy typists—and they don’t think about the fact that an e-mail lasts for ever.” She has two rare advantages: she is an English major, and a 90-words-a-minute typist. She finds the durability of e-mail is one of its main advantages—it allows her to keep track of her dealings with the eight different companies on whose boards she sits: “It’s instant record-keeping.” But she scrupulously follows two rules to avoid misunderstanding: “Re-read each piece of mail before you send it, from the point of view of the recipient; and when in doubt, leave it overnight.” As every Victorian letter-writer learnt, a night’s sleep is the best filter to apply to a furious note.

John Kay, a British economist, goes further. After having to calm a succession of weeping secretaries, he instituted a rule at London Economics, a consultancy that he founded, that e-mails should contain only information and never emotion.

Yet, despite its pitfalls, e-mail is increasingly likely to be used for negotiation. Richard Hill, an IT manager and mediator with Hill & Associates in Geneva, worked with the University of Massachusetts on the establishment of an electronic mediation service called the Online Ombuds Office. He argues that mediation by telephone is generally simpler and faster: a three-minute telephone call contains far more information than a typical brisk e-mail. But, because online mediation can be done at a time that is convenient for the parties involved, it tends to be less costly. Just think a moment before you hit that send button, though.