We live in the 21st century. It is a great time. It is the era of the Information Age and technology. Communication tools, faxes, mobile phones, laptops, PCs, PDAs that retrieve and send e-mails, the Internet, DSL and modem connections, video conferences, and pagers, have changed today’s negotiating landscape. This is an era of accessibility on demand, nano-second technology, and instant gratification.
Technological advances have been good for documentation but they are less so for negotiations. Like a fine wine, some negotiations require time to come to reach their prime. Negotiating, an art, should not be rushed. There is a inherently natural pace to the process and circumventing that relegates it to base bartering.
The compressed time of today’s electronically connected world takes the finesse out of negotiating. If you want to barter, succumb to nano-second technology. If you want to negotiate, make face-to-face meetings a part of your strategy and save the time-saving technology for procedural matters.