Why Phone Works Better

Email saves time -- and often if you're a busy person, it's the most efficient form of communication. But what about those sales-meetings/important-discussions/etc.? Your best bet: Use the telephone. Better yet, use the telephone whenever possible. Northwestern's Janice Nadler conducted a study that compared the effects of the telephone and the email: She paired law students from Northwestern and Duke and asked each pair to agree on the purchase of a car.

About the Study

The teams were to bargain entirely through e-mail, but half of them were secretly told to precede the negotiation with a brief getting-to-know chat on the good old telephone.

The results were dramatic.

• Negotiators who first chatted by phone were more than four times likelier to reach an agreement than those who used only e-mail.
• Those who never spoke were not only more likely to hit an impasse; they also often felt resentful and angry about the negotiation.

El telefono, y'all.

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