How seating affect your negotiation?

Seating arrangements may seem like a silly subject to you if you’ve never thought about it before. Sometimes the importance of seating can be overemphasized — but not often. Definitely do not leave seating to chance, in spite of the number of people who seem willing to do so. Where you sit during a negotiation can have a big impact on how well you function during a negotiation.
Here are some seating tips:

• Sit next to the person with whom you need to consult quickly and privately. This person is your confidant. You don’t want that person sitting across the table and off-center, where you will need to use hand signals and glances to communicate.
• Sit opposite the person with whom you have the most conflict. For example, if you are the leader of your negotiating team, sit opposite the leader of the other negotiating team. If you want to soften the confrontational effect, you can be off-center by a chair or two. If the shape of the table or room gives you the opportunity to be on an adjacent, rather than opposite, side to your opponent, you can lessen the confrontational approach.
• Consider who should be closest to the door and who should be closest to the phone. If you expect to use a speaker phone or to have people huddling outside the negotiating room, these positions can be positions of power. The person nearest the phone generally controls its use. The person nearest the door can control physical access to the room.
• Windows and the angle of the sun are important considerations, especially if the situation generates heat or glare. Again, stay within your comfort zone. If the room feels physically uncomfortable, kindly suggest a different room. Now about the negotiation of prime interest to most readers: asking for a raise. Usually that conversation takes place in your boss’s office. Avoid the seat where you normally sit to receive assignments. If your boss has a conversation area, try to move there for the discussion about your raise. Sofas are the great equalizers. If your boss is firmly planted behind the desk, do two things:
• Stay standing for a beat or two at the beginning of your presentation, but not after you are invited to sit down. Speaking on your feet is a display of uncompromised self-confidence.
• When you sit down, move your chair to the side of the desk — or at least out of its regular position. You want to make the statement that this is a different conversation than the normal routine of your boss assigning you a task.

Try to avoid being lower than your boss when you talk about your compensation. Whenever you can, try be on the same eye level with the person you are negotiating with, even if you normally take direction from that person.