Do you know when to make or break the eye contact?
Eye contact is a powerful element of body language that communicates more than what you say and it is the window of your heart.

It is important to maintain proper eye contact; to become a good communicator in general and a better Negotiator in particular.

Specific situations demand specific level of eye contact in interpersonal communications; be it with public speaking, personal chat, intimate relationship or process of negotiations. Eye contact during one-to-one negotiation is different to that of one-to-many or group negotiations. Norms of Eye Contact varies across countries, cultures, communities, age groups and it is gender specific as well.

Nevertheless, maintaining eye contacts all the time is neither possible nor desirable.

The poor eye contact reflects lack of confident, lack of respect, could results in missing vital communication clues and end up in creating low trust situation.

On the other hand, excessive and prolonged use of eye contact, could leads to repulsive and intimidating situations. Thus, knowing when to make it or break it, is important; especially during negotiation process.

How do you know when to make or break the eye contact?

My RED eye model helps to identify three (3) basic situations to make proper eye contacts,

Receiving – an idea, message or information during negotiation.

Engaging -with the other party, asking a question, show of intent, interest or respect and building trust.

Delivering – an idea, message or information to your negotiation partner/s.

My former Country Manager Anderson rarely made eye contact when talking; especially during meetings with customers. I could not help thinking how those customers felt in such moments, as a team member I too was embarrassed. Have you ever had someone like him in your team?

On the other hand; my daughter Geethmi always looks at my eyes whenever she negotiates with me for something she wanted especially when trying to get yes or no answers. Obviously she could vividly see what is going in my mind by maintaining eye contact.

Now you would wonder when it is OK to break the eye contacts.

It is OK to break the eye contacts when you are;

• Thinking or processing information
• Presenting intricate detail.
• When calculating costs,
• Reading contract terms
• Recollection of your thoughts

will allow you to break the eye contact in proper way.

There is no magic formula or recipe to this effect. I have learned over 20 years of my career in professional Negotiations that making purposeful eye contact and also purposeful breaking is more effective in influencing the other.

Are you ready to be a RED Eyed Negotiator?