Body Language of The Cooperative Side-By-Side Seating Arrangement
Cue: Cooperative Side-By-Side Seating Arrangement
Synonym(s): Side-By-Side Position, Sitting Side By Side.
Description: A seating arrangement where people sit side-by-side on the same side of the table.
In One Sentence: When people sit on the same side of the table they are building cooperation and are best able to collaborate.
How To Use it: Use the cooperative side-by-side seating arrangement to build ideas, collaborate with another person or to create intimacy. This is the best seating arrangement in a dating context in order to create romance as there is no barrier present in between the couple. In a business context, one may begin head-to-head and graduate to the same side of the table as the team approaches the closure of a deal. However, if one can start on the same side, regardless of the context, full cooperation is assumed to be the case.
Context: a) General b) Dating c) Business.
Verbal Translation: “We can sit close to one another in order to work cooperatively together on this project and share information freely without worrying about competition.”
Variant: See Casual Corner Seating Arrangement, Competitive Head-To-Head Seating Arrangement.
Cue In Action: a) When meeting to work on a school project they decided to sit on the same side of the table so they could put their books and charts out in front of them and share the workload. b) To show he really cared, they chose a window seat and cuddle up on the same side of the table so they could share food and drink. c) Bill needed to ramp up the offer, so he took the chance to come across to the other side of the desk to show his client charts. This gave him an excuse to build cooperation rather than competitiveness.
Meaning and/or Motivation: A cooperative seating arrangement is used when we wish to remove all the barriers between two people.
There are two possible side-by-side seating arrangements and the variants determine the level of connectivity and interaction between two people. When the chairs are facing forward, or toward the table, it slightly inhibits eye contact decreasing the level of sharing. This orientation shows that there is some cooperation but that it’s not complete. When chairs are facing forward in this manner, it is usually because it is assumed that people are already a part of your team and the two of you are facing off against another party. A second orientation happens when collaborating on a project. Here, the chairs will (and should) be turned at forty-five degrees toward each other. This arrangement represents intimacy since there is no barrier to interfere with the sharing of information.
Cue Cluster: We usually see cooperative and engagement cues such as leaning in, eye contact and head tilted at forty-five degree to show interest.
Body Language Category: Barriers, Body pointing, Blading, Rapport or rapport building, Seating arrangements.
Resources:
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