Is the seating arrangement at a negotiation table important? Just ask the US and North Vietnamese who spent two years discussing the seating arrangement for the Paris Peace Talks before getting down to details.
Hopefully your next business negotiation will not require so much discussion about who should sit where. But it is true that seating arrangement can be important for the outcome of discussion. The most combative arrangement sitting opposite one another.
A more collaborative seating arrangement is right angles.
This also applies to a boss/team member conversation in which the boss goes out of their way to reduce the herarchical aspects of sitting behind a desk while the other is in a chair in front of the desk.
Even better is a round table with the participants not sitting directly opposite one another:
When each negotiating partner has more than one participant, it may be advisable to start off at opposite sides but later integrate the two teams:
Once there is a relationship established:
Keep in mind that seating arrangement provides keys to the role each participant plays in a discussion.