Truth 19. Reveal your interests

Many negotiators have been advised to not reveal any information to the other party. However, failure to reveal information about interests can lead to lose–lose agreements, as in the case of the “Orange Sisters,” who failed to discover the win–win solution. The trick is to know what type of information to reveal. As a general rule, hide your BATNA but reveal your interests. Just how big is the impact of revealing information on a negotiator’s bottom line? Negotiators who provide information to the other party about their interests improve their outcomes, or profits, by over 10 percent.⁷

So, why is there so much reluctance among negotiators to reveal information? There are a few reasons. First, conventional negotiation wisdom holds that negotiators should maintain poker faces at all times. It is unfortunate that well-meaning colleagues and mentors have coached so many negotiators to conceal everything. This advice has led to a shrinking of the pie of resources under negotiation. Second, most people constrain their definitions of “information that could be revealed” to BATNA-related information rather than anything about their broader interests.

Negotiators can reveal, or “signal,” their interests in several ways. Direct disclosure is one method; subtle signaling is another. All of the following statements can significantly expand the pie. Consider adding them to your negotiation vocabulary:

▪ “Issue X is more important to me than Y, but I care about both.”

▪ “A 10 percent gain on issue X would be more valuable to me than a 10 percent gain on Y.”

▪ “If I were to rank order the issues’ importance, X would be higher than Y.”

Also consider adding the following questions to your negotiation vocabulary:

▪ “Which is more important to you: X or Y?”

▪ “What would give you more value: increasing X or increasing Y?”

▪ “If I were to increase payment on X but decrease payment on Y, would that be better for you?”

A major benefit of revealing your interests is that you double the probability that the other party will disclose hers. This mirroring reflects the reciprocity principle. For example, in one of my investigations, I found that under normal conditions, the incidence of providing information to the other party was 19 percent. But when negotiators provided information to the other party, it jumped to 40 percent, based on the reciprocity principle.⁸ Keep in mind, however, that reciprocity also applies to antagonistic behavior.