The reason that a negotiation is necessary is because the other side has information that we don’t have.

Likewise, we know things that the other side does not know and the purpose of a negotiation is to use your negotiation styles and negotiating techniques to exchange enough information so that both sides can agree on a deal. Now this is where things start to get interesting. Just exactly how much information should we share with the other side?  Do we tell them everything and hope to be rewarded for being so open with them? Do we hide everything so that we don’t accidentally reveal too much?

This is a key question that every negotiator has to answer for themselves: during a negotiation what information do we need to keep secret?