Build Relationship & Trust.
Understanding that it takes two to tango in deal making and that we must learn what will satisfy the other in order for the other to meet our own needs, nothing goes so far as a relationship of trust to foster disclosure. To enhance relationship, people from various cultures give gifts or serve food prior to commencing talks, to signal good will and create a common bond. Shell, in Bargaining for Advantage, tells of an executive who gave his counterparty a gold watch prior to initiating merger talks.7 This signaled a valuing of the other and, to paraphrase Claude Rains at the end of Casablanca, “the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”