Building trust during negotiations is the most important factor in value creation. It is the foundation of good deal making. If the parties don’t trust each other, information sharing will not happen and they will never be able to discover each other interests and convert the conversation to explore transformative possibilities.

The tone, small talk is important at the start of negotiation. Just few seconds in a negotiation, we start forming impressions about the other party, it is important that we spend few moments for gaining each other trust so that we can understand other party’s perspective and create a safe environment for sharing information without any fear. Reciprocation in information sharing will help build and grow trust which starts off from building connection.

Next time, when you are in a negotiations. spend few moments in building human bond, and you will see how trusting environment is created to grow value.