In any negotiation, you’re likely to have information about the other party or about the deal (industry facts, economic health, new products, and so on) that the other party might not know you have.
To gain some measure of your counterpart’s trustworthiness, plant a “trust land mine:”
- Ask someone questions to which you already know the answer
- If someone avoids your information request, or if he lies outright, that’s one sign you should be careful about what you reveal – or call off the talks altogether.
Of course, someone who answers a few questions truthfully might not always behave honestly.
Nonetheless, trust land mines offer a reasonably good way of determining if a person is leveling with you.
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