Information decides the winner

As mentioned before, you can never plan enough or completely prepare for any negotiation, yet you have to do your home work. Information is the key strength of every negotiator. You need to know your opposition well; you need to understand them and their goals. Then you need to have and know all the evidences and supporting documents that you might need in order to make a pitch. Once all these are done you have to be very careful in deciding what has to be shared and what has to be kept hidden. Sharing a lot of it with the opposition is necessary but that should not compromise your position. If you share less, the other parties may find the whole process to be unfair and negotiation will fail even before it starts. On the other hand, if you share a little too much information, you will put yourself in a very vulnerable situation with absolutely no headroom to spare. When you go through each piece of information while you prepare for the negotiation, think what that particular knowledge means to you and might mean to the other party. Then categorize it into three; information that you will share, ones you will share in a critical situation, and the ones you will never share. This might sound naïve but once you are in a negotiation, this helps exceptionally.