Did I say too much?

Opening up to others and disclosing something personal is a powerful tool that can build rapport, enhance likeability, and bring people closer together, says Leslie John, a behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School.

But too often, people avoid sharing more of themselves out of fear they may say the wrong thing and look foolish, or worse, say too much and make everyone uncomfortable. It’s a caution that carries more risks than we realize, she writes in a new book, “Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing.”

In this conversation edited for clarity and length, John, the James E. Burke Professor of Business Administration at HBS, explains that “exposing your belly” to others, if done at the right time and in a purposeful way, can deepen relationships and build credibility. Most importantly, it’s a skill that can be learned.

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What is “revealing” and how does it help us make and keep friends, romantic partners, and colleagues at work?

The key active ingredient is trust. When you reveal something sensitive to someone, that’s a kind of social risk. I’m relinquishing control to the universe, and I’m showing you that I trust you to not make a fool out of me. That is contagious. Because when you show that you trust someone, it causes them to trust you. Tons of studies have shown this.

Saying “You can trust me” doesn’t work. To be trusted, you have to take a risk and show that you trust the other person, and then that will make them trust you. And then once we have trust, that’s the social currency. The basis of all healthy relationships is trust.

You say a common mistake is people share very little, thinking it will minimize the risk of embarrassment or making a bad impression. But that also has risks, more than we realize. Can you explain?

There are a couple of core things. Number one is we don’t even realize the opportunities to share more. We don’t even appreciate them because we’re so good at defaulting to not saying anything that we don’t even think about opening up.

The point isn’t to say everything that comes to mind. We withhold for very good reasons. Sometimes it’s kind to withhold; sometimes we’re busy; sometimes there are status or power imbalances. But it’s still a decision. If we think about them as actual decisions and consider them more, then we will say a lot more of the things that are left unsaid. And when we approach these decisions wisely, all of the research says we’ll be better off for it.

Number two is that when we do think about these decisions, everyone fixates on the risks of revealing.

Suppose your colleague doesn’t give you credit for something that was your idea at work and you’re thinking about saying something. What do you think about? You think, “Oh, they’ll think I’m petty; it’s going to be an awkward conversation; there’s going to be friction.” Everyone stops there.

If you want to make a good decision, you have to think not just about the risks of revealing, but also of the potential benefits. We’re hardwired, in some ways, to be overly fixated on the risks, and so, in my book, I want to correct that.

Where is the line between sharing something that builds rapport and going too far, like discussing your dating adventures with co-workers?

That’s TMI [too much information]. That’s a mistake people sometimes make in acquaintanceships and early friendships. We are exquisitely sensitive to this unspoken rule of reciprocity. You don’t want to be sharing everything, and you don’t want them to. That’s an overshare if you share out of sequence. The goal is they share something, and you reciprocate with something as sensitive or a little bit more, and you go back and forth. But if one person is doing all the sharing, that’s not a functional relationship. And it’s annoying.

You tell the story about how during the interview to join the HBS faculty, you were perhaps a little too “authentic” and thought you had accidentally cost yourself the job.

I share a lot of personal anecdotes in the book looking back at these points in my life where I thought I had overshared, like insulting my prospective colleague who was interviewing me.

It was not strategic. It was a stupid blurt I made when I was nervous, which I sometimes do. In the moment, their faces were shocked and I thought: This is the end. Poof, my job’s gone. But then, three days later, I got a phone call. They said: When you sassed us like that, we thought, you’ll fit right in here. The senior colleague I insulted became one of my closest mentors.

There are studies by Dan Cable and other organizational scholars that show that qualified job candidates who show a bit of themselves, who don’t sound scripted, are more likely to get the job. This isn’t: Tell them your deepest, darkest secrets. The conclusion that I’ve been coming to is that most people stand to gain from sharing a bit more in most situations.

Which kinds of topics do people tend to overshare or under-share?

The things that are the most sensitive to talk about are sex, finances, and health. But context matters so much. Health in a doctor’s office is different than health talking to your boss.

A chronic overshare is gossip, saying negative things about other people behind their backs. It’s not nice, but it is also bad because it erodes trust. We all know people who gossip a lot. Would you tell your secrets to that person? No. You can’t have a close relationship with someone who gossips all the time.

There are things that we tend to under-share. One is praise — saying that you love certain things about people, about what they do. We hold back on this. As an academic, academics are so freaking stingy with praise. And yet praise brings everybody joy and we don’t do it enough. Recently, I’ve been practicing doing this more. So far, I’m loving it.

Another category of under-share is your successes. I don’t mean bragging on LinkedIn, I mean telling a very close friend about a success, say, that you got a promotion. We have a hard time sharing our successes with some of our best friends because we don’t want them to feel bad. But that can backfire, especially if they find out another way. And when they do, that’s bad for your relationship because they may ask themselves, “I wonder why they didn’t tell me that? Hmm. I guess we’re not as close as I thought we were.”

What about work — presumably there are different rules for sharing there?

The workplace is tough because there are strong norms and people worry a lot about oversharing there. One way to think about it in the workplace is a distinction between transparency and vulnerability.

Transparency is — think of it as cognitive openness — sharing the way your brain works to someone.

In a job interview, if you get asked, “What’s your biggest weakness?” don’t do the annoying, eyerolling, “I work too hard.” But you also don’t want to share something that’s really damaging.

Suppose the weakness is you don’t like being put on the spot in meetings? Congratulations, you’re human. How might you respond in a way that shows some openness without getting into vulnerability territory? Well, you could say something like, “The way my mind works is that I like to have two minutes to prep my thoughts before I make a presentation because I find that even after just a moment of reflection, I’m way more organized and articulate.” That’s transparency. It’s more powerful than just saying, “Please give me a heads up for meetings.”

When sharing sensitive thoughts and sharing feelings in the workplace, you need to be very careful about vulnerability. When making these disclosure decisions, situational awareness is key. You have to read the room. And, at any time, if you’re starting to open up, and it doesn’t feel right, you should stop and regroup. Because you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

What should people ask themselves when deciding whether to “overshare”?

I think it starts with knowing your why: What are you trying to achieve with potentially revealing the thing?

It’s often lots of things at once. If I share this edgy joke, I want to have fun; I want to build rapport. Maybe I’m a high-status person at work, and I want people to feel comfortable; I want to be relatable; I want to motivate my employees. Or is it more like, I want all the attention? Figuring out your why requires a kind of brutal honesty with yourself. If you do that, you’ll start to question some of your goals and hone them. In turn, you will make wiser, more intentional, decisions about what to reveal and what not to reveal.

Timing is super important, and that’s another thing to consider.

Revealing wisely is a skill. It’s not something we’re born with or without. The way we get better is by practicing and doing it and reflecting.