Dan Erwin

Can You Tell When Your Boss Is Telling You the Truth?

The short answer to that question is . . . rarely. Yet bosses matter a lot because nearly all employees have them.  And most bosses also have bosses. There are at least 21 million bosses in the United States.  Bob Sutton points out that estimates run as high as 38 million bosses. With a lot of bosses in most organizations, it's inevitable that we sometimes wonder whether the information coming from our boss is really the truth.
Bosses can be deceptive for any number of reasons: they lack permission to share information, they don't think we need the information, they don't understand our need for information, or they're defensive.

As a result, most of us prefer face-to-face meetings when there's a lot at stake.  We like to think we can gauge the truthfulness or sincerity of our boss's words by the look in her eye and the tone of her voice. 

So, how good are you, really, at ascertaining when your boss is telling the truth? Paul Ekman, the well-known expert at non-verbal assessment and lie-detection, has found that most of us aren't nearly as good as we think.  In fact, the studies indicate that our hunches about whether people are telling the truth or deceiving us aren't much better than a coin toss. 

In an earlier blog, Powerful People are Better Liars, I pointed out that research has found that if you give people power, they're more comfortable lying, and it will be harder to tell they're doing it. That's supported by recent research that has found that the higher up the ladder and more isolated from his or her people, the more oblivious and indifferent to your needs your boss becomes.

3 Core Characteristics of a Real Expert

Or. . .how to know that the advice you’re getting is genuine expertise? One of the more important issues in my life and certainly in most of my clients over the years has been the issue of expertise. Does this guy know what he’s talking about? Can I trust his conclusion? The issue of trust is central for important matters. When I’m asking for insight, I want to know that the person I’m talking to has information of value. That if I were to follow up on his recommendation, I’d get what I want: the desired service or product.

“You can’t beat brains,” said President John Kennedy of the intellectuals and technicians he assembled in his cabinet. Kennedy was probably the greatest political champion for the virtues of expertise. But the champions of expertise have been on a serious downhill slope ever since. It’s pretty clear that all over America since the 1960s diverse groups have rejected expertise, especially that of social scientists, policy specialisms, climatologists and plenty of other disciplines. This is true of movements on both the political left and right. Although individuals and groups speak a different language, they’re often making the same point: human mastery over the world is profoundly limited. Just so, many believe that rational planning too should be limited. The anti-vaxx machinery is just one of today’s many rejections of expertise. There’s always been an anti-intellectual orientation in our country, but right now that anti-intellectual orientation is on steroids from both lefties and righties.

But let’s set that aside and just suppose you’re in a place where you want some expertise. Not necessarily life or death, but more ordinary job and relational expertise? How can you know the person you’re talking to is a real expert and can be trusted?

In a very helpful analysis of that subject, Kim Smith, a PhD student at the University of South Wales (UK) set out to actually define the core characteristics of the expert in most any field. Characteristics available to most any thoughtful layperson.

Research
In a fine piece of qualitative research, Smith first took into consideration the national, cultural and specialisms that would affect the definition of that issue. Included as well were various governments. He also recognized that the perspectives and definitions of an expert would vary from government to government and department to department. He also took chartered organizations into his purvey. Chartered organizations are institutions that require members with a pedigree of high professionalism, guaranteed by meeting specific membership criteria.

Uniquely (I would never have thought of this), he researched the general definitions of expertise required for legal experts, such as that provided in the Academy of Experts (2019): “An Expert Witness can be anyone with knowledge or experience of a particular field or discipline beyond that to be expected of a layman. The Expert Witness’s duty is to give to the Court or tribunal an impartial opinion on particular aspects of matters within his expertise which are in dispute.” This type of definition provides assurance of the integrity of the “expert” and his/her expertise in courts of law..

Deception and Lies Can Be Okay, But . . .

big whoppers will always catch up with you. Deception is not only inevitable in business, but sometimes necessary or strategic. If you track “deception” or “lying” on my blog’s Google search, you’ll find a number of blogs dealing with the issue. See, for example, my blog, Powerful people are better liars.

Clearly, I seriously question the notions of authenticity and truthfulness for all situations. My mind always dredges up an interaction with a very close friend, an ordained minister who was also an astute psychologist. As a professor, he had taught students to be open and authentic. But he told me years afterward that he had changed his mind. Those behaviors, he said, assume an inherently fair and just world—a naïve perspective that could sometimes lead to career destruction. It was a decision I had made long before him, but never shared. Indeed, there are plenty of reasons for deception. But before you engage in the behavior think seriously about the issue and its implications.

On the one hand humans don’t naturally seek the truth, but tend to avoid it. Sure, people instinctively accept information they’re exposed to, and sure, they have to work hard to resist falsehoods. And yeah, they cherry-pick data to support their own perspective, and certainly, as the Nobelist Daniel Kahneman has pointed out, they’ll steer clear of facts that might force them to think and work harder. Some of us were even taught to lie. It was often the only resource for avoiding undeserved punishment. All that just might suggest a role for some deception in business—and in life.

Negative personal impact
But unless you’re very careful about deception, you’ll negatively impact your personal reputation. Liar or deceiver is not a tag that you’d want to be labeled with. There’s extensive research demonstrating that most people respond best to people whom they both like and respect. Respect, built on expertise and trust, goes a long way in careers. It makes managing and leading simpler. It can provide you with better opportunities, better salaries and faster promotions. And it also can make it easy to access information and resources from others, needed commodities in today’s business world. So, you want to keep a positive reputation relatively intact. 

5 Top Blogs in the Year 2021

My top blog for 2021 is not a surprise. The numbers are way beyond any other blog--and just continue to boom. I have no trusted way of understanding why thousands continue to read this post, but I have a suspicion: 65% of my readers are in the 18 to 34 age group. This blog clarifies issues that have shown themselves to be important for this targeted group. Here are the five most-viewed blogs from last year:

    14 Intelligent behaviors: May 14, 2010. There's nothing new about companies wanting to find and keep the best talent. These are the behaviors they're always looking for.

    A not so obvious skill: the minimal encourager: March 3, 2010, Minimal encouragers are the subtle, nonverbal, and short verbal actions which encourage the speaker to express him/herself more fully.

    Why should keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, November 29,2012: One of the persons most relevant to to your success just might be your enemy. 

    Influence management: three big issues: May 14, 2009: Whether you are a manager or not, personal influence is always front and center.

    Carol Dweck on learning to fulfill your potential: April 16,2014. With her mindset theory, the Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, can help you confront your demons.

Here are three more blogs for the youngest work generation:

4 Key Attitudes of Critical Thinking

As a result of apartment renovation and moving upstairs, a number of my first floor and new second floor neighbors have been in my apartment. They wanted to see my new digs. One of the most striking features of their perusal is a seemingly profound lack of curiosity and very little ability to “notice.” “You have a beautiful apartment,” most respond. But what’s intriguing is what they don’t see unless I call attention to it. And these are not ill-educated people.

I have nearly 45 photos, sculptures, water colors, porcelains and artifacts hanging on the walls—all hung by a professional. One of the most gorgeous is an authentic Navajo rug, along with a recent painting of Indian tribeswomen. Not a single person mentioned one unique, beautiful, artistic hanging, a branch of spruce, covered with dripped copper. I have an extensive library, approximately 1500 volumes, yet no one gave it more than a glance. Not a single question was asked about any of the artifacts.

Even more sad than not noticing my personal context is the seeming lack of awareness of how context actually impacts each of as individuals and as members of a work team. So in the weeks following their visit to my apartment there was no sense they knew me any better, no attempt to get to know me better and no inherent projections of how I would respond to their conversations. The kind of familiarity information that can surface implicitly and explicitly in conversations was completely absent. And I’ve been watching and looking for that knowledge. But it was just never there in any of the dozen neighbor’s conversations. The underlying attitude of curiosity was absent—and so they remained in their small worlds. Expressing interest—but never following through on it. Perhaps, not recognizing what they were looking at or knowing the value of asking questions.

What is critical thinking?
Critical thinking, as I use the term, is the business of identifying the complications of relevant contexts and communication, and unpacking them thoughtfully. That includes physical contexts like those I describe in the above paragraphs. Of course, it also includes all the conversation and non-conversational talk, as well as the supportive physicality seen and heard in posture. So too, movement, non-verbal, language choice, values, arguments, persuasion, written materials, and linguistic forms like small talk, narrative, questioning. Including context artifacts like book choice, pictures, paintings and architecture.

To a very high degree, success in business—and life—is tied to one’s critical thinking skills in relevant, significant situations. One of the most illuminating experiences of critical thinking about “ordinary” talk took place at one of my last executive coaching jobs. I was working with the CEO of a major East Coast mortgage firm and had finished interviewing about twenty of his colleagues in preparation for coaching. I always got to their offices much earlier than any appointment, spending time with various execs and managers in “small talk.” Uniquely, the firm insisted on paying me on an hourly basis, rather than on a project basis. I had noticed the corporate attorney, who regularly received my billings, was unhappy with my fee. Late in the process, I happened to stop by his office and after he asked me how the “project” was going, he expressed frustration with my use of time—and the large bills he was paying just for “small talk.”

It's Even More Important Now to Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

When I first wrote this back  in 2012, it was just fairly relevant. Given the status of our culture today, this article is extremely relevant. People aren't talking to each other about their differences. They are not just marching, but sometimes they are rioting over their differences. The issues that divide are numerous: politics, science, education, religion, pandemic, etc. The list is seemingly endless. Now, more than ever, people are just ignoring those they know differ with them, and sometimes behaving like irreconcilable enemies.

So why should you keep your friends close--and your enemies closer? It wasn’t the Godfather’s Michael Corleone who first uttered this well-known dictum. Actually, it came from Machiavelli in "The Prince," the definitive primer for how to be a dictator. You’d think that with my easy-going optimism, I’d never write a blog on this subject.  But, au contraire!

As a manager or leader it is inevitable that we’ll want to add to your knowledge base, try to sell ideas, get people on board and even change the direction of our organization. One of the involved persons just might be your enemy. That’s my basic rationale for acting on Machiavelli’s instinct. In my first vocation, the Christian ministry, I worked diligently to stay close to parishioners who disagreed with my orientation. The consequence was that unlike many in the congregationalist polity I maintained significant support not only from those of my ideology, but also those of more rigid, fundamentalist ideologies. They could have been "enemies" and capable in our polity of creating a lot difficulties. But over an eleven year period, that never happened because I was close to those who differed--and worked to make "adjustments" without compromises.

In the business setting, I refer to “enemy” as a person you have to interact with, someone who’s competing for your resources, who doesn’t follow through on his commitments, whom you don’t trust, with whom the “chemistry” isn’t there, or who disagrees with your perspective from the ground up. These are also people whom you’ll need in order to get your own personal and organizational objectives met. As both a manager and a consultant, I’ve found a number of people who fit in that same box. In short, I’ve found Machiavelli very useful for my own success.

But there are a number of exceedingly important reasons for keeping your enemies close...

So why should you keep your friends close--and your enemies closer? It wasn’t the Godfather’s Michael Corleone who first uttered this well-known dictum. Actually, it came from Machiavelli in "The Prince," the definitive primer for how to be a dictator. You’d think that with my easy-going optimism, I’d never write a blog on this subject.  But, au contraire!

As a manager or leader it is inevitable that we’ll want to add to your knowledge base, try to sell ideas, get people on board and even change the direction of our organization. One of the involved persons just might be your enemy. That’s my basic rationale for acting on Machiavelli’s instinct. In my first vocation, the Christian ministry, I worked diligently to stay close to parishioners who disagreed with my orientation. The consequence was that unlike many in the congregationalist polity I maintained significant support not only from those of my ideology, but also those of more rigid, fundamentalist ideologies. They could have been "enemies" and capable in our polity of creating a lot difficulties. But over an eleven year period, that never happened because I was close to those who differed--and worked to make "adjustments" without compromises.

In the business setting, I refer to “enemy” as a person you have to interact with, someone who’s competing for your resources, who doesn’t follow through on his commitments, whom you don’t trust, with whom the “chemistry” isn’t there, or who disagrees with your perspective from the ground up. These are also people whom you’ll need in order to get your own personal and organizational objectives met. As both a manager and a consultant, I’ve found a number of people who fit in that same box. In short, I’ve found Machiavelli very useful for my own success.

But there are a number of exceedingly important reasons for keeping your enemies close...

Listening: A Simple Pattern with a Big Payoff

A few days ago while having lunch at a local grill, a young guy sat down beside me. Shortly, we were engaged in a fast and hot conversation and I found out that he was a residential architect and he learned I was an executive coach. Learning that I too was fascinated by architecture, he began to quiz me about my specific interests and background. Finding that I grew up in metropolitan Detroit in the ‘forties and ‘fifties, he wanted to know about some of the great residences near the still-beautiful Fisher building on Woodward Avenue. An enlightening conversation about the monstrous costs and impossibility of building such magnificent homes today followed.

The question
As he began to leave nearly an hour later, he asked one question I’d heard before: “what’s the most important communication rule I need to know for my business?” “Well,” I responded, “not the talking I’ve been doing here. Instead, ask a couple highly relevant questions and listen, listen and listen. Then clarify the responses with another question or two, and listen, listen, and listen some more. At the end of an hour you’ll know a great deal of highly useful client information.” He nodded in very strong affirmation.

Listening is frequently and sometimes naively associated with only information gathering about tasks and the background of an individual. Often the more important information from listening is assessing the talker’s intent or motives—what that person is trying to achieve. Many times the partner’s goals and motives are not explicit, sometimes purposefully kept private. Over time, listening can enable us to figure out why...

Soft on White Collar Crime?

One of my regularly frustrating experiences is listening to legislators and ordinary people talking about what CEOs and senior executives should know about employees are doing five levels below them. That’s nearly impossible in big companies, unless like Wells Fargo’s CEO, John Stumpf it’s a widespread behavior that’s been going on for years. So I’m always watching for examples of business reality for my readers—reality, that is, that reflects my years of experience with top companies and my own philosophical orientation. All the better if that reality is supported by trustworthy research. A recent issue Economist dealt with a superb example of business reality: that lock-‘em-up mentality for white collar crime.

But first, let’s be candid about business magazines and newspapers. All of my antennae are out when I’m reading the Wall Street Journal and nearly all the American business magazines. More than anything else, before I look seriously on any article I’m watching to make certain the writer or the magazine takes a responsible attitude toward the community. My read of too many American business magazines is that they are too capitalist or too individualist and very little oriented to the greater good of the country. That’s not only a political issue, but also a moral issue.

The one obvious exception to that cautionary rule is the Brit magazine, The Economist, what some call rather snobbish in its appeal. But it regularly critiques itself, takes a stance toward the greater good, reflects wisely on business strategy and never fails to challenge conventional wisdom. It’s an expensive magazine, but brilliantly, often hilariously, written. The Economist has the largest business circulation in the world, except for the Wall Street Journal. That’s not necessarily good company since the Journal seems to have gone on a downward slide ever since the Murdochs took over. I get some sense, however, that Murdoch’s sons may be a bit more communitarian and responsible. But we’ll see. (FYI: I’m neither correspondent nor salesperson for The Economist)

Why this tangent and all this explanation? It’s not just that too few business people pick up an intelligent piece of news. Though I’m clearly a capitalist, I agree fully with David Brooks, that intriguing conservative, who has stated on numerous occasions that we need to be more communitarian and less individualistic, more moralistic and less utilitarian, more emotional and less cognitive. More emotional and less cognitive applies directly to techie algorithms. They have their uses, but they’re extremely biased. As Cathy O’Neil has wisely written, they are Weapons of Math Destruction: they increase inequality and threaten democracy.  

Are we soft on white collar crime?
The Economist’s Schumpeter points out that both right-wing populists and left-wing progressives think that society is too soft on white collar-crime. That’s the conventional perspective, but how accurate is it? Two new books, one by Harvard’s Eugene Soltes and the other by Duke’s Samuel Buell, who was the lead prosecutor in the Enron case, provide the research and evidence demonstrating that we are now tougher on white-collar crime.

We’re punishing white-collar criminals more severely because of two bills: Sarbanes-Oxley (2002) and the Dodd-Frank (2010). Other countries are moving in the same direction, including states as diverse as South Korea, Oman and Spain.

Although I appreciate Senator Elizabeth Warren’s highly productive rhetorical indictment of the Wells-Fargo Company and CEO, as Schumpeter points out, even prosecutorial zeal does not always result in convictions. Prosecutors face very difficult trade-offs and that includes protecting the rights of unpopular bankers.

This piece of reality is very significant and goes against the grain. Those mortgages that brought down several finance institutions were perfectly legal. The people doing the buying were probably just as much in the dark as the people doing the selling. And furthermore, most corporate crime is not individual, but the result of collective action.

Right vs. wrong
Populists like to think there is a bright line between right and wrong. Step over the line and you should go to jail. That’s naïve. Here’s what was initially surprising to me, but I quickly realized very accurate: “a great deal of wealth-creation takes place between what is legal and what is questionable.” (Remember the old truism? Ask for forgiveness, not permission! Having gone through numerous IRS audits, myself, and suffering only one small fine, that’s a great recommendation.)

Want some public examples? Bill Gates was hauled before the authorities for using Harvard’s computers without permission. Steve Jobs was involved in backdating stock-options to increase their value. Technology firms typically work with outdated legal regulations. Uber and Airbnb are regularly engaged in legal battles with regulators.

Fact of the matter—and this is something never to forget—new business typically tests the rules. That can result in updating the rules. Significantly for all of us, new businesses pushing the envelope often end up offering services that people want and that advance the common good.

So don’t be too quick to criminalize white collar behavior.

Inquiry as Influence: An Ancient Technology 2.0

The least used and one of the most productive tools for conversation is high-level questioning. But for a number of reasons, questioning has always gotten short shrift. Traditionally, asking questions is thought of as revealing your incompetence, which is then rewarded with a loss of influence. Even today, when the need ought to be obvious, few actually get questioning. Neither yesterday’s traditionalist nor today’s knowledge worker understands that questioning is a linguistic device that can make great contributions to the organization—and grant profound influence and power to the individual.

All questions are speech actions that affect the way individuals and teams organize their thinking about people, problems, and processes. The better questions can often...

Anger Intelligence, Not Anger Management

Anger is usually viewed as a disrupting, destructive emotion, especially in business — unless, of course, you’re a well-placed executive without those limitations. The religious typically view anger as bad stuff, something we should set aside and, to quote St. Paul, never go to sleep with. Paul, however, never kept his own rule. So like most generalities, there are exceptions. Indeed, there are times when anger is strategic, and also times when it’s simply not useful to set anger aside, much less forgive the target of your anger.

To be clear, studies have shown that anger evolved as a means to help us...

No Yoda, But a Collage of Mentors (Part III: Career and Strategic Mentors)

Question any leader or executive about their success and eventually they’ll tell you that their mentor played a big role. Today, however, there is no Jedi-Master Yoda, wise and powerful, taking on people and unlocking the paths to business immortality. The onus is now yours to find numerous mentors, build the relationships, learn from them, weave the skills together, and create your successful identity. No single master, but a collage of mentors. 

Career mentors
You will find these folk both internally and externally, often in consulting or contracting positions. They are the folk you can trust for a sympathetic career ear and advice. They are not limited by the traditional, linear career thinking. The best have a big picture of...