Dan Erwin

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. 

The Sophisticated Suck-Up Usually Wins

Some people may not want to believe this, but three specific characteristics inevitably go with the acquisition of most truly great jobs. If you’re going to have difficulty with any of these characteristics, you’re going to end up with a middle or lower-middle position, paying nothing more than an ordinary salary. Or, you’ll end up on the streets.

Another insight: The effectiveness of flattery.

And if this is new to you, get real. With few exceptions, this is the job turf. It’s true in all professions, but to a lesser degree than in business. But even university faculty are learning that their so-called tenure position come with similar turf. Sure, there are exceptions, but they are few.

First, great jobs always have a risk quotient built into them. By risk I’m referring to the possibility of loss. There are a lot of reasons for this. In a fast-moving economy, slow moving firms and executives often lose out to smart, well-positioned competitors. Smart firms are always working on better growth options. So sometimes firms, the professions of law and medicine as well as educational institutions, lose out because of dated strategies. So, great jobs can be dissolved.

Transparency and Truthfulness Can Be Stupid

Transparency and honesty are occasionally stupid. I don’t regularly recommend an outright lie, but on occasion. . . . it’s a very useful strategy. Here are two experiences.

I still remember with laughter the gruff, colorful-talking sales director from the Pillsbury Company who hired me to work with him years ago. Though most loved him once they got to know him, he could be scary to new hires. He just sounded very mean. But his best friends had advised him to work with me, and so he followed their recommendation.

The first meeting was unforgettable. Once we’d talked a little about the development process, he looked at me and said gruffly, “Erwin, I don’t want you doing any “mind fucking on me”. In other words, he didn’t want me screwing around with his gray matter. I smiled slightly, looked at him, and told him that “Of course I won’t be doing that. I don’t believe in it.”

And then I set out to screw with his brains and beliefs in the best coaching fashion possible, doing exactly what he told me not to do.

My diagnosis had revealed that my gruff friend believed that relationships had to develop over time and that nothing could be done to escalate that relationship. He naively believed that “sometimes two people have the right chemistry and sometimes they don’t. Only time will tell.” The consequence of that fixed belief was that he was also clueless about the skills for developing relationships.

Propositional versus Non-Propositional Swearing

Back on June 11, I posted a blog affirming that swearing is good for you, information that was drawn from Emma Byrne's book ("Swearing Is Good For You")--and personal experience. In that post I narrated my occasional strategic swearing and commented on its extreme usefulness. Part of the reason I'm so fascinated by the subject is that my rare experience of swearing around Pietists drove them nuts and they just didn't know how to deal with me as a result. So I suspect there are a lot more than religious pietists who also misunderstand swearing--even though it's a regular occurrence in many forms throughout the American culture and workplace.

To gain a better understanding of swearing, here's a bit more information. The beginning place is to understand that scientists and linguists make a distinction between propositional and non-propositional swearing. The distinction is useful.

Rumors of Conspiracy Are a Normal Part of History

Not just national or international history. Even my own history. As a twenty-year old rumors of conspiracy terrified me. No longer. History provides me with a healthy antidote: Richard Hofstadter.

I graduated from college in 1959, a few years before Richard Hofstadter's essay on The Paranoid Style in American Politics came out in Harper's. As an associate in a Pasadena (California) church, the conspiracy theories of the John Birch Society were driving me nuts. One of the promulgators of conspiracy, a retired naval officer and member of the "society" was teaching in adult classes. The senior minister, a swell guy, but utterly gutless, let it go on and on. I was a history major, so I was familiar with American conspiracy theories. I was amazed how many in that well-educated, upper-middle-class church were believers in the process. . .

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.

Do You Remember My Lai?

Since my typical readers are under age 35, I assume the answer to the question is negative unless you happen to be a Vietnam buff. Are there such people under the age of 35? Seymour Hersh published the story of the My Lai massacre in Harper’s, 1970. At least 109 civilians were killed by an American soldier, Bill Calley. That number may be smaller than the actual number killed. And a lot more soldiers were probably involved.

So why am I bringing this up now? 

Bret Stephens and the Paranoid Style

I graduated from college in 1959, a few years before Richard Hofstadter's essay on The Paranoid Style in American Politics came out in Harper's. As an associate in a Pasadena (California) church, the conspiracy theories of the John Birch Society were driving me nuts. One of the promulgators of conspiracy, a retired naval officer and member of the "society" was teaching in adult classes. The senior minister, a nice guy, but utterly gutless, let it go on and on. I was a history major, so I was familiar with American conspiracy theories. I was amazed how many in that well-educated, upper-middle-class church were believers in the process.

Shortly after I left that position, Hofstadter's essay came out in Harper's magazine. I have viewed it as a touchstone ever since. Still I never thought the essay would be as valuable today as it was then. Yet here's Bret Stephens, a "never Trump Republican" using the valued essay again. What's especially helpful...

So 80% of Adults Think They Can Spot Fake News??

Nahhhh! That makes no sense. In those very few areas where I’ve done a lot of homework and some listening to conversations about the news, it’s very clear that very, very few (say 20%?) can spot fake news (enough adverbial uses of “very?”). The newscasters and opinion writers can’t or don’t, and neither can John Q Public.

Though not the same thing, we know, based on hundreds of studies, that people can spot a liar 54 percent of the time — a ratio that is perilously close to pure chance. Spotting lies from people suggests that

So Trump Is Pragmatic. Now What Does That Mean?

Words are slippery items. We now know that the smart conversationalist listens to see whether the important word in a sentence is “dictionary-use” or “situational.” This is not an academic game. Understanding the distinction can be a matter of career life or death. The fact of the matter is that words mean what we want them to mean. For example, what did Obama mean when he commented that Trump is not ideological. “I think ultimately he’s pragmatic…”

Words are dynamic
In most conversations, words are tweaked. Their meaning is about what one person is trying to get across. We know that tweaking may emphasize values, emotions, priorities or even a specific insight. Dictionary-speak , where the person is talking literally, is fairly rare in conversations. Instead, like Humpty-Dumpty, words mean what we want them to mean. Talkers often use words sarcastically and ironically. Sarcasm is pretty obvious.

Trump, Populism and the Election

If you voted Trump, don’t expect too much. If you voted Clinton, the world is not at an end. 

Candidly, I was 80% shocked and surprised, and about 20% merely reflective. What created these stats for me was last week’s blog, What’s the noise really all about?--a blog that defined populism and that has now become predictive of Trump’s success. Populists believe in their own virtue—and that they are being mistreated by a small circle of elites. Added to that belief is the view that “if we work together, we can overthrow those elites.”  That just happened in our election. What’s unique is that Trump’s win is the first time populism has elected a president--even though populist ideas have impacted voting throughout American history.

American history of populism
This morning I rechecked the history of populism and gained a number of fascinating insights...