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. 

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...

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.

How Women Can Use Anger To Their Advantage

Over the years women and their emotions have taken a beating in the workplace. You know the accusations: women are shrill, emotional and teary.  Having worked with some very tough females over the years, I've never been willing to believe all the malarkey about women and emotions.  I've also noticed a lot of those emotions to be typical of men.  However, whatever your experience or beliefs about women and emotions, current research indicates fairly clearly that women can often benefit from the use of anger.

Most of us are familiar with the anger antics of Rahm Emmanuel, former Illinois legislator, former Chief of Staff for Obama, and now the mayor Chicago.   I kept a copy of Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article on the theatrics of the colorful, obscene Emmanuel just for the sake of some needy clients.  In the article, Lizza points out that Emmanuel seems to employ his volcanic moments for effect ...

Most People Are Bad at Spotting Liars

It never seems to go away. You know. The colleague you're never sure you can trust. Or the one who regularly promises but rarely fulfills. And most of us are bad about spotting liars and deception. But there are a few things we know for certain about that tough subject. And for business folk, there's one reality about deception that always rings true.

Powerful people are better liars and more difficult to spot. And Dana Carney of Columbia University as proved that. Those of us with a background in rhetoric and nonverbal research have believed this for years, but we're glad to see that someone has at last validated our well-educated hunches. 

Carney's subjects were not politicians, at least not governmental politicians, but business bosses and employees.  The bosses, with larger offices and more power were tasked to do such things as assign employee salaries.  Half of all the research subjects were instructed by a computer to steal $100, and, if they could convince an interviewer that they didn't take it, they could keep it.  The other subjects were also questioned in the interviews.  The interviewers were trained to identify deception.  (Although the article didn't say so, it reflects the work of Paul Ekman, the expert in deception, who I referred to in a previous blog:  Reflections on BSing.)

The subjects were measured on five variables that indicate lying, variables that can't be easily measured in any other context. 

What the research shows is that "if you give people power, they're more comfortable lying, and it will be harder to tell they're doing it."...

The Wasted Attention to Human Foibles

Some time ago I heard David Brooks comment that the American public pays way too much attention to human foibles.  And in an astute Journal article, Joe Queenan argued the same case. The Obama impeachment fantasy is another case in point. 

I learned years ago that paying much attention to a politician's foibles, especially when the person was near genius policy-wise, and the country needed his or her expertise, was often a horrible waste.  Richard Nixon, a documented dissembler, eventually had to go because of the Watergate Scandal, yet his contributions to international relations are among the greatest of the 20th century:  successfully negotiated a cease-fire with Vietnam, opened the People's Republic of China and initiated detente with the Soviet Union.  

In my mind, significant expertise that benefits the the public community usually trumps personal foibles.  Inevitably, therefore, I had no difficulty admitting that Bill Clinton was a sexual jerk with a zipper problem.  And as far as I was concerned, that was his problem, not worthy of censure, impeachment or discussion.  His expertise in many areas of national importance was impeccable--and the nation as a whole would have been better off if Clinton's sexual peccadilloes had been ignored.  As David Gergen, advisor to three Republican presidents, has since pointed out--on many policy issues Clinton was a genius.  Gergen points specifically to ...