The setup for the article theorizes on the cost of lying on the person's stress levels. I'm sure that's a factor, but I think that pales in comparison to the empirical evidence the author has found in her own life -- the benefit of transparency.
There's an episode of How I Met Your Mother where a character always asks "Where's the poop?"[1] when she can tell someone is lying. She had a dog that always made he same face when it was hiding that it had pooped in the house.
I think the truth is that we all know in business there is always some poop somewhere. Whenever we lie, we leave our audience with an uneasy feeling, wondering what the catch is.
When we come right out and tell them what the catch is, we get past that barrier, which builds a relationship of trust from the start and allows the audience to weigh the values of our proposal on its true merits. This is the real power of telling the truth.
Actually, I think you just suggested the power of more devious lying: If you don't want them to know about the actual poop, tell them about some _lesser_ poop (either real, but lesser; or in fact more or less imaginary), so they won't think "Where's the poop", but will think "Ah, I know where the poop is, and I can handle that poop", eliminating the uneasy feeling when someone's giving you no poop at all but you know there must be some poop, but still not realizing the real poop is still hidden.
During my studies (conflict resolution), I had the opportunity to ask several mediators and negotiators who had worked on high-profile political cases about lying.
It occurred often, but was by far the least favorite item in the toolbox of a negotiator. Many would rather make emotional / moral appeals to the opposing side than lie.
Not because it wasn't effective (in some cases it could be quite effective), but because the results were very unpredictable. Being called out may undermine the rest of their position... or if they stuck to the lie to avoid this situation they may force themselves into defending a non-ideal positions.
It gets worse! There are now a lot more variables for you to consider, as the hitherto rational party on the other side of the table has been forced to question all of your statements. He is now much more likely to miscalculate true statements and positions as being false. You've now turned your negotiation partner into an (effectively) irrational actor.
One difficulty with not "lying" to yourself is complexity.
It's often quite demanding to articulate exactly what you know and what you don't. And in the process of trying, you'll often find that your model of the situation is subtly wrong... but it's hard to say exactly how. To really be in contact with reality, you're a scientist, trying to discern truth.
That is, sometimes we lie because it's simpler and less work to articulate. A little similar to advertising hyperbole, lacking nuance. Absolutes are simpler to say, to understand, to reason about.
But the article is just talking about active lying: asserting something that you know isn't true (or, that you know you're not sure of).
I spent a lot of time playing Scrabble where winning would not strictly be the aim, goal and objective. Being 'in the zone' and able to repeatedly put down all seven letters and hit the triple word scores would be where I wanted to be.
Sometimes I played against those that might rummage in the letters bag, perhaps to take an extra tile out and have to 'correct' their mistake by returning a less than desirable letter back into the bag. Obviously on detecting such cheating one could call them out and storm off from the table. However this I did not do because I did actually want to win :-) I realised that the time they spent doing things they should not be doing in order to get 'ideal' letters meant that they were not able to focus in the way I could.
Guess who won?
Scrabble was not the only game played. Bridge was another game played quite extensively where there was room for cheating. Again, honesty won out. However, with other card games - played for money - cheating was a viable strategy, no amount of focus on an honest game could help you to win against the guy that had all the aces under the table.
And my point is...
There are some areas of endeavour where telling the truth and being honest will pay dividends. However there are plenty of other areas where those that are less than honest will win.
That's the first thought that came to me when reading the article.
Honesty is the best policy small lies are always counter productive and increase expectations to an unreasonable level sometimes making you putting a lot of effort into meeting it.
There's very few situations where lying is a good idea however 100% complete honesty is probably not a good idea either there's some things in business you just can't reveal however outright refusing to answer the question is probably a good solution.
This article reminded me of the "four agreements": "Be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally. Don't make assumptions. Always do your best." Not lying falling under the first.
Ruiz means by "be impeccable with your word": don't have negative thoughts about yourself. Basically don't be hard on yourself, rather you should have a good self image.
That appears to be a small part of his meaning, based on this quote copied from Wikipedia: "Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love..."
>”Every time he sees a pitch, he waits until the end of the presentation before asking the entrepreneurs to go back through the deck and point out every lie they have just told.”
This isn’t honesty so much as self-righteousness.
>"If you are reading this post and thinking, “This doesn’t apply to me — I never lie,” you are probably lying to yourself."
Same deal here.
I find this to be the most frustrating part of practicing honesty - dealing with people who project their own present or past failure to practice it onto everyone else. Sure, some people never figure this out, but others will grasp it long before the mid-30s epiphany the author is relating.
There’s probably some eloquent quote or bit of game theory that sums that up better than I can, but I’ll try and say this “You’re working against the practice of honesty to assume dishonesty from everyone else. “
Wow - I read the article this morning, shortly before I had to present to managers on the current status of a project. Thought I'd try putting it into practice. The results: (a) I'm quite shocked at the number of (to be fair, very little) lies I would normally tell in such a situation, (b) It was weirdly relaxing being able to just sit there and tell the truth, (c) I've never received such good feedback from a presentation!
That's very interesting, can you elaborate on the "small lies" you found yourself telling? (obviously without disclosing anything personal or confidential).
Interestingly, I think most such "small lies" would have affected nobody but me (and would only have affected me by adding to my stress).
e.g.
Saying something's complete when in fact it's 95% complete, and will be complete by the end of the week, regardless of whether or not I claim right now that it's complete. There's nobody urgently waiting on this thing. The only difference then being whether I complete it in a relatively relaxed manner, or under the additional stress of hoping nobody asks to see it before the end of the week.
Other instances were based on how I felt about certain aspects of the project.
e.g.
Q: Do you think the remaining deliverables of the project will follow the plan?
(True) A: Actually no. And here's why.
Previously I would probably just have said yes, and dealt with any upcoming issues as and when. The truthful approach led to a brief discussion about what will be different and why. Everyone now understands the issues. They're not major. Nobody died. Everyone (including me) left happy.
Surprisingly the article doesn't mention the biggest benefit of telling the truth....
Truth forces you to confront your own shortcomings - its an opportunity for self-improvement.
If I miss a deadline I could makeup some baloney and lay the blame elsewhere or I can face my own inadequacy and tell the truth.
Its painful to admit I am behind.... but pain is a growth stimulus - it forces me to deal with the shortcoming.
Its easier to lie, tell them what they want to hear - but you miss out on the chance for your own self improvement.
Embrace the pain - its growth.
What happens when you lift weights? Sore muscles leads to growing bigger muscles.
Swing a hammer for a week, leads to blisters leads to growing calluses.
I really like this. My interpretation is the concept of stealth mode. I do believe there is a small set of use cases for which stealth is justifiable (e.g., patents), but I also feel like too many people are caught up in the cool, mystery factor surrounding stealth.
I've talked to so many people about my idea who have told me to shut up about it, or did I want them to sign an NDA? The answer is NO. I blog about my entire process, if there's a post missing it's because I haven't written it down yet.
Perhaps it's because my idea is driven by a social vision--if it's succeed I don't care who gets there first. You want to steal my idea? Great, let me help you because I'd like to think I'm smart and I've definitely been thinking about this for awhile.
When Buffer radically opened up their pay information, the community reacted in shock. Events like this inspires me. I want to strive for radical transparency in business.
I will make one tiny caveat though. I don't think radical transparency and never lying are the same thing. I do lie as well, and in many cases, I think it's justified. My mother is the worrying type. If she thought I were out at the bar or club, she literally would not sleep until I returned home. I'm lying for her health. Is it a slippery slope? Maybe, but then I have articles like this and wonderful friends who keep me more on the straight and narrow!
The real problem with lying (apart from the obvious moral one) is the risk you might start to actually believe your own lies. Once you can't tell what is true and what is not then you are on track to mess-up big time.
All the times I have been really side-swiped by someone it is when they have told themselves so many lies that they can no longer act in their own best interest.
That's pretty much what the article said. When an entrepreneur fudges facts about cash flow or profitability, they tend to start believing that fudged reality and thus start reacting incorrectly to the real one.
I always thought that lies seem so "costly" (as in brainpower sucking, stress etc.) because I never learned to lie well. And I always thought that instead of teaching my children to be honest I will teach them to lie well from very young age, so that when they have to lie as adults it will take them very little energy and they will do it very well. Training your "lying" muscles just like a professional athlete trains his muscles.
...but this theory of lying being bad because it detaches us from present reality sounds like it has something to it. Or maybe someone with very well trained "lying muscles" can lie a lot and still be 99.9% focused on the present and aware of the real reality?
I cannot agree with this more. I don't know when it was, maybe a few years ago now, that a wise man I met pointed out that brutal, total honesty makes life easier to live for yourself. He was right, overall -- I'm still not 100% perfect, but I took it to heart and tell the truth even when it will hurt me, or is difficult. This has a flow on effect in my life, where I am more motivated to do the right thing from the start: that way, I don't have to lie :)
> total honesty makes life easier to live for yourself
That may all be true, but let's not forget we are talking about a successful life, not an easy one. And I don't expect success to be easy to come by.
The secret to a successful life is to never lie to yourself, to get people to trust you (for example, convincingly claim that you never lie), and then lie them intelligently so that they never figure it out or when they do they can't do anything about it anymore.
This is fiendishly complex trick to pull and requires some sociopathic inclinations, so it should not surprise us that many successful business leaders are indeed sociopaths. We are not talking about famous singers or athletes who succeed based on their talent. In the business world, the talent is convincing people better than the competition and that, unless you have built the perfect company with the perfect product and the perfect employees, requires lying.
Interesting how so far the comments on this story overwhelmingly agree with the article that it's not worth it to lie. Regardless of how true this point is I have to wonder whether such unanimity in the discussion might be in part because the people who found that lying works quite well for them are more reluctant to share their opinion, for obvious reasons.
I deal with this everyday selling software, and it's much more complex than being truthful and lying.
My job as a technical consultant to our sales staff is to bridge the gap between needs assessment and salesmanship. I have a 0 tolerance policy about lying during sales (I have to be to keep our sales guys from making false promises), but I struggle with finding that delicate balance between the truth, focusing on what's important to a prospect, and the manner in which you talk about capabilities you don't have. You cannot simply tell a prospect you don't have a feature if they don't actually need it because there's a lot of psychology at play. A competitor told them they needed that feature so you now have to mitigate their concerns. You essentially need to find a way to be truthful while simultaneously transferring emphasis to your selling points or to their needs.
It's one thing to have a product that will meet a customer's needs and make them happy and to not say anything during initial discussions that will present a distraction or needlessly turn them off. It's another to say something misleading or to elide a detail that is material, which the customer will reluctantly suffer later on, in order to close a deal. It seems to me that modern sales organizations have incentives perfectly calibrated to do just these things. This situation corrodes trust.
I struggle with finding that delicate balance between the truth ...
Oh, so you lie, but lie by omission? Or one of the other forms of lying we tend to morally wallpaper over? I don't see how else to read that because you said your goal was to avoid making false promises, not to avoid "bending" the truth.
Your inference was incorrect. I said my job was to keep our sales reps from making false promises, which includes (but is not limited to) bending the truth, lying by omission, making incorrect assertions, etc.
My industry is highly mobile and quite competitive so we don't gain anything by stretching truths. Customers can leave as quickly as they come, and since we're a small shop we use a consultative sales approach to ensure customers will be happy long-term.
Again, the solution is more complex than "just tell the truth." Tell the truth in a positive way, offer viable alternatives, and re-emphasize what matters. We're selling to humans, not Vulcans.
If a 5 year old child asks you if he will be killed by pirates (yes this has really happened to me), would you say no? If so, you're lying, but I don't think there is any "moral wallpaper" here, it's simply letting a kid sleep at night.
Not to say there aren't many dishonest people out there, but the parallels between sales (especially software) and this story are all too common.
If so, you're lying, but I don't think there is any "moral wallpaper" here, it's simply letting a kid sleep at night.
If the reasoning starts with "This lie is OK because..." you're using the fact it's easy to argue that the lie was moral to extinguish the weight typically associated with lying.
The reasoning here is based on the idea the child is really asking is if there are monsters under the bed/in the closet/down the street. You lie because the truth wouldn't be reassuring, because they can't handle the complexities of the answer "Anything can happen, but the chances are infinitesimally small if you stay out if international waters."
So, are you making bad analogies or do you consider your clients children that couldn't handle the idea you're selling a complex product? It's fine if you do, people can be real dumb sometimes, I won't mind.
It just seems like you're trying to build yourself a cozy little nest between the "truth" and "lying" that extends beyond genuine misunderstandings. The weight of a lie exists on a scale. I do lie to children, but don't consider it not lying, I just don't worry about it too much. I do tend to believe in telling less "white lies" to children than is typical but that's a tangent.
My friend etuttle once told me, "Lying is like taking out a loan. You will typically have to pay interest on it: remembering that you told it, and remembering who you told it to... so it's usually not worth it. But once in a while it is."
There have been times when I was completely honest and transparent even in the face of short term costs specifically because I knew it would help build my reputation for honesty. I assume I'm not the only one who's done this, so I wouldn't take it as a sign that a person is 100% trustworthy.
On the other hand, a pattern of honesty probably is the best indicator of an honest person.
Lies propagate, that's what I'm saying. You've got to tell more lies to cover them up, lie about every fact that's connected to the first lie. And if you kept on lying, and you kept on trying to cover it up, sooner or later you'd even have to start lying about the general laws of thought. Like, someone is selling you some kind of alternative medicine that doesn't work, and any double-blind experimental study will confirm that it doesn't work. So if someone wants to go on defending the lie, they've got to get you to disbelieve in the experimental method. Like, the experimental method is just for merely scientific kinds of medicine, not amazing alternative medicine like theirs. Or a good and virtuous person should believe as strongly as they can, no matter what the evidence says. Or truth doesn't exist and there's no such thing as objective reality. A lot of common wisdom like that isn't just mistaken, it's anti-epistemology, it's systematically wrong. Every rule of rationality that tells you how to find the truth, there's someone out there who needs you to believe the opposite. If you once tell a lie, the truth is ever after your enemy; and there's a lot of people out there telling lies... [0]
If you haven't read "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" I highly recommend it. I've gone through the chapters that are online twice now and will probably read them all once more when the final story arch is released toward the end of the year.
Harry? He might selectively tell the truth but pretty much always refuses an outright lie. With the exception of a few times after the azkaban sequence.
As others have said there are lies and then there are lies, and it also depends on who tells them.
PR people for example are basically trained to lie, but with subtlety. They wont outright lie but rather deviate the conversation by pointing out other facts which are actually irrelevant but serve the purpose to steer looks away and do some damage control.
A lot of founders lie but they avoid the examples given in the article and instead choose to overhype the context in which their product works by using weaselwords and also try to downplay the obstacles or don't even mention them.
I was in a pitch event once and this guy who could sell ice in Siberia went from salesman supreme to sweating bullets when someone in the audience destroyed the RDF he built around himself and the product by pointing out a simple fact that turned to be the achilles heel of the app.
I'm sure a lot of people were thinking about the same, but most weren't, so if the pitch guy didn't mention it, was he lying? or was he expecting you to know it and be okay with it?
At the end it depends on who you are and where you are standing, for example how do the snapchat founders fit into this? the oust of the third member was one thing but after that the remaining two lied openly and abundantly about everything from the "story" of the idea to how it came to be, the involvement of the ex-cofounder and even about the logo he created which is why they had to modify it.
Then again when you are a company with the momentum to reject a 3 billion dollar acquisition offer its a whole different position from that of the guy in the pitch event above.
I am utterly amazed - it's true. I have held myself back in the fear a small lie will get found out. Nothing compared to the expenses of MPs or the affairs of the adulterous.
This theory depends entirely on how you define success.
We often define success as prosperity; by the means of increasing our wealth we gain more security in a lot of parts in our lives.
If you then think of wealth as success, we can see why a lot of stammers could be called successful.
The way the investor thanked her for her honesty:
"I really appreciate how transparent you’ve been with me,"
made me wonder if the simple choice to be truthful put her in a tiny minority of those seeking capital.
Me: doot doot diddiddit doot doot.. (circus music which is our code for "Circus fat." Once upon a time super fat people were rare enough to qualify as circus attractions i.e. the Fat Man/Woman.)
Wife: "Does this look trashy?"
Me: "Well I like it but I think everyone else will think it looks kinda slutty."
Wife: "What do you think of this? (Wearing insulated underwear as a top. It's a Maine thing)
Me: (In a fashion runway voice) "It's the look that says Trailer Park."
I always balance full truth with consequences, no need to claim everything you think is true if it breaks everybody down (unless it's for their own good).
So nuke marketing, pr and send all politicians in exile?
I would say something else dont bullshit. No dont lie. A lie can be forgiven and managed. Spinning the language and saying I told the truth creates much more poisonous effects.
The problem arises when everyone else lies - when you sit there as a sole honest voice amidst a torrent of fantasy, telling the truth gets you branded a liar, as you tell truths people do not want to hear.
You also have to look at the motivations. As an investor his primary goal is determining what is a lie and what isn't so that he can correctly value a prospect. As an entrepreneur it's not necessarily the main key to success, at least not higher than keep trying. This doesn't mean I'm saying lie by any means, just that you should always look at the source of motivation from the one giving the advice and how it applies to you.
question for everyone: do you subconsciously equate an honest person as being (more) dependable/trustworthy/reliable?
I ask because I can't help but group these qualities together. When someone earns my trust from a track record of being honest, I find it hard not to take their word on things.
I guess I equate being honest with having good overall intentions. Is this an innate (human) quality or just wishful thinking on my part?
Does anyone know who "Peter" is? I liked his advice and was really interested to see what else he's invested in, so I looked on CrunchBase, AngelList, Posse's website, etc. but I can't track down a Posse angel investor named Peter. I kind of hope this article about telling the whole truth even if it makes you vulnerable isn't using a pseudonym for the investor.
how about all the succesful scammers? or lying to your "customers". I know I don't want to do what they do. But I happen to know some people in some industries in IT where it is pretty much the business model. I do get a bit jealous when they expose their flamboyant luxurous lifestyle on Facebook to be honest. so how do you define success? money or happiness ?
I often feel like always telling the truth is the result of privilege. And that people who are more insecure for whatever reasons have much more cause to lie. That being said, I have very little patience for colleagues who lie about work-related knowledge. It's a huge waste of time.
Yeah, maybe "result" is wrong. It's not a cause and effect. I probably should have said that having social and economic resources makes it easier to tell the truth, specifically in instances where the person knows they can easily withstand any negative consequences.
As an example: leaving a note when you accidentally damage another person's car.
Maybe my memory is bad, or perhaps I'm subconsciously "lying to myself," but I don't think I lie anywhere near as often as the author believes she and other people do, even about tiny things.
Perhaps you really are just that atypical corner case, I don't really know. But if you study some of the techniques for detecting "tells" and subtle cues that someone is lying (basically the works and/or derivatives of Dr. Paul Ekman) - and if you follow up on instances where suspected "hits" can be investigated discreetly and without a huge confrontation - you may come to realize just how depressingly common and widespread casual lying is.
Actually, while it might sound cool - I don't really recommend this course of study. It would almost certainly NOT make you a happier person. "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." (- Eccl. 1:18)
I'd be surprised if you don't tell small lies in 'conversational mode'.
In natural speech, people generally make simplifications that edge towards oversimplification, or omissions that could be considered misleading if the omission is not fully understood by both parties, or false statements just because of a personal misconception (perhaps only realised later). That's a natural part of communicating at a reasonable speed.
Eliminating those occasions takes real effort towards communicating well.
Perhaps you don't consider those "lying" as such, because they're not deliberate attempts to mislead. But the boundary between these and deliberate "lying" is blurred. Your motivation for communicating with these shortcuts is a deliberate choice that is worth reconsidering occasionally.
If you can avoid those white-type lies 100% of the time, I applaud you. I don't think it's easy and few people manage it.
I don't feel like I actively avoid white lies, but I can't think of many that I've told recently. When I was a kid, sure, I'd lie to my parents about little things, and in school I would invent or exaggerate excuses for late assignments, etc. But now I don't feel like there's much need to do that.
Of course, when you get into simplification and omission, things get more complicated. I've absolutely simplified basic things like where I'm from, or the exact timeline of my education, etc. And every time I say anything, I'm omitting, well, everyone that I don't say. The line there is definitely blurry.
I read a few paragraphs and then the article vanished and I was asked to log in. Why? Either don't show it to me or show it to me. Changing it after I started reading is pathetic.
I've heard a few versions of that chestnut, but the only one which both rhymes and scans is this: 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.'
There's an episode of How I Met Your Mother where a character always asks "Where's the poop?"[1] when she can tell someone is lying. She had a dog that always made he same face when it was hiding that it had pooped in the house.
I think the truth is that we all know in business there is always some poop somewhere. Whenever we lie, we leave our audience with an uneasy feeling, wondering what the catch is.
When we come right out and tell them what the catch is, we get past that barrier, which builds a relationship of trust from the start and allows the audience to weigh the values of our proposal on its true merits. This is the real power of telling the truth.
[1]: http://how-i-met-your-mother.wikia.com/wiki/Where's_the_poop...