Understanding Why We Lie in the Workplace - Or How the Dog Ate My Profit-and-Loss Statements
Here’s a harsh dose of truth: Deception has reached epidemic proportions in our society.
Think I’m lying? Consider these grim statistics:
Psychologist Gerald Jellison’s research into mendacity leads him to conclude most people encounter 200 fibs and fabrications every single day. That’s a lie every eight minutes or so.
In a study using videotaped interactions among strangers, psychologist Robert Feldman discovered 60% of people lie an average of three times during ten minutes of conversation. That’s a whopper every three minutes and twenty seconds.
Clinical research isn’t the only evidence pointing to deception’s ever-deepening penetration of society. Tune into any newscast or open any newspaper and you’ll see “truthiness” at work. Accounting irregularities at major corporations, a million little fibs in James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, and an endless series of political scandals have thrust dishonesty into the spotlight. Is there anything we can believe today?
Believe this: the workplace isn’t immune from the “truthiness” epidemic that’s sweeping the nation. In fact, the workplace is a Petri dish for growing a bumper crop of bald-faced lies because deception has become the performance-enhancing drug for any competitive environment. Let’s take a closer look at the general categories of lies we might encounter at the office, as well as their effect on individual performance and the performance of the business as a whole.
1. Lies to Avoid Hurting Others
More commonly referred to as “little white lies,” these fibs are among the most frequent we encounter at work and are also among the least destructive as far as productivity and morale are concerned. In fact, these lies are crucial for helping any workforce function smoothly. There are countless occasions where “the truth” simply isn’t appropriate.
Imagine, for example, an employee presents you with a draft budget for an upcoming project. Immediately, you notice many obvious expenses haven’t been considered. Rather than speak your mind (”Bob, this budget is out to lunch. Are you on the sauce again?”) you employ a more constructive approach. (”This is a good first cut, Bob, but some key expenses are missing. You’ll need to rework this.”)
Bob, in turn, accepts your constructive criticism graciously — maybe even thanks you — and keeps his true thoughts on being handed more work to himself (which aren’t nearly as gracious).
The result? A beneficial exchange of viewpoints rather than finger-pointing acrimony, brought to you by the power of positive prevarications.
2. Lies to Boost Appeal and Likeability
The majority of employees found in any workplace want to be liked. It’s only human, after all. Lies can do for our personality what joint compound and a can of paint can do for an old, boring wall: smooth over the defects and create a nice, glossy finish.
Like the fibs we tell to avoid hurting others in the workplace, this category of lies tends to be common and minimally destructive — unless taken to the extreme. We all embellish our exploits or mold our personality to better fit in with our peers. But inside every office there lurks one employee who takes it too far and suffers from a “credibility gap” as a result. This individual’s constant, over-the-top self-promotion colors every aspect of his being, making it tough to trust anything he says or does.
3. Lies to Avoid Negative Consequences
We learn as children that lies can get us out of trouble with our family and friends. And we never grow out of our desire to avoid trouble and the pain it can cause. Even as adults, our instinctive reaction to situations that carry the potential for negative consequences is to fib. Slept in and missed an important meeting? Blame the power outage that knocked your alarm clock out of commission (and mysteriously affected only your house).
A frequent part of the lying landscape at work, this category of lies can be incredibly disruptive and destructive. Employees may use them to cover up their shortcomings and mistakes. They may also attempt to shift blame to their fellow co-workers, igniting a firestorm of ill will in the workplace.
4. Lies to Gain an Advantage
A byproduct of the competitive workplace environment, lies for personal gain help us boost our standing among the rank and file. They are incredibly versatile and can be used to gain the right kind of attention for ourselves, draw the wrong kind of attention toward others, spread falsehoods that knock our co-workers down and lift us up as a result, and so on ad nauseam.
Left untreated, lies for personal gain can wreak havoc with a business’ mental health, poisoning the atmosphere of trust crucial for successful teamwork. And, equally alarming, these lies can make it impossible for management to accurately identify top performers and reward them equitably. The end result? Less than optimum performance by the business as a whole.
5. Lies to Cover Up Lies
One of the most frightening aspects of deception is the imperative it creates for more deception. Lies breed lies. In the workplace, this exponential growth can create an environment where everyone and everything is suspect. In such a dysfunctional setting, the pursuit of commerce and profits can be an impossible task.
While these common denominators help us to understand why we lie so easily and so often in the workplace, it’s important to note there are unique gender differences in how we fib. Men and women, in other words, lie differently. There are also clues businesses can use to avoid hiring a truth-challenged employee in the first place. These elements of the deception game in the workplace will be highlighted in the upcoming article, “Avoid Hiring a Bald-Faced Liar or How to Deflate a Padded Rsum.”
Conner O’Seanery is a self-admitted serial liar and an expert on detecting deception in any situation. Author of You Won’t Get Fooled at Work Again: 40 Timely Tips for Recognizing Deception in the Workplace and You Won’t Get Fooled Again: More Than 101 Brilliant Ways to Bust Any Bald-Faced Liar (Even If the Liar is Lying Beside You!), O’Seanery is a popular media guest whose insights have been featured on City TV’s Breakfast Television, Global Television’s NewsHour, CBC Radio, Westwood One Radio Network, USA Radio Network and hundreds of radio stations. His books have been featured in the New York Post, National Post, Seattle Times, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen and other newspapers. Conner is also a respected speaker who uses a blend of quick wit and well-earned wisdom to entertain as much as inform audiences. To download free excerpts from You Won’t Get Fooled at Work Again and You Won’t Get Fooled Again visit Conner’s website at href="http://TheSerialLiar.com/">http://TheSerialLiar.com/
To Blame or Not To BlameA man can fall many times, but he isnt a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. (John Burroughs)Fire her, she set me up! John yelled quite loudly. He was incredibly angry and for good reason. However, he was really angry at the wrong person. What he was really saying was […]
Written by info on January 22nd, 2008 with
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