Business Without the Bullsh*t: 49 Secrets and Shortcuts You Need to Know (36 page)

There are two reasons it’s important to identify lies. First, you naturally want to make your decisions based on reality rather than falsehood, and lies make it more difficult to make good decisions. Second, identifying lies helps you to assess the character of the people with whom you work. When you see a pattern of underhandedness, you know ahead of time that you’ll be lied to and can adapt your plans accordingly.

With that in mind, there are four primary ways that people lie in the workplace:

Bald-faced lies come in two varieties: verbal and written.

Verbal bald-faced lies are more common than written ones because written ones leave an “audit trail” proving that the liar has lied. If a lie remains verbal, it can always be explained away as a “misunderstanding” or as part of a “he said/she said” conflict.

There are eight signs that suggest a person is telling a bald-faced lie:

When the bald-faced lie is written, rather than spoken, only signs 5 through 8 apply. In both cases the rule of thumb is:
trust your gut
. If it feels as if you’re hearing a lie, you probably are.

People tell half-truths because they want all the benefits of telling a lie (i.e., mislead you to their advantage) without the risk of being caught out or suffering the burden of being forced to think of themselves as liars.

For example, suppose your boss knows for certain that you’ll soon be laid off, but needs you to finish up your current project. If you ask, “Is my job secure?” your boss can tell the truth (“No”) or a bald-faced lie (“Yes”).

For your boss, though, there’s a downside to both approaches. On the one hand, the truth might cause you to leave the company before your current project is complete. On the other hand, telling the bald-faced lie forces the boss to self-identify as a liar.

Because of this, the boss is more likely to tell a truth that’s misleading, such as “Rest assured, your contribution is appreciated.” Hearing this half-truth, you might conclude (wrongly) that your job is secure.

The trick to spotting a half-truth is to corner the possible liar and ask questions so it’s more difficult for the other person to maintain the half-truth in the no-man’s-land between honesty and dishonesty.

Building on the example above, suppose Fred knows that Jill is going to be laid off, but still wants her to plug away at a major project. Here’s how the conversation starts:

If Jill accepts this answer, she’ll assume that she isn’t going to be laid off. Instead, she should ask the question again, but leaving Fred less wiggle room.

At this point Fred must either tell the truth (“Yes”) or a bald-faced lie (“I don’t know”). If it’s a bald-faced lie, it’s likely that Fred’s body language will change enough to warn Jill that she’s being lied to.

Of course, Fred could simply tell another half-truth:

However, by making another ambiguous statement, Fred has provided Jill with a touchstone. Rule of thumb: two ambiguous
responses in a row means that the other person is lying. (In other words, two half-truths equal one full lie.)

When employees tell half-truths to their bosses, it’s usually an attempt to hedge. The employee gives an answer that sounds affirmative, but has one or more caveats hidden inside it. For example: