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July 20, 2010
Liespotting
Did you know that the average person is lied to 25-200 times per day? One study discovered that lies were detected in 37% of phone calls, 27% of face to face meetings, 21 percent of IM chats and 14% of emails. Liespotting, (on store shelves today) a book by Pam Meyer (disclosure: a friend) gives us a way to fight back.
Research indicates that Americans are particularly gullible because of a “truth bias—as a nation we grew up with the George Washington legend of saying that he never told a lie even though he chopped down the cherry tree.” Ms. Meyer told me that “deception is a cooperative act. A lie does not have power by its utterance, its power lies in someone agreeing to believe it. Self deception is where it starts—you are a lot less likely to be duped if you know yourself well.”
Who lies? Extroverted, unmarried men are the worst offenders. Unmarried people lie 70% more to their partners than married people and men tell eight times more lies than women. I can attest to one whopper. On my second date with my now wife, I proudly showed off my new apartment. I walked into the bedroom and to my horror, discovered that the bed was still not assembled. I lamely tried to explain that the cleaning lady had done this and got the retort, “Don’t ever lie to me.” I have lived in mortal terror of home spun spin ever since.
How to uncover a lie? If you are in person, Ms. Meyer advises the BASIC interview technique: Baseline Behavior (laugh, voice, posture or even looking you in the eye too often—people telling the truth only look you in the eye 60% of the time); Ask Open Ended Questions (if somebody repeats a question in full, this is stalling tactic); Study the Clusters (Non verbal clusters such as grooming gestures where even asymmetrical smiles or shrugs are telltale and verbal clusters such as short clipped answers); Intuit the Gaps (logic or behavior gaps); Confirmation (ask the same fact seeking questions repeatedly but in different ways). If you are not in person, use statement analysis, in particular overly specific or excessively formal language, to detect lies.
Why does this matter? The financial impact of deception is significant – from fraud in the workplace to undermining the firm’s fundamental license to operate during times of crisis, an estimated $994 billion a year cost to business. With the number of platforms used to communicate, the opportunity for lying has expanded geometrically.
Ms. Meyer is a technology entrepreneur and has used many PR firms over the years, including Edelman. She said, “Trust accelerates business while deception gums up the gears.” PR pros need to advance transparency – being committed to openly communicating results, failures and successes alike. We must push for the truth-- to cross check what clients are telling us. We should avoid hype which corrodes belief and hinders ability to recover in tough times.
Posted by Edelman at July 20, 2010 3:55 PM |
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Comments
Richard,
An exceptional post, which flashed me back to a “Speed of Trust” workshop I attended in 2008. From your post, some Liespotting - Speed of Trust, parallels follow:
Self deception – Self trust is where it starts.
Deception gums up the gears – no trust or distrust acts as a trust tax.
The truth bias contributes to Americans’ gullible – From the “Smart Trust Matrix”, blind trust (high propensity to trust accompanied by low analysis)
Not surprisingly, a Kindle search of Liespotting indicates the word trust was used as many as 143 times.
Liespotting and attempting to assess integrity go hand-in-hand, which leads me to the following Warren Buffett quote:
“Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.”
Posted by: Hugh Campbell at July 22, 2010 9:53 AM