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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 em
by chavesn 13y ago
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.
[1]: http://how-i-met-your-mother.wikia.com/wiki/Where's_the_poop%3F http://how-i-met-your-mother.wikia.com/wiki/Where's_the_poop...
- jrochkind1 13y agoActually, 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.
- antocv 13y agoThat kind of lying is even more powerful in stressing yourself out and breaking your own spirit. The more time goes the worst it gets. You fool yourself everytime you fool others, and the lies do catch up to you, that was the point of the article.