Lying                                                  

                                      

A jogger running down a country road is startled as a horse yells at him.  “Hey!  Come over here buddy!”

The jogger is shocked but cautiously moves over to the fence where the horse is standing and stutteringly asks, “Were you talking to me?”

“Sure was,” replied the horse.  “You see, I’ve got a problem.  I won the Kentucky Derby a few years back and this ignorant farmer bought me and forced me to plow his field.  I’m sick of it.  You know, you could go up to his house, offer him $5,000 to buy me and you’ll make a lot of money ‘cause I can still run.”

The jogger muses, “Boy, a talking horse!”  He begins thinking of all the financial possibilities, runs up to the house, finds the old farmer sitting on the porch and makes him the offer.  “I’ll give you $5,000 for that broken-down old nag you’ve got in the field.”

Replies the farmer, “son, this has happened before.  You can’t believe anything that horse says.  He’s never even been to Kentucky.”

You may have read recently in the WSJ an article by Dan Ariely, Why We Lie,  adapted from his forthcoming book, “The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty:  How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves.”  Among other findings in his research on lying and cheating, Ariely asserts the following:

• ·        Everybody has the capacity to be dishonest and almost everybody cheats—just by a little.

• ·        It is the small-scale cheating which most do, not the high profile cases such as Madoff, which is the most corrosive to society.

• ·        Cheating is infectious (“everyone does it” type mentality).

• ·        For the masses of “honest people”, the prospect of heavy fines or increased enforcement measures have little effect on their behavior when it comes up against the brute psychological force of “I’m only fudging a little” or “It’s for the greater good.”  Think of those who cheat just a little on their taxes, increase a homeowner’s insurance claim, or take small pieces of company property home.

As interesting as the above are, I found the most poignant point is Ariely’s conclusion that those of us who claim to be honest people but who might cheat in small ways are strongly affected by reminders of moral codes.  While lectures and training may have little effect on people, reminders of morality—right at the point where people are making a decision—appear to have an outsize effect on behavior.  Ariely concludes in this way:

“We want to install locks to stop the next Bernie Madoff, the next Enron, the next steroid-enhanced all-star, the next serial plagiarist, the next self-dealing political miscreant.  But locking our doors against the dishonest monsters will not keep them out; they will always cheat their way in.  It is the woman down the hallway—the sweet one who could not even carry away your flat-screen TV if she wanted to—who needs to be reminded constantly that, even if the door is open, she cannot just walk in and “borrow” a cup of sugar without asking.”

I must admit that upon reading his article, I at first recoiled at Ariely’s suggestion that it takes moral reminders to keep honest people honest and truth-tellers truthful.  But then I tried to be honest with myself and did recall a few instances of exaggeration, hyperbole, well…okay, maybe  a couple of small, itsy-bitsy white lies, little fibs, maybe a pencil or two from the office….that’s enough confessing.  The larger point is that most of us must be reminded of what is right, what is acceptable and what is in the interests of the greater good.  No doubt that was the driving force in Mom and Dad compelling me to attend Sunday School “as long as you live under our roof.”

There are many great companies and professional firms who also embrace the “moral reminder” approach to deter cheating, stealing and lying.  Codes of conduct, signed conflict of interest statements, frequent employee meetings on responsibility and accountability, and continuing, constant awareness of what the company or firm stands for and how they want to be viewed are part of the moral reminder agenda.  Great companies, firms and people are recognized for tenacity to cultures of appropriate conduct, cultures of character, and cultures of embracing ethics and integrity.  Companies and firms appearing on Forbes’ “America’s Most Trustworthy Companies” are purpose and values driven organizations.  Whole Foods Market, Progressive Insurance, Buffalo Wild Wings, Herman Miller, and NorthWestern are just a few examples of many outstanding companies who lead intentionally with truth and transparency as documented in their reminders to employees, vendors, customers, and stockholders.

While cheating may be infectious as Ariely suggests, I would counter with an even stronger assertion that integrity, fair play, and doing what’s right is equally contagious, significantly influential, and culture-changing.  To spread the contagion of right-doing we all need to be reminded of company rules, appropriate conduct, expectations, and our spiritual and ethical bases.

Ad astra

Per aspera