Why Do We Lie? The Sequel
Issue 180, October 3, 2024
Even the most optimistic among us must admit that we are living in an unprecedented and unpredictable public arena of deliberate misinformation and lies. It has become accepted behavior, and among some, a badge of honor. It is confusing and discouraging that intentional lies have become part of the fabric of our lives. If we don’t know what is true and whom to trust, it can lead to the systemic unraveling of our institutions and organizations. Just as it has in the past.
Telling Lies, Redux
Several years ago, one of our newsletters, “Why Do We Lie?” addressed a troubling issue at that time. We felt it was important to discuss the conundrum of lies in terms of human dynamics and their influence on change and transformation. Humans are interesting in the fact that they freely admit that some of their motivations as well as their acceptance of actions, behaviors and social norms are inappropriate or downright wrong. We explored that paradox and its impact on organizations.
Since that first exploration, we wrote a book diving further into the human condition based on our observations and work with organizations of all sizes. Frankly, we believe we are living in a society that seems unhinged and off-course. With the institutionalization of misinformation, we are alarmed that what is taking place across the world has become a blurring of illusion and reality.
As a result, we think it’s the right time to re-explore the motivations of why we lie.
Lying in Wait
So, why do we lie? Let us count the many reasons; and here are our top six:
- To achieve power
- To cover up a mistake
- To make us look better
- To not disappoint others
- We’re afraid to tell the truth
- We don’t know we are lying
Breach of Trust
No matter how you look at it, lying is a character flaw. History is littered with breaches of trust among institutions, organizations and individuals. And the ultimate damage is to the singular quality any society needs to survive — trust. Politicians can be accused of heading the list of untrustworthy role models. But in recent history, we have an egregious wave of the fall of once-trusted American icons. Boeing “was rooted in a culture that had come to value financial engineering over aerospace engineering,” according to Quartz. Starbucks lost its way putting profits over people. And business case studies proliferate based on intentional lies: Enron, Capital One, ExxonMobil, Theranos, Facebook, and FTX. And more recently, Open AI, Google and Amazon are in the crosshairs of consumers’ trust.
So, why would any organization risk their survival by compromising the trust that they must have to stay in business? And worse, why does a public leader intentionally mislead his or her constituents to get elected, only to revert to a hidden agenda? Outsiders (and we talked to plenty of foreign tourists this summer visiting the States) think Americans are downright stupid or delusional believing so many overt, public lies. These visitors have lost respect for us as an intelligent nation built on justice.
The Power of Influence
We are all communicators, and we are often either deliberate or unconscious in including and omitting information. In many of those choices, we may bend the truth, misrepresent facts or hide information to sway an individual or audience. Is our intent to lie? Or is the intent to align with the audience and tell them what they want to hear?
But playing to the majority or crowds isn’t so easy. In reality, there is very little shared knowledge and experience across any two individuals, let alone an organization or in rallying a crowd. And more often than not, there is limited alignment of values and beliefs.
Today, with the amplification of social channels, even the most minor voices are empowered in a public arena, and many seek to manipulate and enrage. When they find an audience and scale the messaging, let the games begin.
Many others shudder at the constant lies or mistruths some influencers pedal on their feeds. Those who call out the lies can’t help but wonder why an influencer’s audience so easily aligns and believes what is being said. To make it worse, some influencers have gone public revealing that they don’t believe in what they are sharing to their audience, but they are making great money and love the attention. So, they continue to spew and spin more and more lies and mistruths regardless of the impacts the spewing and spinning have.
Misinformation and Untruths Have Become Institutionalized
Have you ever found yourself in Facebook Jail? There is such a thing. Who would have thought Facebook would become society’s lie detector? Individuals who spread too much fake news and lies receive warnings from Facebook. If they ignore the warnings, they may find themselves suspended from Facebook for a period of time, and then reinstated on probationary terms.
This begs the question of who or what is our truth police. Can we self-enforce? Depend on the government? Look to our organizations to set guardrails. Rely on AI to identify and abolish misinformation and lies?
What Happened to Us?
We have written about courage, whistleblowers, North Star guidance, intention, and any other number of principles of character. We have reviewed ethics, moral behavior, honesty and trust in context of organizational transformation and change. We are not moral philosophers, but we are alarmed by the clear pattern of groupthink and lying on TikTok, X and social media memes used as international, undermining political attacks as well as teen bullying and shaming. The immediacy and speed of digital networks have changed the game for creating affinity and community. It has become a tool to mobilize cultish revolutions and uprisings. Although some of those actions can be credited for the greater good (the Arab Spring), most are for personal or political gain.
So, again, why do we lie? It has become an accepted characteristic to gain a reward, impress others, make a power play, and for the thrill of it. We also lie to protect others from harm or recrimination, maintain privacy, avoid an uncomfortable situation or be polite. But if you believe in the universal law of “what goes around comes around,” a more vernacular way of stating Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” you can’t get away with lying – at any level. As Agent Fox Mulder says, “The truth is out there.”
And so are laws and the courts, where most of the American organizational mistrust is resolved. But that doesn’t help in the breakdown of personal trust.
Pervasive Mistrust
The lack of trust has escalated. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer reports a collision of trust, innovation, and politics, revealing “a new paradox at the heart of society. Rapid innovation offers the promise of a new era of prosperity but instead risks exacerbating trust issues, leading to further societal instability and political polarization. In a year where half the global population can vote for new leaders, the acceptance of innovation is essential to the success of our society. While people agree that scientists are essential to the acceptance of innovation, many are concerned that politics has too much influence on science. This perception is contributing to the decline of trust in the institutions responsible for steering us through change and towards a more prosperous future.”
The numbers are blunt. Distrust in government and media has grown. The report states that 64% of respondents believe the media is purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations; 63% believe that of government leaders and 61% believe that of business leaders. Furthermore, the report reveals global institutions are out of balance and government is seen as far less competent and ethical than business.
Leadership Gaps
Even though business is marginally regarded as more trustworthy than government leaders and the media, we wrote in The Truth About Transformation that Individuals in leadership positions may do things purely for approval from employees and their boards. That means sacrificing a code of values and beliefs, then trusting in yourself, your values, and your beliefs is tarnished. How do stakeholders, including employees, trust leaders who aren’t truthful and concrete? They need the confidence that leadership does what is right, even when others disagree. People tend not to trust those who always say whatever they think others want to hear. Trust is fundamentally built on respect.
Even worse is when individuals in leadership positions ignore the majority opinion. Bias and failure to listen objectively lead to jumping to conclusions and being defensive when the majority may be right. Stakeholders trust when they have access to provide feedback and have that input recognized. Never seeking their individual feedback is a huge, missed opportunity to effectively guide the organization.
Trust is gained when one is truthful, open, and recognizes failure and fault, demonstrating that individuals are not perfect. We all make mistakes, and the recognition of mistakes creates learning, humility, and vulnerability. Visible vulnerability in this instance also builds trust. It is not earned by spinning a story to deflect or ignore majority opinion and hold firm on biases. Being empathetic and communicating as simply as possible with truth also builds our trust in ourselves.
Bias and Power
A recurring theme in our consulting business and observations of organizations and institutions is the threat of unconscious and subconscious bias when it comes to personal and positional power. Bias influences how individuals defer, deflect, or acquire power. Bias can result in conscious, and unconscious lying to achieve and maintain power. It can cause leaders and managers to be dismissive when their positions are challenged and defensive when they are questioned.
Power is an aphrodisiac and can feed the egos and self-importance of individuals who are narcissists. When bias is at play, some individuals use power to get their own way and further self-gain. All organizations must be on the lookout and objectively recognize when and how positional and personal power held by individuals are enabling or hindering organizational change or transformation. Power can be false or represent mistruths—whether via data points, gossip, or posturing. The more aware we are and informed about the motivations of others, the more successful organizational change and transformation will be.
Sea Change
How do we shift the current popularity of lying to achieve personal and positional power? Can we reverse this trend? Is there any accountability for lying in the public arena?
Fact checks, even real-time during speeches and debates, have become the norm. We submit that accepting this as a fact of life is to compromise the ballast that keeps a nation balanced. It can ultimately lead to instability and implosion without a firm foundation and infrastructure. This goes for our institutions and organizations. As students of history, we offer the sad stories of the fall of Ancient Rome, the British, Ottoman, Austrian-Hungary, Nazi, and Aztec Empires, just to name a few.
No one could want that to be the trajectory and destiny of our life as we know it. But we’re on that American-made, beautifully engineered and designed self-driving vehicle headed into a brick wall.
Get “The Truth about Transformation”
The 2040 construct to change and transformation. What’s the biggest reason organizations fail? They don’t honor, respect, and acknowledge the human factor. We have compiled a playbook for organizations of all sizes to consider all the elements that comprise change and we have included some provocative case studies that illustrate how transformation can quickly derail.
