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Silhouette of Sherlock Holmes © The Sherlock Holmes Museum, London.
Much is known about the behaviors associated with lying. Indicators include patterns in voice, facial expressions, eye movements and so on. Unfortunately, most of this information is so fleeting and the movements are so rapid that accurate analysis often requires great skill, or audio or video equipment, or both.
To detect distortion, lies, or spin in most workplace situations, we need real-time analysis without such equipment. And we can get exactly that if we pay attention to the content and structure of the message, including what is said, what is not said, and how it is said or not said.
Here's Part I of a little catalog of ploys people use to make us believe something they don't. Check out Part II.
A message is especiallysuspect if it contains
appeals to your own
biases, beliefs and wishes
- Biases, beliefs, and wishes
- We all have biases, beliefs and wishes. Those who know what yours are can use them to make their messages more acceptable to you. A message is especially suspect if it contains appeals to your own biases, beliefs and wishes.
- Excessive qualification
- Some statements contain qualifications that sound like they're added for emphasis, but actually provide the misleader some safety through hidden restriction. For example, "The Congressman states unequivocally that he was not present in that meeting at 10 AM." Oh? Was he there at 10:01?
- Consistent ambiguity
- This technique usually entails restating an assertion several times in different ways, but always with enough ambiguity to protect the misleader from being caught in a lie.
- Letting something be discovered
- In this technique, the misleader hides one lie behind another. People usually assume that when they pull off the topmost false layer, the layer that's exposed is true. If you catch someone in a lie, don't assume that the next story is true.
- Truth is stranger than fiction
- Because most misleaders aren't gutsy enough to lie implausibly, they use plausibility as a disguise. If what you're hearing seems plausible, consider the possibility that it's a lie. If it's implausible, it might be wrong, but it's less likely to be a lie.
- Wiggle room
- Watch for ambiguity of the kind that could provide the misleader "wiggle room" through which to escape if caught. People who tell the truth need no wiggle room.
- The message is contained in the words of another
- When the essence of the tale is carried in the words of a third party, the teller can claim that he or she was misunderstood in paraphrasing taken out of context. And if found out, the teller didn't lie if the third party actually did speak the reported words.
When you detect a lie, you have a choice. You can confront the misleader, you can offer a way out, or you can let the lie lie. Choose wisely. Next issue in this series
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
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An Emergency Toolkit
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The Power and Hazards of Anecdotes: II
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See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming February 26: Devious Political Tactics: Bad Decisions
- When workplace politics influences the exchanges that lead to important organizational decisions, we sometimes make decisions for reasons other than the best interests of the organization. Recognizing these tactics can limit the risk of bad decisions. Available here and by RSS on February 26.
And on March 5: On Begging the Question
- Some of our most expensive wrong decisions have come about because we've tricked ourselves as we debated our options. The tricks sometimes arise from rhetorical fallacies that tangle our thinking. One of the trickiest is called Begging the Question. Available here and by RSS on March 5.
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