What’s Your Reaction When People Lie To You?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Sep 28, 2011
A few weeks ago I made a sales call of sorts; yes, I hate doing it, but I do call on occasion. I called a guy that I thought might have at least heard my name in the past since he was working at a hospital that was relatively close to one I'd worked at, and I knew a couple of people that had worked at that same facility.
While talking to the guy, he indicated that he didn't know me and hadn't heard of me, but as we were talking about the area and the past he suddenly called me by my first name. Since it's not a common name I knew that, indeed, he knew who I was, and I called him on it. He didn't deny it, instead trying to change the subject, saying things he thought I'd like to hear, but not sounding sincere.
Why do people feel the need to lie sometimes, especially when they're not good at it? In this case I think the guy was trying to see what I might have to say about things that, as it turned out during our conversation, he either already knew or had suppositions about; kind of a fishing expedition. But it was obvious he had checked me out, and seriously; it's not all that easy to find out what my first name is (well, for most people anyway).
I have to say that as I hung up the phone I felt, well, slimed to a degree. It was like he tried to pull one over on me, like he was having fun with me at my expense, and I didn't like it one bit. I knew I would never be working with him or his hospital. He had an agenda and decided to use it for his own purposes.
What's your reaction when people lie to you? Think about this both in your personal and work life. Are the emotions really all that different when you think about it? No one likes it, and at times the stakes seem to be as high across the board, at least sometimes. If someone told you that you were in line for a promotion and you suddenly lost your job, would you feel better than if you found out your significant other was having an affair? Wouldn't the hurt be equal, to a degree?
I've been told two specific things in all the years I've been in business. One is that I'm too nice. The other is that I don't have a thick enough skin for business. As I've said often on this blog, I adhere to 3 things in people and businesses; honesty, loyalty and trustworthiness. As I wrote on my other blog a couple of days ago about trust, when it's lost it never comes back.
Or maybe I'm too sensitive. How do you feel when people lie to you?
I hate lies especially in the business or even just hiding the truth which is lie too. I don’t think that you are too sensitive and I don’t think that anybody in business tolerate lies. I used to be too nice, now I am more straight to the point, we do business or we do not, but must admit that this happened in the last year. I found out that casual and polite type of people can’t be successful in business nowadays.
Carl, I’d hate to think that one couldn’t be polite, but casual might be another story. One can’t sit around waiting for clients to just show up unfortunately.
I didn’t really mean not to be polite, I meant that probably in the past I was overdoing it.
Just a bit on the side, I’ve just been called by my ex-boss asking me for advice, our last meeting was not really nice, however I just decided to nice with him, because I remembered your words, that anything else will be just waste of energy. Thanks for that, Mitch!
I’m with you, Mitch. Lying is terrible.
I have to be honest though. Last week I lied to someone on purpose! No, this is not norm for me but I had been lied to the day before and was upset about it. Combined with my sadness and lack of sleep I decided to lie to this person to see if they’d call me on it because I just wanted to be able to bring up what they had done to me.
I’m honestly tired of being important enough when it’s convenient for the other person. I’m worth more than that. Much more.
Unfortunately, in business, lying is the norm. It’s upsetting. In my last position I knew many colleagues probably collected larger paychecks than I did but was at peace knowing mine was earned honestly.
Julie, there are overt lies where people are doing it because they can, then there are those “obfuscations” one sometimes has to do when you know someone else is doing something untoward and you have to ferret it out. As a manager, I knew that sometimes I was being fed a line by an employee, but instead of directly calling them out as a liar I’d set up a scenario that I knew they’d have no way of dealing with, and almost always they’d come clean by telling me they hadn’t been truthful. Kind of like when someone calls in sick 3 different times saying the same grandparent has passed away. lol
Made me chuckle. I’ve had to do that before with employees as well in the past. It takes some of them time to realize their manager wasn’t born yesterday. Some of those situations turned out to be great life lessons for one employee especially. She is often thanking me for all that I taught her and although at one point it was a difficult relationship it became something rewarding. Your response reminded me of that.
And I’m with you on the grandparents. I once knew someone who had 11 of them I believe. {eye roll here}
I will be hurt badly.. It it depends on how deep their lie is..
From a business point of view, lies have to be treated in a very systematic way. No emotions, you just have to do what’s more convenient to your business, not to you as a person, that’s what I personally think.
My first instinct would be to cut the head off the lier and put it on a spike to be honest, but this is hardly the best way to go :p More often it’s just better to wait and see where it leads, realizing that you have the strategic advantage to KNOW where the truth is.
You have an interesting perspective, Gabriele. My thing is that if you’re a sole proprietor, which I am, then it is personal and business at the same time. I wouldn’t treat someone differently in the name of business if it’s still me, and thus I expect people to at least treat me the same. It might be a naive thought but it’s my thought.
Mitch, your comment to Julie about being feed a line is exactly the point I want to address:
As a new supervisor, I still had “ol buddy, ol pal” written on my forehead. On of my subordinates fed me a line, which I swallowed whole. This involved an accusation of a third person so, imagine my surprise when I confronted the third person – having already convicted her, based on the line I was fed – and she demanded to speak face-to-face with her accuser.
I got the two of them together and, as you can guess, the accused got the accuser to admit that the line was a lie.
Having been so certain that the accused was guilty, I was deeply embarrassed and vowed to never again believe a thing anyone told me.
Obviously, I qualified and tempered that attitude over the years but, that lesson was never forgotten.
So, it may sound odd, but I have no feelings whatsoever, because I expect it.
The real issue is how to get to the truth. In the personal realm, I haven’t been lied to since the time my son took a bite out of a chocolate bar in the fridge – and denied it.
I told him once – and I repeated it to his siblings soon after they popped out – “I don’t care what you do. We can always fix it. What I don’t want is for you to ever lie to us.”
Thankfully, they took it to heart.
Imagine saying that to your co-workers? Actually, I DID – but those folks are tougher than little kids. At least I put it out there. the twist was this: “If you tell me the truth, I will defend your actions to the death. If you lie to me, you’ll swing alone.”
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitch, I was never close enough to anyone at work to allow such a thing to happen to me; well, once, but even then I told her that I would always judge every person on how they treated me and acted towards me and that was that. Kind of like Mandela when he proclaimed “Your enemies aren’t always my enemies.” After awhile every person at work knew that I’d find out the reality of things soon enough, and they stopped trying to challenge me. I did end up with a relationship where they would tell me the truth; so much easier, right?
Absolutely. Plus, the energy saved on snide gossip was spent on more positive things.
It wasn’t perfect – agendas are much more difficult to combat than humans – but we made it work.
Cheers,
Mitch