Lying is normal! Honesty... You mean naivety right?

An article based on an extract from our PDF - The psychology of lean manufacturing

The cheque is in the post ... The van got stuck in traffic ... the plane was delayed ... Customs held it up on the docks ... the testing was all carried out to British Standards ...

We checked for Asbestos, here's the certificate to prove it ...

Or in the case of Carillion and multiple corporate crashes...

"We were audited and posted our accounts, we were compliant, that's all we are required to do!"

These are all statements i've actually heard executives say, knowing full well they were masking deeper issues. (To put it politely).

I don’t know about you, but my Mum brought me up to believe lying was wrong... and above all else, honesty is always the best policy.

(Incredibly nai?ve or ultimate wisdom? Tread carefully! The answer will be a window into your soul).

Whatever you think, someone sure as hell forgot to put Honesty for brain, mind and social benefit into the corporate playbook! If it wins the contract or improves EBITDA for the PE investor to improve the chance of getting the anticipated ROI, just say what you have to say, win the work, then, if you can't deliver, try and get away with it... lie some more!

About a decade ago, one managing consultant in a city based consulting firm was explaining that the Government were as naive as the NHS,... when he really shocked me ... the one-sided conversation went a little like this;

"It doesn't matter that our presence will add no value, our job it is to get in, make it look like we're analysing processes, issue a few reports and get out so we can get the cash in the bank, they pay double what we can get in the private sector and it's tax payers money ... so who cares?"

When I challenged him on grounds of honesty and morality, he got up, left the meeting and told me to find my own way out. I literally had to ask a lady sitting on a desk outside the meeting room how to find my way out of the building. I didn't win any work with them. They did however win a lot more work with the UK Government.

You'll find plenty of people in business today, who'll enthusiastically provide the following advice:

"Don't be naive - it's the way the world works! No-one wants to hear what they need, they want to hear what they expect to hear, just fudge the numbers and issue the report, who is ever going to know?"

or

"Look, just tell them what they want to hear so no-one is on your back, if you tell the truth, they'll just blame you."

Fear as a result of blame permeates most organisations and undermines performance in psychological ways few can comprehend.

So,... rather than 'being the norm' ... what if this fear, blame and lying approach we all recognise is exactly the way the world

doesn't work? What if those who say it is naive to think otherwise, are, in fact, the naive ones?

Scrutinising the issue of 'normalised lying' through the lens of psychology and neuroscience, it can be identified that;

• Honesty [or 'Openness' – one of the ‘Big5’ psychological blocks],
• Respect and
• Trust (HRT for business)

... are key elements of a high performing brain and equally, at a social level, a high performance culture ... in business and various other walks of life (politics).

This is because ‘Honesty Respect and Trust’ established between people triggers the release of some positive chemicals and the reduction of negative chemicals in the brains of those involved.

The positive chemicals involved combine to produce a sense of security (neural homeostasis in respect to physical and social risk).

In short, HRT = psychological safety!

So what?

So what! Psychological safety is THE one common factor behind high performance in teams ... according to Google’s recent, and amazing ‘Aristotle Study’.

If the findings from such studies, utilising 'Big-Data' (which seems to be required before you are allowed an opinion these days) are to be accepted, the suggestion is this;

Leaders who understand what is required in respect to their own attitudes, beliefs and behaviours are better placed to create the sociological and psychological conditions required for high performing teams to evolve.

High performing teams, means, teams who act as fast as is practicable and deliver better results. It transpires, root cause of performance is leadership. Leaders have to consciously create the conditions in which people can perform at their best... the result is an organisations culture, high performance or otherwise.

Conversely, in the absence of HRT, the sense is one of unease, mistrust, suspicion and stress. (Where the word ‘sense’ covers neural wiring, firing and a mix of chemical activity, we loosely call ‘defence mechanisms’ (against fear / blame)).

This makes the capacity for some people to present ‘the facts as they suit them’ (marketing messages) .. and the social acceptance of such behaviours ... a VERY significant issue indeed.

The seemingly un-challenged trend to promote a false truth, to ‘sell’ (for financial gain) or to obtain buy-in to an inaccurate story (Taylor's Pig iron hauling experiments as justification for line balancing etc.), or an MD's promise of compliance or delivery to a customer, systematically erodes the building blocks of a high performance culture within organisations and ultimately, throughout industry and society.

(What's the UK's current productivity rating?)

Say again?

Any false account of benefit from lean tools application, of Taylorism as a success story, of Motorola's success as 'Six Sigma' (see link) as opposed to the Shainin Method ... to 'sell' a solution ... is part of the reason the solution fails to improve performance at a cultural level.

A bit of a circular reference, but ironic nonetheless huh?

"Make up a story from selected historical facts to sell a solution that has a questionable success rate and you increase the likelihood of that solution failing." (Due to a whole host of psychological issues at play in any change environment).

The brain doesn't respond well to a lack of honesty or respect and it doesn't trust those feeding them crap, irrespective of title.

It turns out, how we conduct ourselves morally (a psychological / neurological issue - i.e. how we represent the machinations of our brain to the outside world) ... and whether we're genuine or not, is just as important to organisational change and performance improvement, if not more so, than the technical education of tools and skills.

If you're interested in next level leadership, culture, strategy, Hoshin Kanri, Lean, sustainable change or process performance etc. contact us.

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