[Crossposted at SpreadingScience]
Complete Honesty is the Access to Ultimate Power
[Via Rands in Repose]
Rebekah Campbell via the New York Times:
A study by the University of Massachusetts found that 60 percent of adults could not have a 10-minute conversation without lying at least once. The same study found that 40 percent of people lie on their résumés and a whopping 90 percent of those looking for a date online lie on their profiles. Teenage girls lie more than any other group, which is attributed to peer pressure and expectation. The study did not investigate the number of lies told by entrepreneurs looking for investment capital, but I fear we would top the chart.
Also:
Peter maintains that telling lies is the No. 1 reason entrepreneurs fail. Not because telling lies makes you a bad person but because the act of lying plucks you from the present, preventing you from facing what is really going on in your world. Every time you overreport a metric, underreport a cost, are less than honest with a client or a member of your team, you create a false reality and you start living in it.
Drink a cup of coffee before reading this one.
[More]
Telling th truth, especially when it exposes errors you have made, can make you feel vulnerable. Especially with so many sociopathic people running things.
Looking weak is not a plus for sociopaths.
But telling lies creates a disconnect from reality, a Cargo Cult World that leads away from what actually happens. It invites more lies that divide you even more from reality.
Eventually you inhabit a world that not only does not exist but can actually prevent you from thriving in the real world.
Too many people today simply construct unsustainable Cargo Cult worlds to inhabit by lying to themselves and others. They will fall.
Here the author shows how even in business setting, telling the truth is best. Because Nature always wins.
A Man With A Ph.D. 