Lying

At my previous university, I taught at least one section of communication ethics every semester. We would discuss Kant, who thought that lying was never acceptable, under any circumstances, and every student would universally condemn that as too rigid. Throughout most of the semester, they would latch on to various versions of situational ethics.

One of my favorite moments in that course was when we would discuss Sissela Bok's book called "Lying." Students had to read the book by a particular moment in the course and write a brief paper about it. But the point of the paper was really to make sure they'd read so we could all discuss Bok's ideas. Bok believed that there were exceptions to Kant's universalism such as lying to save someone's life. But she believed that such exceptions were rare enough that very few of us would ever face them. When have you had to lie to save someone's life? Bok's rule of thumb was to think of lying as the option of last resort--always a bad idea, but sometimes the only option available. She called this the Principle of Veracity, that truth is always preferable to lying except in extreme circumstances. Bok also said that we're not really the best judges of when it's ok for us to lie. We should think about what it would be like if our peers knew about this lie--what would they think about us?

Now apply these ideas to workplaces. Lying is common in many organizations. We can all point to the Enron's and Countrywide's, but that's ducking the point in two ways. First, it's laying the blame on all the employees of those companies when many were also victims. Second, lying doesn't have to involve big issues and cost billions of dollars to be wrong. Fudging a timesheet or padding an expense account are both lying. So is making excuses for not coming in to work when those excuses are not legitimate. Flattery is a form of lying. Office politics are often based on deception.

Little "white lies" are all around us. You might think they're not a big deal, but I think there's two problems with even the smallest of lies. First, God says be honest. "Let your yes be yes and your no be no." Honesty honors God while dishonesty dishonors Him. Second, little lies increase our tolerance for dishonesty. We may have to tell bigger lies to cover up a little lie. Or we may just be more comfortable with medium sized lies because the smaller ones come so naturally. Lying becomes a habit, something we say before we even think about it. Remember, the problems with executives at Enron, Countrywide, and all of the other companies involved in scandals of the past decade didn't start out big. No one starts out to tell really outrageous lies. They start small. The lies grow and grow.

Make the decision today to be honest. It's not always convenient. It's sometimes uncomfortable or even dangerous to tell someone something other than what they want to hear. But it's the right thing to do.