When the salesman arrived, we made sure the phones were ringing and the extras were scurrying around. Further evidence comes from professional sports. In our study, one respondent cited the case of Rick Pitino, who had recently announced his decision to leave as coach of the New York Knicks basketball team with over three years left on his contract.
Pitino was quoted in the New York Times the week before as saying that he never broke a contract. The stupidity of it all is that they get their way. Compared with the ambiguity of the Hutton and Exxon cases, the clear causality in the Kahn and Pitino cases is striking.
Without subterfuge, Borland International would almost certainly have folded. And there is a hard dollar number with lots of zeros in it that professional athletes and coaches gain when they shed a contract. What of the long term? Does treachery eventually get punished? Nothing in the record suggests it does. The robber barons who promoted them enjoyed great material rewards at the time—and their fortunes survived several generations.
Power can be an of effective substitute and for trust. But they continue to prosper. Why do reputation and retaliation fail as mechanisms for enforcing trust? Power—the ability to do others great harm or great good—can induce widespread amnesia, it appears.
Its early deceit is remembered, if at all, as an amusing prank. Prestigious New York department stores, several of our respondents told us, cavalierly break promises to suppliers. You used the wrong carrier. Financial types have taken control, the merchants are out. I delayed payments an average of 22 days from my predecessor at this kind of amount, and this is what I saved.
They have too much power—they screw one guy, and guys are waiting in line to take a shot at them again. Heroic resistance to an oppressive power is the province of the students at Tiananmen Square, not the businessfolk in the capitalist societies the students risk their lives to emulate. Businesspeople do not stand on principle when it comes to dealing with abusers of power and trust. You have to adjust, we were told.
If we dealt only with customers who share our ethical values, we would be out of business. But the deal was so good, I just accepted it, did the best I could, and had the lawyers make triply sure that everything was covered.
Sometimes the powerful leave other no choice. The auto parts supplier has to play ball with the Big Three, no matter how badly he or she has been treated in the past or expects to be treated in the future. Suppliers of fashion goods believe they absolutely have to take a chance on abusive department stores. Power here totally replaces trust. Nevertheless, even those with limited power can live down a poor record of trustworthiness. To illustrate, consider the angry letters the mail fraud unit of the U.
Post Office gets every year from the victims of the fake charities it exposes. They want to avoid information that says they have trusted a fraud. When the expected reward is substantial and avoidance becomes really strong, reference checking goes out the window. In the eyes of people blinded by greed, the most tarnished reputations shine brightly. Such investors want to believe in the fabulous returns the broker has promised. The search for data that confirm wishful thinking is not restricted to naive medical practitioners dabbling in pork bellies.
The Wall Street Journal recently detailed how a year-old conglomerateur perpetrated a gigantic fraud on sophisticated financial institutions such as Citibank, the Bank of New England, and a host of Wall Street firms.
A Salomon Brothers team that conducted due diligence on the wunderkind pronounced him highly moral and ethical. A few months later…. Even with a fully disclosed public record of bad faith, hard-nosed businesspeople will still try to find reasons to trust.
Lured by high yields, junk bond investors choose to believe that their relationship will be different: Wyatt had to break his contracts when energy prices rose; and a junk bond is so much more, well, binding than a mere supply contract. Similarly, we can imagine, every new Pitino employer believes the last has done Pitino wrong. Their relationship will last forever. Ambiguity and complexity can also take the edge off reputational enforcement. When we trust others to and keep complexity their word, we simultaneously rely on their integrity, native ability, and favorable external circumstances.
So when a trust appears to be breached, there can be so much ambiguity that even the aggrieved parties cannot apprehend what happened. Was the breach due to bad faith, incompetence, or circumstances that made it impossible to perform as promised? No one knows. Yet without such knowledge, we cannot determine in what respect someone has proved untrustworthy: basic integrity, susceptibility to temptation, or realism in making promises. We own the market. Then the company went on the skids.
The funny thing is, afterwards he bought the business back from us, put a substantial amount of his own capital in, and still has not turned it around.
He was independently wealthy from another sale anyway, and I think he wanted to prove that he was a great businessman and that we just screwed the business up. If he was a charlatan, why would he have cared? Where even victims have difficulty assessing whether and to what extent someone has broken a trust, it is not surprising that it can be practically impossible for a third party to judge. That difficulty is compounded by the ambiguity of communication.
Aggrieved parties may underplay or hide past unpleasantnesses out of embarrassment or fear of lawsuits. A final factor protecting the treacherous from their reputations is that it usually pays to take people at face value. Assuming that others are trustworthy, at least in their initial intentions, is a sensible policy.
Mistrust can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most respond to circumstances, and their integrity and trustworthiness can depend as much on how they are treated as on their basic character.
Initiating a relationship assuming that the other party is going to try to get you may induce him or her to do exactly that. Overlooking past lapses can make good business sense too.
People and companies do change. It is more than likely that once Borland International got off the ground, Kahn never pulled a fast one on an ad salesman again. Trust breakers are not only unhindered by bad reputations, they are also usually spared retaliation by parties they injure. Many of the same factors apply. Power, for example: attacking a more powerful transgressor is considered foolhardy. Getting even can be expensive; even thinking about broken trusts can be debilitating.
Businesspeople consider retaliation a wasteful distraction because they have a lot of projects in hand and constantly expect to find new opportunities to pursue.
The loss suffered through any individual breach of trust is therefore relatively small, and revenge is regarded as a distraction from other, more promising activities. It will take away from everything else.
You will take it out on the kids at home, and you will take it out on your wife. You will do lousy business. In general, our interviews suggested, businesspeople would rather switch than fight. An employee caught cheating on expenses is quietly let go.
Customers who are always cutting corners on payments are, if practicable, dropped. No fuss, no muss. Our interviewees also seemed remarkably willing to forget injuries and to repair broken relationships. A supplier is dropped, an employee or sales rep is let go.
Then months or years later the parties try again, invoking some real or imaginary change of circumstances or heart. What about the supposed benefits of retaliation? Game theorists argue that retaliation sends a signal that you are not to be toyed with.
This signal, we believe, has some value when harm is suffered outside a trusting relationship: in cases of patent infringement or software piracy, for example. But when a close trusting relationship exists, as it does, say, with an employee, the inevitable ambiguity about who was at fault often distorts the signal retaliation sends.
Without convincing proof of one-sided fault, the retaliator may get a reputation for vindictiveness and scare even honorable men and women away from establishing close relationships. Even the cathartic satisfaction of getting even seems limited.
We would be guilty of gross exaggeration if we claimed that honesty has no value or that treachery is never punished. Trustworthy behavior does provide protection against the loss of power and against invisible sniping. But these protections are intangible, and their dollars-and-cents value does not make a compelling case for trustworthiness.
A good track record can protect against the loss of power. Long-suppressed memories of past abuses may then come to the fore, past victims may gang up to get you. A deal maker cited the fate of an investment bank that was once the only source of financing for certain kinds of transactions. The industry knew that this is what you had to expect; our people had no choice. Now that the bank has run into legal problems and there are other sources of funds, people are flocking elsewhere.
At the first opportunity to desert, people did—and with a certain amount of glee. They are getting no goodwill benefit from their client base because when they were holding all the cards they screwed everybody. There are parabola curves in all businesses, and people still supported me, even though we had a low, because they believed in me. Trustworthiness may also provide immediate protection against invisible sniping. If a client tries to jerk me around, I mark up my fees.
On occasion, sniping can threaten the power it rebels against. The high-handedness of department stores, for example, has created a new class of competitors, the deep discounter of designer apparel.
At the same time, the manufacturers have learned that we treat them right. We scrupulously keep our promises. Anyone can set up an outlet. What really matters is the trust of the suppliers.
Neither of these benefits can be factored easily into a rational business analysis of whether to lie or keep a promise. Sniping is invisible; the sniper will only take shots that you cannot measure or see. How could you possibly quantify the financial repercussions when suppliers you have abused refuse your telephone orders or ship hot items to your competitors first? Assessing the value of protection against the loss of power is even more incalculable.
It is almost as difficult to anticipate the nature of divine retribution as it is to assess the possibility that at some unknown time in the future your fortunes may turn, whereupon others may seek to cause you some unspecified harm.
There is simply no need to lie because he knows that when caught it will create an impossible mess. We all have heard that honesty is the best policy and it is imperative to follow it if you want to lead a better life. If you are looking for ways to be honest first you need to be truthful to yourself.
Do not make any excuses for your habits or patterns. Do not take the help of white lies. It becomes ingrained and after a time we stop realizing that lies are simply untruths no matter what. Yes, it will be difficult at the onset and the need to lie and come out of any situation will be a temptation but remember honesty will help you in achieving your inner peace. Accept your flaws and try to overcome them and with time you will become honest and content in life. If you are looking for ways to be honest, you need to take out a few minutes on a regular basis for self-analysis.
Ask yourself questions about your day and if you told any lies and the reason for it. Do not be judgemental or critical. Try to analyze how you could have avoided the lies. Once you start contemplating and looking for truths instead of lies you are on the right path. Learn from mistakes and try to improve your habit and behavior after true reflection. Be straightforward in your dealings if you are looking for ways to be honest. Do not overanalyze things or get carried away.
If you are looking for self-improvement it becomes essential to be truthful in your dealings and stop rationalizing and thinking about the outcomes. A person who is straightforward is honest and matter-of-fact about everything. He does not have any need to elaborate on things or put his best foot forward to create false impressions on others. Are you influenced by others very easily and want to make a favorable impression on them.
People lie when they start comparing themselves with others and want to compete. It seems easy to cover their own inadequacies with lies and half-truths. The more time you spend with them the more creative you become with the lies.
If you are looking for ways to be honest, accept yourself as you are. If you are dissatisfied with any trait or quality try to correct them instead of lying and showing yourself in a better frame. Be honest and truthful so that you can impress others with these character traits instead of lies.
You do not want to lie but sometimes you have to. Take a step back and contemplate the things you lie about. Is it about a habit, small things or bigger things that you are ashamed of or are they simply white lies told so that no one gets hurt? Are you honest when someone asks for an opinion? If your wife asks whether a dish she has cooked is tasty or not is your reaction automatically yes, even if your answer should have been no.
If you are looking for ways to be honest, choose your words a bit delicately so that you do not have to lie. For example, you could have told your wife that it needs a bit of improvement. Remember everyone needs and expects an honest opinion even if the truth hurts. Do not try to lie in the name of pleasing others because at the end of the day you are being dishonest to yourself. In our personal and professional life, we come across several people that we start admiring and liking.
It is important to be honest from the onset so that there is no need to start lying about anything. Be the best version of yourself if you are looking for ways to be honest. Do not hide your character traits because they are the basic foundation of your existence. In close relationships, it is better to be truthful and open so that the other person can know you better inside out. A person who is in the habit of exaggerating and embellishing things will take the help of half-truths to make his point viable in front of others.
It might seem harmless and funny at the beginning but after some time will start grating on your nerves. When the words are not honest it loses its authenticity. It is imperative that you step away from such habits if you are looking for ways to be honest. Simple embellishments and exaggeration can later become wild fantasies that will create a bad impression about you on others.
Start speaking accurate facts to create a favorable impact on your near and dear ones. You have to like yourself before you start loving others. There is no need to take help of lies to impress others and instigate yourself in their circle. Remember lies will be lies and truth always prevails. If you are looking for ways to be honest then stop trying to impress others. The foundation of any meaningful relationship is based on honesty and truth.
If a person cares about you he expects honesty as a basic courtesy. He wants to know the real person standing in front of him not someone whose existence s based on untruths and half lies.
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