Lying and Procrastinating at Work(fins.com)
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Lying and Procrastinating at Work
http://www.fins.com/Finance/Articles/SB126712529900951705/The-Upside-to-Lying-and-Procrastinating-at-Work
8 comments
I agree, everybody lies, it is human. Should it be expected?
Lying is far from the optimal way. When a company structure starts to mimic a hierarchical army structure then lying becomes one of the tools to maintain it.
If instead of having to lie you manage to create complete openness with people you work with and everyone has an interest in the projects success, lying is no longer a useful tool. Being honest with what you want out of something, what you expect from others and understanding what others need from you is a more optimal way to achieve your goals and keep a balance in your life. This requires complete openness, knowing everything about the business, about salaries, deals, expenses, expectations, capabilities. This means treating people like adults who can be informed of anything if they want to. No room for "on a need to know basis". This is hard.
When you feel the need to go to the park on a sunny day instead of compiling that much needed TPS report it is better to go to the park than pretend and lie you are doing the work. Everyone is better off acknowledging we are human and not mechanical beings.
Lying is far from the optimal way. When a company structure starts to mimic a hierarchical army structure then lying becomes one of the tools to maintain it.
If instead of having to lie you manage to create complete openness with people you work with and everyone has an interest in the projects success, lying is no longer a useful tool. Being honest with what you want out of something, what you expect from others and understanding what others need from you is a more optimal way to achieve your goals and keep a balance in your life. This requires complete openness, knowing everything about the business, about salaries, deals, expenses, expectations, capabilities. This means treating people like adults who can be informed of anything if they want to. No room for "on a need to know basis". This is hard.
When you feel the need to go to the park on a sunny day instead of compiling that much needed TPS report it is better to go to the park than pretend and lie you are doing the work. Everyone is better off acknowledging we are human and not mechanical beings.
>>This means treating people like adults who can be informed of anything if they want to.
This is where everything breaks. Most people are not willing to behave like adults, they lie about their illness, when they simply partied yesterday, every end-developer unwittingly lies about time to complete a task and you have to correct him and so on.
In and ideal world (or in some perfect company) maybe everything works as you described (e.g. complete openness and etc.), but in a real world everybody lies.
This is where everything breaks. Most people are not willing to behave like adults, they lie about their illness, when they simply partied yesterday, every end-developer unwittingly lies about time to complete a task and you have to correct him and so on.
In and ideal world (or in some perfect company) maybe everything works as you described (e.g. complete openness and etc.), but in a real world everybody lies.
There are people who never grow up and behave irresponsibly. The first example, people who party and lie about being sick can easily be detected by their peers and removed from the group when their partying stops them from doing their share.
If however they pretend to be sick or in any way evade some things at work, but do perform, it is not the worker who is the problem, but something in the way the company operates.
The other example on developers estimates has more to do with people being optimistic in estimates by nature. Another cause is misaligned interests where a developer gets payed the same if he is on time, misses a deadline or does the work before the deadline and gets more work for reward. When the incentive is direct, a customer gets his update on time and pays the next years support fee which in turn gets the developer more money and the developer can connect these, there is no problem with estimates or deadlines. This is ofcourse hard, but doable easily through openness.
It boils down to being surrounded by people you trust. If someone can't be trusted it is a huge waste to manage them. Finding responsible adults is hard, but in the long term brings more value, not just in terms of €€€ but in a better balance between work and life. Life is too short for squeezing productivity from losers.
The other example on developers estimates has more to do with people being optimistic in estimates by nature. Another cause is misaligned interests where a developer gets payed the same if he is on time, misses a deadline or does the work before the deadline and gets more work for reward. When the incentive is direct, a customer gets his update on time and pays the next years support fee which in turn gets the developer more money and the developer can connect these, there is no problem with estimates or deadlines. This is ofcourse hard, but doable easily through openness.
It boils down to being surrounded by people you trust. If someone can't be trusted it is a huge waste to manage them. Finding responsible adults is hard, but in the long term brings more value, not just in terms of €€€ but in a better balance between work and life. Life is too short for squeezing productivity from losers.
Unfortunately life is to short to wait for a person you can fully trust and then starting your own business.
It is better to start with few people to be honest with and try to squeeze productivity from others than waiting through your life to find a enough good persons to work with. If you don't do nothing you usually do not meet much people and thus have a little chance of meeting someone valuable. But if you do work with what you have, you start getting publicity and more good persons visit your company, and you can pick. Even with that approach you cannot have a company of completely honest employees/partners, because even if you do think so one day, they can be the ones lying and you just didn't find that out yet.
It is better to start with few people to be honest with and try to squeeze productivity from others than waiting through your life to find a enough good persons to work with. If you don't do nothing you usually do not meet much people and thus have a little chance of meeting someone valuable. But if you do work with what you have, you start getting publicity and more good persons visit your company, and you can pick. Even with that approach you cannot have a company of completely honest employees/partners, because even if you do think so one day, they can be the ones lying and you just didn't find that out yet.
The most interesting thing about the article is that people randomly assigned to positions of power lied better than their underlings. It's not simply a matter of better liars rising to better positions -- being in power changes you physically. ("Power corrupts"?)
I haven't read the article yet (disclaimer), but would this speak to the influence of asymmetry of information (who knows what), that has been mentioned in the media more and more in the last few years?
The real question is, does lying help lead one into positions of power? Or, as the study more strongly suggests, does power encourage lying?
Someone does it better though. If you're a CEO or just some person who manages resources and is responsible for project completion - you will lie!
It's just better that way. Your employee doesn't need to know all the details, so he/she could concentrate on his work and client/employer doesn't need to know all the details so he didn't do any stupid things. Anyway you're responsible for a result, if it includes lying all the way ,then so be it.