The Transformational Practice of Telling the Truth (Leading With Honour II)
‘My faults are many, but I do not lie.’
So says Jon Shannow, David Gemmell’s post-apocalyptic hero in the novel Wolf In Shadow, reassuring a young boy that – despite appearances – he is not at the boy’s house with ill intent.
In this line lies one of the key aspects of leading with honour.
Archetypes Can Guide Us to Honour
The word ‘stereotype’ is used so often in the 21st century it has almost lost its meaning; the word ‘archetype’ on the other hand is one which can serve any of us powerfully in fulfilling our potential.
Whilst the definitions are close, the difference in these two words feels enormous.
Stereotype: the restrictive reduction of a person to their base characteristics, allowing no space for the texture of each human.
Archetype: the invitation into a key aspect of human character; a connection to the collective unconscious; the opening of the possibility of our potential if we step into living the archetype for ourselves.
And so we can look to our myths, legends and stories for the archetypes that show us who we could be.
We can find – in ancient or modern literature – the characters that invite us into more than ourselves.
If we do that with honour in mind, we will find the clues as to what it might look like to lead with honour in the 21st century.
One of the most common themes is in Shannow’s phrase: ‘My faults are many, but I do not lie.’
I do not lie.
Tell the Truth, or – at Least – Don’t Lie.
I remember the strange way that the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson entered my awareness.
First whispers and bits of conversation from my brother about this interesting guy on YouTube.
Then a little more, here and there – a drip feed of mentions online and in conversation.
Then a trip to the RSA to see him speak (and find him compelling). Then, that same day as I remember, an extraordinary interview with Cathy Newman on Channel 4.
He was a lightning rod for something in the zeitgeist.
It was strange to watch. People who I knew to be reasonable hated him despite having never engaged with his work.
Like Newman in that interview, people twisted his thinking again and again.
Later, like many on the Internet, he seemed at times to slip into becoming what his critics had said he was. And of course, I don’t agree with everything he has ever said.
But most significantly in the midst of all of that was the incredible impact he had on people.
The enormous numbers of people whose lives were changed by engaging with his work, particularly his lectures and his second book, 12 Rules For Life.
What actually got me to engage deeply with his work was two clients spontaneously talking to me about him a few days apart.
But not just about any part of his work.
About one of his ’12 Rules’ in particular:
Rule 4: Tell the truth or-at least-don’t lie.
‘I’ve been noticing all these little lies I tell,’ said one of my clients. ‘I do it all the time, almost without thinking.’ Another, days apart, said something almost the same.
Like many, honesty and integrity had been central in my values. But, like many, I hadn’t truly considered this before. And like my clients, despite claiming my commitment to honesty, I was lying all the time.
That was when I got really interested in this idea of telling the truth.
And it changed me.
A Firmer Grasp on Reality: the Psychological Benefits of Not Lying
The subtitle of Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life is ‘an antidote to chaos’, and for me in none of his rules was that clearer than in that fourth rule, focusing us on telling the truth.
Many years earlier in my readings on psychology, I had found discussions on the damaging danger of parents questioning their child’s grip on reality. The risks of responding to ‘I’m sad,’ or ‘I’m happy,’ with ‘No, you aren’t.’ Reassuring, perhaps, in the mind of the parent. But not true.
Katie Hendricks observed in a workshop I attended many years ago how many of us struggle answering the question, ‘What do you want?’
Hendricks, too, pointed to the risks of messing with a child’s grasp of reality. The child saying, ‘I want this,’ and the kind parent responding: ‘No, you don’t’.
It might be better for the child not to want it; but it may not be true that they don’t.
As a child develops its grasp on reality, listening to its senses, the incredible influence of the parent becomes apparent. Indeed, how do any of us really understand the world except, initially, through the people around us?
In some ways, the first lenses we have are theirs.
But as we grow, we develop our own.
We begin to separate from our parents.
And then, what do we have? How do our lenses change?
Well, at least partially, they develop by what we say and what we think.
If we lie to ourselves, our grip on reality weakens and a little more chaos is welcomed in.
If we tell the truth to ourselves - or at least the best grasp we can have on the truth at that moment - our grip on reality strengthens.
It may not always be preferable to have the truth – the false safety and innocence we may create for ourselves with our lies can feel nicer and more comfortable.
But in the end, the truth will catch up with us.
Better to know how things really are, than pretend they are different.
Better to take a firmer grasp on reality by telling yourself the truth.
And you only have to play a quick game to see how the words we say affect our reality.
Truth Telling Practice #1 - I Choose To: the Path of Responsibility
Try this, which I first did in a workshop session led by the coach Marie de Champchesnel.
Think of something you have on your list to do in the next week. Say out loud: I have to do X.
I have to go to the gym.
I have to pick up the girls from nursery.
I have to send that email about that work today.
See how it feels. Notice what happens in your body as you say it.
Then try this: remove ‘have to’ and replace it with ‘could’ or ‘choose to’.
I could go to the gym.
I choose to pick up the girls from nursery.
I could send that email about that work today.
See how that feels. Notice what happens in your body. Notice what is different.
Usually, the freedom and release of ‘could’ or the agency of ‘choose to’ removes tension and opens possibility in our bodies. But it is not only a way to feel better.
Crucially, also, it is true.
And ‘have to’ is a lie.
Several years ago, in a workshop on wellbeing with a group of the most exciting researchers at a leading UK university, my colleague and I had them map the things that negatively impacted their wellbeing along an axis of control. From the things they had no control over at one end, to the things they had complete control over at the other.
As we looked at the group’s mapping, one woman said something like this: ‘Well, the truth is we have control over all of this. If I really don’t want my childcare struggles, I could put my children up for adoption.’
I’ll never forget that. It was such a clear demonstration of taking agency and responsibility over our lives. And it was such an in-your-face way of demonstrating it. I didn’t have children at the time, and so I wouldn’t have been bold enough to say that, and it wouldn’t have landed for the other people there if I had. But when she said it as a mother, a penny dropped for everyone in the room.
What I learned fully and crisply in that woman’s statement was this: we always have a choice, even if some of them are unpalatable to us.
Some people put their children up for adoption; sometimes, it is probably the wisest thing to do. Even if, for you, that is unpalatable.
Some people leave their husbands or wives, not because of deep betrayal or an affair, but because they think it’s the best thing for them or for everyone. Even if, for you, that is unpalatable.
You may think that you have to do whatever your boss says, but you don’t. You choose to. Perhaps because the increased risk of losing your job is unpalatable.
But somewhere is a line that if your boss asked you to cross it, you would refuse. Best to always remember that. Best to remember you have the choice.
Because if you don’t, your principles may slip gradually. Until in the end you find yourself committing an act that you-of-a-few-years-ago would claim you would never have done. Perhaps with your children, or your partner, or your work.
I’ve heard the Enron story told like that: that no one set out to create the events that led to the scandal. Many people simply compromised their integrity a tiny bit at a time until the whole business was built on fraud.
One of the core practises of telling the truth, then, is taking a firm grasp on this aspect of reality: you have choice everywhere.
Again: owning that choice doesn’t always feel nice. But it is good for you.
The Argentine author Fred Kofman uses a metaphor of thirst for this. It may feel nice to abdicate responsibility with those little lies to yourself about how you ‘have to’ do something. That’s like drinking a fizzy drink. It tastes great, but it doesn’t quench your thirst.
Telling yourself the truth about the choices you make in your life: that’s clear, thirst-quenching water. It actually helps.
Only by telling yourself the truth can you take responsibility for your choices.
Only when you truly take responsibility for your choices can you be sure you are making the best ones.
‘Freedom,’ Peterson calls this. ‘Dreadful freedom.’
So, when you catch yourself saying ‘I have to’ or ‘I can’t’, remember that you have a choice.
Ground yourself in that by telling the truth.
Do it about the big things.
It’s not that I have to stay in this job. It’s that I’m choosing to.
It’s not that I have to travel for work. It’s that I’m choosing to.
It’s not that I have to pick up the children from school and finish work early. It’s that I’m choosing to.
It’s not that I have to take the hard path of honour. It’s that I’m choosing to.
Do it about the little things, too. The practice will mostly come there – in changing small lies of the type my clients and I spotted after reading Peterson’s book.
It’s not that I can’t meet her for coffee. It’s that I choose not to.
It’s not that I can’t pick you up from the station. It’s that I choose not to.
At least, say that to yourself.
At least, don’t lie to yourself or to them.
And then, find the way to say it to them that isn’t a lie, but is skilful in protecting and deepening the relationship.
When you hold onto the choice, you take a firmer grasp on reality.
And more becomes possible.
Truth Telling Practice #2 - Choice as a Productivity Tool
This firmer grasp of reality about our choice and our responsibility is one of the key moves for effectiveness and productivity in the 21st Century.
Many time management tools and techniques – from the ‘to do list’ to Warren Buffet’s crazy career planning ideas – are really Choice Management techniques.
One of the most crucial lessons we can learn in life – I learnt it from the trainer Sarah Cartwright – is that when we say Yes to one thing, we are saying No to everything else. And if we say No to something, we create the possibility to say Yes to something else.
Contrary to our normal way of thinking, ‘No’ is a possibility move.
By telling ourselves the truth about our level of choice, we enable ourselves to live that idea: Yes to one thing is No to everything else; No to something makes possible Yes to something else.
By taking that firmer grasp on reality we empower ourselves to make the hard choices.
Every time we refuse that truth, we fall into what I call The Time Management Trap: if I can just manage my time well enough, then I can get everything done.
Oliver Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks (roughly the number we’ll get in our lives), is a reminder of that. He believes that most of the obsession with time management is to stop ourselves having to admit that one day we’ll die and we won’t have got everything done.
If we can pretend we will get everything done, then perhaps we can pretend we won’t die.
A lovely, delicious fizzy drink of a lie to ourselves.
Confronting though the truth is, it matters.
We can’t get everything done.
One day we’ll die.
Better, by far, to know that. To live with that thirst-quenching truth.
To grasp reality and take it with us.
To make the courageous choices in the face of our undeniably limited life.
If I’m only here for so long, then really all that matters is the choices I make while I’m here.
Who do I spend time with?
Who do I want to be?
How do I make this life count?
How do I live honourably, so at the end of my life I can feel at peace with myself?
Truth Telling Practice #3 – Truth Above Pleasing Others
Telling the truth doesn’t mean saying everything you think.
It doesn’t mean unnecessarily hurting others’ feelings.
But it does guide us into a powerful practice: placing the truth above the need to please others.
In Jennifer Garvey Berger’s powerhouse book, Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps, she writes about how our minds evolved for simpler times and identifies the places we fall into traps because of that.
One of her mindtraps is being ‘Trapped by Agreement’. How the need to agree with others – to create harmony, to keep everyone happy – holds us back.
It makes complete sense that we would do this, especially if we think back to times when we lived in small communities that relied heavily on each other.
As many people have observed: for much of our history, to be ostracised by the tribe meant risk of death.
That’s why many – including me – feel the criticism or judgement of others so strongly.
It feels like a matter of life and death.
But in today’s world it rarely is.
One of Garvey Berger’s solutions to being ‘Trapped by Agreement’ is to ask yourself a question like this: could this conflict serve to deepen a relationship?
Like ‘No is a possibility move’, ‘conflict as a move to deepen connection’ goes against many of our assumptions.
And yet… what if this is possible?
Many of us, early in a relationship, have been through an argument only to come out the other side. And, on the other side, found greater security and connection. Now I know we can go through that and love is still there at the end.
We aren’t always taught that about relationships – if the only time we saw a couple fight as a child was just before they broke up, we may hold old stories that an argument is the cause of a divorce.
But what if it isn’t? What if it a way for two people to deepen their relationship?
At the very least, if we can skilfully and courageously tell the truth to others, we give them the chance to have a firmer grasp on our reality.
To more deeply understand where we are.
If they truly understand that, maybe they can help.
And maybe pleasing others doesn’t actually make things better for them; not like knowing the truth could.
Putting the truth above pleasing others can also be an act of leadership: saying No by holding our values out to people as an explanation (read more about how to do that here) can show people that holding to their values can be more important than keeping everyone happy.
Cultures become more polluted each time someone compromises themselves.
They become more honourable each time someone holds to their values when it’s hard.
Holding truth above pleasing others also protects us: it protects us from manipulating others’ reality.
Many years ago, with a tricky colleague, I stumbled on a skilful technique in a meeting. He seemed to respond better to my ideas when I reminded him that he had planted the seed for them.
In my (somewhat youthful, probably slightly arrogant, possibly correct) view, he was a really tricky customer. He delayed meetings, held things up, and generally made it less fun to be part of that team. And so I didn’t have many regrets about pushing that skilful piece of influence further… into the beginnings of manipulation. I started to use the same technique but with a carelessness with the truth: ‘Like you said,’ I would say… when it wasn’t quite true.
It seemed to still work… and yet.
Not true.
Not honourable.
And this matters.
In a complex system, we can never know where things end or what the consequences of our actions will be further down the line. We can’t control where things go, and so instead we need to focus – as Garvey Berger would say in a different part of that same book – on enabling.
I might have been right to compromise that value of honesty in that moment in favour of increasing the effectiveness of the meetings and getting that tricky customer somewhat out of the way.
He may have seen through my youthful manipulation; or he may not, and his reality may have become more clouded because of it.
I can’t be sure what the impact was.
And if I slow down with the experience I have now, my reflection is this: I can be pretty sure that everyone having a firmer grasp on reality is one of the things which enables good things to happen in the future.
Better to tell the truth, always. By skilful, yes. Influence, yes.
But take care with your words: it affects not just your reality but others’, too.
The Truth in Sales and Marketing
Another place where we see people either manipulating or choosing pleasing over the truth is in sales and marketing.
The popular story would be the former: that manipulation rules in sales and marketing. Truth is absent in favour of the sale.
In the 21st Century that seems a short-sighted tactic. You can manipulate someone into buying once, but the success won’t last long. Sustainable businesses are based on long client relationships: if Tesco behave abominably, I’ll stop using them. Success - long term success - is more of a market driver than honour here, but the outcome is the same. That mostly, service trumps manipulation. Leading to the truth more commonly being told.
Interestingly, in my work I more commonly see the latter: people choosing pleasing over the truth in sales and marketing.
Especially with coaches or values-driven leaders and entrepreneurs, I see people skirting the truth in their sales conversations. Hiding that they want to work with someone. Avoiding conversations about the money required; circumventing what they truly think the value of their service is.
They hope that by doing this everyone will be left pleased.
The outcomes of this are mainly two-fold:
A shock, later, when the reality of a sale becomes apparent: the money involved, the type of work, or some other detail we hid to please them. Better, then, to skilfully tell the truth: money is a part of this, that’s how it works. Here’s how we’ll talk about it and when.
No sale. Sometimes the truth - say, the desire of the seller to sell - is left so hidden that buying is a less attractive offer. Sometimes a buyer is cheated of the opportunity to say Yes or No by fearing the truth and holding to pleasing.
Telling the truth skilfully and with honour in these conversations is an art. And it’s an art worth practising.
In marketing, it happens, too.
People hide the truth about themselves or their business for fear of disappointing others or seeming fake.
But in marketing, it is an act of honour to tell the truth about ourselves or our businesses from the place of greatest possibility: this could be what working with me is like for you. Let’s find out together.
That is what enables people to take hold of the work, see the possibility in it, and take your service for themselves.
That is not lying. (Unless it is.)
Hiding ourselves as smaller, or less significant, by not telling the truth of what we could be in our marketing… that is not the truth. And it affects our grasp on reality, too: we believe ourselves smaller than we are (or bigger than we are) when we tell the world that.
It can be hard to make these sales and marketing moves in a skilful way.
All we can do is practise telling the truth about our business. Set that as our intention. And maybe, sometimes, get help.
With my clients, one of my greatest pleasures is to hear the truth from them and then share it back with them.
‘How do I talk about myself in my marketing?’ they say. Or ‘How do I tell my boss this kind of thing?’
And I say, ‘Well, you could tell them the truth,’ and share back to them the beautifully articulated things they have just shared with me.
I may be able to tell that truth more cleanly because I’m not carrying everything my client is carrying – their polluted grasp on reality about themselves; the things that seem to be riding on the conversation they’re thinking about.
But the thing that really enabled me to catch it is that in their coaching, my clients practise telling the truth.
And once the truth has been spoken, then it can be held, and – should we choose to – shown to others.
Truth Telling Practice #4 – Crystal Clear Commitments
If the constant mislabelling of choice as obligation is one of the most common lies, regularly distorting people’s reality beyond their realisation, then the language around commitments is one of the most practically disruptive.
A deep dive into the power of making crystal clear commitments needs another article, highlighting the power and value of everyone in a situation knowing exactly what everyone else will do… and then working to do it. That is the act of integrity rather than honesty: keeping or honouring your word.
Here, we are concerned with the act of honesty: in particular, to be aware of when we say we will do or try to do something even though we know, deep down, that we won’t.
‘I’ll try,’ as I once heard someone say, is what people say when they want credit for not doing something.
The core principle here is this: better to know straight away if someone will or will not do something than to wait for months only to find out they aren’t going to.
And worse still – and even less honourable – is if they knew all along, underneath, that they wouldn’t actually do the thing.
Keeping others happy – or, avoiding letting them down – is a curse. But the deepening of a relationship is possible as we practice saying ‘No’ and find out that in fact no one hates us; we won’t be cast out of the tribe; we won’t die.
Knowing that saying Yes to something means saying No to everything else, we have to be careful where we give our word. And whilst ‘I’ll try’ or other Weasel Language (as Fred Kofman would call it) is perhaps better than ‘Yes’ when you know you won’t – that is, when you don’t feel able to tell the full truth, it’s better to not lie than to lie – better still is to tell the truth, to ourselves and to them.
As you listen to yourself and then tell the truth, you may just strengthen your relationship as well as your grip on reality.
As Yoda said, ‘Try not. Do or do not. There is no try’.
Truth Telling Practice #5 – Your Truth Sense
As you practise telling the truth, throughout your life, you’ll begin to notice the times when you don’t: when you catch yourself in a lie almost without thinking about it.
This is normal and part of how humans work. Jonathan Haidt, the moral psychologist, uses the metaphor of an elephant and its rider to represent our intuitive self and our rational mind. We think our rational mind is in charge, but sometimes the elephant just goes where it wants and the rider has to go along with it.
The rider in the metaphor may sometimes find herself in the middle of a lie that the elephant has taken her into: this is part of being human, as your intuition guides you to do what it thinks will keep you safe. But some of that is based on evolution for a simpler world. And still more is based on stories about how the world works that you created (clouded by others or not) many years ago. As the rider - the rational mind - if you find your elephant guiding you into a lie, it’s your job to steer it back to the truth.
A commitment to truth-telling will develop a compass as you practise speaking only the truth as you see it and – at the very least – not polluting reality by lying to yourself and/or others.
As you do this you will learn what you believe and you will find ground yourself in your values.
Some part of you will write sign off an email with ‘Sending you good thoughts’ and you will realise that is a lie unless you make it the truth by actually sending the person good thoughts.
Or you will realise that unless you set a reminder, ‘I’ll be thinking of you’ will become a lie. And so you don’t say it, you say ‘I’m thinking of you now.’ Or you set the reminder and, as your friend goes through the most trying day of their year, you’ll bring them to mind.
Or you will realise you aren’t remotely sorry for the delay in replying to an email: saying that you are would be a lie. You believe you’re replying at the first time it made sense to reply. And so you simply say ‘Hello’. And you trust that – as you say you believe – people are good, and tend to assume the best of each other. (Read this article for more on the powerful practise of not apologising for the delay in sending an email - it’s under number 3.)
As you practise telling the truth you will learn truths about reality: comfortable and less comfortable.
I’ll probably never forget the moment when I left my daughter Leah, something like 11 months old at the time, in her high chair while I nipped to the bathroom.
I came back to find her crying, and said, ‘Oh darling, don't worry. I'll always come back.’
And then I felt my compass for truth swing, realising the lie I had told.
I took a deep breath, breathing in and out the tragedy of life.
And I said the crucial two words to make my sentence true.
‘Oh darling, don't worry. I'll always come back… except once.’
Be Yourself – More – With Skill
Practising telling the truth will change your life.
It has mine.
It is an act of the greatest honour: doing the right thing, even when it’s hard.
It is an act that has to be a practice, especially to do it skilfully.
It is one of the foundations of honourable leadership: practising telling the truth as we go on a journey of discovery and authenticity.
It brings to mind a phrase I first heard from Eve Poole, although it originated from Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones: be yourself – more – with skill.
Telling the truth invites us into being ourselves, more: discovering more of ourselves as we listen for and speak the truth.
And it invites skill: because if we want to interact with others, if we want to fulfil our potential as leaders, not every thought of ours needs to be spoken. And in communication, not every expression of the truth is equal. Remember: in the complex world we live in, we have to do everything we can to take our gifts and use them wisely.
Telling the truth wisely requires practice.
So best get practising; until it becomes second nature, and not lying becomes the line that you know you will not cross, even though things will push you to.
Perhaps, indeed, it is the most important line that we not cross on our way to living a life of honour; if we wish to grasp reality more firmly every day; if we wish to take our potential and use it to make our corner of the world better.
My faults are many. But I do not lie.
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Read the first blog in this series - Leading With Honour - here.