Continuing our conversation on the pervasiveness of lying in professional services (click here to read our first blog posting on the topic), today’s blog explores why business advisors, when weighing the two options of telling the truth and telling a lie, often choose to lie. Yes, that’s correct, we lie even in cases where an objective analysis would suggest that truth-telling would benefit us more.
I am continually struck by how often I confront my own tendency to lie with clients. Yes, I said lie. Think you’re squeaky clean? Hmmmm … I’m not so sure. Try out our five-point checklist to gauge the depth of your own trustworthiness.
In the article that Charles H. Green and I co-authored in early 2007, we asserted that business advisors (or for that matter, people) who don’t lie are like unicorns: not inconceivable, but pretty unlikely. I am no exception. I bet the same is true for you.
“Think improv comedy is just for laughs? Think again. It’s fertile training ground for dealing with the unexpected – you know, like in a sales conversation, when a client asks a zinger that you never saw coming. I discovered the magic of improv comedy a few years ago when I decided it was time to learn how to get past the “frozen-ness” I felt when something like that happened to me.
Today’s blog offers the fifth of five tips to help you avoid the all-too-common trap of speaking more than listening when you’re giving a client presentation. Use these tips any time you are trying to influence a group of people — regardless of your role, your audience, or your time boundaries.
Today’s blog offers the fourth of five tips to help you avoid the all-too-common trap of speaking more than listening when you’re giving a client presentation. Use these tips any time you are trying to influence a group of people — regardless of your role, your audience, or your time boundaries.