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 4/16/2007 |
Telling the truth
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A recent experience brought to mind the topic of telling the truth in business. Frankly, a lot of people don’t tell the truth – and it surprises me.
The late Earl Nightingale taught that honesty was a great business decision. Being honest keeps your customers coming back, your suppliers trusting what you tell them, your employees believing what they hear.
No matter how clever a liar might think he is, every single one of them gets exposed, eventually. Coworkers talk. Customers learn. Suppliers get burned. Eventually, people start talking with one another, and the lies that served a person so well in the beginning get exposed for what they are.
Telling the truth is always a great decision – it means you don’t need to keep track of what you’ve told and who you’ve told it to. It forms relationships of trust. It increases your self-esteem. It forms a reputation of trustworthiness. It’s one of the great insulators to keep you from criticism that may be directed at other, less truthful people.
The truth is that when you lie, you ultimately only fool yourself. People learn that you lie – and pretty soon, they won’t believe you, even when you’re telling them the truth.
How much better that you become known for being a man or woman of your word, one who tells the truth, no matter the personal penalties that it might bring about, even in a cutthroat organization.
Sooner or later, you’ll develop a reputation in life. How much better it is that your reputation be one of a person who tells the truth, rather than a person who will tell you whatever you want to hear – whether it’s the truth or not.
Copyright, 2007, by Daryl R. Gibson and WeekdayWisdom.com. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the non-commercial redistribution of this document as long as it remains intact with this copyright and all other lines. This license does not extend to the use of this material in a compilation, whether for profit or non-profit use. Join us at http://www.WeekdayWisdom.com.
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