Presume Integrity

This week I spoke with a 20-something employee in Singapore who was looking to move to a new position in his organization. He had submitted his CV and been interviewed, and got an offer. There were a few things to arrange, including his departure from one department and their contract while moving to the new one, and all of this required some paperwork. After submitting the information, however, he got an e-mail from his new boss telling him they had noticed some inconsistencies between his interview and his paperwork, and so they were withdrawing the job offer.

Upon getting this the employee collected the sources of his information — firm policies, pay records, and so forth — and sent all of this to that new boss, along with some reminders about what they had discussed in the interview. Almost immediately his new boss acknowledged that the misunderstanding was on his end, that he had not read everything completely, and that he had messed up (though the words “sorry” or “apology” were never used). The damage, though, was done: this young man had no desire to go work for people who had assumed he was lying, and he had given his notice to the firm.

In today’s style of work, especially knowledge work, you will have plenty of opportunities to face lying. Plagiarism from old sources, taking ideas from colleagues without giving them credit, missing deadlines for no good reason…yes, your employees might lie to you. But you should never assume they are lying from the start, and had better be pretty sure before accusing them.

A person’s reputation is important to them, and to suddenly be told others do not trust them is a real slap in the face. It is tough to take it back once you accuse someone, so you need to be very sure before accusing someone of lying, especially if you are going to take action against them. Ideas like “innocent unless proven guilty” are not just theoretical concepts when you are talking about real people.

If you think someone is lying to you, you need to investigate it quietly first. Check out the information they have given you. Ask them some follow-up questions without signaling distrust. You need to be pretty sure before confronting them, and VERY sure before taking action against them. There is another concept in the Western legal tradition that says “better a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent be punished” — the point here is that before you confront someone based on a hunch, you need to consider the consequences if you are wrong.

Now, if you examine something questionable and it turns out someone is being dishonest, well then, do what you need to do. My solution is generally to get rid of someone whom I cannot trust, but that’s me…you might not take such a drastic action, everyone needs to decide for themselves what works best. But do not lose a good employee just because you are the one who made a mistake.