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100 Deception at Work

Irrelevant support

A truthful person will usually be confident in his own position and will convey his explana-
tion. He will also answer closed (binary) questions with a committed ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with no
prevarication before or softening words afterwards. Liars, knowing the weakness of their
position, will often go too far in trying to convince you by providing inappropriate support
for a false explanation.

For example : ‘I did not steal the money and if you don’t believe me, you can ask my mummy;
she will tell you I don’t steal and that I always eat up my cabbage.’

They may also suggest corroboration for their lies from a source that is impossible to verify.
For example: ‘Bill Smith would confirm my explanation, but it is a great pity he died last week’.
Dishonest job candidates often use the same ploy by claiming to have worked for companies
they know have gone out of business.

Contextual clarification

Liars are hindered by the fact that they do not understand how an innocent person would
react and may seek clarification through phrases such as: ‘I am not sure what I should say about
that’, ‘I am not sure what I am expected to say’, or ‘How should I know that …?’ Such phrases should
be treated with suspicion.

Other anxiety reducing responses

The liar will unconsciously use a range of techniques to reduce his anxiety when delivering an
untruthful response. Possibly the most important are his use of manipulators, defensive body
language and from his attitude, but other clues are summarized in Table 4.9, page [xref].

Clues from an attitude

Liars, like alcoholics, are inclined to minimize the seriousness of their problems by using soft,
non-emotive words or unwanted words at the end of an apparently strong sentence. The words
‘really’, ‘actually’ or ‘as such’ are good examples. They may minimize important topics with
words such as: ‘as an aside,’ ‘perhaps I should mention in passing,’ ‘incidentally,’ or ‘ by the way’.

The liar may use self-deprecating phrases such as ‘I know it sounds incredible but …’ He may
even be excessively submissive and use phrases such as: ‘If you want me to say I did it, I will’. He
may introduce an excuse before one is justified or deny allegations that have not been made.

SELF-DEPRECATION IN GOLF

Some golfers who stand on the first tee of an excuse for what they fear will be a poor
important competition use self-deprecation shot. By doing so they use NLP to prepare
such as ‘I had a really late night last night themselves for a duck hook into Granny
and still feel a bit pickled’ to unconsciously Smith’s garden.
reduce anxiety by providing an advance