Recently, former Secretary of State, George Shultz, under President Reagan, passed away at the age of 100. In a previous interview on Face the Nation, Schultz talked about honesty, he said, “If I can’t trust you, I can’t deal. But if I can trust you, then I can deal.”
And Schultz’ comment got us thinking about ways to figure out if someone is lying to you.
When spotting a lie, there’s no Pinocchio effect where the nose grows. There isn’t one universal body language sign for lying. Instead, you have to listen to someone’s words, voice changes, rate of speech, watch body language, movements, gestures. What you’re doing is establishing their baseline behavior. How they typically present themselves when there’s no reason to lie. When there’s a change in their baseline behavior then you know something just happened. Something changed for them, but you don’t know what caused the change. You can’t assume they’re lying instead ask clarifying questions
A common hot spot is an incongruency between what someone says and what they’re showing in their body language. For example, if someone is telling you that they’re certain about what they saw and yet, they’re biting their lip or raising a shoulder as they’re talking, then that should give you pause because certainty doesn’t go with signs of tension and uncertainty (shoulder shrug). Don’t make automatic assumptions about dishonesty. Ask questions to get to the truth.
A common mistake is when you see one behavior change and automatically assume that’s a lying sign. Instead, you want to see at least 2 changes within 5-7 seconds of a question or change in conversation. Something had to happen for the behavior change to occur. And get clarification such as saying something like “It seems to me…” “Help me understand the situation better…”. To get to the truth, someone shouldn’t feel threatened, intimidated, defensive. Otherwise, they’re more than likely to avoid you and the conversation.
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