Honestly

Good morning, friends.  Hard to believe that we're into May 2018.  Won't be long before we're at the Memorial Day weekend!

This morning I want to touch on an important subject--honesty.  Do we do a good enough job of expecting it from ourselves?  From each other?  Do we assume that people are generally honest, or the exact opposite?

As with so many things, I've always felt that things like this start at the top.  Many times throughout my working life I've been associated with a company that announced it was either buying another entity or was being bought by one.  And in almost every case, the powers that be preach the oldest lie around:  it's "business as usual," so make sure that our customers know that.

It's that until it isn't.  As I write this I've mentally counted backwards and have come up with probably ten examples where this happened.  Me losing my job almost always followed this pronouncement, whether immediately or over a prolonged period.

I still don't want to discuss specific employers or positions, but my current company surprised me by being completely transparent in a change of ownership last year, moving from one venture capital parent organization to another.  That's a complete rarity in my view.

And "the top" in a different but probably more important instance is in our government.  The current occupant of the White House has, shall we say, a casual relationship with the truth.  It's been reported that he has made false or grossly exaggerated statements over 3,000 times since taking the oath of his office last January.  And that doesn't even account for the opinions and other stretches of the truth that have taken place.

Based on past history it appears to be a way of life for this man.  Unfortunately, though, it seems that others surrounding him are pulled into the same pattern, willingly or otherwise.  And this extends to members of Congress from the same political party.  If you've been keeping up you know that there was a flap regarding the chaplain for the House of Representatives recently, in which the outgoing Speaker of the House demanded and got the chaplain's resignation, only to have that chaplain rescind it a few days later.  Good for him, I say.

And just last night, the Attorney General of the State of New York was accused of some horrific behavior toward several women with whom he was in personal relationships over a period of years.  This came out in an article in the "New Yorker" magazine, a piece I have not read.  The AG promptly denied the content of the story.  The Governor then called for the AG's resignation, and the AG resigned a short time later.

I don't know exactly who was the more honest, but most likely it was his accusers more than he.

I'll leave this with a comment about a movie that came out several years ago, "The Invention of Lying."  Cowritten, co-directed by and starring caustic British comedian Ricky Gervais, the movie postulates that our human society had never discovered how to tell lies--until he did--and how this changed the fabric of society.  I won't give away any specific plot points but it is an interesting line of thinking--what if we never learned how to be dishonest?  It's funny with a very pointed message.

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