Decoding Lies

Whether or not you resort to bluffing, you need to accept the idea that your counterpart may also employ this tactic. Consider the data from the various studies conducted about the liberties that we all take with the truth. On average, an individual tells two major lies per day. A third of all normal conversations include at least an element of lying. This figure rises to 80% when it comes to job applications, and there is no reason to assume that business negotiations somehow miraculously avoid this flood of falsehoods that affects all human interchange.

Even more worryingly, four out of every five lies go undetected. Indeed, extensive research has demonstrated that human beings are incapable of distinguishing the truth from a lie.

We Are Generally Incapable of Distinguishing the Truth From a Lie

The first reason relates to our excessive credulity. In Western civilizations, we generally tend to start off by trusting other people and believe that they are telling the truth, until there is evidence to the contrary. More problematically, even when we know that lying exists, we greatly overestimate our capacity to distinguish between lies and the truth.

Thus, in a wide-ranging experiment carried out among 30,000 people, an individual was interviewed twice on video and spoke about what was supposed to be her favorite film. In one sequence she told the truth, while in the other she lied, as she was really talking about a film she detested. Just 52% of those taking part in the experiment identified the correct answer, only fractionally more than would have been the case if their answers had been selected at random on the toss of a coin.

Other experiments have involved all sorts of different people and situations, including videos of individuals appealing for witnesses to crimes that they later confessed to committing themselves. The findings are similar: Individuals get it wrong half the time, whatever their age, sex, or occupation.

Even police officers, judges, and psychiatrists do no better than if they had tossed a coin. They, too, dangerously overestimate their ability to distinguish between the truth and lies.

To date there are no statistics either for business negotiators or, more specifically, for the discriminating elite who are reading this book, but we may reasonably fear that the results would be similar.

We Are Even More Powerless When We Know Our Counterpart Well

Paradoxically, the better you know someone, the less capable you are of detecting his lies. Indeed, research shows that a lie is more often detected by a stranger than by an acquaintance. Thus, contrary to what you might think, a negotiator with whom you have regular business relations will be able to manipulate you more easily than a new trading partner.

To Detect Lies, We Rely Too Much on Misleading Indicators

In every country in the world, it is generally accepted that liars betray themselves by looking evasive, wringing their hands, and shifting in their seats. Yet very specific experiments have established that this bears no relation to reality. Indeed, liars almost always take care to look the person they are dealing with straight in the eye, ensure that their body language matches their words, and adopt a posture expressing conviction and sincerity. We therefore tend to be misled by looks and gestures over which the liar exerts great control. That is why research shows that it is easier to detect lies by listening to an audio recording than by watching a video or an individual in person.

Liars Always Betray Themselves by Their Words

Lying is a tricky exercise that often requires perpetrators to juggle a lot of different information and make quick decisions about what they reveal and what they conceal or run the risk of giving themselves away. Thus a liar tends to reveal fewer details than a person who is telling the truth. For example, a person will use 40 words to describe how much he liked a film that he actually detested but 80 words to comment on a film that he really enjoyed.

The discomfort created by such convolutions also leads liars to think too much about their replies, to choose their words carefully, and sometimes to try to curtail debate, maybe by suggesting that a meeting should end or showing relief at interruptions caused by telephone calls. For example, experience has demonstrated that when detecting lies, police officers achieve better results if they answer the question, “Is this person making an effort to prepare their replies?” than when answering the more direct question, “Is this person lying?”

Liars’ guilt feelings encourage them to talk less about themselves and to use the word “I” less. This is called “psychological distancing.”

In contrast, a liar has more of a tendency to spontaneously cite the importance of “business ethics” or the value of “intellectual honesty” and to call for trust: “Trust me”; “Believe me”; “Frankly, I am telling you the honest truth.” Honest people never talk about ethics.

There Are Also Nonverbal Signals, but These Are More Difficult to Detect

It is possible to identify certain physical characteristics in people who are lying. Thus the “psychological distancing” that leads someone to use the “I” form less may also be expressed physically by a certain distance from the other person, by barrier gestures (crossed arms or putting a hand in front of his mouth), or by placing an object (computer, tool bag, etc.) between himself and the other people.

Likewise, the conflicting emotions felt by a liar (guilt, the pleasure of fooling someone, the fear of discovery, etc.) lead to uncontrolled nonverbal signals, including more frequent blinking, a suppressed half-smile, or slight head movements when the other person says no.

Lastly, the intellectual effort required to tell lies changes your expression: There is less variation in gestures, more consistency in tone of voice and flow, fewer raised eyebrows, more glances at the watch, and so on.

If the truth be told, all these nonverbal indicators are difficult to detect and require proper specialist training. However, in certain cases, on the pretext that you are unable to travel, you may be able to organize a videoconference that you can record. By watching the film of the discussions attentively, with experienced people who do not know your counterpart, you may be able to identify crucial clues that will allow you to discover whether he is telling you the truth or not.