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| Telling Lies by Paul Ekman | |||
Book Review |
When is a lie not a lie? Not a question with a Christmas cracker answer. I sometimes ask sales people what makes a lie convincing. They invariably arrive at the answer, "the perpetrators belief in the lie." As Paul Ekman explains, a genuine lie is one that is premeditated. Lies are told with the purpose to deceive. If you don’t know you are lying, how can you be? Overlooking the moral and ethical conundrums wrapped up in this topic, if the best way to lie is to believe in the lie, it follows that we should be able to detect any deliberate lie pitched at us. Your own experience will probably contradict this idea. Detecting lies is often very difficult. Sometimes we want the lie to be true and tacitly fool ourselves into believing it. Metaphorically ‘Telling Lies’ is the mechanics car repair manual. If the ability to detect lies will help you do your job better, then this is an excellent book to read. Through out the ten chapters Ekman uses famous lies from familiar history, and stories about his tests and experiments to bring the book alive. As well as learning to recognise deliberate attempts to mislead more easily, the reader will get an in depth appreciation for the subtleties of non-verbal language. The current revision of the book includes two new chapters. In ‘Lie Catching in the 1990’s' the author reveals insights from presenting workshops for the world’s professional lie detectors, including the police, politicians, Special Forces, clandestine government services, psychiatrists, and psychologists. In ‘Lies in Public Life’ he recounts the details of more recent public falsehoods and sheds light on the motivations and machinations involved. In selling everyone knows that first impressions count. We form first impressions very quickly, based on non-verbal signs that we read unconsciously. These are the same clues and hints that telegraph deceit. If a person forms a bad first impression he or she is unlikely to tell us. That would be impolite. In any case no one likes to be unpleasant. Similarly we tend to avoid revealing our true feelings about opinions and decisions. In sales a talent for reading minds helps a lot. The content of Paul Ekman’s book has much value to sales people beyond recognising lies. Reading peoples unspoken language, in context with their words, reveals what they are thinking. ISBN 0 393 30872 3 |
Inside View Book Review May 2001
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