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The Honesty Diet

No one likes to think of themselves as a liar. I always considered myself a straight talker. Someone who tells it like it is. When my husband tells me I embellish on my blog I tell him he just doesn't understand my angle. When I beat around the bush I like to think I am taking others' feelings into consideration. I have found it difficult to believe people may not understand what I am saying because I am not being clear. If you don't understand me, that's because you just don't get it, not because I am not being clear. But it's occurred to me lately: Maybe I'm not being clear. Maybe, gulp, I'm not being honest.

I have found it amusing listening to presidential debates and noting how words are chosen so carefully, too carefully. And while I love to point out how opaque people can be, I also find it disheartening how we, in general, are pressured to overthink, exaggerate, obfuscate, and purposefully divert people in order to win. I wish honesty was really valued in candidates, not illusions of honesty. Not relying on such things as the Straight Talk Express or stories of difficult childhoods to somehow prove we are what we are not.

I was compelled to read Stephen M.R. Covey's book The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything for a reason. I figured it was to validate myself; or because the author is the son of the bestselling author Stephen Covey, whose books I enjoy; or because I like business books. But could it be that I might have had some ulterior motives? Perhaps I, Ms. Straight Talker, have noticed some twists and turns in my communication patterns. Leeeeeetle white lies that crop up, leeetle breaches in integrity that I think about during my drives home and then ask myself, did you really NEED to say that? You could have just done THAT. A leeetle pressure that I suspect could be relieved by not having to hold down illusions?

Covey's book makes apparent the "tax" that you pay for breaches of trust. And he illustrates ways that we lie. Most of us don't internalize our lies as lies. We see them as buffers, expediters, strategic ways of positioning, protective measures. And yet, over time, they take a toll. Often they result in failures that can be blamed on something tactical, but actually the cracks formed quietly over time.

I've asked myself why I fall out of integrity sometimes. Why make something sound THIS big when it was just this big? Why not tell someone that they need to get their act together rather than get annoyed at them when they don't? Why assume that the truth won't cut it?

There are ways where I am extremely trustworthy. When I make a mistake that impacts someone else, I clean it up. Quickly. I don't let it fester and hope no one will notice. I fess up, tell you how I will fix it, and then fix it. I share with my colleagues context--even context they may not care to know--because by having it you know why decisions are being made and we can come up with solutions faster. I always tell others seeking business partnerships what I want, and why I may not want what they are proposing. Perhaps by knowing my thoughts we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.

But there are areas in Covey's book that made me think twice. Made me see where I could clean it up. I think that while I've been such a proponent of Transparency and Authenticity, Honesty has been more elusive. I've seen it as a luxury; something you can achieve only when you are at "X" point in a relationship: When you are married; when you are the boss, when you are speaking with a good friend, when you completely trust the person you are speaking to, when someone has "earned" it. It's something to be parcelled out carefully, not an end in itself. I've noticed that some people make telling the truth easier to do than others; they don't react or lash out when they hear it. Therefore those that do react, by extension, don't deserve it. Sometimes I see the truth like a splinter that finally comes out after prodding. If you don't ask me for the truth you aren't doing enough to get it.

Or, I assume that people just don't need to know the truth. This is the thinking that developed at age 6, when my Aunt asked me how I was, and I provided an in-depth account of my constipation. My Dad winced and said, "there are some things people don't need to know." In later years such things as feeling hurt or threatened were added to the list.

I've confused honesty with discretion: I'm not lying, I'm being "discreet".

I'm keeping my options open.

I'm minding my own business.

I'm sparing you the gory details.

Then there's space-filling dishonesty: I have nothing important to say, though it seems you want me to say something, so I will.

Then there's theoretical dishonesty: What I'm saying is, literally, true, but I know you aren't getting the full story.

I'm going to try something. Utter, tactful, honesty. Even if it means not having anything important to say. Even if it means hearing reactions, even if it's stressful, even if it's awkward, even if I don't have the right words and have to fumble around. Even if I seem incompetent, or mean. Even if I look like an idiot. Even if you think I'm lying.

I'll take notes if I have the nerve. 

Irritated Multi-Taskers: Why Women Leave Corporations and Stay Away

We had a close-call inconvenience last week. Our landlord sold the house we're renting (and opted not to buy--a story for another blog: the F%$@ed-up California real-estate market). We figured we'd have to move and started looking for new houses, but fortunately the new owners opted to rent to us for another year. Phew!

I'm quite relieved. This was hardly the time to put another project on my plate. And we've only been in our house for a year; the memories of re-creating the Amazon jungle with the b-friend's houseplants and re-routing all of my subscriptions depressed me. Yet, if we had to move, I would have sucked it up and eeked out a line or two a day on the Palm Pilot for looking for places and packing.

What shocked me the most during this near-debacle was my b-friend's reaction to all of this. Simply put, he couldn't handle it. I think I saw him short-circuiting--sparks and smoke were coming from his head when I read to him the email from our landlord, telling us she was selling. He was in the final stretch of his graduate school semester, which was admittedly stressful and time-consuming. But apparently one big thing is all that men can juggle at once. (That's not really juggling, per se, that's more like frantic ball tossing.)

"Whyyyyyyyyyyy!" he moaned. "Why is this happening to meeeeeeeee!"

"Excuse me, Nancy Kerrigan," I had to interject. "But what exactly is happening to YOU?" I mean, let's face it. Who would be looking for new places? Pulling together credit reports? Shlepping all over the East Bay to look for properties big enough, clean enough, and cheap enough for a freelance writer and a grad student working at home to live in? Just the softshoe required in explaining how we'd pay for the place was work.

The b-friend made it clear that he would not be capable of helping me during finals, so I traipsed around for a week looking for places, finding one we were about to sign for, when our landlord decided not to sell.

"Phew!" b-friend said, hugging me, rubbing my back. "Thank God we didn't have to do any work!"

The whole experience left a strange taste in my mouth. I know the b-friend was trying to be supportive. He thanked me numerous times for my effort. But it occurred to me that he, like many men, can only handle so many things at once. Sexual spiritualist and gender observationist David Deida makes this distinction in several of his books: Men have difficulty focusing on more than one thing at a time, which (this is my take) often frustrates women, who are natural multi-taskers, but who may have a few hundred other things to think about and can't always--or want to!--take up the slack.

Still, we have this tremendous innate ability to take on many crucial tasks simultaneously. When things get tough, we handle it, period. Instead of slashing our pay or merely patting us on the back for this competency, we'd prefer to get the proper credit.

The Women's Guide to Independence Lesson 2: Know Your Power

I used to get together quite often with a male friend to just talk. Seriously—we just talked. No flirting, just talking. I think we saw a mental equal in each other and decided not to mess with the chemistry—or I had decided not to, anyway; men seem to have less of an issue getting intimate and then taking it back down a level, as if nothing ever happened. Anyway, I digress.

I used to see this friend quite often, pre Live-In Boy Friend, and discuss everything from spirituality to wine, though the bulk of our time was spent on male-female dynamics. We saw that we had a living, breathing Other in our presence and that we should take full advantage of that fact.

I learned many things about myself through this friend. I had just ended a relationship with a Paper Man (translation: a man that looks good on paper, but whose loyalties tear easily). I wondered why I could never seem to make things work with Paper Men. Either they shied away or remained distant towards me. Secretly I found them boring, but I didn’t stop trying to get one to wrap his starchy arms around me. There seemed to be a thrill in the conquest, but I always ended up with paper cuts.

Likewise my friend always ventured for the unattainable, the inappropriate woman. One who always seemed to be confused and conflicted over her feelings for him. Just an admission of interest from his object of desire was enough to send him into an obsessive, doomed-to-fail infatuation.

Beholden Woman Syndrome (Lesson 2): Learning to Ask for What You Want, and Learning to Get It

When I was a kid my grandmother took me to see Santa Claus. I actually had no desire to see the man; I knew that the local department store wouldn’t have the real Santa. Still I knew that Nana wanted me to meet St. Nick and get the requisite Polaroid shot of me on his lap, so I pulled up my knee socks and went.

As expected, the line wrapped around the toy department. I could see Mr. Claus in the distance, talking to whoever was first in line. He sat in a very large sleigh that was high off the ground; a kid had to really stretch to make it up each step and get inside. The sleigh seemed more like a stage; the wooden vessel was lit with photographer’s lamps, making each kid feel like he or she was in a spotlight. As the line grew shorter, I grew more nervous, not with eager anticipation but with dread.

Finally it was my turn. I climbed up the sleigh and sat down next to the hulking man that was hired to be Santa. He had the “Ho Ho Ho’s” down to a tee. We turned toward Nana for a snapshot and then got down to business.

“So young Miss,” he said to me, “what do you want for Christmas?”

I remember thinking that he left out a line, the one asking if I had been good that year. I had been good, of course, save for a few slapping matches with my sister. My grades were stellar; I had even won the perfect attendance award that year. Maybe this was the real Santa, and he had known all that stuff already.

It seemed like my moment to really go for it. Hell, the kid before me couldn’t shut up about all of the outrageous crap he wanted—an Atari, one of those Big Wheels that looked like a race car. The kid before him even brought his list. All of this struck me as presumptuous. If Santa really did exist, he would already know what toys the kids wanted, and he would know if they deserved to get them. It seemed beneath me to simply ask for what I wanted. Good things came to good little girls.

It would seem, then, that my tendency toward relying on divine intervention to get what I wanted started quite early; there was some underlying belief that I had to bust my ass to even get a playing piece on the board of life, and that some man ultimately decided if I would pass go. Like Santa, he ultimately held the bag.

Beholden Woman Syndrome (Lesson 1): Own the Problem

A few months ago I was fortunate to meet a woman who was developing her coaching practice. She was learning a new approach and wanted to take on some clients gratis for three months. After a few discussions we agreed that meeting three times a month for three months would be a mutually beneficial arrangement.

As we near the end of our arrangement, I find that our time was a blessing—I learned to identify a lot of the hang-ups I experience in pursuit of projects that excite but scare the hell out of me. I learned where I hide-out when I “play it safe” (full-time jobs). I feel prepared to take on the next phase of my writing and life projects.

Two weeks ago, near our last session, my coach mentioned that our time was drawing to a close, and she asked if I would want to continue working with her. She suggested we meet at least twice a month, and that I commit for at least three months. She told me her fee.

“OK,” I said, doing the math. “Let me think about it, but I think that sounds good.”

Over the course of the week, however, I began to wonder. Sure, I’ve been enjoying the coaching, but I hadn’t planned on continuing; at least not yet. I had figured I would go it alone and see how my writing projects were doing before asking for PAID help. The coaching had been helpful, but did I really need more?

I told my bfriend that I planned to continue. When I told him how much I was paying his eyes widened with disbelief.

“Do you REALLY want to do this?” He said.

“She’s been very helpful,” I said.

“Yeah, but that’s a fat chunk of change. And what if you decide you don’t want to stick it out?”

“Of course I’d stick it out,” I said, “if I paid to stick it out.”

“But would you want to?”

The questions Jesse was posing were rudimentary, but I felt like he was asking me for the meaning of life.

“She’s been meeting me for FREE, Jess,” I said, as if this somehow explained why I was bound to enter the contract.

“That’s your problem, Jory,” he said. “You’ve got an issue with obligation.”

It occurred to me that he was right. And as things began to unfold over the course of the next two weeks, a new realization came to me: My life has been lived in fulfillment of obligations, and that I’m not the only one. There’s a group of us—in corporations, in marriages, in half-fulfilled situations—that live this way and then wonder why we aren’t getting what we want. And nearly all of us are women.

Embracing the Other Woman (Part III)

(I thought I'd end my rant about women's tendency to repel each other with a story about a woman who taught me a new, collaborative model of leadership.)

Back when I worked for a Start-up, a new woman entered my life; a new boss. I hadn’t met her yet, but she said that she wanted to meet with me and hear more about my job.

I’d had introductory meetings with new bosses before and knew the drill: tell them about procedure, stick to the facts, let her make up her own mind about what wasn’t working and let her redecorate the department. She would be the fourth person I reported to that year. Her title could have been Senior Vice President, Revolving Door.

“She’s a Harvard MBA,” a co-worker informed me, before even telling me my boss’s name. That told us all we needed to know: she would think she was better than us; she would be stunned at the ‘whatever works’ project management style we had developed over nearly two years at a Dot com start-up; she would quit in six months for a job with a "real" company with non-speculative pay.

Life on the Outside

Just got off my high and mighty horse this morning with a thought I had while reading Re-Imagine (I always generate thoughts while reading Tom Peters).

Tom was bemoaning the current cluster of top dogs in Corporate America. Not all of them, just the wusses. The ones who claim that they want to hear it straight and then receive watered-down, polite Power Point presentations from their lieutenants and still balk because an adjective or bullet point was too deviant from the presupposed path. People afraid of losing power.

Peters' advice for these people, "Hit 'em over the head with 50 Brickbats." I'm not one to condone violence, but I understand. Maybe a physical jolt will knock some of the crust off these people. This is a sign of being in control for too long, and not paying attention to some serious shifts in the world. Success does not come to those who are right, but to those who "get it" quickly.

What is "It"? "It" is the truth, separate from one's own needs for affirmation or adoration. The leaders who "get it" will understand that the glory comes from outside oneself. From what others are telling them at all levels of the organization, provided those sources are authentic. The secret to success in business is not creating and then convincing everyone of your agenda, it's in finding "It" and facilitating others in discovering it as well.

I find it perplexing that President Bush uses Kerry's change of mind over funding the invasion of Iraq as a sign of his weakness as a leader. What's worse, finding out the truth and changing course, or finding out the truth and pretending that you're still right? Via the latter choice, more people die, more resources are wasted. Bush calls it staying the course. I call it being a crusty, grumpy leader who doesn't get it.

Embracing the Other Woman, Part II

I used to have a tougher time meeting women than men. I'm not sure why. When meeting a woman I could hear the sound of my voice getting higher and more saccharin; I'd feel compelled to shrink a bit. Men, on the other hand, tend to "pump up" upon meeting someone else with a Y chromosome. They stand taller, deepen their voices, and their handshakes seem like brief arm-wrestling matches. No man would greet another man with a limp handshake.

First-time meetings always flowed better with men, and not always because they were potential date material. Men are somewhat in awe of women; you feel a headiness, a power around them that you can play to the hilt. Around women, however, this power is seen as offensive--like wearing lingerie to your gynie appointment, like overkill. These people know the deal, that you have fat days, that you get gas, that you weren't born smelling like Chanel.

Embracing the Other Woman

I'm not competitive, was my motto. I was such a believer in this stance that I even wrote an article about it a few years ago, bemoaning how I gave up my three-sport-status in high school for dancing because I just wasn't a competitor.

I wasn't lying; I wasn't yet aware of the truth: I wanted to be la Premiere, the Alpha Female, the Queen Bee. I didn’t quit those three sports because I wasn’t competitive, more the opposite: If I wasn't the best in those three sports I didn’t want to be on the team.

I can see why I covered this up with claims of not being competitive. It isn't very ladylike, wanting to kick everyone's ass. Back in college I used to get a cheap thrill out of watching The Ricki Lake Show. My sister, Julie, watched it too, she said, for its “sociological insights into the value system of Middle American women” (she can talk this way—she’s an academic, a “genderist,” if you took women’s studies at Brown). She would watch one of Ricki’s female guests attempt to scratch/slap another women guest who, not coincidentally, was screwing the first guest’s boyfriend, Baby Daddy, whatever, and she would cluck, "They are embarrassments to women, really."

Of course they were. But at least they didn't shrink to the competition, or pretend that there wasn’t any. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't credit Ricki with being a liberator of women (in fact Ricki, the fat-girl-gone-media-sellout, was a true exploiter of women’s subordination; she ain’t Oprah) but there was something fascinating about witnessing--before "brawling bitches" became de riguer on talk shows--women not afraid to compete.

Not an Act of Nepotism, I Swear...

You've heard it before--we've been taught history through the eyes of white, educated men. But that's not totally true. Women, though much more limited in resources, had some contribution to make to our collective "memory," as historian mucky mucks like to call the version that gets told. We owe a great debt to women who added some flavor to the story.

How do I know this? My twin sister told me. She also wrote a book about it called Women and the Historical Enterprise in America: Gender, Race and the Politics of Memory, 1880-1945.

At 400 pages, this ain't no blog. She's always been much more patient a writer than I.