CHAPTER 10
Start Partnering with the Whole Truth
The truth is funny. Honest discovery, observation, and reaction is better than contrived invention.
—DEL CLOSE
“What is the main cause of partnership failure?” It was a question I posed to my lunch partner, Dr. Carl Rogers, in the early eighties. I had just finished reading his book A Way of Being.1 “Trouble with the truth,” he told me. I probed a bit further: “You mean people lie to each other?” He continued, “That is not quite what I mean. It is not the lies, it’s the deception. They have trouble with the whole truth. And once that wholeness goes, they have to work very hard to get it back. Some people just don’t want to work that hard.”
His words are especially fitting in our present-day era of acceptability of half-truths. Co-creation partnerships require the “whole and nothing but” kind of truth. It is the main ingredient of trust, a major culprit in its demise, and a part of the remedy in its return once lost. It is more than compassionate candor; it is deeper than authenticity; it is revealing your soul in a way that purifies connections. It is goodness personified.
Before we proceed, let’s recap. Your customers’ imagination is needed to help you solve their problem or fulfil their need or aspiration. A co-creation partnership with them not only enhances their loyalty, it enriches the quality of the result. Trust is a necessary feature to foster a milieu of security. When you say, “I trust that person,” consider what enables you to operate with her or him in an unguarded fashion. One of the central components of trust is a history of promise-keeping. We hear it in lines like “her word is her bond” or “what he says you can take to the bank.” Truth-telling is so sacred we sometimes put words like “gospel” in front of it.
Ever wonder why electricians refer to an ineffective electrical connection as a “bad” connection, as if it were misbehaving? A good connection electrically is one that has grounding, one without interference in its flow of energy, and one that delivers all the power it is capable of delivering. That is a perfect description for the role that truth plays in a part-nership—grounded, ideal flow of energy, and full power. But we live in a time of “bad connections” and must take extra steps to counter their spin and distortion of the truth.
Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But …
“Ladies and gentlemen, another on-time arrival by Mayday Airlines,” the pilot announced as my plane pulled up to the jetway. A quick look at my always-accurate smartphone revealed we were actually fourteen minutes past the posted time I had told my client the flight was scheduled to arrive. I later learned that “on time” in the commercial-flight arrival world had a fifteen-minute grace period. A pilot once told me it was like EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes). “The FAA built in a fudge factor for ‘on time’ since we cannot control the airfield traffic while we are taxiing to the gate any more than your employees can impact interest and taxes.”
But what about customer transparency? What about the promise made or implied to passengers? Can you imagine the lyrics of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady tune being changed to “Get me to the church within fifteen minutes of the wedding time”? Or how T-minus countdowns might impact rocket launches if there were a fudge (a.k.a. fib) factor? If on time truly meant “on time,” would there not be a greater incentive for airlines to collectively demand greater efficiency on the airfield and tarmac, since they all would be getting dinged for unavailable gates or tardy ground crews?
Let’s take another common experience with the acceptability of half-truths—the drive-thru window at any quick service restaurant. Last week I stopped midmorning at one and ordered a breakfast to go. There was no one behind me in the drive-thru lane. The very nice person asked if I would pull across the lot and park; someone would bring out my order to me. It has happened many times. “Why don’t I just stay here,” I suggested to her. “When my order is ready, you won’t have to have someone take the time to bring it all the way across the parking lot, you can just hand it to me right here. I promise to move to the parking lot if another vehicle comes up behind me.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “You will have to move your car now because if you sit here, you will mess up my numbers for wait time in the drive-thru.” I gave this confusing issue one more attempt. “But won’t that give your restaurant a false read? If you keep faking the actual wait time by sending me away, what incentive will there be to speed up the operation inside that caused my trip to the ‘wait lot’ in the first place?” She could not deal with this cognitive dissonance and pleaded, “Please don’t get me in trouble with my manager.” A completely inefficient procedure predicated on maintaining a bald-faced lie solely for the sake of important, but deceptive, metrics!
So, how does this fit in with gaining access to your customer’s imagination? Lockheed Martin was in a dead-heat race with Boeing to win a $200 billion contract to build the F-35 Joint Strike fighter plane. It would be the largest contract ever awarded a private company by the federal government. Early indications were that the decision makers at the Pentagon favored the Boeing prototype. I was a consultant to Lockheed’s Lean Sigma LM21 team under the leadership of Mike Joyce. He put it this way: “We did two important things. We found ways to get inside our customers’ heads by being relentlessly inquisitive. We staged countless focus groups with contractors, customers, and pilots to unearth their blunt honesty on ‘the good, the bad, and the ugly.’” An innovation turning point came when it was learned from fighter fliers that the aesthetics of the aircraft, not just the aeronautics, were very important. Their message was, “Don’t put me in the cockpit of an ugly aircraft.” Lockheed won with a much more attractive fighter plane.2
Make Honesty a Best Practice, Not a Best Policy
The Delta regional jet was packed. As the flight backed away from the gate, the flight attendant began her ritualistic safety spiel about seatbelts, sudden turbulence, and smoking. She ended by saying, “The flying time to Grand Rapids will be two hours … no, it will be an hour and a half … no, actually, I don’t know.” The cabin erupted with laughter and applause. What jolted the half-asleep plane-full into cheering? Unscripted, unadulterated raw honesty! We loved her total candor and confident authenticity. But we loved even more her purity of intent and demonstration of innocence!
Truth-telling takes enough compassion to send the very best; truth-hearing takes enough humility to receive the very worst.
We grow up hearing “honesty is the best policy.” As adults we hear half-truths portrayed as honesty. Politicians keep secret the number of paramilitary civilians fighting in a troubled spot to disguise the true size of the military engagement—a number the public would not tolerate. The super-low price loudly advertised comes with fine print describing a rebate only claimed by sending in a pound of paperwork. And when we hear the radio ad end with a super-fast-talking guy rattling off all the exceptions and disclaimers, we know we are not hearing raw honesty.
Honesty shortens the distance between people. It frees partners from the anxiety and caution involved in having to remember what they made up when they strayed from the truth. It triggers a connection with the humanity in each of us. And in that space, we are quicker to forgive, more tolerant of error, and much more accepting of “Actually, I don’t know.” Honesty is not a “best policy”; honesty is a “best practice.”
Ultimate Software provides cloud-based human-capital-management software and has won numerous awards for extraordinary customer service. Fortune ranked them number 8 in 2019 on their “Best Places to Work For” list. Forbes ranked them number 7 on their “Most Innovative Growth Companies” list. The company is also famous for including customers, encouraged to be boldly honest, in the design and enhancements of their software programs. Here is an example.
A retail customer needed employee-performance-feedback functionality within their Ultimate software that would ensure anonymity for the feedback provider. The retailer participated with Ultimate in iterative design review, providing insights, specific requirements, and design suggestions along the way. Ultimate’s product/design team asked specific questions about the need for thresholds on the number of responses to ensure the feedback was anonymous, when and how such thresholds should be applied, and how flexible those choices should be. The result was a collaboratively designed feature/ capability that was released into the product early in 2019 during the product’s beta cycle.
Never Tell Your Partner a White Lie
When witnesses take the stand in a trial and place their right hand on the Bible, they are required to swear to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Why not just promise to “tell the truth”? A full three-truths oath is crafted to prevent the telling of “white lies.” White lies are defined as “a polite or harmless lie” and are contrasted with “black lies”—those with evil or malicious intent. But are the white ones really polite or harmless? Izey Odiase wrote, “Don’t lie to protect my feelings. I’d rather you speak the truth with love and respect. I’ll be fine!”
We use white lies when we compliment someone (“Your cake was delicious” or “That is an attractive dress”) even though our spoken words differ from our true belief. We tell a prospect we are pitching that the item she desires should arrive in two days even when we know four days is the most likely delivery time. We communicate to a vendor, “The check is in the mail,” and then quickly back up our “white lie” to make reality catch up with our falsehood.
White lies are unadulterated deception, regardless of their “benevolent” intent. They help us save face but do little to promote a solid partnership. We use them in awkward moments when we believe we lack sufficient time to craft an honest but unhurtful response. We view white lies as a governor on bluntness. As such, we rely on them as a form of interpersonal cowardice. Their presence in fair-weather relationships might be accepted by most as diplomacy, but in partnerships they are unmistakably deceptive.
A group of operations leaders with the Freeman Company, a large convention-services and exhibit-management company, was working on how to partner more effectively with convention-center operations people who unloaded trucks and got exhibitors’ display material to their booths before the start of a convention. An example of a “runaround promise” came up. This is a scenario in which you haven’t quite completed a customer’s request at the time they inquire about it, but you state it is done (when it actually is a work in progress) and then run around quickly to make your white lie the truth. “Hell, no!” said Keith Kennedy, the head of operations at the time. “Let’s always be completely honest no matter if a lie is right on the edge of being true. It is about our character, not our bottom line.”
Would you trust Keith? Genuine and bold assertions in the face of marginal truths send unmistakable signals to your customer’s imagination that it has a safe harbor to visit the customer’s challenge, need, or aspiration. After Keith retired, Freeman created the Keith Kennedy Service Quality Award, given each year to the employee who demonstrated a “true blue” attitude in delivering over-the-top service to customers.
“I’m not upset that you lied to me,” wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” Truth-telling frees customers from anxiety and caution. It triggers a strong bond of faith with another. And in that connection, we are quicker to forgive, more tolerant of error, and much more accepting of “Honestly, I don’t know.” Tell your co-creation partners the truth, the whole truth, no holds barred. While acquiring a few Pinocchio’s noses might seem a tame imperfection, their very presence is like a cancer that if allowed to grow can become fatal to your partnership.
Start Partnering with the Whole Truth: The Partnering Crib Notes
Be open with your customer in the discussion of truth-telling. Outline “what ifs” that provide partnership preparation for failures to be truthful. Remember, everything in your customer’s experience is personal. Become known as someone who “always does what you say you will do.” Avoid corporate speak and sanitized legalese communications. They can, by definition, violate the whole truth principle. It is practices—values in action—that your customers care about. They do not care about your policies, procedures, or authorities. Instead of dwelling on why “we can’t,” focus on finding a path to “yes, we can!” Truthful service is that laced with the unmistakable pursuit of honesty on both sides of the alliance.
No relationship is likely to be perfect all the time. The healthy customer partnership, like a healthy marriage, is marked by candor and welcomed critique. Honesty fuels more honesty if defensiveness is absent. And as candor triggers improvement, those who serve feel responsive, those served feel heard and valued, and the partnership feels healthy. In the words of Marcellinus, “The language of truth is unadorned and always simple.”
When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback.
—BILL COPELAND