A few years ago when I was in graduate school, a classmate asked me for feedback on a presentation they did. Since this was not a person I knew well, I was curious why they asked for my feedback.

"I want your feedback because I know you will tell the truth."

That answer really stuck with me. I have received the opposite feedback over the years that I am too abrupt or brutally honest so I became rather sensitive about volunteering my thoughts but here was a person that actively wanted to hear my truth. 'I know you are brutally honest so if you say I did good, I can believe it..."

Recently I had an epiphany (and I am a bit embarrassed to admit it took me this long to realize) about what a precious thing honesty is. I realized that I know hardly any people who could be honest and objective with me and that got me thinking about what a valuable and rare thing honesty is.

personal honesty

There are lot of reasons why honesty is rare.

Most people dont want to hurt your feelings. They will omit things or white-wash them or act like they are ok. Social harmony is a valuable thing to most people.

Not only are honest answers hard to give for many people, they are even harder to receive. People often ask for "honest" feedback but really just want to hear positive feedback. One has to be honest about wanting to hear honest feedback; they have to be open to hearing it.

Honesty is a tricky thing even on just a personal level. Whether it is that new haircut you love which makes you look like a fool or you are cheating on your spouse or stealing from your employer, most people will not give you an honest answer about how they feel. They will tell you what you want to hear.

While totally slamming someone with harsh feedback can feel powerful (and there is a ton of that kind of thing on the internet), unless it is anonymous, giving feedback actually makes you more vulnerable. Exposing what you really think makes you vulnerable to other people, it is like showing your cards so to speak. Even if you are not concerned about hurting someone's feelings, you may be concerned about revealing too much about yourself.

To take an extreme example, let's say you are a fascist, Nazi or a white-supremecist. Announcing your beliefs might make you some new friends or it could make you a pariah. Being open and honest about your thoughts is risky so most people play it safe and keep it to themselves. There are even proverbs about not being honest, such as "the nail that sticks up gets the hammer".

In the end, honesty is restricted to relationships in which both parties trust each other enough to handle it maturely.

workplace honesty

If honesty in your personal life is hard, its even worse in the workplace.

Let's say that someone was just fired or you got moved to a new org or you just heard details about the new product... Being honest and up front about how your really feel could help improve the situation or it could get you marginalized and removed. The savvy thing is often to keep quiet and let others decide which way to go. This is "decision by committee" and it stems from protecting yourself by hiding your true feelings.

Then there are people like myself who pursued scientific, engineering or mathematical careers. We often have a strong belief in "truth". These people are often more honest and blunt because its the truth, what else can you say?

Sadly philosophers have debated the very existence of a single or true truth for millennium. After all human beings filter reality through their own perceptions and brain so its easy to argue for truth but hard to prove it. When you are young, the TRUTH! always seems so obvious and unassailable but the older (and wiser) one gets, the more nuance appears and it gets harder to tell the truth from the could-be-truth. That may be your truth but its not mine...

So we focus on math or data or the code to tell the truth. All the other stuff (email, presentations, talk) are open to interpretation and mistakes. Unfortunately very few decisions can be reduced to math and even fewer company cultures really try.

political honesty

And then you have company politics.

In another life, I worked at a Silicon Valley startup during the dot-com craze. It was crazy on many levels.

At the time, lots of us read a website called fuckedCompany for candid, anonymous reports of the "truth". 'yes, we keep telling people that our company is about to take off but here is the truth of how fucked up our startup is...' It was entertaining, informative, and at times one really felt they were hearing the truth about how things were.

I have been thinking about this topic of honesty for several weeks but today I had a fuckedCompany moment while reading Mini-Microsoft.

Microsoft is a massive public corporation and like any large organization, it is very hard to get an honest answer about much of anything. It is hard to find out what happened (or is happening) and it is near impossible to find out why it happened.

Reading the anonymous posts on Mini, it just struck me that some of the posts (and only some) had the tone and content of real truth. The kind of truth that is never stated publicly by anyone at a company. The kind of truth one only gets from knowing the right person and being in their circle-of-trust. The kind of truth one finds within the vast quantities of chaff found in anonymous comments.

Were there layoffs? The company is not saying but you might find out on Mini. Who got fired and who really deserved to get fired? How is product/group X really doing? Again, the company isnt saying but you might find some honest answers on Mini. Mini has become Microsoft's very own FC.

All companies talk about honesty and often pride themselves on their corporate values but in practice it rarely happens. Just as for individuals, being honest is too risky. Someone might lose their job. Someone might get sued. Most serious issues are kept within a circle of trust (or a circle of delusion/cool-aid) and those on the outside are left to wonder and gossip.

In a work context, what most of us want to know is who is to blame, who made the decision. Unfortunately that kind of truth is often surprisingly difficult to determine even from people involved and when people are not trying to obfuscate what happened. Which is why other hierarchical institutions dont even try. The captain goes down with the ship because ultimately it doesnt matter who was to blame only that the ship was sinking and someone had to be responsible. Then again that kind of model might well be a fantasy; it certainly is not very common in corporations.

historical truth

What about history? If there is one place we can count on the truth, surely it is the historical record... Not so much. Even though we teach history as the truth, almost by definition none of us were there to experience it so we dont know. History has proven to be so false there is a saying: "history is written by the conquerers." At best history is an attempt to capture the truth of things that happened. At worst, it is an attempt to protect the guilty and cover up the truth about things that happened.

Possibly the only place one can find the honest truth is a TV mystery - because it is made up.

Yes, this started off as a simple post but when it comes to the topic of honesty and truth, there are a lot of things to consider. In the end, if you have some supportive, honest relationships in your life - cherish them. They are as rare as they are valuable.