Friday, April 20, 2012

Do the difficult right, rather than the easy wrong

You know how it seems harmless to tell your assistant to tell a caller you're avoiding that you're out to lunch?  Or, when your kid answers the phone and it's a telemarketer, have the kid say you're not home?  Are these little while lies really a problem?  Well, as Dave Anderson says in a recent Success Magazine article, “If you really are unavailable, there’s no need to have your assistant say you’ve stepped out,” he says. “Just say you’re not available.”

Why, when it's so much easier to tell a fib?  The caller will never know.

True, but what have you taught your assistant, or your child, about what to say to you when what they have to say is too hard?  What will your assistant tell you when he misses a deadline?  Will he blame a vendor, or admit that he'd underestimated the time needed? 

So many of my kids' friends had facebook pages before they were 13 (the minimum age).  If we parents allow our children to misrepresent themselves at 13, will we let them write on their college application that they were captain of the soccer team when they were a member of the team?  Will they write on a job application that they were a Navy Seal when they were in the Navy but not a Seal teammember?

It's hard to think about repurcussions sometimes.  What do you do to ensure you do the difficult right and keep yourself from doing the easy wrong?