How do honest people mislead you?

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Most people who mislead you in a negotiation never tell a lie. They don’t have to.

I’ve spent 40 years as a trial lawyer, and I’ve heard the same sentence thousands of times. The bailiff turns to the witness and asks: “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

Most people hear that as ceremony. It isn’t. Each of those three phrases is there for a reason, and each one closes a different door a witness could slip out of.

The courts figured out centuries ago that an outright lie is only one of three ways to deceive someone.

Your supplier, your vendor and the person across the table from you know all three, whether or not they’ve ever thought about it.

Say you’re about to sign a big order with a supplier. You’ve heard rumors about the product cracking. Across the table, the sales rep knows that 20 or 30 of their last 100 shipments came back with stress fractures. You ask: “Have you had any quality control problems lately?”

He can mislead you in three different ways.

The first is a lie.“No.” That breaks “the truth.” It’s the one everyone watches for, and it’s the one he’s least likely to use, because a lie can be caught and has consequences.

The second is an omission.“Most of our customers are extremely happy.” That’s probably true. Seventy happy customers out of a hundred is “most.” But it breaks “the whole truth.” He hasn’t lied to you. He has left out the one fact you actually needed.

The third is a detour.“This company has been around for a hundred years. We take quality more seriously than anyone in the industry.” Every word of that may be accurate. It also has nothing to do with your question. That breaks “nothing but the truth,” which is the rule against filling the witness box with true statements that don’t answer anything.

The second and third moves are what experienced negotiators actually use. They feel honest to the person saying them, and they sound reassuring to the person hearing them. Most of us accept them without noticing the question went unanswered.

Spy the Lie is a book by Philip Houston, Michael Floyd and Susan Carnicero, former CIA officers who interrogated people for a living. They have a piece of advice that sounds strange at first: ignore the truth. They mean that when someone answers your question with true statements that don’t address it, you shouldn’t give them credit for those statements. The company’s age, the happy customers and the commitment to quality may all be true, and they still leave your question unanswered.

Don’t ask yourself whether what they said was true. Ask whether they answered your question.

When they haven’t answered it, ask again, calmly and with more precision. “I understand most customers are happy. How many shipments in the last six months had cracking complaints?” A specific number is much harder to dodge than a general question.

It also helps to change how you ask in the first place.

“No quality issues, right?” is a leading question. It hands the other person an easy no. A loaded question works better: “Walk me through what happened with the recent shipments.” That question signals that you already know something. The other person has to work out how much you know before deciding what to say, and dodging gets much harder when they don’t know which dodge is safe.

None of this requires reading body language or catching someone in a lie. It works on a video call or in an email thread, and it works with someone you met five minutes ago. All you have to do is listen for which version of the oath they’re breaking. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Think about the last important answer someone gave you in a negotiation. It may well have been true. Was it the whole truth? Was it nothing but the truth?

Remember: negotiation is life.​
– Gene

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