“I must know one thing,” the king replied, “and tell me the truth.”…

Businessweek ran a story in last week’s edition titled, ” – “The Lies We Tell at Work :Why dishonesty thrives at the office” by reporter Christopher Bonanos. The title page of the story looked like this:

How often have you heard this list? 

• “I really loved working with her. We didn’t have any problems”
• “Yep, we’re almost done with that research”
• No, I never got the message.  How weird”
• “Wow, traffic was horrible getting in”
• “It wasn’t my choice. My boss made me do it”
• “Oh, that dinner was work-related”
• “I don’t think I got that e-mail – maybe it’s in my spam folder”
• “I can’t. I have a doctor’s appointment today at 5 p.m.”

Every been guilty of these, or others?  Of course you have, we all have.  The article basically says, “Everybody does it”. As Christopher Bonanos writes, lies are part of the workplace.  But, does that make them right?  Bonanos gives both sides of lying, but fortunately ends the article with “And our theory is that being honest is at the core of how we really want to perceive ourselves”.  The article is worth reading because this reminds us that lying is rampant and that companies that allow this create a very dangerous culture.

I am sure you know where I am going with this.  Just because “everybody does it”, doesn’t mean that we can.  Hiding behind that “everyone does it” is as ludicrous as when he heard Lance Armstrong say to the public that he didn’t see drugging as cheating because everyone else did it too.  Imagine standing in front of God and justifying being dishonest with this argument?  Ours is a greater responsibility and we simply cannot be part of the crowd that is “lying around”.  Today, yes today, we each will have tens, if not multiples of that times where we can speak truth or tell a lie.  Let’s today be about standing up and not “lying around”.

Reference: 2 Samuel 14:8 (New Living Translation)