461 | Dealing With Dishonesty and Deceit

Chris LoCurto 0:00
If you've ever been a leader or a parent, which would mean that you hopefully still are one. For any amount of time, no doubt, you've had to deal with some kind of unsavory behavior from those you're trying to lead. But how you deal with those moments will likely determine whether that behavior gets repeated or avoided in the future, dealing with dishonesty and deceit that's coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks, I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. Today we are talking about dealing with dishonesty and deceit in the workplace or in the home now. There are leaders in the office and no doubt parents at home who may feel that those they lead aren't always being completely honest, telling half truths or outright deceiving others I can tell you that I have experienced that. In my past I am somebody who is a high altruist. I'm somebody who has gives people the benefit of the doubt. So I struggle sometimes to understand when that's actually happening, but here's the thing. When it is left unchecked, this kind of unsavory behavior can create discontent, it can break up the harmony in the home or office, it can, it can impede work, it can begin to become an obstacle to goals and objectives. I mean, think about it, especially if team members are experiencing this or we're getting the wrong information throughout the team or projects or to the leader, whatever it is, obviously, that can impede work. And unfortunately, it can infect others so it can begin to spread negativity, it can begin to spread lies themselves. It can also begin to spread a lack of loyalty or respect for a leader who doesn't handle it. So leader, parent, if you've got followers, then you've naturally got problems, right? Well, shepherds are no strangers to the fact that sheep are messy creatures, I can attest to that personally. But what happens if we ignore the mess? And why do some leaders shy away instead of engaging, let's be honest, it's really hard work, cleaning up messes without doing harm or creating more mess. It's tough. And that tends to be the reason that holds people back, when we come back, why leaders tend to turn a blind eye and what's at stake.

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So why do leaders tend to turn a blind eye and ignore the mess? Right? Well, first thing and this is probably by far the biggest piece. They don't want to deal with the conflict or even the consequences of holding others accountable. Think about it. Most people do not like conflict. There is a small group of people who don't have a problem with conflict and there's an even smaller group of people who enjoy conflict. Get your butt to next level life if that's you. There is a you know a lot of people who hate conflict, who don't want to deal with the conflict. Every person who's focusing on their own worth in the situation is highly likely to avoid the conflict. Think about it. What if conflict arises? What if somebody challenges you calls you out, turns it on you and says that you're the reason for all of this stuff, whatever it is, how are you going to receive that? How are you going to respond? Another reason is they generally just don't like it. Covering and dealing with unsavory matters, right? Maybe it reminds them other past maybe it causes them to have to stop focusing on the thing they're focusing on. But I've seen so many leaders that choose to not look at something that's going on, because they just don't want to deal with it. Am I not even be because it's conflict, it could just be because it's distracting them from the thing that they're focused on.

Another reason might be, because the personality style of the leader of the parent may be more of a people pleaser, personality, and they actually have a tendency to sweep things under the rug, no matter where you are, or where you might land on that spectrum. Chances are that you've been there, and you found out that there's a whole lot of things that are difficult to deal with when you're dealing with deceit, deception, dishonesty. I can tell you that is something that I have had times in my earlier years that I was really slow to respond to, because of the fear, the fear that it was going to, you know, become a big, dramatic conflict, or that maybe I was approaching somebody who was going to be super controlling. But yeah, I've been there. I can think back to when I finally decided enough is enough, right? We got to change things. And I started changing things, how difficult it was. But over time, with the practice, it became something that man, I could jump on right away, and actually get rid of a bunch of the bad after effects or the continued dishonesty and deceit. So there's a there's an old, old joke, where a guy walks into a hardware store. And he asked the guy who owns a hardware store, hey, do you have any hammers? And the guy says, Yep, they're back on Aisle Five. And he says, What does that sound? And the owner says, That's my dog. He's back. They're laying on a nail. He's like, Oh, okay. So the guy goes, looks at the hammers, picks a hammer comes back to the front. He could still hear the dog whining. He said, Is he still laying on that nail? And he says, yeah, he goes, Why? He goes, because it doesn't hurt enough yet. And folks, I can tell you, dealing with crap like deceit and dishonesty, whether it's in your workplace, whether it's in your home, is going to be messy.

But if you do not handle it in your wedding, it for it to be painful enough for you to have to face it, then I can tell you, it's going to be way messier than if you would have just jumped to it in the beginning. So key thought, ignoring personal problems is like smelling smoke, and seeing flames, but not raising an alarm and not responding to that threat that these things pose. So here's some warning signs that you might consider to be smoke, you might consider them to be flames. But they should put you on alert. The first thing is sustained negativity. Now anyone can have a bad day, there's there's no doubt about that. If we have a heart for people, then we can understand that we can even be very empathetic, to help people as they're having a bad day and they're struggling through something. Something you should know them. When somebody is having a consistently negative day, day after day after day after day, when it's sustained negativity, there's probably something going on that's much bigger, they're probably losing a ton of worth. And it's very possible. I'm saying I'm not saying that it is true, but it's very possible that there's some deceit going on. It's possible this is a warning sign. This is something you should start paying attention to another sign, flame or smoke, smoke or flame actually kind of feel this as more flame is rumors or gossip. Oh, yeah, I cannot stand it right. Now. These are viral infections and they spread. So don't think that just because one person is gossiping, it can stop there. Here's the deal. If a person is gossiping, another person is listening. Right? Unless that person shuts it down and sends that person to their leader, and make sure that it gets discussed and resolved and, you know, fixed and get get the gossip out, then that person's listening to it. Well, I think we've all been in an environment where we see that that just carries from person to person to person, right? It is just disgusting. It is terrible. Another smoke or flame is the lies and dishonesty. You know when you experience things, when you see things When you know things and somebody is telling you that those things aren't true, this needs to be a warning sign to you, right? This needs to be something that you know the bells and you know, sirens are going off in your head. That is something that as a, in my earlier years as a high S, as somebody who is altruistic, as somebody who was decently submissive back in those days, that's something that I would allow people to tell me nope, those things aren't true. Nope, that's not actually happening. Nope, that's all in your head. And even though I knew the truth, when it when the lie continued to happen, eventually it started to become somewhat of a truth. In my mind, I had to praise God have, you know, stop and focus on what is actual truth get to true clear perspective, for me to recognize it. If you're hearing it, if you're hearing lines, if you're seeing dishonesty, and instead of tackling it instead of shutting it down, instead of, you know, getting to the accurate perspective, if you're receiving it as it's not truth, then guess what? That the situation's not actually happening? And then guess what? It's going to happen? 100 more times without you doing anything about it. Think about it, parents. How many times have you been lied to by a child, but convincingly saw where you struggled to recognize whether or not it was a lie or not? Right? But deep down inside, you knew I have watched many parents literally be lying to to their face. And I've watched the reactions, knowing this parent knows that that's a lie, but not do anything about it. Why many times it's because they know the kid's gonna go ballistic. Why is the kid gonna go ballistic? Because the child hasn't experienced consequences for their choices. And to make the child stop and focus on the lie is just too much conflict. It's too much drama. It's too much arguing it's too much, whatever right fill in the blank. The problem is when you continue to allow that What are you teaching the child? What are you teaching the team member that they can continue to get away with it?

Let me say that, again, you by not stopping it are teaching the other person that they can get away with it. Another warning sign, half truths, things that aren't completely true, you can tell that it's not completely true, you can tell that there is truth to it. But you can also see the deceit in it. There's many times one of the things you will hear in this office building is that didn't answer the question. There are many times when we will ask a question in an event, whether it's next level lying strat plan, it doesn't matter what it is. And if somebody is struggling in the moment what the question a lot of times they'll deflect. A lot of times they'll say something that sounds like they're answering the question, but they're actually not answering the question. Right? Well, that's still deception. I'm not talking about somebody who misunderstood the question. I'm talking about somebody who understands a question, but decides not to truly answer the question. If you would like to see a fantastic example of this, find a really bad press secretary. Find somebody who can't answer the questions. Find somebody who constantly changes the answers, right? You'll see very quickly, it makes it really easy for you to recognize it. When you can see blatantly, somebody's deflecting, it makes a lot easier to find somebody who's really good at it, or you know, it's just a slight deflection. So and also, another warning sign is isolation. Avoidance. When people pull back when people avoid you, when people stay distant, it's a good possibility that there is a reason for those of us that are believers, William, you don't even have to be a believer to understand this. Shame can be a huge thing that causes somebody to pull back and stay distant. If somebody knows that they're being deceit full to you. If somebody knows that they're deceiving you, then it's a really good chance. They don't want to get caught in the deception. So avoiding things becomes a natural response is as long as they can avoid something, they're convincing themselves that nobody's going to find out. Nobody's going to see that they're being deceitful. Nobody's going to see that they're being dishonest. So when there's evidence or indication of these things, something's most likely burning in the building. Where there's smoke. Yes, most likely, there's a fire but what can you do to save the building? and the people in it. So here's the preventative care First, create, curate, and segment your corporate culture, see that the C, the C, the three C's will actually was five C's. So, first thing you need to do, culture is key. Whether you're at home or in the office, it doesn't matter, you have a culture everywhere. Now for me, I define culture as actions and attitudes. What are the actions of the people? What are the attitudes of the people that creates culture, that becomes culture, right? So doesn't matter if you're at the home, if you're at the office, upholding the corporate culture or home culture is a standard that we can point to. This is our culture. What we teach on our lesson on culture is that is something that you must force you must define the culture that you want, you need to teach it, you got to force it, when it has to be forced in there, you need to recognize it, you need to call it out, when it's bad, right? Recognize it when it's good, call it out when it's bad. This is a process you got to do over and over and over and over and over again. Even at home, you should be creating the family culture, we do this, this is what we do. This is who we are we do not do this. If you take a look. Again, believers go back to Mount Sinai. When you look at what God is doing with the mixed multitude, his children of Israel and Gentiles, there's a mixed multitude, we are involved as well, for those of us that are not one of the children of Israel.

What is he doing? First thing he's doing is teaching them who he is, then he's teaching them who they are. And then he's teaching them how to be a child of God, how to be one of his god is creating the culture, this is what you do, this is what you don't do. Here's the consequences. If you do the right things, the good consequences, here's the consequences if you do the wrong things, those things need to be in place, whether at home, whether at the business, you have to have a defined culture that people can anticipate that they can understand. You also have to say, we don't do this or that we do this instead, if you don't actually speak out the culture that you want. If you don't actually teach people that culture that you want, how are they going to know? Now there is a possibility they can see you living it out? But really, why do we wait until then? Go ahead and teach it help them to understand how do you treat both the external and internal clients? Right? How do you teach the clients up? Give us money in the the team members that we work with? How do you take care of situations when things go wrong? When things go bad? How do you take care of mistakes? What are the things that you do? It is great when I look at a team member who's struggling with a mistake, and I go, what are we going to do about this? And you know, because sometimes people will be very fearful, they don't want to disappoint me. And they'll say, what are we going to do? But you know, what, what, what are you afraid of? Well, you know, I don't want to disappoint you in this. What how am I going to respond to this mistake? Well, first, you're going to say what happened, right? And then what? Well, how did it happen? And why did it happen? And how do we fix it? And then how do we make sure it never happens again? And then I say and then what? Like Well, that's pretty much it. You're gonna go back to work? Yep. I'm not gonna rip your head off. No. Okay. Well, then what are you afraid of? You're right. Okay. Let me go fix it. I love it when my team can anticipate me. Especially when it's good stuff. You know, I'm sure they can anticipate what is bad stuff. But I love it when they know, this is how we do things here. Because I've taught it, and my leadership team has taught it. And the team members themselves have self policed by teaching it. So it exists. Another thing you need to do is teach by your own examples, right? You need to be teaching it, but if your examples don't actually bank it up, your actions don't actually back it up, then your words don't really mean a whole lot. Okay, so if you're not actually doing it, if you're not actually making it happen and actually teaching, then guess what? How are they going to ever believe you? Right? So you must lead by example. What else can you do when the building is on fire? We're gonna talk about that. When we come back right after this.

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Chris LoCurto 20:03
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Now that we have the standard of culture secure, and I know that you've done it, just now between the break and now now we can point our team and family to the exact culture, right, we can use the foundation of the culture as accountability, folks, I know that many of you come from a bad background, or maybe a bad religious background where accountability is a dirty word, because that usually points to somebody beating you over the head with a Bible telling you all the things that are wrong with you while they've got their leg holding back the closet behind them of all the things that they've screwed up. That's not what accountability is. Accountability isn't bullying, accountability isn't pointing the finger. Accountability is helping people to stay true to the common expectations, right? Accountability is lifting up people's arms accountability is pushing people when they needed accountability is caring for them when they need it. Accountability is getting in there and helping the person to become successful, whether it's a team member, whether it's a family member, it just doesn't matter. Right, get in and help somebody. So what are some common expectations? Well, without an expectation of accountability, guess what? There's chaos. So a common expectation should be accountability. So imagine a society that doesn't have any rules or consequences for breaking the rules, right? If you it doesn't matter, if you break a rule, nothing happens. Well, guess what? People are going to break the rules, there's no consequence. So of course, they're gonna go and do stupid, right, because nobody's gonna hold them accountable. So when it comes to accountability, there's a few things you need to understand. First off, it's not only okay to hold people accountable, it's a good thing to hold people accountable for what they're responsible for, or what actions they're having, or what they're doing to be destructive, or to be deceitful, or dishonest, or just, if they're not even trying to do any, anything bad, they just aren't getting the right things done. It's okay to hold people accountable. It's not only okay, it's required of somebody who wants to be a great leader. You can't be a great leader and not hold people accountable. Show me one great leader in history that did not hold people accountable. It's impossible, you can't find that right. Also, every member of the team is responsible for their own words and actions. Even though I want you to understand this, especially those folks that are more inclined to be controlled. Many times people will make you think that their actions and their words are your fault. And been there done that had that a lot in my life, where I was responsible for somebody else, until you recognize that you need to put in healthy boundaries. And I had to do that myself. Until you recognize the need for placing healthy boundaries in place, then what will happen is you will have a tendency not to hold those people accountable. If the conflict of somebody pushing on you is too much, and you're receiving it as your self worth and your issues and your problems, then guess what, there's no way you can possibly hold them accountable. So you've got to understand each person must be responsible for their own words. Also, accountability is another opportunity for you to reinforce the corporate culture and values. So think about it. When you're holding somebody accountable, whether it's at work or at home. It gives you the opportunity to point to the very culture. It gives you the opportunity to say we don't do that here. We don't allow that here. We do things this way over here, right. It gives you that peace for them to go. While that's truth. I've heard that 14,000 times. So guess what? This is my fault. Now, you have to be very cautious with this. If you're not following the culture, then you're going to get it back in your face pretty darn fast. Well, you don't do that, well, I saw you do this the other day. This is where the old terrible saying do, as I say, not as I do just doesn't fit, it doesn't work, you've got to make sure that people can anticipate that you do the right thing. And then when you call them out, they can't blame you for not doing the right thing, they can't throw it back on you. So hold them accountable by pointing them back to that culture. Now, a few things you have to think about when it comes to doing this. First thing is, not everyone in the office comes from a place like yours, maybe if you're if you're coming from a stronger family background, if you're coming from a stronger work ethic background, whatever it is, do understand one of our core values here at the pointman group is that everybody has a root system, we must honor that, it doesn't mean that we have to agree with it, it doesn't mean that we have to allow them to live in victim mentality or whatever. It just means recognize that this person has a background that they're coming from. That's That's telling them that they should respond this way. So understand that also understand that every single day, they bring their own root system, their own culture, their own problems, their own brokenness, their own great things. So you know, it doesn't have to be negative, right? But we're talking about this in the context of negativity. They bring all of that to work every single day. So parents, you know, when your kids come home different, you know, when your kids come home, and something has influenced them in a negative way. You know, when your kids come home, and something's influenced them in a positive way, right? If we don't dig in and discover what it is, we have school systems, I don't know what it was, but I'm just so proud of John Rich.

Who in the Nashville area, his eye again, I don't know exactly what it was. But something was in his kid's book, that he's going to public school. And he blew these things up on posters. So I'm assuming these are images. And he took them to a school board meeting and they would not allow him in what the posters because it was too terrible. Think about that. And he's sitting there yelling, and I'm going you are teaching my kid this right. Then he got to a meeting with Governor Lee, I believe, and said, If I brought these into your home and showed him to your grandson, what would you do? And I think Governor Lee's responses I'd have you arrested. He goes, Well, guess what? This is what's in my kids school book. And so apparently, he called a special meeting. I don't know what's happened since hopefully they fixed it. But I applaud the parent for standing up and going, you're not going to influence my child this way. Right. I will be honest, I don't know how many um, other than the fact that it makes it incredibly difficult to, you know, to have one parent at home. I don't know if I could have my kids at public school with what's going on today. Right? I'm not saying all public school is bad. That is not what I'm saying. Don't Don't say that. That's what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, is that there's so much going on out there where kids are being influenced in terrible ways. Right? What is Rabbi Daniel Lapin call it? He calls it a gig? Government indoctrination camps? That's what the that's what he calls the public school system. Think about it right? What's the influence your kids are receiving? Whether it be influenced towards ideals? What if it's influenced towards other kids that are having worth issues or struggles What if it's influenced towards bad decision making whatever it is, you have to understand that their friends, their teachers, the books that they're reading the music that they're listening to the the TV shows, they're watching the URL for the love social media in which they should not thinking beyond as having an influence. All of it is all of it's having an effect. Same thing for your team members leader how they're living their lives. Now you don't really have a say there. But if they are experiencing other team members as negative, if they're sparing experiencing other team members as gossipy, if they're experiencing other team members as being deceitful, that's having an influence on them. So this makes it even more important to make sure that you are teaching that you're, you're living out you're rehearsing you're reinforcing your culture and your values. When you do it over and over again, good people will self police. Let me say that again. When you do it over and over again good people will self police the call it out.