A Conversation with Steven Gaffney

Steven and I have known each other for over a decade. He’s an expert on a widely-studied field—teams—and a field not studied enough—honesty. In this conversation he explains about fear being the cause of a lack of honesty. He explains the novel notion that “It’s not what we say, but what we don't say.” Steven does believe that honesty is making a comeback, contrary to what many people may think. We talk about the government actually rewarding “whistleblowers” to come forward by offering seven- and even eight-figure payments, and the problems that creates when people make false accusations to try to get some of that money. We discuss the modern “guilty until proven innocent” reversal that seems to have taken hold of society and the media, as embodied by TSA: Prove to us that you’re not a terrorist. Steven doesn’t feel the pandemic dramatically changed teamwork but he does see a trend to get people back into the office because socialization is a huge part of effective teamwork, and you can’t do that remotely. He feels that “high achieving” teams is the right phrase, more so than “high performing” teams. And he doesn't see a difference in honesty or teamwork between the public and private sectors. Of course, we talk about politicians. He makes the case that you need to calculate time investment before taking on some lies that really aren’t harmful, or where people are so resistant to other views that they won’t listen anyway.  I asked him if he were self-conscious about his own truthfulness and he said, “Of course, and sometimes I do lie!” And, lastly, we do agree on the appropriate time to lie.

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