There’s a great article in this week’s Economist about how to detect lies in conference calls. Here are some clues:
- References to general knowledge (“as you know…”)
- Overstatement (“fantastic” not “good”)
- Avoid the word ‘I’, using the third person instead
- Fewer hesitations
- Use of swear words (remember Jeff Skilling? I do – I saw Enron a couple of weeks ago in London.)
(The original research paper: Detecting Deceptive Discussions in Conference Calls (PDF) is also worth reading.)
These ‘tells’ are also attributes of a lot of bad marketing copy. So, if you want to increase the truthiness of your copy, the lessons are clear: be specific, don’t treat the reader as an idiot, be modestly understated and use the first person. And don’t swear.
Related posts:
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
‘Fewer hesitations’ is an interesting one.
I’ve coached myself to use fewer ums and ahs, and I’ve eliminated that British trope “you know” as a space-filler. I did this because hesitation words annoy the listener, even if only gradually.
And now the Economist is calling me a liar. The cheek of it!
Occasionally, you hear a radio or TV interview with an old school master of spoken English. And it’s truly a pleasure.
I think hesitation-free speech usually shows that the person is totally at home with their subject (it’s often a pleasure listening to a true expert), that they’ve made long efforts to show consideration for the patience of other people, and that they’re not thinking on the hoof.
Anyway.
Thought that was an effing stellar um… article.
I think the point the academics are making is that if an executive uses fewer hesitations on a conference call, it is because they are probably using a rehearsed script and don’t need to think on their feet. This (perhaps) indicates falsehood. In a wider context – everyday life – it is probably good to do what you have done and coach yourself out of using too many hesitation words. But I don’t think the Economist is calling you a liar!
The use of passive voice (including the third person references you mentioned) is a dead-bang tipoff that something untoward is going on, though often that has to do with the blame game.
Still, a tremendously awesome post – perhaps unparalleled in the human experience to date.
I don’ t know. Sometimes I used third-person and passive voice in the office to keep blame from being placed on one person’s shoulders. I think it’s a good way of mitigating the “fall man” mentality that sometimes happens in the workplace, especially when there’s no single person to blame for a certain issue.
I quite often refer to “we”, usually when wanting to share credit with others. You’re right that a lot of marketing copy has an odd way of making me wonder whether a fifth grader wrote it…
Dude, Matt. Are you doing okay?
Haven’t seen you on the interwebz much these days.
Hope everything’s okay! Miss your content
I’m doing fine, thanks. Just insanely busy with regular work and an exciting new project.