I had the pleasure of hearing Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Rationality and The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty) tonight. In addition to being highly entertaining – both his studies and his insights – he was also informative. His talk today was about lying and cheating; specifically, the circumstances under which we do more of it.
One of the “ah ha’s” for me was in understanding that our distance between us and our actions dramatically impacts our propensity to cheat. In other words, the more deliberate and direct our actions are the less likely we are to cheat. The example he used was golf. If your ball lands 4″ off the fairway (in the rough), the chances of you picking up your ball and moving it over 4″ is slim to none. The odds of you kicking the ball though, or nudging it with your club are much higher. (Those of you who golf know this is true).
The risk, of course, with global commerce, electronic communication and the digitization of money is that everything is becoming a whole lot more abstract. According to Ariely’s research, this “abstraction” is one of the largest influences in altering our morale compass. My takeaway? Connect live, whenever possible. We all know the impact face to face can have, but now we have yet another reason.
