Cheating becomes truly contagious—especially if it is found in and modeled by the leaders of the family (parent) or organization (president or chair of the board). We can often be of greatest benefit as professional coaches to our cheating client if we point out the potential of this broader systemic impact. At a family level, we might reiterate an insight offered by the composer, Stephen Sondheim, and lyricist, James Lupine, in their Broadway musical, Into the Woods. They note that “Children will Listen” and will learn from what we as parents do as well as what we say. If they observe us cheating, then they are themselves likely to cheat. Similarly in an organizational environment, members of the organization are likely to not just listen to the leaders of their organization but also observe their leaders’ behavior. All organizations are “learning organizations” (Argyris and Schon, 1978) – it is just a matter of what is being learned.
Types of Cheating
This way to classify cheating is much less elusive than the matter of size and frequency—or is it? As we have already noted there is domestic cheating—when it involves one or more people who are important in our personal life. The underlying purpose is domestic and the lying is highly personal. Then there is cheating that one engages in the organization where one is employed. The purpose often has to do with “the bottom line” (finances), though the related lying can be quite personal (relationship with others in the organization)
The third type of cheating occurs in our relationship with government agencies and, more generally, in the public domain. We cheat on our taxes. We contribute to a false narrative regarding the political motives or behavior of an elected official. We steal something from a store or lie to our neighbors. The purpose often resides in an alienation from the society in which we reside and/or a resentment of the government that is supposed to serve us. We lie because we “don’t give a sh#t or because we are being f#cked over by our local city hall.”
Each of these three types of cheating and attendant lying can be easily categorized – or is this always the case? First, the contagion of cheating knows no boundaries and the lying easily and rapidly spreads. We cheat on our wife and on our taxes. We distort the truth (lie!) regarding the quality of services being offered in our hotel. We misrepresent (lie about!) the record of a specific political figure who is chairing a committee investigating the operations of our hotel.
We can return to our distinction between complicated and complex systems. One type of cheating is often interwoven with other types of cheating. Lies are interdependent. The distortion of hotel services is directly related to the distortion of a political foe’s motivations and behavior. The expenses associated with an illicit affair are often hidden not just from ones’ partner but also from the IRS (via fraudulent tax reports).
There is also the related matter of one cheat that successfully leads to a second and third cheat. If we can get away with adultery that is either not discovered or is discovered but has no negative repercussions, then why not expand our cheating into other domains. If we can lie without being caught about the bottom line in our organization, then why not lie about consumer ratings of our product. We can return to our behavioral analysis. Periodic reinforcement is harder to overcome than constant reinforcement.
We don’t have to always be a successful cheater or successful liar for this behavior to be well established in our repertoire—especially when faced with the prospect of using the lie and cheat to avoid some negative consequence (going to jail, paying a fine, risking divorce). Even if we are caught some of the time, our cheating continues because we are not caught ALL THE TIME. Even if we are punished some of the time for purposeful lying, we keep engaging in lying because we get away with it sometimes. We only need to be successful in cheating on occasion for us to sustain and even expand this behavior in the future. Put simply, cheating is hard to extinguish!
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