Posts Tagged ‘truth’


by Gary Monti on August 7, 2012

















The Soul of a Project #3: Truth vs. Propaganda

by Gary Monti on February 8, 2012


Facts vs. Truth





Truth vs. Propaganda









Guys, have you ever found the zipper down on your pants and realized, because you haven’t been to the rest room in hours, that it must have been that way for a long time?  And you strongly suspect other people may have noticed but didn’t tell you.  Ladies have you ever casually glanced in a mirror only to smile and find lipstick smeared on your teeth?  And in either case you wished you’d had someone around who cared more about your appearance than your feelings, didn’t you?  You needed someone who would tell you the truth no matter what.  You needed a truth-teller.

Do you wish you had had a friend or family member who would have told you years ago when those first few excess pounds started to creep onto your waistline?  You might have been annoyed to hear it but a comment of “Munching on a few too many ice cream bars these days old friend?” would have saved you all the dieting you must now endure.  You needed a truth-teller.

Truth Teller

A truth- teller is more than just a friend.  And it might not even be a friend.  Some of the best advice you will get through the years will come from people who either don’t know you or know you and dislike you.  Abraham Lincoln was running for political office and his opponent called him a horse’s ass.  When told of this and asked what he planned to do about it Lincoln is rumored to have said something like “My opponent is a smart man – – – I think I had better go home and look in the mirror”.

But a friend who is also a truth-teller is especially helpful.  Close friends know your weaknesses.  They know the things you intentionally avoid.  They know the things that routinely blind side you.  This is the person who will tell you straight up that you have terrible breath. (By the way anytime a stranger offers you a breath mint, take it.  They typically aren’t doing it to be polite.  Your breath stinks.  Thank them, take the mint and make a mental note that they may be a good candidate for a truth teller.)

Note that your truth teller friends may be people who want you to reciprocate and to also be their truth tellers but maybe not.  Not every ego is strong enough to benefit from a truth-telling friend.  The best relationship is, of course, when either person can be completely open and honest about the other’s shortcomings or imminent mistakes.  Just make sure that you cultivate several truth-tellers in your life.  You do this by asking them to tell you when you are about to make a mistake such as risking the date of a life time just to watch ten more minutes of a ball game.  You want them to tell you when you are about to risk a great job by responding childishly to a perceived injustice at work.  Such a friend is priceless.  Try to find several, make sure they are always comfortable telling you the whole, hard truth and be sure to always thank them for doing so even if your feelings have been hurt a little.

The old saying…

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”

… is true!

And only a truth-telling friend can provide the prevention. Otherwise life will provide the cure and it is seldom pleasant!

Copyright: Solid Thinking Corporation

Project Reality Check #9: Tyranny of the “Truth”

by Gary Monti on February 15, 2011

Tyrannical behavior can spring from the best of intentions. It is one person seeing the “truth” and insisting others follow. If you read the previous blog you’ll know why “truth” is in quotation marks. It can refer to our perception of reality, expectations, and insistence to conformance to that view rather than addressing reality itself. In projects this can lead to disastrous behaviors when the person or organization giving the orders believes they are in the know and doing what is best. This surfaces repeatedly throughout history.

The Devastating 88’s

In World War II one of the most effective weapons was the German 88 millimeter cannon. It was initially developed as an antiaircraft artillery piece and proved to be extremely effective. Testing it, the army noticed it could penetrate any British armor and quickly adopted it for field use, building a field carriage that made it quite transportable. Its performance was, in a word, devastating. Four 88’s could decimate a much larger unit of British armor.

So what does military history have to do with business? Look at it this way. Imagine how it would feel if you could invest $500,000 in a project, have a smaller team and take market share from a much larger competitor who had invested $5,000,000 and just isn’t as quick responding to customers. If that were true then your deliverable would be a force multiplier. A force multiplier amplifies the output of an individual. The 88 was a force multiplier!

Roll back to the previous blog regarding fantasy and reality. The German military management saw what the 88 could do, modified their view of the “truth,” and let subordinates implement accordingly. The “truth,” though, can cut the other way.

The Tyranny of the “Truth”

Ironically, the British could have matched and neutralized the 88 with an artillery piece of their own, a 3.5 inch antiaircraft cannon. This was very slow to occur and did only on an ad hoc basis. Consequently, the tyranny of “truth” caused many lives to be lost. The back story to this reveals a lot.

Similar to the 88, the 3.5 was devastating. It could penetrate any armor the Germans had. So, why aren’t there stories of 3.5’s wiping out German armored units? The British military command was notorious for being very hide-bound. Rank and privilege went hand-in-hand. In other words, an officer must be intrinsically superior to an enlisted man. Also, a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place was the order of the day and that place was determined by military command, those superior people. Consequently, the “truth” about the 3.5 was, “It was designed for antiaircraft use and it was preposterous to think something designed to attack an aircraft could have anything to do with an armored vehicle.” The “truth” was infantry would use a 2-pounder cannon, the shells of which pretty much bounced off German vehicles. The important thing was the 2-pounder was designed for anti-tank use so that was that.

The “Solution”

Eventually, British troops were allowed to use the 3.5 as an antitank weapon in North Africa and had some success. There was a problem, though. Because of the bureaucratic restrictions the gun plus carriage was twice the weight of the 88 and lacked the nimbleness. Keep that image in mind and switch back to business.

Think of General Motors before (3.5) and after (88) bankruptcy. The “solutions” offered before bankruptcy were predicated on keeping the status quo and associated reward system intact.  That was the “truth.” The path to success at GM has been built on dropping the old belief/reward systems and working to mold GM to be in line with current market demands and pricing. It has been painful, to say the least. It also has been rewarding and looks to offer a chance for GM to once again thrive.

In closing, I’d like to pose a question, “If you were to present this story to your organization and project team… would they say you are an 88 or 3.5 and what would they want to do about it?”


The Truth(s)





The Solutions(s)




The Challenge
