Were you surprised when Oprah said last week that she wanted to interview OJ Simpson—with the condition that he confess to the murders of his ex-wife Nicole and friend Ron Goldman?

Would you be surprised if he submitted to her demand?

I guess my surprise was that Oprah thinks he’s guilty.

You can see a clip of Oprah talking about her idea here.  In it she says, “I wanted to talk to him, not because, you know, not to be a voyeur for that evening, but just because that’s another, that trial sort of  changed the consciousness, ah, in the country.”

It’s always interesting when a person denies something that hasn’t been charged.  What does it mean when Oprah says that voyeurism isn’t her motivation?  Let’s take Oprah at her word, maybe that wouldn’t be her purpose for getting OJ’s confession… but she knows that voyeurism would be THE motivation of everyone watching the interview.   

But the real question is this:  Why do we need OJ to confess?

The answer to this lies in human nature, and it’s at work within all of us when we perceive that someone has told us a  lie.  

So here are The Two Deadliest Sins people commit regarding deception, especially in personal relationships:

1-Their pursuit of a lie, and

2-Their pursuit of a confession.

When I say “pursuit of a lie” I’m not just referring to finding a past lie, but soliciting a new one.  Suppose a parent has forbidden her son to hang out with ‘Jimmy’.  Today she learns that her son spent all of yesterday at Jimmy’s house.  What will the average parent do in this situation?  Many of us would unwittingly find the temptation to solicit a lie overwhelming and ask this question of the son:  “So where did you go yesterday?”      

Can you think of a time when you knew the truth, yet asked the other person questions to see if they would lie to you?

When we know the truth and then ask the other person questions about it with feigned naivete, we’re actually soliciting a lie… and complicating the situation.  In fact, lies grate the ego so badly that we often consider the lie more egregious than the act they lied about! 

The solution to Deadliest Sin #1:  Quash instinct here—move past lies as if they didn’t happen and pursue remedies instead.

Now on to Deadliest Sin #2—Pursuit of a Confession—and how it relates to Oprah and OJ.  Whether you’re a cop with a criminal suspect, or just trying to get at the truth in a personal relationship, the dynamics—and the temptations—are the same; they’re concealing the truth, and you want them to admit what they’ve done.

Here’s the little-known secret:  Their overt confession isn’t necessary, and you undermine your goals in seeking it directly. 

In my public speaking appearances I often share techniques for getting the truth through Minimization and something I call, Coming from a Position of Knowledge.

You can get what amounts to the equivalent of a confession, without demanding it specifically.  Back again to human nature:  People will resist giving you what you appear to badly want, particularly when it requires they give up something. 

You’ve probably seen two children playing nicely in the living room floor, neither paying any attention to some toy that’s been in plain sight for hours.  But when one picks it up, suddenly the other wants it.  And the kid with the toy will fight like a drunk monkey to keep it.

Adults still have this infantile trait buried deeply within; when you ask a person to confess to a ‘wrong’, they will fight giving you what you want.  What’s more, as you continue to demand the truth, the weaker you will appear, and the more it will seem you have no proof of their misdeeds.  This is where the combined techniques of Minimization and Coming from a Position of Knowledge can yield results that would otherwise be unattainable.

So maybe I’ve been rambling, let’s get back to Oprah and OJ…  

Do we already know the truth? 

Do you want to hear him confess? 

Does anybody really wonder if he’s guilty? 

Or is that we’d just love hearing him say he murdered two people with a knife, while we sit transfixed with a bowl of popcorn in our lap? 

Sounds kinda like voyeurism.

So again I ask you:  Do you think OJ would actually confess to two murders on television? 

Keep in mind, he can’t be tried for the crimes—he was acquitted. 

In fact, that means OJ Simpson is the one person on the planet who’s been cleared of these murders. 

-jef

Refer this blog post to a friend or colleague…

Tags: oj simpson

This entry was posted on Friday, June 24th, 2011 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Deception. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.