ANYONE asked to deliver an honest response to "does my bum look big in this?" or if a bald patch is visible or paunch protruding knows full well that part of the skill in successful human relations is knowing what to leave out when being honest.

A less than enthusiastic response will result in a number of unsugared certainties.

Firstly, there'll be ongoing, timeconsuming and seriously dangerous questioning to elicit the exact nature, degree, colour, quality and background of your innocently motivated, albeit negative, murmurings . . . just how big/where/for how long/why didn't you say before/how bad?

Secondly, there'll be negative emotional reaction and expression of feelings involved. Serious self-esteem plummeting for the person you're probably heading out with is not a good omen for the evening.

Thirdly, you'll have exploded the illusion we all have that we are better/look better/behave better than we really do and so some sort of retaliation will have to be seriously considered and wing its way to your over-inflated ego any day now.

It's just not worth shattering the illusions our betters and even our equals have and if we are to recognise our own vulnerability, we'd do what most supportive spouses do as they jangle car keys, and what every savvy subordinate does at work, and lie.

The lie is one of the staples of Irish family life and plays no small part in the Irish economy either, but it seldom gets the credit it deserves from economic and financial pundits, never mind from those who use it most . . .

managers and marketers.

All over the workplace people in middle management are suppressing little bits of truth here and there, hiding bits and pieces of information, covering up negative financial data, denying failures and launching propaganda campaigns to deny the existence of crises and disasters for which they are mainly responsible.

These management lies are less like the 'BRL' (bum response lie) than they are akin to the bum owner lies and are built on a strong self-efficacy bias which makes for cover-ups of our failings so that others don't see them . . . or if they do, cannot mention them . . . and telling and retelling ourselves that the camouflage is working even if the 'obviously distorted' mirrors we occasionally glance into suggest otherwise.

We are thus quick to embrace the sycophancy of our loved ones and subordinates who tell us what they know we must hear and on we go, awobble perhaps, but defiantly in denial.

The most pervasive and damaging lies doing the rounds at work, though, are not necessarily these whoppers put about by the powers that be but those told by subordinates to their managers concerning their management behaviours.

These UFLs (upward feedback lies) give people with power an inaccurately positive picture of the effects of their actions and distort their perceptions as to what they're doing right.

They don't do wrong, or so their staff tell them.

One of the most potent explanations for this truth re-engineering for bosses can be found in ingratiation theory. This well-known phenomenon will ring bells for anyone ambitious enough ever to have tried to hold onto a position/partner higher up the status chain than them.

The theory posits that lower-status people exaggerate their praise of higher-status people and engage in substantially more 'politeness strategies' with them than they do with those they hold in similar esteem but who enjoy a lower status.

Ingratiation theory makes a mockery of upward feedback, apparently one of the keys to effective organisational functioning and efficient decision making at work today.

There is an unrelenting call for upward feedback to be brought into board room and branch office so that management levels benefit from other people's perspectives. AT&T, GE and Bank of America have pioneered it within 360 feedback systems and decision models insist that better decisions come from a range of views, openly and frequently expressed in banter-like exchanges.

But many studies have found that upward feedback is non-existent, and despite what the appraisal handbook may say, it is in fact not encouraged by most managers.

Where it exists at all, it is inaccurately positive due to the ingratiation impulse; managers are more aware of the positives they receive than the negatives and seem to filter out any expression of discontent among their staff so as to feed their self-efficacy bias.

Studies carried out and reported in the Journal of Management Development (2007) found in an experiment with 45 managers and 308 staff that managers had no insight into the impact of their behaviour, that there was only very slight improvement in behaviour after substantial subordinate criticism and a resultant reduction in their self-perceptions went unmatched by a simultaneous change in behaviour.

ASK PATRICIA. . .

QAs a HR manager, how should I set up an upward feedback system?

A While managers might have open-door policies, it appears their minds are not always so ajar, at least to any criticism, and so the only real evaluation the organisation may have to performance issues at that level may be arbitrary.

For the system to work, you have to ensure staff know how to give constructive feedback. It is recorded systematically and signed off, when given. Evidence of the behaviour should be cited when feedback is given. Managers should be trained in seeing other perspectives. Managers should be trained in action planning. Senior management should monitor the action plans and ensure issues are prioritised and discussed at team/department meetings.

Only when action planning is embedded will upward feedback work as a system, rather than mere revenge or simple sulking by staff or denial by managers.