The Author
Robert Düsterwald is a German management consultant. After completing his studies, he initially worked for many years as a consultant, project leader and senior manager in companies of various industries. His main focus was on the analysis of business processes and internal control systems. As an auditor, he also came into contact with the topics of compliance and business ethics.
He writes books about topics from his professional and private experiences.
Bibliographic Information of the German National Library
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data can be found on the Internet at www.dnb.de.
Legal notice
The information in this book has been carefully assembled. However, no guarantee can be taken over for the use of the information, which solely lies in the responsibility of the reader. Any liability of the author, publisher or dealer of this book for personal injury, damage to property or financial loss is excluded.
© 2019 Robert Düsterwald, Kaarst
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Production and publisher:
BoD - Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt, Germany
Cover design and cover picture: Robert Düsterwald
ISBN: 9 783750 477209
Dedicated to my beloved wife
Please note that in this book the gender form is not divided into men, women or other sexes. For reasons of simplification, only the masculine form is used. Nobody should feel offended or discriminated by this, as this is certainly not intended.
Dear reader,
Who does not know them, the deceivers and greedy, the cheaters and liars, the hypocrites, the Pharisees in business and everyday life? They are ubiquitous, sitting in offices, stores and homes, in authorities, politics and business, but also in our closest and most familiar environment - our circle of friends and even our family. They swear us friendship in order to exploit us all the more thoroughly behind our backs, to take advantage of us and to harm us.
If we could at least recognise them as false friends, this might not even be so bad – then at least we would know where we stand. Better a declared enemy than a dishonest friend. But I originally baptised them ‘dazzlers’, because they cleverly give the appearance of worthiness and decency, and precisely because of this we do not realise that perhaps they are the ones who are responsible for our financial misery, our dejection, our career break or for an even worse fate. Nonetheless in this book we will call them what they are: cheaters.
It is no wonder that there is a lack of reliable statistics on the type of person I describe, because those I describe in this book are the ones who know how to cleverly camouflage their underhanded intentions and who often manage to operate below criminal or civil relevance. That is why it is so difficult to defend oneself against their attacks. Seldom are they sued, and in many cases the required evidence is simply missing. In addition, not everything that is legally permitted is morally justifiable.
In the best case cheaters constantly cause pettifogging annoyances, but in the worst case they cause serious, permanent damage. Damages that can lead to the economic and financial ruin of those they have outsmarted. Some of the ‘victims’ still trust the ‘perpetrator’ to the end, sometimes blindly.
If we knew exactly, who are all the people who secretly want us evil, we might not be able to sleep peacefully - but at least we could then seize the root of the bad and better bring about a short and horrible end, instead of experiencing endless horror. But mostly we don't know - or we don't know for sure - and that's where everything starts.
Because only when you can recognise the hidden behavior patterns that betray a cheater you are able to defend yourself against cheating and to limit, eliminate or prevent its harmful effects with appropriate measures in your private or professional environment.
This brings us to the purpose of this book. Cheaters are as diverse characters as we all are, but I would like to show in this book that the behavior of cheating is mostly recognisable by certain patterns. These patterns are not written on their foreheads, but in the course of time characteristics of cheating can be recognised very well by sufficient observations.
So I have developed a test with the help of which you can assess a person known to you on the characteristics of a cheater. Further tests will show you how susceptible someone is to attacks from cheaters and how you can recognise signs of cheating behavior in organisations. I will also show you how to defend yourself against attacks from cheaters.
Of course, I can only suggest a catalogue of different options; you must think for yourself about which of the means you want to use and, most importantly, how you want to do that and to what extent.
This book and the tests it contains are not a scientific work, although many of its private observations and conclusions are similar to results elaborated in professional areas such as compliance (in the workplace) or forensics (in criminal investigations). But even if in my opinion the book does not contradict to these established findings in any way, it is not an objective textbook; it is rather a very private guidebook, born from countless own observations and experiences that I have gathered over many years and would like to make available to others. Its main aim is to provide food for thought and discussion.
If I only succeed in opening your eyes a little so that you perhaps recognise one or the other cheating dazzler in your environment or that of a friend and from now on you can defend yourself against this person, then I have already achieved my goal.
Nevertheless - even if you will find a number a lot of examples of dishonest, shameful behavior in this book - it is not my intention to give you the impression that most people are cheaters, or that there is always and everywhere only envy at play. No, they still exist, the really decent people, whom you will appreciate even more, when you know what distinguishes them from cheaters.
The self-published book - note for readers
I published the book using a self-publishing service. This means that the writing of all texts, the entire reading of the draft, all corrections and the translation into English was done by myself as the author.
For a completely unknown author, the statistical chance of being accepted by a renowned publisher is about 1:400.
If you don't publish a current topic, are not a celebrity, don't know a publisher personally or via friends, the chance of being accepted by a publisher will probably be even much lower, since nowadays everyone is free to transform texts spoken with modern software into a document, so that you as an author are in competition with millions of other authors.
Nevertheless, I have taken the trouble to follow the hard path of self-publishing, because I believe that everyone should have the chance to publish his experiences or opinion.
I would like to express my thanks to the BoD publishing house, which enables me to publish my book myself.
But even the best author cannot do everything perfectly: the (new) German spelling, the editing, the layout, the translation into English, the study of international copyright law etc. require professionals who want to be paid appropriately for their work. Unfortunately, not every author can afford this, especially if it is a book on a niche topic that promises rather low book royalties.
Therefore, dear reader, mistakes in this book are not completely avoidable despite multiple reviews. They go exclusively on my bill. I hope that you are addressed by the content of the book in such a way that you can sympathetically overlook the small formal and linguistic error devils.
Cheating describes behavior that is incompatible with honorable and respectable demeanor, with honesty and responsibility, with fairness and reliability.
This means we enter the ethical and moral field. Thus it is worth taking a look at what these terms mean and why ethics is so important in most civilisations. If I then explain my personal view of 'cheating' as a specific kind of behavior to you in a later chapter, you will always recognise the contradiction of this behavior to ethical principles.
Unfortunately, both terms, ethics and morality, are not described uniformly in the literature and their definitions are a little bit abstract1. I therefore take the liberty of making my own proposal for the definition of the two terms:
Ethics - synonym: Ethos
Ethics is the value system of a group or society that their members consider to be a desirable ideal to strive for. The actual behavior usually deviates from this. In this respect, ethics is the yardstick for evaluating our actions. We distinguish human behavior on the basis of this yardstick by evaluating it with the categories ‘good’ (corresponding to the ethos) or ‘evil’ (contradicting the ethos).
Morality
Morality reflects the actual behaviors shown in relation to the value system, but also the norms accepted by most members of a group or society in everyday life.
Morality thus refers to the norms and behaviors observable in everyday life. They do not always correspond to the ethical ideal, but to the common custom. Behavior that corresponds to or approaches the ethical ideal is described as ethical or as bearing witness to a high moral standard. Behavior that is below normal morality or far away from ethical values is called unethical or immoral.
Both terms are about ‘attitude’, the way in which human interaction is founded and judged. With ethics, a civilisation pursues the goal of creating a common basis for interaction of their members, which is binding for everybody and which is generally regarded as ‘good’. This basis is then to serve the individual as an orientation for his own behavior. Society, in turn, has a yardstick for the moral evaluation of the actions of individuals and can react to deviations by rewarding or sanctioning them.
In my opinion, Immanuel Kant's ‘categorical imperative’ describes very clearly how an individual can best comply with this ethical orientation:
‘Act only according to the maxim by which you can at the same time want it to become a general law2.’
According to an old proverb:
‘Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you.’
Now we are interested in why such values and morality concepts are set up as rules for the behavior of all members of a group at all. Wouldn't it be easier if everyone only had his own advantage in mind? Stealing, for example, is usually quicker done than buying and is also cheaper, lying and cheating enable better better negociation results.
The social consensus
However, morality and ethics are not individual concepts, but social concepts. For what is wrong or right, what is advantageous or dishonest, is not determined by the individual. It is determined by society, that is, by all those who belong to a certain group. Society gives itself a system of values on which the individual members can orient their actions.
Why does society do this? Well, because from the group's point of view there are several good reasons for this. The quick benefit from individuals disregarding the value system is countered by a collective disadvantage: A lack of protection of the individual against unjust enrichment by third parties reduces the incentive to create assets and is therefore economically harmful.
Moreover, trust is the basis of fruitful cooperation. The constant possibility of being deceived causes a great deal of uncertainty, which impairs the courage and energy of all acting individuals.
Let us take one example:
The trader who buys the goods from the farmer in the Middle Ages in order to resell them profitably on the market will at some point be attacked by robbers who will take his goods as their prey. If this happens again and again, at some point he will no longer sell any goods on the market. The farmer remains sitting on his goods or consumes them himself. If we assume that all traders are robbed, then the farmer will perhaps survive, but the rest of the population supplied by his goods must starve because the goods do not reach the woman/man or because they spoil. He will then no longer produce surplus goods and the robbers will starve because there is not enough surplus to be stolen.
For the robbers their short-term robbery is perhaps cheaper and easier than honest work, but only until the farmer no longer produces surplus goods.
In addition, the robbers run the risk of being caught and hanged by the sheriff in charge - this might mean the early end to the robbers' chosen 'business model'.
Society as a whole is therefore interested in protecting the value-creating part of the population from dishonest attacks by others. This is the basis of all civilisations: They give themselves certain rules, even unwritten rules, which are advantageous for the honest and for society as a whole in the long run, because performance pays off and the possibility of being able to trust others in cooperation creates long-term planning security. In consequence, only those whose conduct is oriented towards the ethos of the group receive social recognition.
Nevertheless, there are contemporaries who want social recognition but shy away from the effort required to achieve it. Since they know that this would be socially 'outlawed', they camouflage their unfair behavior. If such a 'deceiver' is clever enough to give the impression of being honest, he would not be affected by the sanctions of society which are intended to enforce compliance with the rules - and he could gain an advantage in the short term at the expense of others without having to work hard for it.
So unless everyone is rationally convinced that fair, honest action is better than dishonest action, there will be people who try to gain unjustified benefits by disguising their intentions. They will always weigh the possible advantages against the disadvantages that 'getting caught', e.g. in the form of legal consequences, could entail. The more skillfully they can deceive others, the less likely their manipulation is to be discovered and the less likely they are to fear the adverse consequences.
In order to achieve the ethical goal, society has no choice but to sanction the misconduct of individuals - but it must first define its ethical values.
An Example of Ethos: The 10 Commandments
Perhaps they have not yet been completely forgotten - the Ten Commandments. I know them from school lessons and from the preparation for communion as well as from former church attendances.
Obviously, several thousand years ago these rules were considered indispensable, and it was obviously necessary to codify them - so already in those times the breach of these rules seems to have been a part of some people’s agenda.
If ethical conduct is to be a basis for the security of society as a whole, then society must be able to rely on it. Society usually ensures this through a governmental constitution, a judicial system, sometimes with the help of a religion and in the family through the education of its children.
To ensure that the rules do not remain pure lip services, particularly in ancient times rule offenses were punished with serious measures - the death penalty was already imposed on - from today's view - very minor offences. Maybe also because the possibilities of the detection of criminal offences were more limited at that time than today, so that only a cruel punishment could cause a certain deterrence.
And Kant again:
‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and the more persistently reflection deals with them: the starry sky above me and the moral law in me3...’
1 For example, Wikipedia understands ethics to mean the following:
‘Ethics 'the moral (understanding)', from ēthos 'character, sense', is that part of philosophy that deals with the preconditions of human action and its evaluation. At the centre of ethics is specific moral action, especially with regard to its justifiability and reflection. Cicero was the first êthikê to translate into the then new term philosophia moralis.’
From: Wikipedia, page ‘Ethics’. In: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Editing status: November 13, 2015, 22:00 UTC. URL: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.phptitle=Ethik&oldid=148017267 (Retrieved: December 10, 2015, 13:59 UTC).
2 The categorical imperative, Immanuel Kant, 1724 - 1804.
3 Source: Immanuel Kant's 'Critique of Practical Reason'.
Let us now come to the actual subject. Who are 'cheaters' and 'Intriguers'? As already mentioned above, there are no statistics, but mainly personal observations, about the type of person who fools others underhand or acts in an immoral way that is not legally prosecutable, precisely for this reason (underhand or legally not prosecutable). In a certain sense, dazzlers represent the 'soft' form of the fraudster, embezzler or thief, because they act in a grey area. In my opinion also the intentional misuse of information belonging to others represents a form of fraud. But often dazzlers seem inconspicuous in everyday life, even friendly and sympathetic. My definition is this:
‘Cheaters are people who regularly use dishonest means to gain unjustified advantages at the expense of others.’
When people dishonestly gain advantages at the expense of others, this presupposes three essential features:
Now you will say that in principle this is true for each of us to a certain extent, because man is rarely a saint. Yes, it is, but the term 'cheater' is the description of a certain type of human being who is characterised by particularly dishonest character traits and is supposed to serve as a 'model' for the explanation of unethical behavior, which causes lasting, deliberate harm to others. The less someone has these characteristics, the more 'normal' and fair he behaves, and the fewer disadvantages you will suffer from his actions. Next, let's take a closer look at these three main characteristics.
Figure 1: The Cheater‘s Triangle
(Author’s presentation)
Dishonesty
Dishonesty here is to be understood as the general willingness to violate ethical and moral principles, but also general rules and laws, in order to gain unjustified advantages at the expense of others.
Dishonesty is the main characteristic of the cheater. It says that a cheater has less scruples to violate ethical and moral principles, but also rules and laws, than the average of the population. The cheater takes the risk of attracting attention and being sanctioned, and the social shame that hits him when he is caught breaking a rule is less important to him than to others.
This characteristic is the basic prerequisite for being dazzled, because it involves the willingness to harm others solely for the purpose of satisfying one's own needs. The damage that cheaters inflict to others, directly or indirectly, can sometimes be very considerable.
Egoism/Greed
The Egoism/greed characteristic denotes the strong desire to take possession of material and immaterial goods and/or not to grant them to others. At cheaters this characteristic is more pronounced than at the average of the population. Not only the greed, but also the tendency to envy holds a high risk for people who regularly have contact with the cheater.
Power/Recognition
The striving for power and/or recognition is to be understood as the strong desire to achieve a high reputation in society, to experience attention and appreciation, to control others and to remain as independent as possible. Here again the strength of this particular character trait is higher than average.
Nevertheless, without the fundamental character trait of dishonesty as a prerequisite, people with a high desire for power and/or recognition must not necessarily own a cheating personality. A person who is very demanding for recognition and for material or immaterial goods, but who has a very honest character, will usually be a very ambitious contemporary, who treats others sometimes very hard and rough, but the risk of being cheated by him is rather small with this type of person, if the characteristic trait of dishonesty is not present or only at a minimum.
Of course, there is no uniform ‘Dazzler personality’. Cheaters have different character traits, preferences, hobbies etc. and can be found in all hierarchy levels. However, they often have some things in common:
Often they also embody the type of the 'slime', who ingratiates himself with the boss and makes colleagues bad.
What all dazzlers have in common is a certain degree of dishonesty. The other two main motives, greed and power, can be used to differentiate between two main types, depending on their motives:
‘Greedy' and 'Imposters'.
These two types are rare in pure culture, because most of the cheaters are driven by both main motifs at the same time. The subdivision, however, allows the focus of their motivation and thus also the strategies to defend against it to be worked out a little better.
Figure 2: Two Cheater-Types
(Author’s presentation)
The main motif of this type of cheaters is greed. My definition for them is: Greedy are people who deliberately and systematically use dishonest means to gain material and financial advantages at the expense of others.
This type of cheater is motivated above all by the fact that he enriches himself with material and financial advantages. His false game has less to do with getting recognition, praise and influence than with collecting tangible goods that could not be won on the 'straight' path. Often this type threads intrigues and sets sneaky traps to reach his goal.
Since he often acts in silence, this type may be less conspicuous by his cheeky appearance and self-portrayal. In forensics4, there is the term 'conspicuously inconspicuous perpetrator'.
I will use the terms 'greedy' and 'intriguer' later synonymously.
Imposters are people who use dishonest means at the expense of others to acquire or defend an unjustified reputation or unjustified positions or privileges.
In order to differentiate them from the greedy type, I have primarily named those imposters who are not primarily interested in material and financial advantages, but in the recognition of their own person, in getting power and influence, or in the compensation of personal deficits. This high need for recognition is usually based on a strong urge to seem more than they really are or on the conviction to be worth more than others. Behind this there is a considerable discrepancy between the self-image of the cheater, and the image, which others have of him.
However, in professional life the actual performance capability of these people is often in a strong contradiction to this urge for recognition. This cheater type often shows a verfy low performance and tries to compenate personal deficits. That's why I use in the professional context the term 'low-performer' as a synonym to the term 'imposter'.
However, the term 'imposter' does not just refer to those employees who, despite their efforts (or even without them), do not achieve the goals set for their profession. 'Imposters' describes those who do not recognise their obviously poor performance, who do not admit it or who do not want to take responsibility for it. They usually show the following conspicuous features in a particularly pronounced form:
Within the group of low-performers, again two types may be distinguished.
Type 1: The self-exposer
This type is characterised by a non-chalantly and easy appearance. He likes to be the centre of attention, loves sociability, knows how to tell stories and often praises himself. But he delivers rather poor, often sloppy work results, makes visitors wait or comes too late. He likes to sit down at the head of the table without asking others for permission.
Often this type does not care very much about the regulations in his enterprise, ‘works from home’, if he visited the doctor in the morning, because the way to his workplace was not worthwhile after the long wait in the doctor’s office. He places his illness days 'strategically', usually short before or after holiday or Christmas.
He is reluctant to make important decisions, and he is not resonsible for his mistakes.
This type responds to critical feedback, either strongly negative or seemingly open, but if he promises to improve his behavior, he never sticks to it.
He sees himself called to something higher and believes in his own superiority, but you never see that he is doing things really well. He is very keen for others to have a good opinion of him, and defends this image with all means. He is a showmaster, who can manipulate others well, he often manages to leave a good impression without having any real success.
In contrast to this is the second type.
Type 2: The ‘misunderstood’.
This type often has a very inconspicuous character. Often he is nagging, pessimistic, ‘doubting’, has a negative attitude, criticises others.
Usually this type shows a very slow and wait-and-see behavior, and he obviously does not learn from mistakes.
In general, he does not take responsibility for his actions. If something goes wrong, he blames others for a bad work result or unsolved tasks.
He often behaves very formally, records a lot in writing, usually in a rather bulky language. He usually does not get his work done in time; he executes instructions letter by letter without thinking, so that he can later argue that he did exactly what he was asked to do. He is incapable of self-reflection and relies more on instructions and rules than on purposeful reasoning. His behavior is often very rigid and he finds it difficult to promptly implement changes in behavior. This type often waits a long time for further instructions before acting.
His self-image also differs greatly from the image others have of him.
He is often marked by inferiority complexes, which he tries to compensate. Like the self-exposer, he cannot understand that others are judged better than him, because in his opinion he is always doing right. He too sees himself called to something higher, but he suffers from the fact that he is not taken seriously, and his pessimistic character is animated by the fear of losing his job or being judged ‘unfairly’.
He communicates very indirectly, does not speak openly and he does not really cooperate with others. Usually this guy has only one or two colleagues with whom he works a little closer. It is difficult for him to understand or even accept criticism of his person. His learning curve is low to very low, he keeps asking for new explanations and instructions. Often his boss or his colleagues have to take over his work. If he himself is a superior, he permanently supervises and controls his team and frequently changes his decisions, because he is fearful and insecure. He is hardly innovative, but very conservative.
Both types of imposters always want to appear in the right light, but without taking over responsibility for the results of their work. Then the superior or colleague usually gets to hear statements like these: