Imagine the scenario: You are a solopreneur event manager, and the clients ask you how many people you employ.
It’s not the first time, you know that if you truthfully answer “It’s just me”, that loses you the job. So instead, you truthfully say “For your event, I will tap into a trusted network of collaborations, and I offer a 50% satisfaction guarantee to cover any issues if any crop up” and get the job.
Technically, the question was not answered. And yet, the client wasn’t asking because she was curious – she wanted to know if she has to worry about you getting a cold on the day of the event and there being no one to cover for you. Your answer covered that risk, so the question was settled even without a direct and ultimately irrelevant answer.
It certainly wasn’t a lie, you never said you employed the collaborators, nor does the client really care about their employment status. It was a distortion that got the job done.
Your answer was polite, professional, and ultimately truthful, but it did skew the picture, and that may seem bad. And yet people who wear glasses need their picture to be distorted in order to see better.
Applied ethically, distortion is welcome.
The world would be a worse place without all sorts of distorting lenses, from microscopes to glasses to telescopes – both the literal and metaphorical. Don’t be afraid to act as the latter, when needed.