False Report

October 6, 2003

Last Revised:  May 23, 2012 4:50 PM

When you are ordered to do something, fail to do it, then report that it is done, that is a false report.

There are many ways, however, that a report can be false.  This Company Policy describes the several ways that a report (or statement) can be "false."  It would not be right, however, to only describe a wrongness; there should also be presented the rightnesses of a report or statement. They are here also.

Mr. Hubbard wrote a series of Policies starting in 1970.  This series, overall, is called the Data Series, and includes various forms of "illogic."  These can be used to also describe a "false" statement or report.

Mr. Hubbard describes these as:

1. Omit a fact.

2. Change sequence of events

3. Drop out time

4. Add a falsehood

5. Alter importance

6. Assumed identities are not identical

7. Assumed similarities are not similar or same class of thing

8. Assumed "differences" are not different

9. Wrong target

10. Wrong source

11. Contrary facts

12. Added time

13. Added inapplicable data

14. Incorrectly included data

Each of these can be described in much greater detail, and is by Mr. Hubbard.

This Company Policy simply lists these as different means by which a report, written or verbal, can be "false."  A full understanding of these terms would call for a study of all the source material by Mr. Hubbard.

The word "lie" is much too simplistic to be the definition of "false."  A "true" report, of course, would not contain any false data, so in order for a report to be "false" there would have to be ADDED false data.  In this fashion each of the above items can be fully understood as one of the keys to describing a false report.  The opposite of each of these, carefully worded, would be the keys to giving or writing a true report.

There is also the need for balance of included data.  For instance, there should not be any omitted facts, but there should also be no added inapplicable data. 

When you fully understand the universality of the items on this list you will see the value to any organization of avoiding, or detecting, false reports, and training all staff to give complete and accurate statements and reports.

Much of a manager's job is to detect false reports and train staff to understand what a true and valid report must include.

1. Adequate data

2. Applicable data

3. Correct relative importance

4. Correct source

5. Correct target

6. Correct data

7. Data in same classification

8. Data proven actual

9. Differences are different

10. Events in correct sequence

11. Expected time period

12. Identities are identical

13. Related facts known

14. Similarities are similar

15. Time noted

Again, look at the data that a false report could include "omitted facts" but you don't solve this by putting in "inapplicable data."

Also, when a person is the "in charge" for some activity, it would be a form of false report to deny that responsibility and say that someone else had that responsibility.  That, in fact, would be a form of adding a falsehood.  The term "in charge" must have some meaning, and to report that you are NOT responsible  when you are "in charge" is surely to make a false report.  To notice that some junior is NOT doing his job and then NOT apply the Policy called "Bypass" would be, itself, a failure to understand and apply the meaning of "in charge."

Look at the interesting practice that often can make a report false.  The report says:

The clock lost one minute every hour -- so the clock became less and less useful as time went on.

There is a missing source here.  "WHO" says that the clock loses one minute every hour?  Probably when the actual source is missing there is an implication that the source is the author?  That might be.  But, there is, still, the omitted data, then, about this.

The above statement does not indicate the time to which this description applies.  It would be one thing if the observation about the clock related to last year and another if it related to yesterday.

If the exact time of some event related to the "time of death of a murder" the above observation would be far more important than in some other context.  There is a missing "importance" here.

This is not a rote rule.

The statement, "A dog is like a cat" may be an example of data NOT in the same classification, but, depending on the purpose, one could correctly say that they are both in the classification of "mammals."  So, these rules need to be used with thinking, not in some mechanical fashion.

Also, "added inapplicable data" can me minor in its effect, or quite major. The added inapplicable data can be so serious that it rises to the level of "snap back."  This could be true of all the positive and negative aspects of a report.  The very "relative importance" of one of the positive or negative aspects of a report needs to be taken into account.

It is not simple or innate to write reports or make statements that include all the applicable positive aspects of a good report and avoid all the negative aspects, but it would hardly ever be done if these positive and negative aspects were not known, and used.

Official

Karl Loren

Quotes from L. Ron Hubbard are copyright 1994 © by the L. Ron Hubbard Library. All rights reserved.

The material from Mr. Hubbard is part of a series of Policies he wrote, called the Data Series.

Quotes from L. Ron Hubbard are copyright 1994 © by the L. Ron Hubbard Library. All rights reserved.