By Stan Rosenzweig

One of the things I love most about the new Fox program "House", aside from the edgy, sarcastic humor, is the oft-stated thesis that patients constantly and consistently lie to doctors who are trying to help them.

Well, of course they do. Doesn't everybody? Take, for instance, your own customers. You send your team out to analyze their wants and needs. You do work flow studies and interviews so you can prepare knock-your-socks-off recommendations and when you've expended your last bit of time, money and energy, you come to find that the customer-provided underlying assumptions, are wrong.

The problem you have is not so much that they lie, as in deliberately trying to deceive you. More likely, they are themselves deceived; or misunderstand and simply get it wrong. Or, they say what they say because:

• They want to appear bigger than they are.
• They know they are going to be bigger some day, just you wait.
• They don't think the details matter much anyway.
• They can't face reality.
• They're facing tough times, can't afford what they need and are embarrassed to say so.

In other words, they lie. It's not terrible, but, at the end of the day (the long, long, long day), it's just not helpful, if you get it wrong because they got it wrong.

So what's the answer? It's in those three letters that are key to four other hit TV programs: CSI.

I decided about 20 years ago to not take client interview information at face value no matter how smart, or helpful, or knowledgeable, or honest, clients appear. Instead, I gather physical evidence, CSI style. I ask for written documents like phone bills, contractor agreements, leases, paid invoices and all the paper trail documents they have stored away that tell the true story.

Do I do it always? No. Do I regret it when I don't? Yes. Can I use these life experiences to create a trouble-free policy? Yes, and here it is:

1. No matter what the client says, follow President Reagan's advice, "Trust, but verify."
2. Protect the client's dignity. No matter what errors, omissions, mistakes or lies you uncover, never let on that you know.
3. Never take it personal.

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Stan Rosenzweig, president of Office Technology Consulting Inc., Stamford, CT, can be reached through www.phoneguru.com, or at (203)323-6070, ext. 82409.