My hearing is lousy, so I recently decided to buy some hearing aids — very special advanced AI hearing aids that let me hear compliments extremely clearly but screen out all negative criticisms.
I’m joking, of course, to make the point that if such hearing aids were ever available, the people who bought them would discover they’re more disabled than they were when they couldn’t hear well. That’s because while we all love praise, the most important feedback we get tells us what we’re doing wrong.
Without this critical feedback, we might inadvertently insult friends, drive into oncoming traffic, walk off cliffs, make dumb mistakes on the job, or even (if we’re President), get the United States into a war without obvious end.
In other words, without critical feedback, we would totally f--- up.
But critical feedback is difficult to get even under the best of circumstances. You’re lucky if your best friend or spouse tells you your breath smells or you need a shower or you’ve got snot hanging out your nose, because almost no one else will.
The higher you go in any hierarchy or power structure, the more difficult it is to get critical feedback because you’re surrounded by people who want to please you and dare not displease.
When you have power to promote or fire them, make their lives happy or miserable, give them their heart’s desire or cast them into living hell, they’re not going to tell you that you just made a fool of yourself with a client or that your joke was tasteless or you’re behaving like an a--hole. They’ll tell you that you’re wonderfully clever, funny, charming, and perfect.
This is why many people in positions of authority in effect wear my advanced AI hearing aids that amplify compliments and screen out criticisms — which makes them vulnerable to making big mistakes.
So, if you’re a CEO or chairman or director or president of anything, you need to make a special effort to get critical feedback — soliciting it, rewarding it, showing that you value it by changing your mistaken views or asinine behavior.
When I was secretary of labor, I made a point of promoting staff who gave me constructive criticism. Even so, it was still hard to get honest feedback.
One day after a television interview, when I was heading back to the office surrounded by people telling me how well I looked and how cogent and thoughtful I sounded, one young staff member said very quietly, “Mr. Secretary, you used your hands so much that you blocked your face.”
I stopped. The others seemed horrified. I asked the young staffer, “What else did you notice?”
“Well,” she said, hesitatingly, “you kept using terms like ‘Earned Income Tax Credit’ and ‘discretionary budget’ that no one outside official Washington understands. You need to use everyday English.”
“Thank you!” I said, and a few days later made her a special assistant for communications. For the next several years, she gave me some of the most valuable feedback I’ve ever received.
Which brings me to Trump.
Not only does he love and solicit praise — if you can bear them, watch his sycophantic cabinet meetings — he absolutely, utterly, passionately, hates criticism.
He goes ballistic on anyone who gives him negative feedback. He punishes journalists who write bad stories about him. He fired the then head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics who told him and the rest of the world how badly the economy was doing.
He explodes in fury at staffers who give him bad news. When former Attorney General William P. Barr said there was no evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, Trump flung his lunch across the room and smashed his plate in a fit of anger as ketchup dripped down the wall.
“I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he’s become detached from reality,” Barr testified to the January 6 committee.
All this may explain his decision to go to war in Iran, without a clear objective or an exit strategy.
According to the New York Times, White House officials have become pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war, but “they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success.”
If they’re careful not to express their pessimism to Trump, how the hell is he going to see the depth of the hole he’s dug for himself and the United States?
Privately, aides say they’re “frustrated over Trump’s lack of discipline in communicating the objectives of the military campaign to the public.”
But there’s no chance in hell they’ve expressed their frustration to Trump.
All of which means Trump isn’t getting the feedback he needs. He remains sealed in his cocoon — wearing the equivalent of my advanced AI hearing aids — oblivious to the dangers he’s creating for you, me, and everyone else.
- Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org
