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I have a hard time imagining that it's truly brutal in both directions. Is the executive team really made to justify a large bonus for themselves when the rest

I have a hard time imagining that it's truly brutal in both directions. Is the executive team really made to justify a large bonus for themselves when the rest of the staff is asked to accept lower than inflation adjustments, as an example? I'd bet it's "brutal" but with a lot of information asymmetry preventing the sorts of feedback I described.

xyzelement 3y ago
Sure. Ray Dalio got public negative feedback all the time.
- bumby 3y ago
  Can you clarify? I took the GP comment as asking whether subordinate employees give leadership negative feedback. That's a very different animal than general public feedback. I think that distinction is important because internal feedback tends to be much more relevant due to the amount of non-public information employees have. I suspect the GP point was that "brutal" feedback tends to flow downhill within an organization. Would you expect a custodian to be able to talk to Dalio and say something like, "You know, your desk looks like a pigsty and a cluttered environment can lead to a cluttered mind and cluttered thinking."
  - andsoitis 3y ago
    > suspect the GP point was that "brutal" feedback tends to flow downhill within an organization. At companies with a strong feedback culture, critical feedback tends to flow in exactly the opposite way you describe: it is directed upwards…
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      You have to understand why someone would find this surprising though right? Its counter to all human nature I have observed. It's like telling me you have water running uphill on your property, I'm right to have questions, the most reasonable explanation is some sort of trickery is at play.
      - swatcoder 3y ago
        It's funny to have to say this in a thread about explicit feedback and psychological safety, but: Nobody here was suggesting that your question was foolish or that it was not asked in earnest surprise. Clearly, this is something that surprises you and that's fine. Good on you for asking questions to better understand! Encountering something that is "counter to all human nature I have observed" is a good clue that you've been carrying a big a blindspot of your own. There are many traditional cultures and modern communities that are quite forward about feedback and criticism in a pervasive way. Often, in these groups, continued authority is earned exactly through one's handling of open criticism from their subordinates. Do you process it in stride and contextualize it? Acknowledge the person for sharing it? Hold strong in your own self-assurance? Fold it into your future decisions? Or do you defensively fly off the handle and repress those who you see as threatening you? I'm sorry if you're only familiar with that last strategy, but it's not nearly universal. In this case, the water really does flow uphill in a lot of places.
        lazyasciiart 3y ago
        This is an extraordinarily condescending comment, with a lot of weakly justified assumptions about the other commenter.
        xyzelement 3y ago
        I am not the person you're replying to but I reached the same conclusion that they have. When someone claims as impossible that which you have experienced (and in fact, experienced consistently across decades) - at some point you have to conclude that they simply lack the experience that would make this as obvious to them. It's not a bad thing but it's just kinda real. It's like the opposite of survivorship bias. Because you have only seen things go badly, you conclude the good is impossible, something like that.
        bumby 3y ago
        I did not read the original comment as "claims as impossible" but rather "not very generalizable". One of the important things about receiving feedback IMO is to steelman the feedback as much as possible.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    // Would you expect a custodian to be able to talk to Dalio and say something like, "You know, your desk looks like a pigsty and a cluttered environment can lead to a cluttered mind and cluttered thinking." Absolutely! Take a look at rays Ted talk for a few examples. They are representative.
novok 3y ago
I've worked at a small place with "radical candor" (it's a book) and how I think about it is like working with power tools while walking on a tightrope. It's really easy to screw up and cut off someone's hand, and I think bridgewater fires a lot AFAIK or has a lot of turn over as a result. Another thing is that it can easily make people pretty defensive, and you need very mature and forgiving/accepting people or rough and tumble culture (think Linus Torvalds) for it work properly. It's very easy to hide emotions with intellectual rationalizations unfortunately. I also think it can be very useful and push to excellence, but most IMO don't have the emotional maturity to pull it off properly. I think it's the same reason why a lot of startups die because of cofounder conflict.

xyzelement 3y ago

Sure. Ray Dalio got public negative feedback all the time.

bumby 3y ago
Can you clarify? I took the GP comment as asking whether subordinate employees give leadership negative feedback. That's a very different animal than general public feedback. I think that distinction is important because internal feedback tends to be much more relevant due to the amount of non-public information employees have. I suspect the GP point was that "brutal" feedback tends to flow downhill within an organization. Would you expect a custodian to be able to talk to Dalio and say something like, "You know, your desk looks like a pigsty and a cluttered environment can lead to a cluttered mind and cluttered thinking."
- andsoitis 3y ago
  > suspect the GP point was that "brutal" feedback tends to flow downhill within an organization. At companies with a strong feedback culture, critical feedback tends to flow in exactly the opposite way you describe: it is directed upwards…
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    You have to understand why someone would find this surprising though right? Its counter to all human nature I have observed. It's like telling me you have water running uphill on your property, I'm right to have questions, the most reasonable explanation is some sort of trickery is at play.
    - swatcoder 3y ago
      It's funny to have to say this in a thread about explicit feedback and psychological safety, but: Nobody here was suggesting that your question was foolish or that it was not asked in earnest surprise. Clearly, this is something that surprises you and that's fine. Good on you for asking questions to better understand! Encountering something that is "counter to all human nature I have observed" is a good clue that you've been carrying a big a blindspot of your own. There are many traditional cultures and modern communities that are quite forward about feedback and criticism in a pervasive way. Often, in these groups, continued authority is earned exactly through one's handling of open criticism from their subordinates. Do you process it in stride and contextualize it? Acknowledge the person for sharing it? Hold strong in your own self-assurance? Fold it into your future decisions? Or do you defensively fly off the handle and repress those who you see as threatening you? I'm sorry if you're only familiar with that last strategy, but it's not nearly universal. In this case, the water really does flow uphill in a lot of places.
      - lazyasciiart 3y ago
        This is an extraordinarily condescending comment, with a lot of weakly justified assumptions about the other commenter.
        xyzelement 3y ago
        I am not the person you're replying to but I reached the same conclusion that they have. When someone claims as impossible that which you have experienced (and in fact, experienced consistently across decades) - at some point you have to conclude that they simply lack the experience that would make this as obvious to them. It's not a bad thing but it's just kinda real. It's like the opposite of survivorship bias. Because you have only seen things go badly, you conclude the good is impossible, something like that.
        bumby 3y ago
        I did not read the original comment as "claims as impossible" but rather "not very generalizable". One of the important things about receiving feedback IMO is to steelman the feedback as much as possible.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  // Would you expect a custodian to be able to talk to Dalio and say something like, "You know, your desk looks like a pigsty and a cluttered environment can lead to a cluttered mind and cluttered thinking." Absolutely! Take a look at rays Ted talk for a few examples. They are representative.

novok 3y ago

I've worked at a small place with "radical candor" (it's a book) and how I think about it is like working with power tools while walking on a tightrope. It's really easy to screw up and cut off someone's hand, and I think bridgewater fires a lot AFAIK or has a lot of turn over as a result. Another thing is that it can easily make people pretty defensive, and you need very mature and forgiving/accepting people or rough and tumble culture (think Linus Torvalds) for it work properly. It's very easy to hide emotions with intellectual rationalizations unfortunately. I also think it can be very useful and push to excellence, but most IMO don't have the emotional maturity to pull it off properly. I think it's the same reason why a lot of startups die because of cofounder conflict.