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."
// 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.
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.
// 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.
Skepticism is one thing but it's good not let it blind you to exceptionally good situations you can learn from.
Instead of your water running uphill analogy - I'd use marriage. Most marriage ends in divorce today, but if you see a couple that has been successfully married for decades, do you go "that must be bullshit" or do you go "I wonder what they are doing that others aren't doing" and seek to learn from that for your own life.
FWIW I am a Bridgewater alumni and can attest to the absolute ease of giving negative upward feedback - but you can also look at the outcomes. World's most successful hegefund across 4 decades, a highly desirable place to work, and a place where alumni "graduate" from to be massively successful elsewhere. Does that sound like "just another place where my cynical world view applies" or does it sound like "a place that has actually figured out something special and is able to stand out against the backdrop" - and thus is worthy to learn from?
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.
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.
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.
