Hard Feedback and Discipline

One day, coming home, I grabbed the elevator, pressed my floor number after others pressed theirs. I exited the elevator and walked toward my apartment. I pushed the key into the keyhole and I tried turning the key. The key did not turn. I tried again, and it still did not work.

Why didn’t my door open for me?

Did some bad actors break in and lock my apartment from inside?

Frustrated as I was, I raised my gaze, only to see the apartment number. It was the right apartment number.

But… I was on the wrong floor!

Complete embarrassment.

If someone opened the door at that moment, they were going to see a stranger holding a key trying to break into their apartment.

Suddenly, I was no longer hoping for the door to open, but for it to please not open.

I dashed to the elevator bank, desperately pressing the elevator button, waiting for the next elevator so I could shrink away from the scene.

What a piece of hard feedback.

The physical world gives hard feedback when I am wrong. The wrong key will not open the door. For the “wrong-doer,” he cannot “spin” the story to make himself look as if he was right.

However, in many domains, there is a lack of hard feedback. Sometimes, experts are unable to deliver the kind of results that they claim; and the clients of these experts are unable to judge the outcomes either. It is fluffy, kind of “here and there.” There are few hard consequences. Instead, there is plenty of room to “spin” the story to avoid seeming wrong.

In investing, if one has underperformed for a year, it is that “the year is not a year for stock pickers.” If one has underperformed for a few years, it is that “the market is wrong.” If one has underperformed for many many years, it is that “we have provided a differentiated product with a differentiated return stream.”

By that logic, I was not wrong in trying to open that neighbor’s door. I held a differentiated view on how I should go back home that day. I exited on a differentiated floor. I tried a differentiated key on a differentiated door. I differentiated myself from how other people typically conducted their affairs. Thus, I successfully added value to whoever is listening to my differentiated story.

That is simply an amalgamation of bovine excrement.

With hard feedback, one is left with no choice but to acknowledge reality and admit that he is wrong. Hard feedback acts like a “forcing mechanism.” It forces the person to open his eyes—and to open his mind, as well. While I could not open that door, my mind was forced wide open, instantaneously, to see what a mistake that I have made—there are no alternative narratives to explain what I did in that moment.

No fluffy stuff; it is binary. No “here and there”; it is “I am wrong here.” In this way, hard feedback is essential to achieve the right outcome.

Hard feedback provides discipline. In fields like engineering and construction, hard feedback abounds. If a bridge does not hold, it will collapse. If a software code does not cohere, it will crash. If an airplane does not fly, you cannot make it look like it is flying.

However, in many fields, such as investing, there is the problem of a lack of hard feedback. It is difficult to tell whether an investor is actually good at investing—or even, whether an investor is doing what he claims he is doing. For example, there is the notion of “(investment) style drift.” An investment manager can drift miles away from what he told his investors he is doing, and yet, there is no bridge to collapse, no code block to crash, and the airplane looks like it is still flying—nothing would be shown, nothing would be widely noticed.

Moreover, we live in a society that gives weight to “intention.” Yet, the tender notion of “it is all about intention” only complicates the situation for the worse. If a person’s New Year’s resolution is to lose weight and yet he goes on and eats another box of chocolate, there is no immediate hard feedback. He may defend himself by telling the people around him that he truly intends to lose weight in 2026. In a culture that emphases “it is all about intention,” most people will give him a pass—especially when he is a convincing storyteller.

A culture without appreciation of intention is a culture of cruelty. However, a culture with unbalanced appreciation of intention is a culture of no discipline.

A culture excessively emphasizing “intention,” combined with a lack of hard feedback, results in situations in which people lack discipline yet people still feel good about themselves. It is self-deception.

No hard feedback, no discipline. To overcome these problems, I would argue that some forms of “artificial” hard feedback would be beneficial for operating in fields that lack innate hard feedback. For example, well-designed checklist routines, well-contrived tracking mechanisms, and well-protected court jesters. Ernest Hemingway tracked his daily word output on a large chart pinned to a wall—”so as not to kid myself.” Think about it. This was Hemingway’s attempt to introduce “artificial” hard feedback to his own work. Hemingway would get dinged if he was not producing enough. Through such a chart, Hemingway was able to measure quantitatively, reduce self-deception, and bring discipline to his work.

For these reasons, I believe, innate and “artificial” hard feedback helps one to learn and improve, and to earn a higher chance of getting it right in the future.

I have learned two lessons:

One, welcome hard feedback.

Two, check the floor I am on before trying to open a door.

I aim to do more of both in 2026 and onward, so as not to kid myself.

(END)