Accounting
The power of public criticism
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Management experts have long advised firm leaders to praise their people publicly and reprimand them privately. However, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, like Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio, advocates criticism in public.
As Huang describes in his new book
From where I sit, public criticism can be constructive if the goal is to create a better firm and better client experience. Again, to make public criticism work for you, the first thing to do is normalize the feedback. Let’s face it: at most firms, people are not comfortable receiving constructive criticism about themselves or their colleagues — and that’s a problem. Because if you can get to the point that public criticism can be normalized at your firm, then your team can learn from each other’s mistakes. But if you keep all criticism private, no one can learn from it except the person being criticized — and many others will likely make the same mistake.
Instead, if you say: “Hey, we are going to have public criticism going forward. Not of the person, but potentially of the behavior or action.” That may make your people uncomfortable at first, but in the long run, public criticism will significantly accelerate learning at the firm level when you have shared mistakes.
Culture of accountability
In addition to normalizing feedback and accelerating learning through shared mistakes, public criticism is an excellent way to build a culture of accountability. An accountability culture is one in which everyone takes ownership of the things they do and say. Again, as a leader you must reinforce that the team is not going to be insulting each other. Instead, you’re going to be speaking openly and removing ambiguity by making expectations incredibly clear. And if there’s a problem, or if people are falling short, reaffirm that it’s OK to have these conversations in public. Because if you relegate all of your firm’s criticism to a private office, you’re impeding your team’s ability to learn and get better. And you’re making people fearful of open, unvarnished feedback.
As Nelson Mandela said, “I never lose. I either win or learn.”
As I’ve found throughout my business (and parenting) career, growth only happens when you are willing to change and do something different than before. And the only way you will do that is if people are pointing out the things that need to be done differently. Winning is nice, but learning is more valuable.
The right way to criticize
I know some of you reading this article are ready to fire off comments about how public criticism creates a toxic culture. Again, being critical of something is different than insulting someone. By criticizing the right way, you won’t be damaging morale or creating a toxic culture. You need to be clear about what you’re criticizing, which is typically a specific point, with clear feedback about how to improve it.
Again, the purpose of criticizing publicly is to make your firm better. You’re focusing on specific issues that must be fixed; you’re not denigrating someone’s character or threatening their compensation or job security. You’re not doing character assassinations or gaslighting them. Public criticism is not punishment. When engaging in public criticism, make it clear to everyone within earshot: “This is an opportunity for growth that we want you to have, but we don’t want to remove that opportunity for the rest of the firm.”
As I wrote in my article
Real-world example
My team and I were recently in a group meeting with a client. The client said to one of the team members: “Hey, it’s great chatting with you; you’re always great about responding.” And then the client said somewhat jokingly to one of our seniors, “However, I do have a real problem getting hold of you,” while pointing directly at him. The client’s point was that our senior team needed to make themselves more available to clients. That was clearly a public criticism of our seniors and that as a client, she expected a higher degree of communication from senior people on the team. That dialogue was constructive for everyone involved. And we were able to go back and say: “OK, what do we need to adjust here to ensure that our most senior people are available to our best clients?”
Key takeaways
1. Make public criticism a regular part of your company’s culture and operations. Make it normal for people to communicate about things that have gone wrong. It’s not a one-time outburst or public humiliation exercise.
2. Celebrate accelerated learning through shared mistakes.
3. Lean into the culture of accountability.
Public criticism is an opportunity for growth, not a punishment. Once you frame it that way, it completely changes the way people communicate at your firm. Public criticism isn’t about protecting people’s feelings, it’s about delivering better experiences for clients and preventing multiple people from making the same mistakes. Tell anyone receiving public criticism: “We’re not talking about you as a person. We’re talking about an issue at hand. Let’s fix it together.” By the way, this approach works just as well with remote teams and employees as it does in person.
It’s all about “wins and learns” in your regular team meetings. The lesson could be: Here was a mistake that occurred. This was negative feedback we got from a client. This was a mistake we made on a tax return. Here’s how it happened; here’s how we fixed it.” The win was that the client was very appreciative that we acknowledged the mistake and fixed it so quickly. You should feel comfortable discussing these things in public and encouraging your team to do the same.
Put mistakes on the open agenda and review them constructively rather than critically. That will go a long way to making continuous improvement part of your firm’s culture. The Japanese call that “kaizen” —
The Internal Revenue Service’s acting chief counsel, William Paul, has been reportedly removed from his role at the agency and replaced by Andrew De Mello, an attorney in the chief counsel’s office who is deemed supportive of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
This as DOGE moves ahead with
The Washington Post has reported that checking federal benefits spending against tax records could help Musk’s team pinpoint duplicative or erroneous payments.
An immigration angle
A recent lawsuit filed in the U.S. District for D.C., says the reason for the demotion has more to do with the Trump administration’s immigrant crackdown.
Centro de Trabajadores Unidos and Immigrant Solidarity Dupage, two Illinois-based nonprofits that deal with advocacy for the immigrant and Latino communities, filed
“Congress enacted taxpayer privacy laws in response to the Nixon administration’s abuse of the IRS tax records for political purposes,” Nandan Joshi, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
“The Trump administration is setting a dangerous precedent that puts every taxpayer at risk,” added co-counsel Kevin Herrera. “The IRS should never be commandeered as a tool for surveillance and immigration enforcement.”
The suit claims that
Although Sec. 6103 includes no language authorizing disclosure of return and return information for immigration enforcement, it does authorize such disclosure for certain criminal investigations, the suit claims. But “the administration has incorrectly characterized all individuals not authorized to remain in the U.S. as criminals,” circumventing 6103’s narrow exceptions to confidentiality of tax records — “the largest source of the names and current addresses of non-citizens within the federal government.”
Under the leadership of its previous acting commissioner, Douglas O’Donnell — who retired approximately a month after taking on the role — the IRS had refused to provide the requested information, the suit says, adding, “The statements and activities of the Trump administration have made clear their intention to use mass collection of taxpayer information to advance civil immigration enforcement, in contravention of the plain language of the Tax Code.”
The threat of a government shutdown appears to be receding Friday, but the IRS would nevertheless still operate during tax season, even at lower capacity, in the event of a shutdown.
“During a shutdown, the IRS operates with a limited workforce,” said Misty Erickson, a tax content program manager at the National Association of Tax Professionals. “While e-filed returns may continue to be processed, paper returns and those requiring manual intervention could face delays.If there is a shutdown, filing electronically can help ensure there is no delay in return processing.”
IRS acting commissioner Melanie Krause sent an
Amid the uncertainty, the Treasury released a reassuring statement. “The Treasury put out a statement that if there were a shutdown, they were going to fund the IRS through April 30, with all of it 100% open, which means it would not cause a problem for the filing season. But then after April 30, the IRS would go to zero,” said Tax Guard CEO Hansen Rada.
Erickson believes that tax refunds would continue to be processed, even if there were a shutdown. “In prior shutdowns, for example, the 2019 shutdown, the IRS announced it would process tax returns and provide refunds as scheduled, even amidst the funding lapse,” she said. “Congress directed the payment of all tax refunds through a permanent, indefinite appropriation (31 U.S.C. 1324), and the IRS has consistently believed that it has the authority to pay refunds despite a lapse in annual appropriations. Assuming Congress follows suit, there should be minimal impact as long as a return does not stop for review.”
However, with all the staffing cutbacks in recent weeks at the IRS, taxpayers and tax professionals are feeling worried. The IRS is said to be planning to
“There’s certainly a lot of uncertainty and a lot of anxiety about whether the Service is going to have the manpower to provide the kind of customer service that they have in recent years,” said Anne Gibson, a senior legal analyst at Wolters Kluwer. “There’s an order saying to reverse some of those firings. On the other hand, a lot of people have already been gone for quite a while from the office, and the ruling did say this doesn’t mean there can’t be reductions in force if they’re done properly. So the firings that have already happened that violated the terms that they were supposed to have, those need to be reversed. But we’ve seen that there’s already plans being talked about for further layoffs at the IRS. I’ve seen people saying they’ve heard 50% being let go at some point in the future.”
Tax professionals are trying to reassure the public about filing their tax returns, despite the turmoil this tax season. “So far, it’s going smoothly,” said Alison Flores, a manager with the Tax Institute of H&R Block. “What we do want to encourage everyone to do is file on time. So if you need to file a return, you want to try to file by April 15. Most people are owed refunds from the IRS. Go ahead and get that return in. If you’re a person who owes taxes, you also want to file. The penalty for failure to file is actually larger than the penalty for failure to pay.”
In case there are service disruptions, the NATP has some advice for taxpayers. “If they plan to file a return on paper, consider using a software service or tax professional to file it,” said Erickson. “E-filed returns should be processed as usual. Take time to compare last year’s return and informational documents to what you have this year. This allows you to double-check that you have everything before you file. We know there are delays with some forms this year, so filing early without that information will cause a problem.”
More than 1.1 million taxpayers nationwide are still owed unclaimed refunds for tax year 2021, but they only have another month to submit that year’s returns.
The Internal Revenue Service estimates that $1,025,336,800 in refunds remain unclaimed by 1,142,000 taxpayers who have not filed their 1040 for the 2021 tax year. The deadline for filing to claim these refunds is Tax Day, April 15.
The median refund is an estimated $781, which does not include the Recovery Rebate Credit or other credits. California and Texas have the most taxpayers still owed a 2021 refund, followed by New York and Florida. Median unclaimed returns are highest in New York ($995), Pennsylvania ($993), Rhode Island ($946) and Massachusetts ($936).
Current and prior-year tax forms are on the IRS.gov
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