Obama’s Yes-Man Test Will Help You Get Honest Feedback
Better feedback, better decision-making
If you were one of Barack Obama’s advisors, you’d remember him playing a trick on you.
“It was essentially a yes-man test,” Julia Galef wrote in her book The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t. “If someone expressed agreement with a view of his, Obama would pretend he changed his mind and no longer held that view. Then, he would ask them to explain to him why they believed it to be true.”
Confused? So was I and that’s why I wrote this article.
Why Obama’s yes-man test is relevant?
The Yes-man test nullifies a sneaky feature of our minds called conformity bias.
Conformity bias is our tendency to mirror those around us rather than rely on individual judgment. It’s why you order pizza at the restaurant even if you’re on a diet. You don’t want to be the only one eating salad. Instead, you want to fit in, especially if you appreciate the group.
Conformity bias can even turn into compliance when emotions like love, care, or admiration are involved. The result? People you rely on the most tend to deceive you without noticing it. They’d tell you what you want to hear instead of what you…
