The head of a company pays his employees to tell him the truth. What's next? Promotions based on merit? investigates.
I'm not a businessman or even an MBA, or, for that matter, a guy who can keep straight the difference between bulls and bears. But I have to say that as business ideas go, this one sounds pretty wacky.

My local paper reports that the CEO of a company called Enterprise Inc. will give $50 to employees who ask him the toughest questions. He says it's a method to solicit honesty.

Bosses seeking honesty from underlings? Have you ever heard of such a thing? What, is this guy crazy? It's a little like the dunking clown paying you to throw the ball at him.

Oh, sure, on the surface it may seem better than other business practices, such as, say, firing. But the fact is that, honesty, generally speaking, is a bad policy.

What good can come from a husband telling his wife that he doesn't like her new haircut, for instance? Or from a wife telling a husband that his sense of humor drives her batty?

How many dinner parties would be ruined by honesty? "Linda, this is possibly the worst pasta dish I've ever had the misfortune to put into my mouth." "Jerry, your stories are uninteresting and you tell them poorly." Is that what we want?

Consider the havoc that would be wreaked upon our judicial system. "Law, shmaw," judges would intone. "I have a political philosophy. You knew that when you appointed me. That's why you appointed me. So I figure it's my job to twist the arguments beyond recognition so that they conform to the way I view things politically. OK, what's next on the docket?"

Disrobing the law of the illusion that it is interpreted without bias would only result in public cynicism. All right, so maybe that's a little far-fetched. But I think you catch my meaning.