Tā pīpíng xiàshǔ zhǐ huì tóuqí-suǒhào, bù gǎn tíchū yìjiàn.
He criticized his staff for only ever playing to his preferences, never daring to disagree.
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Echoes the 庄子 (Gengsang Chu): unless you can catch someone with what they love, you can't catch them at all. The idiom captures Zhuangzi's cynical insight about how influence really works.
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Often negative - implies sycophancy, manipulation, or pandering. But in marketing or diplomacy contexts it can be neutral, simply 'tailoring the offer to the audience'.