I never cease to be amazed at how someone can get to be CEO of a major business without having the slightest sense for how common, average Americans might feel. Call me crazy, but Wells Fargo president and CEO John Stumpf has just done something so foolish, spiteful and dumb, that it’s clear that he needs to retake that freshman-level class in Common Sense 101.

CEO Stumpf authorized full-page ads that were published yesterday and today in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal that are essentially an open letter from him to Wells Fargo employees about “The Value of Team Member Recognition.”

This is a great subject, of course, but why would the Wells Fargo CEO need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on newspaper advertising to address his workforce on this topic? Here’s why: Because the ads really aren’t aimed at Wells Fargo workers. No, these full-page ads are really directed at everyone and anyone who has complained about how the American banking community is spending all that money the U.S. government has shoveled their way.

“The company took out full-page ads in [newspapers] to defend events held to award high achievers,” wrote financial columnist Tom Petruno of the Los Angeles Times. “One such meeting—a trip to Las Vegas for key mortgage employees—had been scheduled for last week, but was canceled by Wells after some in Congress said it was inappropriate spending for a bank that has received $25 billion in government funds to bolster its finances.”

“In the newspaper ads,” Petruno notes, “Wells CEO John Stumpf wrote that ‘many media stories on this subject have been deliberately misleading. These one-sided stories lead you to believe every employee recognition event is a junket, a boondoggle, a waste, or that it’s for highly paid executives. Nonsense!’ He said the events were an important way for the bank to acknowledge workers’ contributions, including their efforts to fuel new lending to help lift the housing market. ‘For many, it’s the only time in their lives that they’re publicly recognized and thanked for a job well done,’ Stumpf wrote. ‘This recognition energizes them. It inspires them.’ ”

Now, I happen to agree with the Wells Fargo CEO that there is a general simplification in the media of what happens at many corporate recognition events, and that perhaps Wells Fargo’s plans for a Vegas trip fell into that category. If explained properly to the public, it might have been something that reasonable, fair-minded people could have supported.

Unfortunately, that’s not the point most people will get from John Stumpf’s pricey open letter to employees. Stumpf’s letter comes off as the petty gripes of a petulant child who believes he has been unfairly punished. Even if that is so, what kid ever made things better by whining and griping about it, or worse yet, by blaming someone else? (Mom, usually; the media, in this case.)  

This is the problem I have with Stumpf and his CEO brethren: All too often, they’re completely out of touch and deaf to the legitimate gripes of people around them. These guys make millions of dollars yet don’t understand the simple principle that “perception is reality.”

Regular Americans believe that Wall Street bankers are largely responsible for the financial mess the country is in right now. Whether that perception is right or wrong, Stumpf and his CEO friends need to buck up, shut up and be more sensitive to how their business practices might be perceived by the folks on Main Street. This is hardly the time to defend business as usual, no matter how legitimate it might ultimately be.

Furthermore, what kind of PR advice is John Stumpf getting at Wells Fargo? Doesn’t he have anyone on his management team who can tell him that these full-page ads are costly, stupid and likely to just reconfirm what most American already believe?  

Tom Petruno at the L.A. Times had a good idea: “Here’s my modest suggestion for all banks: If you want to hold awards dinners or other get-togethers for your valued employees, do it in your headquarters city or somewhere other than a lavish resort. And in particular, avoid lavish resorts in Sin City. No matter how you try to defend it, a meeting of bankers in Las Vegas just isn’t going to sit right with the public ‘in the current environment,’ to borrow Wells’ phrase.”

He’s right, of course. But somehow I doubt that bankers like John Stumpf will suddenly get religion and be more prudent. It really is like dealing with a petulant child. Sometimes, when they’re throwing a tantrum, you just need to let them scream themselves hoarse.

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