Radical Candor | Book Review

Radical Candor: How To Be A Great Boss Without Losing Your Humanity.

By Kim Scott.

OVERVIEW

Kim Scott is a force, her experience within businesses like Google, Apple, Qualtrics to name a few have armed her with a wealth of interesting insights and a unique perspective on how to manage people. She created Radical Candor as a framework to guide how we navigate communication with those we work with - but the principles are applicable to all facets of life.

Radical Candor is based upon the concept of two axis. The horizontal axis is how direct you are when providing feedback or any kind of communication with others - the left side is where you are indirect, perhaps talking to others first or not saying anything at all, while the right side is where you are 100% direct with your communication. The vertical axis is how much you care about the other person when you communicate with them, at the lower end you don’t really care about how the other person is feeling but at the upper end you care deeply and personally about them.

The outcome of combining being direct and caring personally = Radical Candor.

FAVOURITE INSIGHTS

• What Radical Candor IS

  • It is making sure the person hears you clearly, but also fully understands that your intent is to help, to serve and to support.

  • Subjective. What seems radically candid to one person might seem a bit tough or a bit soft to someone else. This is when your EQ comes into play, being able to know how to adjust your delivery to get the best result for the other person is vital.

  • Radically candid praise - rich, in-depth and contextual. Kim provides this great example of when she complimented one of her colleagues about coaching his son’s Little League team. The first time she attempted this it was with “I really admire that you are a Little League coach,” - which was so vague that the recipient felt it was disingenuous. Her second attempt went like this “The other day I gave you a hard time about leaving early for practice, and I then felt bad about it, because in fact I really admire that you are a Little League coach. You do as good a job integrating your work and your life as anyone I know. I always wonder if I’m spending enough time with my kids, and the example you set by coaching helps me do better. Also, the things you’ve learned from the Positive Coaching Alliance have been enormously helpful in our work.” Full of detail, reasoning and information that makes the praise genuine but also explains why, which can help the other person continue to learn.

• What Radical Candor ISN’T

  • An invitation to nit pick your team. Instead, make sure you give the feedback on things that really matter.

  • Open season to be a jerk. If you’re missing the “caring personally” when giving feedback, then you’re just being cruel.

  • It’s not linked to hierarchy. You need to be radically candid up, down and laterally. This creates the culture!

  • Sandwiching criticism between good positive feedback. Be brave, give the feedback without feeling you need to ‘fluff’ it up by surrounding it with positive feedback.

• How can you implement this? 5 Tips for Radical Candor

  • Ask for criticism first. This shows you can handle it, are vulnerable but also sets the culture - no one is off limits from feedback because helping everyone in the business improve impacts the entire business. Be clear on how you are going to receive any feedback, positive and negative. If you show that you are prickly, disagreeable or defensive then others will not want to challenge you directly and the balance is off when you attempt to challenge them directly.

  • Make sure you’re providing genuine praise as well as criticism. Praise helps guide, motivate and tells people what to do more of.

  • When it comes to criticism, be brave and just say it. As long as the lens you’re sharing it through is with kindness and care - challenge your internal motivations.

  • Know what motivates each person in your team. Do they want to grow and leap into new roles (Superstar) or are they content to become an expert in one role for a longer period of time (Rockstar). Both styles add immense value to organisations, with Superstars being change agents while Rockstars provide baseline of excellence and stability. Understanding and supporting your talents in the right way helps empower them to grow in the way they want to.

  • Make space for growth. As Kim says “People change, and you have to change with them”. We need to allow for those around us to grow and develop, as will their aspirations and dreams. It also encourages us not to become blind to someones full self, for example labelling them a “top performer” and then being hugely disappointed if they have an off day or week. Everybody has an off quarter occasionally. Kim shares “To combat permanent labels, Qualtrics cofounder (and my colleague from Juice and Google) Jared Smith came up with the performance ratings “off quarter,” “solid quarter,” and “exceptional quarter.” Allowing for growth can also be challenging when someone changes and is no longer a fit in a role, this is when your radical candor is put to the test, how can you identify what the change is and why - and what to do next. The fit can be because they are outperforming and need more, or they are underperforming and need something different.

  Overall, this is a must-read for all managers. Even though the concepts of kindness, honesty, acceptance and a growth mindset are not new - the framing is refreshing. Kim provides interesting anecdotes from her time at well known businesses like Google or working with icons like Sheryl Sandberg (author of Lean In)

FAVOURITE QUOTE

THOUGHT PROVOKERS

Questions for self-reflection:

• Do you challenge people directly?

• When you do that, is it buffered by caring personally about them? And do they know that?

• What happens when you decide someone is a top performers or mediocre or low performer? Are they pigeonholed, are they given space to grow and change?

A SUMMARY: