🚨 Warning: This episode contains radical ideas that may change the way you lead forever! In this episode of How I Work, leadership guru and author of global bestseller Radical Candour Kim Scott shares her unconventional approach to leadership and feedback. 💥Join us as we explore the ins and outs of radical candour, the framework that's transformed the way leaders communicate with their teams. Kim dives deep into her personal journey, revealing the hard-learned lessons and "a-ha!" moments that led her to develop this game-changing approach. In this episode, you'll discover:
- 😱 The truth about why most managers fail to give effective feedback
- 🙏 The power of caring personally and challenging directly in leadership
- 🚫 How to avoid the pitfalls of ruinous empathy and obnoxious aggression
- 💬 Practical strategies for soliciting criticism and handling feedback like a pro
- 🎉 The secret to mastering the art of praise and criticism
- 🌟 Techniques for creating a culture of open communication and respectful debate
- 📈 Surprising ways radical candour can boost team productivity and foster growth
Whether you're a seasoned executive or a first-time manager, this episode is packed with actionable insights and game-changing ideas that will help you take your leadership skills to the next level.Tune in now and discover how embracing radical candour can revolutionise the way you lead and work. 🎧Grab your copy of Kim's new book Radical Respect. Follow Kim on Linkedin.
My new book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/
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Credits:Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber
Episode Producer: Rowena Murray
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
What if the secret to becoming an exceptional leader lies
in embracing radical Canada. I first came across Kim Scott's
international best selling book Radical Canda several years ago, and
I know many leaders who swear by her approach for
giving and receiving feedback. So I reached out to Kim
(00:23):
to come on how I work and teach me all
about the ins and outs of how to be better
at feedback. Kim has led teams in companies like Google
and YouTube, as well as being a CEO coach at
Dropbox and Twitter, not to mention being on faculty at
Apple University. If you have ever struggled with giving or
(00:44):
receiving feedback, then I guarantee this episode will help you
master the art of radical Canada and transform the way
you communicate. My name is doctor Ama at the invert
I'm an organizational psychologist and founder of behavior change consultancy Inventium,
(01:05):
and this is how I work, a show about how
to help you get so much more out of the
hours in your day.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Now.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Unless you have been living under a management rock, you
have probably heard of the term radical candor. It's the
style of feedback giving that revolutionized how people in tech
companies give each other feedback. But in case you haven't
heard of radical candor, let's start with a quick recap
with Kim Scott, the woman behind the framework.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Radical candor is what happens when you care personally and
challenged directly at the same time, also known as compassionate candor.
So if you think about radical candor in terms of
a two by two framework, you ready, I'm going to
lay it on you. Let's go okay. So, on the
vertical axis is care personally. On the horizontal axis is
(01:57):
challenged directly, and when you do both at the same time,
that is radical candor. But when you challenge directly but
you forget to show that you care personally, as we
all are bound to do from time to time, that
is obnoxious aggression. Sometimes people confuse radical candor and obnoxious aggression,
but they're two very different things. Obnoxious aggression is bad.
(02:21):
It's bad because it hurts people. It's bad because it's inefficient.
If I'm a jerk to you, then you sort of
go into fight or flight mode and then you literally
cannot hear what I'm saying, so I'm wasting my breath.
But it's also bad for another reason. For me, at least,
when I realize I've been a jerk, it's not my
instinct to go the right way on care personally. Instead,
(02:44):
I go the wrong way on challenge directly, and then
I wind out in the worst place of all manipulative insincerity.
So noxious aggression is front stabbing, manipulative insincerity is backstabbing.
It's where passive aggressive behavior, political behavior, all of the
stuff that erodes trust most quickly creeps in. However, although
(03:05):
it is fun to tell stories about obnoxious aggression and
ruin a sympathy, these are not the mistakes most of
us make most of the time. Most of us make
most of our mistakes in this last upper left hand quadrant,
where we do remember to show that we care personally,
but we're so worried about not hurting someone's feelings or
(03:25):
offending them that we failed to tell them something they'd
be better off knowing in the long run. And that
is what I call ruin a sympathy. So that's what
radical canner is and what it is not.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I definitely struggle in that upper left quadrant. I could
definitely relate to that.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I wonder because what do people.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Find hardest about applying radical canda in their role as
a leader.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
You know, I think it's a little bit like diet
and exercise. Actually, we kind of everybody knows we should
be you know, we should be eating well, we should
be getting enough exercise or sleep. I think we all
know we how to do it, but it's hard. Behavior
change is really hard, and so I think a big
part of it is just building the habit of radical candor,
(04:10):
and you'll know that you've succeeded when it's a little
bit like brushing your teeth. You know, you feel gross
if you don't do it. Think it shouldn't be like
a root canal, should be more like brushing your teeth.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
How did you manage to make it hippitchual in your
own work life?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I learned through the School of Hard Knocks. I got
it wrong over and over and over again. And I
think one of the things that helped me more than
anything else was telling stories first to myself and labeling them,
and then writing them in the book, and then telling
them when I do talks and workshops or talk on
podcasts about when I get it wrong. So I have
(04:48):
this ruinous empathy story that I call my bob story,
and for me, it just summarizes all of what's wrong
with ruinous empathy. And then when I'm tempted not to
say the thing that I know I need to say,
I think about that Bob story, and it reminds me
that it's actually kinder to say it in the long run,
(05:09):
because I think that's also it feels mean to say
the thing, but it's actually much kinder in the long run.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I love the idea of having stories to remind yourself
of why to push yourself into that radical Canda quadrant.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You want to hear the Bob story. I would love
to this. This is really what helped me more than
anything else, because I also struggle with ruinous empathy, and
if I'm honest with myself, there's always a dose of
manipulative and sincerity in my ruin of empathy. So at
one point in my career, and this is really one
(05:46):
of the more painful moments in my career, I had
hired this guy and we'll call him Bob, and I
liked Bob a lot. He was smart, he was charming,
he was funny. He would do stuff like we're at
a manager off site, playing one of those endless get
to know you games, and everybody's getting more and more
stressed out because there's tons of work and people kind
of are ready to get back to work. And Bob
(06:06):
is a guy who has the courage to raise his
hand and to say, you know, I can tell everybody's
getting stressed out, and I've got an idea. It'll help
us get to know each other and it'll be really fast.
Whatever his idea was, if it was really fast, we
were all down with it. So Bob says, let's just
go around the table and confess what candy our parents
(06:28):
used when potty training us. Really weird, but really fast.
Weirder yet we all remembered. And then for the next
ten months, every time there was a tense moment and
a meeting, Bob would pull out just the right piece
of candy for the right person at the right moment.
So Bob is quirky but very lovable. He brought a
little levity to the office. Everybody loved working with Bob.
(06:52):
It was just one problem with Bob. He was doing
terrible work. I couldn't understand what was going on because
he had this incredible resume, this great history of accomplishment.
And I learned much later. The problem was that Bob
was smoking pot in the bathroom three times a day,
which maybe explained all that candy that he had, but
I didn't know any of that. All I knew was
that Bob was handing mark into me, and there was
(07:14):
shame in his eyes. He knew it wasn't nearly good enough,
and I would say something to him along the lines of, oh, Bob,
you're so smart, you're so awesome. We all love working
with you. Maybe you could make it just a little
bit better, which of course he never did. So let's
pause for a moment. Why did I say something so
banal to Bob? I think part of the problem was
(07:36):
that Bob was sensitive and popular, and I really didn't
want to hurt his feelings. But also, if I'm honest
with myself, there was a little manipulative and sincerity going
on because he was so popular and so sensitive that
there was part of me that was afraid that if
I told him and no uncertain terms, that his work
(07:56):
wasn't nearly good enough, that he would get upset, he
might even start to cry, and then everyone would think
I was a big you know what. And so the
part of me that was worried about my reputation as
a leader. That was the kind of manipulative and sincerity part.
The part of me that was worried about Bob's feelings,
that was the ruinous sympathy part. This went on for
(08:17):
ten months, and eventually the inevitable happened, and I realized
that if I didn't fire Bob, I was going to
lose all the best performers on my team. And because
not only had I been unfair to Bob by not
telling him that his work wasn't nearly good enough, I'd
been unfair to the whole team. And everybody was frustrated.
Their deliverables were late because his deliverables were late. They
(08:41):
were not able to do their best work because they
were having to spend so much time redoing his work.
And the best performers on the team were going to quit.
They were going to go work someplace somewhere else where
they could do their best work. I realized that I
had failed to do my job. It was time to
do it. And when I finished explaining to him where
things stood kind of pushed the chair back from the table.
(09:02):
He looked me right in the eye and he said,
why didn't you tell me. And as that question was
going around in my head with no good answer, he
looked at me again and he said, why didn't anyone
tell me? I thought you all cared about me? And
that was like, it hit me so hard. I hadn't
told him because I thought I was trying to be nice,
(09:22):
and now because I hadn't told him, I'm firing him.
Not so nice after all. And that is the moment
in my career that really prompted me to think very
deeply about why so many people this is the most
common mistake that managers make, I mean frankly, that we
make in all our relationships. And it's what really prompted
me to write the book Radical Candor and come up
(09:45):
with a two y two framework and to do better
next time, because all I could do in the moment
was make myself a very solemn promise that I would
never make that mistake again. Because even Bob at this
point agreed he should go. His reputation on the team
was just shot. It.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Really he speaks to what you say around managers need
to be good at willing to tick people off, and
that really resonated with me because as a leader myself,
I really struggle with that.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, what if you found for yourself and leaders that
you've worked with, how do we get better at that?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Remembering you're not trying to tick people off, but you
have to be willing to take a risk. Your job
as a manager is to help people grow and improve
and even though it might you know, in the case
of Bob, it might have hurt his feelings in the
short run, but in the long run, it was better
(10:42):
for him. If what I really want to do is
be kind to Bob, I've got to tell him the thing,
even if it stings a little bit in the moment,
and that is hard. I mean, one of the things
about being a manager is that it can feel sometimes
like a lonely one way street. You're giving and you're
not allowed to expect to get. That's why you get
(11:05):
paid the big box as a manager, and think about
it as paying it forward. Someone did that, hopefully. I mean,
you may have had some bad managers in your past,
but hopefully everyone's had some good managers too, and you're
sort of paying it forward being.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Good at willing to tick people off and having that
as a skill. I've also heard you talk about you're
not a fan of managers being friends with their direct reports.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Not that I would say don't be friends with them.
But the thing that's really important to remember is that
it is a very human relationship. It may not be
a friendship, it better not be a romance. And unless
it's a family business, it shouldn't be a family You
certainly don't want to play favorites, and that's one of
the risks. In many ways, a manager letting people know
(11:52):
when they're making a mistake as labor of love. But
it shouldn't start with giving criticism. It should always start
with soliciting it and then giving praise, and then giving
criticism and then engaging how it's landing.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Let's get into criticism and praise. What questions should I
be asking to elicit criticism from my team?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, so if you say, do you have any feedback
for me, you're wasting your breath. I can already tell
you the answer. Oh no, everything's fine, Like nobody wants
to give you feedback except your teenage children. One of
the things that I recommend is that people come up
with their go to question and I'll tell you what
(12:33):
mine is, which I didn't. To be fair, I didn't
make up myself. I had a coach tell me this
so you can borrow it if it works for you.
Is what could I do or stop doing that would
make it easier to work with me? And if you
buy the book and read it, you'll notice it's worded
a little bit differently in the book. And I got
some feedback that the way I worded it in the
(12:54):
book was imperfect. So the way it's worded in the
book is is there anything? And someone pointed out, you
don't want to ask a question that can be answered
with a yes or no. So what could I do
or stop doing that would make it easier to work
with me? I was working with Kristal Quarrels when she
was CEO of Open Table and she said, Kim, I
(13:14):
could never imagine your words coming out of my mouth.
And she said, the question I like to ask is
tell me why I'm wrong. Okay, that's a fine way
to ask, too. It's got to sound like you. But
the other thing about your question is you want to
make sure that you adjust it for the person you're
asking it of. There are a couple of people on
Christa's team who found that question too aggressive and so
(13:36):
for them she had to sort of back off and
ask him more gently.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
What are some other variations on that question that you
asked to elicit feedback from others that are stuck with you?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Jason Rosoff, who is the person who I co founded
Radical can or the company with He likes to ask
where this week did I get involved where you didn't
want me involved? And where did I not get involved
where you did want me involved? And the interesting thing
there is that some people really like their managers to
(14:10):
mostly leave them alone, and other people really want them
more involved. And so as a manager, you want to
try to be a thought partner, not a micromanager or
an absentee manager. But different people are going to define
those things differently, So it's useful to find out what
people want from you.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
How do you know when you're asking too often for criticism?
Is there a line somewhere?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
As a general rule, I want to ask at the
end of every one on one, like once a week.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So I want to ask about that because it's one
thing to ask for feedback and it's another to receive
it in a way that positively reinforces the feedback giver
giving you more feedback. So how have you kim become
better at receiving criticism, and I'm interested particularly in criticism
that you feel is unwarranted.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, you want to make sure that you're listening with
the intent to understand, not to respond. The first step
is to manage your own defensiveness. The next thing that's
really important is to reward the candor when you get it.
When someone gives you some feedback, they are taking a risk,
and if you don't reward risk ritually, you'll never take
(15:21):
that risk again. It's tricky because it's easy to feel
like a disagreement poses a risk to your relationship, but
some of the best relationships of my career have started
with a good, respectful disagreement.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I want to ask about a situation I was in
a few months ago where I had been given some
feedback via one of my team that was about someone
that had left the organization. And when I heard the feedback,
I knew intellectually I need to receive the feedback and
not get defensive. But when I heard the feedback, I
(15:56):
actually knew that there was another side of the story.
At the time, I thought, how do I respond to this?
And I made the decision to just be quiet. And
listen and thank the person for the feedback. But then
I walked away from that conversation and I felt so frustrated.
And a few weeks later I said, hey, when you
gave me this feedback, it was really hard to take
(16:18):
for this reason, and I didn't share with them my
side of the story because I wanted to protect confidentiality.
But I'd gotten really frustrated sitting with that, and I
want to know what should I have done better in
that situation, Kim.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, it seems like a really hard situation because you
couldn't share your side of the story. I think I
would double click on that a little bit and say,
are there maybe there are some details of your side
of the story that you can't share, but maybe there
are some that you can share. Because it never is
very satisfying to say that's not what happened, but I
can't tell you what happened, you know. So I think
(16:55):
what I would have done in that moment is to say,
I really appreciate that you shared this with me, and
I'm sorry that you had the experience you had. It
sounds like it was really frustrating. However, there's more to
this story, and here's what I can tell you. There's
a lot more that I cannot tell you, but I
(17:16):
want to assure you that I wouldn't have done what
you thought I did. You know something along those lines,
because the problem with just saying thank you for the
feedback and walking way and feeling frustrated is that, unless
you're an Oscar winning actor, that person knew you were frustrated.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
We will be back with Kim soon talking about what
to do if you really disagree with the feedback that
you've just been given, and also Kim's views on the
best way to give someone praise. If you're looking for
more tips to improve the way you work and live,
I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and
(17:58):
simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can
sign up for that at Amantha dot substack dot com.
That's Amantha dot substack dot com. In those situations where
you're receiving feedback and or criticism, let's say, and you
(18:20):
find the five to ten percent that you can agree
with an embrace and learn from. But if there is
a situation where you do disagree with a large chunk,
should you raise that at the time or should you
give it some space? And then come back to it
potentially when emotions have come down.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
What should we be doing there? First of all, don't
shut all over yourself. There's no one right answer, so
have some compassion for yourself. If I am feeling like
I'm really upset, then I might wait. However, if I'm
calm enough that I feel like my executive function is
more or less fully engaged, it's a little bit easier
(18:59):
to have the conversation on the spot.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I would love to talk about the flip side to
giving criticism, which is giving praise and how do I
do a good job of giving praise.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
The rules of thumb for praise are the same as
those for criticism. You want to for both praise and criticism.
You want to be humble. You're not the arbiter of
what's good or bad. You're sharing your perspective. You want
to state your intention to be helpful. You want to
do it right away. The purpose of praise is to
tell people what to do more of Why would you wait?
(19:32):
You want to praise in public, criticize in private, and
you want to do it in person.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Something I'm curious about is the idea of how we
can get better as a team at debating and obviously
doing that with respect. What advice do you have to
get better at creating a culture of debate in a
respectful way.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
One of the most important things you can do is
to create consequences for bullying, because there's nothing that will
destroy good debate faster than someone who decides to bully
others in the course of that debate. And the thing
about debate is that it has to happen in public.
Making sure that you're creating an environment in which people
(20:14):
are respectful, that where you're disrupting bias when it happens,
and where you create conversational consequences for bullying as well
as compensation consequences and career consequences. Ultimately, that's going to
help you create a culture of debate. You also want
to make sure that you ask people to really check
(20:35):
their egos when they come into debate. You're debating an idea,
you're debating a notion, and the goal is to come
together to the best idea, the best solution that you
can have.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
You seen certain methods of helping people check their ego
and be focused on debating the ideas and not the person.
Just people naturally feel a little bit attached to their
ideas and take it personally when they criticized.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, criticism shouldn't happen in public. You shouldn't criticize a
person in a debate. Anytime you criticize someone in public,
they're going to take it personally. So it's not a
good idea. But you can debate. One of the things
I talk about in radical respect is a rogarian debate.
And the idea of a rogarian debate is that you
(21:26):
and I at a certain point in the discussion, we
switch roles and I argue for your side and you
argue for my side. And that can really help people
learn to listen to each other and learn to talk
more respectfully to each other so that we can put
our heads together and come up with a better answer.
I mean, that's the point of being on a team,
(21:46):
as you get different points of view and you put
them out on the table, and that's what helps you
come up with the best answer. Steve jobs Likens debate
on a team to a rock tumbler. You put a
bunch of ordinary stones in this tin. Can you put
some grid in there? It's on a motor, It spins around.
There's a lot of noise a lot of friction, but
outcome these beautifully polished stones. And that's what we can
(22:08):
do for each other if we're willing to debate and
discuss ideas openly.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I do love that. How do you know at what
point to introduce that? Do you typically assign someone with
the role of facilitator to go, okay, now it's time
to switch viewpoints? How have you found that works in
practice when you've used it.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I'm usually not very good at being very formal. The
way that I tend to use it is if I
notice the quality of the conversation degrading, I will suggest,
why don't we switch roles? I also use it when
I have a particular point of view, and if I
have some kind of authority in the situation, I want
to lay that power down, and so I find it
(22:47):
very useful to say, Okay, I know here's what you think,
here's what I think. Why don't I argue your point
of view when you argue mine? And that can make
it easier for folks to argue with me and also
maybe to understand my point. I love that.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
I'm definitely going to be taking a lot of these
ideas back to my business invent here and Kim, thank
you for all the tools and strategies that you've given
me as a leader, and thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
So much for your time today. Well, thank you for
yours love, your podcast, and hopefully the Radical Candor Radical
Respect podcast can help your listeners as well.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
If you liked this chat with Kim Scott, you should
definitely go out and grab her latest book, Radical Respect,
and if you haven't read her classic Radical Candor, I
highly recommend it as a really simple and practical way
of improving how you give and receive feedback and ultimately
become a better leader. If you enjoyed today's episode, I
(23:45):
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Following this podcast and leaving reviews helps How I Work
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(24:07):
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If you're keen for more tips on how to work better,
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was recorded on the traditional land of the Warrenery people,
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(24:29):
for being able to work and live on this beautiful land,
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present and emerging. How I Work is produced by me
Amantha Imba. The episode producer was Rowena Murray. And thank
you to Martin Imba who does the audio mix for
every episode and makes everything sound better than it would
(24:50):
have otherwise.
What if the secret to becoming an exceptional leader lies
in embracing radical Canada. I first came across Kim Scott's
international best selling book Radical Canda several years ago, and
I know many leaders who swear by her approach for
giving and receiving feedback. So I reached out to Kim
(00:23):
to come on how I work and teach me all
about the ins and outs of how to be better
at feedback. Kim has led teams in companies like Google
and YouTube, as well as being a CEO coach at
Dropbox and Twitter, not to mention being on faculty at
Apple University. If you have ever struggled with giving or
(00:44):
receiving feedback, then I guarantee this episode will help you
master the art of radical Canada and transform the way
you communicate. My name is doctor Ama at the invert
I'm an organizational psychologist and founder of behavior change consultancy Inventium,
(01:05):
and this is how I work, a show about how
to help you get so much more out of the
hours in your day.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Now.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Unless you have been living under a management rock, you
have probably heard of the term radical candor. It's the
style of feedback giving that revolutionized how people in tech
companies give each other feedback. But in case you haven't
heard of radical candor, let's start with a quick recap
with Kim Scott, the woman behind the framework.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Radical candor is what happens when you care personally and
challenged directly at the same time, also known as compassionate candor.
So if you think about radical candor in terms of
a two by two framework, you ready, I'm going to
lay it on you. Let's go okay. So, on the
vertical axis is care personally. On the horizontal axis is
(01:57):
challenged directly, and when you do both at the same time,
that is radical candor. But when you challenge directly but
you forget to show that you care personally, as we
all are bound to do from time to time, that
is obnoxious aggression. Sometimes people confuse radical candor and obnoxious aggression,
but they're two very different things. Obnoxious aggression is bad.
(02:21):
It's bad because it hurts people. It's bad because it's inefficient.
If I'm a jerk to you, then you sort of
go into fight or flight mode and then you literally
cannot hear what I'm saying, so I'm wasting my breath.
But it's also bad for another reason. For me, at least,
when I realize I've been a jerk, it's not my
instinct to go the right way on care personally. Instead,
(02:44):
I go the wrong way on challenge directly, and then
I wind out in the worst place of all manipulative insincerity.
So noxious aggression is front stabbing, manipulative insincerity is backstabbing.
It's where passive aggressive behavior, political behavior, all of the
stuff that erodes trust most quickly creeps in. However, although
(03:05):
it is fun to tell stories about obnoxious aggression and
ruin a sympathy, these are not the mistakes most of
us make most of the time. Most of us make
most of our mistakes in this last upper left hand quadrant,
where we do remember to show that we care personally,
but we're so worried about not hurting someone's feelings or
(03:25):
offending them that we failed to tell them something they'd
be better off knowing in the long run. And that
is what I call ruin a sympathy. So that's what
radical canner is and what it is not.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I definitely struggle in that upper left quadrant. I could
definitely relate to that.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I wonder because what do people.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Find hardest about applying radical canda in their role as
a leader.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
You know, I think it's a little bit like diet
and exercise. Actually, we kind of everybody knows we should
be you know, we should be eating well, we should
be getting enough exercise or sleep. I think we all
know we how to do it, but it's hard. Behavior
change is really hard, and so I think a big
part of it is just building the habit of radical candor,
(04:10):
and you'll know that you've succeeded when it's a little
bit like brushing your teeth. You know, you feel gross
if you don't do it. Think it shouldn't be like
a root canal, should be more like brushing your teeth.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
How did you manage to make it hippitchual in your
own work life?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I learned through the School of Hard Knocks. I got
it wrong over and over and over again. And I
think one of the things that helped me more than
anything else was telling stories first to myself and labeling them,
and then writing them in the book, and then telling
them when I do talks and workshops or talk on
podcasts about when I get it wrong. So I have
(04:48):
this ruinous empathy story that I call my bob story,
and for me, it just summarizes all of what's wrong
with ruinous empathy. And then when I'm tempted not to
say the thing that I know I need to say,
I think about that Bob story, and it reminds me
that it's actually kinder to say it in the long run,
(05:09):
because I think that's also it feels mean to say
the thing, but it's actually much kinder in the long run.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I love the idea of having stories to remind yourself
of why to push yourself into that radical Canda quadrant.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You want to hear the Bob story. I would love
to this. This is really what helped me more than
anything else, because I also struggle with ruinous empathy, and
if I'm honest with myself, there's always a dose of
manipulative and sincerity in my ruin of empathy. So at
one point in my career, and this is really one
(05:46):
of the more painful moments in my career, I had
hired this guy and we'll call him Bob, and I
liked Bob a lot. He was smart, he was charming,
he was funny. He would do stuff like we're at
a manager off site, playing one of those endless get
to know you games, and everybody's getting more and more
stressed out because there's tons of work and people kind
of are ready to get back to work. And Bob
(06:06):
is a guy who has the courage to raise his
hand and to say, you know, I can tell everybody's
getting stressed out, and I've got an idea. It'll help
us get to know each other and it'll be really fast.
Whatever his idea was, if it was really fast, we
were all down with it. So Bob says, let's just
go around the table and confess what candy our parents
(06:28):
used when potty training us. Really weird, but really fast.
Weirder yet we all remembered. And then for the next
ten months, every time there was a tense moment and
a meeting, Bob would pull out just the right piece
of candy for the right person at the right moment.
So Bob is quirky but very lovable. He brought a
little levity to the office. Everybody loved working with Bob.
(06:52):
It was just one problem with Bob. He was doing
terrible work. I couldn't understand what was going on because
he had this incredible resume, this great history of accomplishment.
And I learned much later. The problem was that Bob
was smoking pot in the bathroom three times a day,
which maybe explained all that candy that he had, but
I didn't know any of that. All I knew was
that Bob was handing mark into me, and there was
(07:14):
shame in his eyes. He knew it wasn't nearly good enough,
and I would say something to him along the lines of, oh, Bob,
you're so smart, you're so awesome. We all love working
with you. Maybe you could make it just a little
bit better, which of course he never did. So let's
pause for a moment. Why did I say something so
banal to Bob? I think part of the problem was
(07:36):
that Bob was sensitive and popular, and I really didn't
want to hurt his feelings. But also, if I'm honest
with myself, there was a little manipulative and sincerity going
on because he was so popular and so sensitive that
there was part of me that was afraid that if
I told him and no uncertain terms, that his work
(07:56):
wasn't nearly good enough, that he would get upset, he
might even start to cry, and then everyone would think
I was a big you know what. And so the
part of me that was worried about my reputation as
a leader. That was the kind of manipulative and sincerity part.
The part of me that was worried about Bob's feelings,
that was the ruinous sympathy part. This went on for
(08:17):
ten months, and eventually the inevitable happened, and I realized
that if I didn't fire Bob, I was going to
lose all the best performers on my team. And because
not only had I been unfair to Bob by not
telling him that his work wasn't nearly good enough, I'd
been unfair to the whole team. And everybody was frustrated.
Their deliverables were late because his deliverables were late. They
(08:41):
were not able to do their best work because they
were having to spend so much time redoing his work.
And the best performers on the team were going to quit.
They were going to go work someplace somewhere else where
they could do their best work. I realized that I
had failed to do my job. It was time to
do it. And when I finished explaining to him where
things stood kind of pushed the chair back from the table.
(09:02):
He looked me right in the eye and he said,
why didn't you tell me. And as that question was
going around in my head with no good answer, he
looked at me again and he said, why didn't anyone
tell me? I thought you all cared about me? And
that was like, it hit me so hard. I hadn't
told him because I thought I was trying to be nice,
(09:22):
and now because I hadn't told him, I'm firing him.
Not so nice after all. And that is the moment
in my career that really prompted me to think very
deeply about why so many people this is the most
common mistake that managers make, I mean frankly, that we
make in all our relationships. And it's what really prompted
me to write the book Radical Candor and come up
(09:45):
with a two y two framework and to do better
next time, because all I could do in the moment
was make myself a very solemn promise that I would
never make that mistake again. Because even Bob at this
point agreed he should go. His reputation on the team
was just shot. It.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Really he speaks to what you say around managers need
to be good at willing to tick people off, and
that really resonated with me because as a leader myself,
I really struggle with that.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, what if you found for yourself and leaders that
you've worked with, how do we get better at that?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Remembering you're not trying to tick people off, but you
have to be willing to take a risk. Your job
as a manager is to help people grow and improve
and even though it might you know, in the case
of Bob, it might have hurt his feelings in the
short run, but in the long run, it was better
(10:42):
for him. If what I really want to do is
be kind to Bob, I've got to tell him the thing,
even if it stings a little bit in the moment,
and that is hard. I mean, one of the things
about being a manager is that it can feel sometimes
like a lonely one way street. You're giving and you're
not allowed to expect to get. That's why you get
(11:05):
paid the big box as a manager, and think about
it as paying it forward. Someone did that, hopefully. I mean,
you may have had some bad managers in your past,
but hopefully everyone's had some good managers too, and you're
sort of paying it forward being.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Good at willing to tick people off and having that
as a skill. I've also heard you talk about you're
not a fan of managers being friends with their direct reports.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Not that I would say don't be friends with them.
But the thing that's really important to remember is that
it is a very human relationship. It may not be
a friendship, it better not be a romance. And unless
it's a family business, it shouldn't be a family You
certainly don't want to play favorites, and that's one of
the risks. In many ways, a manager letting people know
(11:52):
when they're making a mistake as labor of love. But
it shouldn't start with giving criticism. It should always start
with soliciting it and then giving praise, and then giving
criticism and then engaging how it's landing.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Let's get into criticism and praise. What questions should I
be asking to elicit criticism from my team?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, so if you say, do you have any feedback
for me, you're wasting your breath. I can already tell
you the answer. Oh no, everything's fine, Like nobody wants
to give you feedback except your teenage children. One of
the things that I recommend is that people come up
with their go to question and I'll tell you what
(12:33):
mine is, which I didn't. To be fair, I didn't
make up myself. I had a coach tell me this
so you can borrow it if it works for you.
Is what could I do or stop doing that would
make it easier to work with me? And if you
buy the book and read it, you'll notice it's worded
a little bit differently in the book. And I got
some feedback that the way I worded it in the
(12:54):
book was imperfect. So the way it's worded in the
book is is there anything? And someone pointed out, you
don't want to ask a question that can be answered
with a yes or no. So what could I do
or stop doing that would make it easier to work
with me? I was working with Kristal Quarrels when she
was CEO of Open Table and she said, Kim, I
(13:14):
could never imagine your words coming out of my mouth.
And she said, the question I like to ask is
tell me why I'm wrong. Okay, that's a fine way
to ask, too. It's got to sound like you. But
the other thing about your question is you want to
make sure that you adjust it for the person you're
asking it of. There are a couple of people on
Christa's team who found that question too aggressive and so
(13:36):
for them she had to sort of back off and
ask him more gently.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
What are some other variations on that question that you
asked to elicit feedback from others that are stuck with you?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Jason Rosoff, who is the person who I co founded
Radical can or the company with He likes to ask
where this week did I get involved where you didn't
want me involved? And where did I not get involved
where you did want me involved? And the interesting thing
there is that some people really like their managers to
(14:10):
mostly leave them alone, and other people really want them
more involved. And so as a manager, you want to
try to be a thought partner, not a micromanager or
an absentee manager. But different people are going to define
those things differently, So it's useful to find out what
people want from you.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
How do you know when you're asking too often for criticism?
Is there a line somewhere?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
As a general rule, I want to ask at the
end of every one on one, like once a week.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So I want to ask about that because it's one
thing to ask for feedback and it's another to receive
it in a way that positively reinforces the feedback giver
giving you more feedback. So how have you kim become
better at receiving criticism, and I'm interested particularly in criticism
that you feel is unwarranted.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, you want to make sure that you're listening with
the intent to understand, not to respond. The first step
is to manage your own defensiveness. The next thing that's
really important is to reward the candor when you get it.
When someone gives you some feedback, they are taking a risk,
and if you don't reward risk ritually, you'll never take
(15:21):
that risk again. It's tricky because it's easy to feel
like a disagreement poses a risk to your relationship, but
some of the best relationships of my career have started
with a good, respectful disagreement.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I want to ask about a situation I was in
a few months ago where I had been given some
feedback via one of my team that was about someone
that had left the organization. And when I heard the feedback,
I knew intellectually I need to receive the feedback and
not get defensive. But when I heard the feedback, I
(15:56):
actually knew that there was another side of the story.
At the time, I thought, how do I respond to this?
And I made the decision to just be quiet. And
listen and thank the person for the feedback. But then
I walked away from that conversation and I felt so frustrated.
And a few weeks later I said, hey, when you
gave me this feedback, it was really hard to take
(16:18):
for this reason, and I didn't share with them my
side of the story because I wanted to protect confidentiality.
But I'd gotten really frustrated sitting with that, and I
want to know what should I have done better in
that situation, Kim.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, it seems like a really hard situation because you
couldn't share your side of the story. I think I
would double click on that a little bit and say,
are there maybe there are some details of your side
of the story that you can't share, but maybe there
are some that you can share. Because it never is
very satisfying to say that's not what happened, but I
can't tell you what happened, you know. So I think
(16:55):
what I would have done in that moment is to say,
I really appreciate that you shared this with me, and
I'm sorry that you had the experience you had. It
sounds like it was really frustrating. However, there's more to
this story, and here's what I can tell you. There's
a lot more that I cannot tell you, but I
(17:16):
want to assure you that I wouldn't have done what
you thought I did. You know something along those lines,
because the problem with just saying thank you for the
feedback and walking way and feeling frustrated is that, unless
you're an Oscar winning actor, that person knew you were frustrated.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
We will be back with Kim soon talking about what
to do if you really disagree with the feedback that
you've just been given, and also Kim's views on the
best way to give someone praise. If you're looking for
more tips to improve the way you work and live,
I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and
(17:58):
simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can
sign up for that at Amantha dot substack dot com.
That's Amantha dot substack dot com. In those situations where
you're receiving feedback and or criticism, let's say, and you
(18:20):
find the five to ten percent that you can agree
with an embrace and learn from. But if there is
a situation where you do disagree with a large chunk,
should you raise that at the time or should you
give it some space? And then come back to it
potentially when emotions have come down.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
What should we be doing there? First of all, don't
shut all over yourself. There's no one right answer, so
have some compassion for yourself. If I am feeling like
I'm really upset, then I might wait. However, if I'm
calm enough that I feel like my executive function is
more or less fully engaged, it's a little bit easier
(18:59):
to have the conversation on the spot.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I would love to talk about the flip side to
giving criticism, which is giving praise and how do I
do a good job of giving praise.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
The rules of thumb for praise are the same as
those for criticism. You want to for both praise and criticism.
You want to be humble. You're not the arbiter of
what's good or bad. You're sharing your perspective. You want
to state your intention to be helpful. You want to
do it right away. The purpose of praise is to
tell people what to do more of Why would you wait?
(19:32):
You want to praise in public, criticize in private, and
you want to do it in person.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Something I'm curious about is the idea of how we
can get better as a team at debating and obviously
doing that with respect. What advice do you have to
get better at creating a culture of debate in a
respectful way.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
One of the most important things you can do is
to create consequences for bullying, because there's nothing that will
destroy good debate faster than someone who decides to bully
others in the course of that debate. And the thing
about debate is that it has to happen in public.
Making sure that you're creating an environment in which people
(20:14):
are respectful, that where you're disrupting bias when it happens,
and where you create conversational consequences for bullying as well
as compensation consequences and career consequences. Ultimately, that's going to
help you create a culture of debate. You also want
to make sure that you ask people to really check
(20:35):
their egos when they come into debate. You're debating an idea,
you're debating a notion, and the goal is to come
together to the best idea, the best solution that you
can have.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
You seen certain methods of helping people check their ego
and be focused on debating the ideas and not the person.
Just people naturally feel a little bit attached to their
ideas and take it personally when they criticized.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, criticism shouldn't happen in public. You shouldn't criticize a
person in a debate. Anytime you criticize someone in public,
they're going to take it personally. So it's not a
good idea. But you can debate. One of the things
I talk about in radical respect is a rogarian debate.
And the idea of a rogarian debate is that you
(21:26):
and I at a certain point in the discussion, we
switch roles and I argue for your side and you
argue for my side. And that can really help people
learn to listen to each other and learn to talk
more respectfully to each other so that we can put
our heads together and come up with a better answer.
I mean, that's the point of being on a team,
(21:46):
as you get different points of view and you put
them out on the table, and that's what helps you
come up with the best answer. Steve jobs Likens debate
on a team to a rock tumbler. You put a
bunch of ordinary stones in this tin. Can you put
some grid in there? It's on a motor, It spins around.
There's a lot of noise a lot of friction, but
outcome these beautifully polished stones. And that's what we can
(22:08):
do for each other if we're willing to debate and
discuss ideas openly.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I do love that. How do you know at what
point to introduce that? Do you typically assign someone with
the role of facilitator to go, okay, now it's time
to switch viewpoints? How have you found that works in
practice when you've used it.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I'm usually not very good at being very formal. The
way that I tend to use it is if I
notice the quality of the conversation degrading, I will suggest,
why don't we switch roles? I also use it when
I have a particular point of view, and if I
have some kind of authority in the situation, I want
to lay that power down, and so I find it
(22:47):
very useful to say, Okay, I know here's what you think,
here's what I think. Why don't I argue your point
of view when you argue mine? And that can make
it easier for folks to argue with me and also
maybe to understand my point. I love that.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
I'm definitely going to be taking a lot of these
ideas back to my business invent here and Kim, thank
you for all the tools and strategies that you've given
me as a leader, and thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
So much for your time today. Well, thank you for
yours love, your podcast, and hopefully the Radical Candor Radical
Respect podcast can help your listeners as well.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
If you liked this chat with Kim Scott, you should
definitely go out and grab her latest book, Radical Respect,
and if you haven't read her classic Radical Candor, I
highly recommend it as a really simple and practical way
of improving how you give and receive feedback and ultimately
become a better leader. If you enjoyed today's episode, I
(23:45):
would love to ask a favor. Click follow on the
podcast app that you're listening to this on, and if
you're feeling really generous, leave a review for the show.
Following this podcast and leaving reviews helps How I Work
find news and your support is one of the things
that makes this podcast possible. Thank you for sharing part
(24:07):
of your day with me by listening to How I Work.
If you're keen for more tips on how to work better,
connect with me via LinkedIn or Instagram. I'm very easy
to find. Just search for Amantha Imba. How I Work
was recorded on the traditional land of the Warrenery people,
part of the cool And Nation. I am so grateful
(24:29):
for being able to work and live on this beautiful land,
and I want to pay my respects to Elder's past,
present and emerging. How I Work is produced by me
Amantha Imba. The episode producer was Rowena Murray. And thank
you to Martin Imba who does the audio mix for
every episode and makes everything sound better than it would
(24:50):
have otherwise.
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