Radical Candor
October 22, 2018
Being a good manager requires giving feedback in a timely manner. Kim Scott's book Radical Candor is a great tool for all managers.
TRANSCRIPT
In Radical Candor, she gives a slightly different version of, you know, the importance of giving direct feedback. Right? She talksabout it as Radical Candor. She talks about the importance of caring personally and challenging directly. That if you have both of those things, that's really the the ground or we would say the the relational field that's appropriate to be able to just tell somebody what you think. It's that, you know, if you really if the person knows you care about them, then you can say it. You can say it.
Let me stretch them a bit.
And but if you don't have the care the personal caring and you challenge directly, it could sound like, caring and you challenge directly, it could sound like obnoxious aggression, which is, like, an interesting way of looking at that. It's the it's the relationship that that makes it sound like, you know, you you don't the same feedback could sound obnoxious or it could come out from the mouth.
Yeah.
And, you know, you you don't the same feedback could sound obnoxious or it could come out obnoxious.
Right?
And then if you if you don't challenge directly, but you're acting like you're caring personally, then it can be ruinous and empathy.
You don't charge directly and you don't personally care, then it could be manipulative and sincerity. So does anybody remember the example of the your fly is open?
If you say, hey, Leslie. Your fly is open.
Open. It's because I care about you, I'm telling you. Right? If you say, hey, Leslie. Your fly is open. In front of everybody.
Or hey. Look. Leslie's fly is open. Yes.
That is then that would be obnoxious aggression.
Right. Because you're humiliating the person or whatever. Same same but if you care about them, but you are silent and worried about their feelings. That's what I thought was really good. Like, I'm worried about how you would feel if you knew your voice.
But I'm not gonna tell you.
Anybody ever do that before? I don't wanna tell them that that there's yeah. Okay.
And then this would be Don't say anything to other people.
Don't say anything to other people. This is silently worry about your own feelings, like, how you would feel about me if I told you you'd like something.
So it's a really good simple example, but, you know, I think this this, kind of the way in which she describes this is a is a really good thing for sharing with the people that you care about, you know, in a in a direct way. So point of the assessment circles are for you to practice giving that feedback, right, giving that radical candor, and to have the person receiving the feedback hear it as an assessment.
Perception. Right? They're giving you their perception.
When you hear someone's perception from personal caring, you hear someone's perception from personal caring, you hear someone's perception from personal caring, you hear someone's perception from personal caring, you hear someone's perception from personal caring, you hear someone's perception from personal caring, they're giving you that perception because they care about you.
They're giving you that assessment not for themselves, but because they think it's going to contribute to you.
You have a relationship. You've had it you have a relationship for the past six months in this program.
Do you feel that there might be some some things that you've observed about your teammates that you would be good for you to tell?
