Radical Candor by Kim Scott
“The ultimate goal of Radical Candor is to achieve collaboratively what you could never achieve individually, and to do that you need to care about the people you are working with.”
3 Main Messages:
It is a leader’s role to give kind, clear and honest feedback.
Rockstars and superstars are equally valuable on a team and need to be treated and rewarded differently.
Leaders need to show, not tell, and so the first step is modelling asking for feedback.
A few years ago I was chatting with a colleague who told me that I needed to ‘check my face’ at work. It was brutally honest advice and I was stung by the directness and initially offended. On reflection, however, I knew that she was correct: my face is a dead giveaway and all too often I would reveal my innermost thoughts without saying a word. Ultimately, my lack of a poker face could potentially lead to me losing the trust of my team and unintentionally offending colleagues. Instead of taking offence I was, and remain, grateful that she cared enough to have the confidence to give me such difficult feedback.
Without radical candor, Kim Scott tells us that we can fall into ruinous behaviour which damages teams, dissolves trust and prevents deliverable results. If we avoid giving necessary feedback for improvement, we are ‘ruinously empathetic’ which can lead to failure, all in the name of not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings. Offering challenging feedback without considering or caring about the recipient’s feelings falls under ‘obnoxious aggression’, which many of us might consider to be the worst kind of behaviour.
It is not. The worst leadership behaviour, Scott writes, is ‘manipulative insincerity’, when we fail to give feedback and yet complain about poor performance. If we’re honest, we have all at some point been guilty of this because it is easy behaviour to slip into. As Scott tells us: “Management is hard,” and “It’s brutally hard to tell people when they are screwing up.” Fortunately, she has written this book to teach us how it is done!
Scott is wonderfully honest in her writing, revealing mistakes that she has made along the way and encouraging us to reflect and be honest about our own errors. She has earned her stripes, having led at both Google and Apple and acknowledges the difference in culture and approach at both and their significance. Her style is open, accessible and humorous and I found myself recognising many of the behaviours described in the book - either in myself or others I have worked with.
She starts by explaining the philosophy and writes about the importance of aligning purpose and building trust. “Bosses and companies get better results when they voluntarily lay down unilateral power and encourage their teams and peers to hold them accountable.” Afterall, if leaders are going to ‘show, not tell’, then we need to start by asking for feedback ourselves and modelling how it should be received. This will build trust and lay the necessary cultural foundations amongst the team. Scott lays out a framework for requesting and responding to feedback in order to begin to build a radically candid community.
She then goes on to explain the GSD Wheel and suggests that this becomes the model for all work completed by teams: starting with listening, then clarifying, debating, deciding, persuading, executing and learning, before repeating the cycle again. She is clear that “if you skip a step you’ll waste time in the end,” and goes into great detail about how to create the systems and routines necessary to set up the cycle.
The second section of the book shares tools and techniques, which I found incredibly insightful. Scott guides us in moving away from the ‘feedback sandwich’ model, where sometimes patronising and often irrelevant and vague praise is used to soften (or sometimes mask) the real message. She writes about the importance of building trust; the art of socialising; setting boundaries and both acknowledging and managing emotions.
By comparing the difference between significant and uncomfortable feedback sessions and daily bitesize pieces of feedback to root canal surgery and daily tooth brushing and flossing, Scott humorously points out the relative ease and importance of giving regular feedback. She writes about “open, fair and fast conflict resolution” and how to give necessary feedback in a caring and effective way.
For any leader who struggles to find time in their working week or who feels that their meetings could do with an overhaul to make them fully time effective results driven and inclusive, Scott’s suggestions for how to run different meetings is invaluable. Following her guidance around diary arrangement and meeting management will ensure clearer purpose and much more efficient and productive use of time. From 1:1 meeting structures to timetabled ‘walk arounds’ she lays out a clear system for leadership.
I found it interesting when Scott observed global cultural differences, noting that she has found the British to be more candid than most. Being a British Northerner, I often found that even my Southern colleagues could be startled at my candidness, which, on reflection is perhaps why I previously learned to adapt my style in order to minimise offence. If only I had read this book earlier - then I would have known how to lead more authentically and bravely. I would also have learned the skills needed to give kind, timely and helpful feedback with my actions and my words, rather than with my face!! Ah well, better late than never!
