How to lead with radical candor | Kim Scott | TEDxPortland

Summary

The speaker passionately shares her insights on the concept of 'Radical Candor' – the ability to challenge directly while showing you care personally. Through compelling personal stories, she illustrates the pitfalls of 'Ruinous Empathy' where we avoid candid feedback to spare feelings. She emphasizes the importance of soliciting feedback, giving praise, addressing performance issues, and gauging reactions to build better relationships, foster a healthy team culture, and even bridge societal divides. Her thought-provoking perspective encourages us to embrace open dialogue, respect differing viewpoints, and foster an environment of trust and growth.

Takeaways

• 😃 Radical Candor is the ability to care personally while also challenging directly. It involves showing respect and human decency towards others while providing honest feedback.
• 😐 Obnoxious Aggression occurs when we challenge directly but forget to show care, hurting people and making communication ineffective.
• 🤥 Manipulative Insincerity involves withholding direct feedback and engaging in passive-aggressive behavior, leading to toxic workplace environments.
• 🥺 Ruinous Empathy is when we care personally but fail to provide honest feedback, ultimately doing a disservice to the person and the team.
• 👥 Team cultures can drift towards Ruinous Empathy, allowing disruptive behavior to go unchecked and promoting mediocrity.
• 🇺🇸 Unchallenged beliefs and lack of open dialogue can lead to societal polarization and loss of common ground.
• 👂 Effective feedback requires soliciting input, giving praise, addressing performance issues, and gauging the listener's reaction.
• 🤔 If the listener seems sad or mad, move up on the 'care personally' dimension. If they brush you off, challenge more directly.
• 🙌 Radical Candor fosters better one-on-one relationships, builds a culture of excellence, and promotes societal confluence.
• 🌟 The key is maintaining respect and human decency while providing honest feedback, even with those we disagree with.

Q & A

What is radical candor, and how is it different from being obnoxiously aggressive or ruinously empathetic?

Radical candor is the ability to care personally and challenge directly at the same time. It avoids the extremes of being obnoxiously aggressive (challenging without caring) or ruinously empathetic (caring without challenging).

What is the radical candor order of operations?

The radical candor order of operations is: 1) Solicit feedback, 2) Give praise, 3) Tell people when their work is not nearly good enough, and 4) Gauge how the feedback is landing and adjust accordingly.

What incident from the speaker's career illustrates the consequences of ruinous empathy?

The speaker failed to provide direct feedback to an employee named Alex, whose work was poor. Eventually, the speaker had to fire Alex, who felt betrayed because no one was candid with him about his performance issues.

How can ruinous empathy affect team culture?

Initially, teams may start out being radically candid with each other. However, as the team grows, they may succumb to ruinous empathy, avoiding direct feedback. This can lead to a culture where the jerks begin to win and manipulative insincerity becomes common.

How can radical candor help bridge societal divides?

The speaker suggests that by engaging in respectful dialogue with those who hold different views, we can find common ground and deepen our understanding of each other's perspectives, rather than dismissing them as enemies.

What is the significance of respect in the context of radical candor?

The speaker states that the floor on the care personally dimension of radical candor is respect. Respect is something we owe to everyone and can serve as a foundation for caring about and challenging others in a productive way.

How should one respond when feedback is met with sadness or anger from the recipient?

If the recipient seems sad or mad, it is a cue to move up on the care personally dimension by showing more empathy and concern. If they seem dismissive, it may be necessary to challenge more directly.

Why did the speaker initially hesitate to give a talk at a company with policies they disagreed with?

The speaker was tempted not to go because they disagreed with the company's policies. However, they realized that avoiding dialogue would go against the spirit of radical candor and the belief that unchallenged beliefs become prejudices.

What is the virtuous cycle that radical candor can create in relationships?

When we care about someone, it becomes easier to challenge them directly. And when we challenge them directly, it becomes easier to care about them, creating a virtuous cycle of mutual understanding and respect.

How can radical candor contribute to better relationships, team culture, and societal cohesion?

By practicing radical candor, we can build better one-on-one relationships, help foster a more open and honest team culture, and potentially bridge divides in society by promoting respectful dialogue and understanding different perspectives.