Radical Candor In The News
TEDxPortland: How to Lead With Radical Candor
How Much Should You Pay Yourself? 3 Tips for Entrepreneurs
by Sarah Lynch (Inc.)
Top 24 Fearless Pioneers 2023
Kim Scott is a renowned author, leadership coach, and distinguished former executive at both Google and Apple. Her influential book Radical Candor has played a crucial role in advancing psychological safety in the workplace. She has helped organizations cultivate a culture of radical candor, promoting open and constructive conversations that contribute to a psychologically safe environment. By embracing Kim’s principles, teams can establish stronger connections, drive collaboration, and empower individuals to reach their full potential.
Mark Zuckerberg’s new return-to-office mandate is a clear problem, says Harvard expert: It’ll cause a ‘huge amount of distrust’
Empathy, or a lack thereof, has become a problem for CEOs across the country as workplaces shift away from Covid-era protocols, experts say. Employees and bosses spoke often about their lives outside the office while trying to navigate the pandemic’s uncertain peak, but the trend is now reversing, leadership coach Muriel Wilkins told the “Radical Candor” podcast earlier this month. ″[Now] leaders just want to drive to results,” said Wilkins. “And they’re sort of saying, ‘Well, it’s either drive the results or be empathetic. I can’t do both.’”
When Your Boss Gives You Bad Feedback, Badly
It’s difficult to manage your feelings when getting feedback that feels too harsh, overly nice, or somehow dishonest. We all struggle with feedback, so extend a little grace to yourself for having strong emotions, and to the other person for initiating a difficult conversation. The authors present the three most common ways people deliver feedback in a way that causes harm and elicits strong emotions, as well as five key steps to take when you get poorly delivered feedback.
Work From the Office, Get Laid off at Home
Kim Scott, a former Google executive and the author of Radical Candor, suggested that awkwardness or embarrassment [of being laid off in person] could be avoided by planning ahead — for instance, having an extra conference room for people to collect themselves and an option to collect belongings after hours. [If you’re laying someone off remotely] the medium matters. A video call with your manager beats the impersonal email. “It’s very hard to care personally over email,” Scott said.
A Boss’s Guide to Leading Through Uncertain Times
After a round of layoffs at a software startup she ran a couple decades ago, Kim Scott recalls telling staff there wouldn’t be anymore—only to have to lay off some staff later. After that, the former Google executive who wrote a book about frank communications at work, began sharing status reports on the company’s financial status at the weekly all-hands meeting.
How Leaders Can Get the Feedback They Need to Grow
Why employees appreciate radical candor if it’s done right. Here’s how to get the information across without offending them.
Former Google AdSense director Kim Scott vividly remembers a turning point in her career when her boss gave her a dose of Radical Candor. It began with a meeting room to discuss AdSense. Standing in one corner clad in bright blue spandex pants was Google co-founder Sergey Brin exercising on an elliptical machine and in the other corner was then CEO Eric Schmidt with his nose buried in his laptop.
Why Is Your Boss Asking About Your Feelings? Inside the Empathy Management Trend
Empathy can easily be misinterpreted, says Kim Scott, a CEO coach and former Google executive whose book “Radical Candor” advocates for direct communications at work. Managers sometimes mistakenly assume they should ask a lot of questions about staffers’ lives outside work in a way that can feel intrusive. “That is not caring personally, it’s being oblivious to how the other person feels,” she says. Too much focus on empathy can also cause some leaders to hold off on tough feedback. It’s counterproductive “when empathy begins to paralyze us to ‘I’m so aware of how you might feel that I’m afraid to talk to you.’”
The most ethical way for leaders to communicate about the prospect of layoffs
In a time of great uncertainty, when many people are already feeling powerless over their own futures, it’s especially important to be as transparent as possible. If layoffs could happen, Kim Scott says, bosses should say so. “It’s so tempting not to share the information you have with people right now because the information is scary,” Scott says. But we’re living through a historic pandemic: Everyone is already freaked out. And research shows that most people find uncertainty extremely stressful.
Getting what you want by saying what you mean: the art of radical candour
If you were performing poorly at work, how would you want someone to tell you? That question is central to a new management philosophy called “radical candour” that’s created a buzz around the world with substantial companies adopting it as a preferred approach. The radical candour framework is fairly simple and marries two important — but often competing — workplace behaviours: challenging directly while caring deeply.
The Art of Radical Candor: A Game-Changing Approach to Feedback and Criticism
At INBOUND23, bestselling authors, Kim Scott and Dr. Tina Opie explored the role of radical candor in the workplace and how leaders who employ it can provide a safe and supportive environment for honest conversations, empowering their teams to grow and thrive.
Ally Love shares tips for ‘bossing up’ and boosting confidence
TODAY contributor Ally Love stops by Studio 1A and shares tips for boosting your confidence throughout the day — including a music playlist to pump you up, inspirational quotes, reading Radical Candor, getting ‘hype moment’ texts from friends, and more.
The Art of Delivering Feedback in Today’s Hybrid Workplace
Employees Need Praise And Criticism: Kim Scott Shares How To Get Better At Both
Follow These 4 Steps to Create Psychological Safety in Your Teams
Are You Being Direct or Just a Jerk? 4 Ways to Tell the Difference
I’m a huge fan of the book Radical Candor by Kim Scott, which is about giving direct feedback. Clear, direct, and actionable feedback is crucial to helping people grow and develop into better employees and teammates—and makes your business stronger in the long run. However, in the years since the book came out, I’ve noticed an uptick in the amount of folks using “radical candor” to say whatever is on their minds—no matter how unvarnished the opinion. I’m all about being direct with colleagues and direct reports—but not when “candor” is used as an excuse to act like a jerk.
A Workplace Attuned to the Humanity of Workers
On a video conference, we can no longer pretend there are sharp boundaries between home and work. Kids, pets, impossibly messy or neat rooms, and other clues emerge in the margins of our screens. Managers are seeing their employees with a fullness they’ve never experienced before. Employees are seeing their bosses’ living rooms. This new visibility will change the way we manage and are managed.
How leaders can avoid the dangers of ‘yes’ people
Leaders who surround themselves with an ocean of nodding acquiescence are liable to run into icebergs. In order to discover issues while they’re still small and encourage team members at all levels to propose creative solutions and challenge ingrained ideas, leaders should navigate their teams towards a culture of candour and away from blind agreement. “The danger of surrounding yourself with ‘yes’ people is that often those people are telling you what they think you want to hear versus what they actually think,” said Kim Scott.
Top CEO coach and former Google exec says this is the No. 1 trait great bosses share
Kim Scott knows what makes a good boss. After she helped lead Google’s AdSense team, Scott became a sought-after CEO coach in Silicon Valley, advising C-suite clients at Dropbox, Twitter and other top companies. Every leader has his or her own style, but Scott says the best ones have one characteristic in common: “radical candor.” Made up of two key components, it’s a trait the coach says every manager should cultivate.
Former Google executive Kim Scott tells us about this new way of thinking
Almost everyone dreads the yearly performance review, but a new management philosophy called Radical Candor is changing how and when you get feedback. We speak to former Google executive Kim Scott about the effects this new way of thinking can have on your company.
Small Talk Is an Overrated Way to Build Relationships with Your Employees
The relationships that you form with each of your direct reports are central to your ability to fulfill your three core responsibilities as a manager: Create a culture of feedback, build a cohesive team, and achieve results collaboratively. But these relationships do not follow the rules of other relationships in our lives; they require a careful balancing act. You need to care personally, without getting creepily personal or trying to be a “popular leader.” You need to challenge people directly and tell them when their work isn’t good enough, without being a jerk or creating a vicious cycle of discouragement and failure. That’s a hard thing to do.
Want to bring out everyone’s best performance? Learn to lead with fairness
After the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions in June, 13 Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to 100 CEOs asserting that the decision could also apply to private entities, like employers. In fact, lawsuits have already been filed against companies like Amazon, Starbucks, and Comcast for their efforts to support historically marginalized groups. Such efforts are an overreach that would make it impossible for business leaders to do what common sense business practices direct them to do: measure what matters.
The biggest mistake most bosses make when trying to be honest with workers, according to a former Google executive
If you’ve watched HBO’s “Silicon Valley” or NBC’s “The Office,” you’ve seen several examples of obnoxious aggression and manipulative insecurity exhibited by leaders. It almost goes without saying that actual managers shouldn’t look to mimic Michael Scott, or the command-and-control culture dramatized on television. Instead, leaders should strive for what former Apple and Google executive Kim Scott calls the radical candor approach, showing that you care personally while challenging directly.
How HubSpot Sustains A Customer-Centric Culture Across 7k Hybrid Employees
The one skill that Marrinan values the most at HubSpot: Radical Candor. “Transparency and empathy” and “a high-performing culture” often feel at odds. I would ask all of our HubSpotters to lean into feedback and make sure that we’re practicing giving and receiving feedback. It’s tough, but making sure that feedback is direct, kind, and clear is the way to go. Marrinan’s book recommendation for HR professionals: Kim Scott’s Radical Candor, since we are focused on high performance and the behavior of giving candid and empathetic feedback.
How COVID-19 Made Kim Scott Rethink One Key Aspect of Radical Candor
When I first published Radical Candor in 2017, I was convinced that the most effective way to communicate with people at work was in person. Until the COVID-19 crisis, I discouraged giving guidance and feedback remotely if there was an opportunity to do it in person, because more than 90% of communication is nonverbal. That’s not to say words don’t matter, but body language experts claim that things like the tone of your voice, your facial expressions, and how you position your body reveal more about how you’re feeling than the words themselves.
‘What is the best way for a man to manage a team of women?’ Start by actually listening
Women report being more burned out and exhausted than their male counterparts. Women indicate that working from home provides some flexibility but also leads to less sleep and more demands. The impact on women of color has been even more significant. So how can you best support your team, and possibly even thrive together? “The first thing to do is to get to know people and to listen and be willing to hear,” says Kim Scott. “Then understand what the dynamics are and figure out a way to address them directly.”
Defining Radical Candor – and How to Do It
Kim Scott, who previously worked at Google and has consulted for Twitter and Dropbox, says leaders should learn to give honest feedback in the moment, while also developing a relationship that shows how the hard feedback is coming from a place of caring. She explains the steps managers can take to challenge more directly while also communicating empathy.
Keep Your Talent: How Managers of Dance Businesses Can Combat “The Great Resignation”
More than 19 million workers (and counting) have quit their jobs since April 2021, according to McKinsey & Company. There’s no one reason for all the quitting, but many people seem to be having a moment of “COVID clarity.” Compelled to protect their physical safety, people are also paying more attention to their mental health—and saying no to exhausting workplaces, particularly ones that come with low pay. “It’s so easy to feel trapped in a job—that there aren’t other choices,” says Kim Scott.
New York Times Bestselling Author Kim Scott On The Art Of Feedback
Kim Scott is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Radical Candor, the go-to source for how to be a better boss and build better relationships at work.I interviewed the former Google and Apple executive on her bestselling book, how to create a culture of feedback, the best way to give praise and criticism, the biggest mistakes people make when giving feedback, her best carer advice, and even how being a better manager may help you find a happier relationship.
Millennial v Boomer: young generation wants radical feedback
When I worked in investment banking, my colleagues and I dreaded our annual appraisal. We each sat down with a human resources manager armed with a paper file filled with the details of our work, anecdotes from colleagues and ratings of our behaviour that would decide our bonus. It felt arbitrary, formulaic and false. It neither won my loyalty, nor got the best out of me. The millennial generation (and much of the modern workforce) is not willing to wait 12 months to hear how they are doing. They are certainly not willing to speak to HR about it, rather than to the people with whom they work day to day. They prize authenticity, transparency and genuine relationships.
Radical Candor — The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss
Kim Scott has built her career around a simple goal: Creating bullshit-free zones where people love their work and working together. Along the way, she managed a lot of teams in various states of euphoria and panic. And while she did a lot right, she’d be the first to admit everything she did wrong. The good news is that Scott has spent years distilling her experiences into some simple ideas you can use to help the people who work for you love their jobs and do great work.