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Radical Candor by Kim Scott

Radical Candor by Kim Scott

by Parker · 126 things on NewTwos

How to be a great boss without losing your humanity
Introduction
A difficult but necessary part of being a boss: telling people clearly and directly when their work wasn’t good enough
If they know the work isn’t very good, false praise just messes with their mind
By failing to confront a problem, you remove the incentive for them to try harder and lull them into thinking they’re fine
Rather than focusing on giving feedback to your team, encourage them to tell you when you are wrong
Apple: “we hire people who tell us what to do, not the other way around”
At Apple, as at Google, a boss’s ability to achieve results had a lot more to do with listening and seeking to understand than it did with telling people what to do; more to do with debating than directing; more to do with pushing people to decide than with being the decider; more to do with persuading than with giving orders; more to do with learning than with knowing
“You need to not call into question your confidence in their abilities but leave not too much room for interpretation… and that’s a hard thing to do.” - Steve Jobs
“I don’t mind being wrong. And I’ll admit that I’m wrong a lot. It doesn’t really matter to me too much. What matters to me is that we do the right thing.” - Steve Jobs
At the heart of being a good boss is a good relationship
Part 1: A New Management Philosophy
Chapter 1: Build Radically Candid Relationships
“Management and leadership are like forehand and backhand. You have to be good at both to win.” - Andy Grove
Bosses guide a team to achieve results
Your three responsibilities as a manager
Create a culture of guidance (praise and criticism) that will keep everyone moving in the right direction
Understand what motivates each person on your team well enough to avoid burnout or boredom and keep the team cohesive
Drive results collaboratively
Give a damn personally
“The source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being is that his errors are corrigible. He is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone. There must be discussion, to show how experience is to be interpreted
Challenging others and encouraging them to challenge you helps build trusting relationships because it shows you care enough to point out both the things that aren’t going well and those that are and that you are willing to admit when you’re wrong and that you are committed to fixing mistakes that you or others have made
Chapter 2: Get, Give, and Encourage Guidance
2 dimensions of Good guidance: care personally and challenge directly
Fail in one is ruinous empathy or obnoxious aggression, or both manipulative insincerity
Labeling hinders improvement
“It’s not mean, it’s clear”
Criticizing in private is the respectful thing to do
“Leadership is sometimes about being willing to piss people off.” - Colin Powell
When you are overly worried about how people will perceive you, you’re less willing to say what needs to be said
When giving praise, investigate until you really understand who did what and why it was so great and go deep on the details
Toyota has a red x on the assembly line floor. New employees have to stand in it at the end of their first week and aren’t allowed to leave until they had criticized at least three things on the line
We learn more from our mistakes than our successes, more from criticism than from praise
“It’s crucial to give criticism very clearly and to articulate why and to get them back on track.” - Steve Jobs
People who are more concerned with getting to the right answer than with being right make the best bosses
Chapter 3: Understand what motivates each person on your team
In order to build a great team, you need to understand how each persons job fits into their life goals
Rock stars love their work and don’t want the next job if it will take them away from their craft
Superstars need to be challenged and given new opportunities to grow constantly
Most people shift between a steep growth trajectory and a gradual growth trajectory in different stages of their lives and careers, so it’s important not to out a permanent label on people
When somebody is performing poorly and, having received clear communication about the nature of the problem, is showing no signs of improvement, you must fire that person
“It’s better to have a hole than an asshole” - Steve Jobs
Chapter 4: Drive results collaboratively
Don’t let you focus on results get in the way of caring about the people you work with
Get stuff done (GSD) wheel
Listen to the ideas that people on your team have and create a culture in which they listen to each other
“Give the quiet ones a voice.” - Jony Ive
Create space for ideas to be sharpened and clarified
Take the time to help your direct reports explain what they mean, so that they can do something about fixing the problem or pursuing the opportunity rather than just complaining about it
You’ll be heard more accurately if you take the time to understand the people you are talking to
The essence of making an idea clear requires a deep understanding not only of the idea but also of the person to whine one is explaining the idea
Debate ideas and test them more rigorously
Keep the conversation focused on ideas not egos
Nothing is a bigger time sucker or blocker to getting it right than ego
Focus on the facts, don’t allow people to attribute ownership to ideas, and don’t get hijacked by how others who aren’t in the room might feel
The goal is to get the best answer, as a team
Pause for emotion/exhaustion
Use humor and have fun
Decide quickly
Persuade those who were not involved in a decisions that it was a good one
Show your work. Share how you got to the idea
Execute
Respect your teams time
Make sure you are still making time to execute on your job
Learn from the results
“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Repeat
Part 2: Tools & Techniques
Chapter 5: Relationships
You can’t give a damn about others if you don’t give a damn about yourself
Sometimes the greatest gift you can give your team is to let them go home
Say you all instead of you guys
“To be most effective at optimizing the flow of chemicals oxytocin and serotonin—which boost mood and promote bonding—hold a hug for at least six seconds” - Gretchen Rubin
Emotions are just as contagious as germs
Just ask questions to understand peoples emotions
Chapter 6: Guidance
You need to get, give, and encourage both praise and criticism
Everyone should embrace criticism that helps us do our jobs better
Is there anything I could do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me?
So what o hear you saying is…
Wear a rubber band and let people snap it when you interrupt them
Start by telling people your intention is to help
Explicitly describe what they did good or bad will produce more of what’s good and less of what’s bad
Never criticize with a reply all email
Say I think that’s wrong rather than you’re wrong
Help them understand that when you’re challenging them it’s because you care about not just their professional growth but then as human beings
Focusing on the future discourages people who did well from resting on their laurels and prevents people who did badly from wallowing in despair
Chapter 7: Team
Have a conversation about their life from kindergarten until now
Listen for when they made changes as these will explain their values
Next talk about their dreams. Where they hope to be at the apex of their career, how life at its best will feel
Pick 3-5 dreams and write down what skills you will need for each
Interviewing is a learning by doing skill
Write your thoughts down immediately
If you’re not dying to hire the person, don’t make an offer
Chapter 8: Results
10 types of meetings:
1:1 conversations
Employees set the agenda, you listen and help them clarify
Staff meetings
Review metrics, study hall updates, and identify (but do not make) key decisions
Think time
Block out time to think, and hold that time sacred
Schedule time to think
Big debate meetings
Just debating, no decisions
Check your egos at the door
No winners or losers
Big decision meetings
Push decisions into the facts, pull facts into the decisions, and keep egos at bay
Decisions are final and you must abide
All hands meetings
Bring people along
Discuss decisions and hold q&as
Execution time
Block off time so you aren’t always in meetings
No meeting wednesdays
Kanban boards
Make activities and workflows visible
Three columns: to-do, in progress, and done
Display progress and bottlenecks
Walk around
Learn about small problems to prevent big ones
Care about the little things
Fix problems yourself to eliminate “it’s jot my job” mentality
Culture eats strategy for lunch