#55: Leadership Starts with Respect: Kim Scott on Building Better Teams

Speaker A: In order to teach management, we just consistently throw people into the deep end of the pool. We don't teach them. And the problem there is not only is that person likely to drown, but they're going to drag a whole team of people down with them. So it's a very expensive mistake not to teach management. And yet most places don't really teach management. In fact, I left Google to join Apple because Steve Jobs had decided that all their management training was needed to be thrown away and they needed to start again from a blank piece of paper.

Speaker B: Hi, um, I'm Nick Haig, and welcome to the World's Greatest Business Thinkers podcast. Kim Scott has helped countless leaders think about feedback and relationships at work. She introduced us all to radical candor, the art of caring personally while challenging directly in order to build teams where honest, caring communications drive results. But what happens when candor doesn't land? When the care isn't felt or the challenge is filtered through unseen biases? Kim's latest book, Radical Respects, tackles that very question head on. It's a powerful evolution of her thinking, arguing that you cannot have true, effective candor without first building a foundation of fairness and equity. So much to cover today. So welcome to the World's Greatest Business Thinkers podcast, Kim.

Speaker A: Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here.

Speaker B: Well, it's an honor to have you. And, uh, I need to thank one of your friends and the wonderful Bob Sutton for introducing me to the show.

Speaker A: I love Bob. He's so great. I'm going to see him on Wednesday.

Speaker B: Well, say hi from me because it was a fantastic episode. I, uh, know the listeners loved it. I think he's had over 80,000 views or something on YouTube already.

Speaker A: Amazing.

Speaker B: But, uh, yeah, he, he put your name forward. He said, I'd like to hear Kim. You'd love to speak to Kim. And, uh, so I, uh, I've been down a rabbit hole ever since, reading your books, reading your articles. Um, so I know a lot about you, but the, the listeners might not because it's such a. An eclectic career. Ah. A real mix of everything. Tech, corporate world, silicon in Silicon Valley, coaching, leadership and entrepreneurship, setting up your own ventures. So could you give a. A potte history of, uh, who you are, Kim, and how you've come to today?

Speaker A: Sure. Uh, my first management experience actually was in what was then the Soviet Union. Uh, no, it was Russia. The Soviet Union had just been dissolved. Uh, so one of my first jobs out of college was at the Soviet Companies Fund, uh, in private equity. And then I, uh, Started a diamond cutting factory in Moscow, which is where I got my. Yeah, yeah, exactly. My first management experience. And then I went to business school and spent some time. My first job out of business school is actually at the Federal Communication Commission. So spent some time in the federal government.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And uh, and then I did a series of startups. A uh, voice over IP startup, commercial, uh, mortgage, ASP startup, um, and one called Juice Software, which was a, uh, collaboration, uh, software that we wound up selling to Microsoft, but the whole team went to Google. So spent some time at Google leading AdSense, YouTube and DoubleClick sales and operations. Then went to Apple where I designed and taught a class called Managing at Apple. Ah. And then I started writing Radical Candor.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, well, I mean that's, that's some, you know, jumping around there. Some resume, Google and Apple to. And I think you've, you've been, you know, worked alongside some of the CEOs at Twitter and Dropbox as well, haven't you?

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. As I was writing Radical Candor, I was a CEO coach for Dick Costello at Twitter and um, Drew Houston at Dropbox, uh, and uh, Ryan Smith at Qualtrex and a few others.

Speaker B: And uh, and you now run your agency. Uh, you know, Radical Candor that helps companies uh, implement the principles of what we'll talk about today. That's in.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Books. Um, have, uh, I've written a couple of books so I know what it's like to write a book and it's definitely not easy. It needs to be come from the heart, be born from experience, I suppose.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Uh, you've talked of, uh, you know, working in Silicon Valley with Apple, uh, you know, Twitter, Dropbox as well. To what extent are the books that we'll talk about today? Uh, uh, a synthesis if you like, of the practices and lessons that you've absorbed or endured while working at these companies. Was there a specific moment or leader at one of these companies that crystallized some of these ideas for you?

Speaker A: I think probably I started writing in my head. You know, often you start writing a book years before you actually start writing the book. And I think I probably started writing Radical Candor in my head as a result of a random interaction with a stranger on the street of Manhattan.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, I was, at the time I was, I was leading um, a software company and I was struggling. Uh, it's hard to be um, a manager. And this was like I was sort of thrown into the deep end of management. Not only was I managing for the first time, I was CEO Of a, of a company. Uh, and it was hard. And I was, I had gotten this puppy and I was taking this puppy for a walk. And because I loved this dog so much, I had never said a crossword to her. And as a result, she was totally out of control. And so I'm walking along. She jumped in front of a speeding cab. I pulled her out of the way in the nick of time. And I was standing there with my heart in my throat. This dog had almost gotten flattened by the cab. And, and this man, a perfect stranger, looked at me and he said, I can tell you love that dog. That was all he had to do to sort of show the care personally part. Uh, but he said to me, if you don't, if you don't teach that dog to sit, you're going to kill that dog. And then he pointed at the ground with this kind of harsh gesture, and he said, sit. The dog sat. I had no idea she even knew what that meant. And I kind of looked up at him in amazement and he said to me, it's not mean, it's clear. And, and then he walked off, leaving me with something to ponder. And that story is kind of at the heart of radical Candor, I think.

Speaker B: Well, it definitely is. It definitely is. And what you, you introduced the world, uh, to radical candor in 2017, uh, with the book, uh, you called it, uh, and they had the subtitle of how to Kick Be a Kick Ass Boss without Losing the Humanity.

Speaker A: Yeah. Although the British version, the, the, the UK publisher wouldn.

Speaker B: Well, I was going to ask. Because on the shelves you can see your two books there.

Speaker A: Uh, yes.

Speaker B: And it doesn't have that subtitle on

Speaker A: the one that I, Yeah, so the, the UK publisher said. And I, you know, this was an example of me not fighting hard enough. I wish I had fought. Said Kick Ass was unacceptable, uh, that it wouldn't make it through the censors in a lot of countries. Um, where, where the book, the UK version was sold in particular, I think India objected to use of language like kick ass. So we could have changed kick ass to something equally fun, but without the word ass in it. Probably. But then they said, and you know, we don't really think about humanity at work. And I was like, did you read the book? What's very frustrating. But I wasn't able to get either kick ass or humanity into the subtitle of the, of the British version in 2026.

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Speaker A: It's a great subtitle. Be a kick ass boss without losing your humanity. That's what the book is about. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. So, so with the book Radical Candor, it's uh, can you, can you explain to the listeners, uh, what, what it actually means? I mean, I suppose you've given a bit of an example with the dog conversation there, but framework isn't there. That shows how you can not only care personally, but challenge directly too.

Speaker A: Yeah, at some level it's about love and truth at the same time. Uh, care person. If you care personally and you challenge directly at the same time, that's radical candor. And I think about things in terms of a good two by two framework. I learned nothing about feedback at business school, but I did learn that a good two by two framework can solve all of life's hardest problems. So if you think about what happens, what radical candor is, it's probably, probably best defined by what it is not. Uh, so it's not what happens when you do remember to challenge, but you forget to show you care. That's what I call obnoxious aggression. And sometimes people. Maybe I should have called it compassionate candor. Sometimes people assume I'm talking about obnoxious aggression when I'm talking about radical candor, but I'm not. Uh, because obnoxious aggression doesn't have a lot of caring in it. There's also moments when we do remember to show we care, but we fail to challenge directly. We're so worried about not hurting someone's feelings or not offending them that we fail to tell them something they'd be better off knowing in the long run. And that's what I call ruinous empathy. And then of course, there's moments where for one reason, one reason or another, we're neither caring nor challenging. Uh, we're either we're afraid or we're tired or whatever. And that's what I call manipulative insincerity, uh, when we're, when we're low on both dimensions. So that's what radical candor is and also what it is not.

Speaker B: I'm, uh, I'm a career market researcher. Uh, before I used to do this podcast and so I love analyzing data and, and I love a two by two.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Framework to uh, to, to position data. So it's very clear on, on the both axes, you know, where, where you actually sit.

Speaker A: Yeah. And the other great thing about a two by two. Sorry. I inter. It allows you to optimize for two things at once. You know, often I think there's this idea of the false dichotomy. And I think sometimes people feel like I have to choose between being a pushover and being really successful. And that is not a choice you have to make. You can be really kind and really successful at the same. You don't have to choose between being a jackass and uh, being successful.

Speaker B: I mean, why do you think something so simple is like giving honest feedback is so hard to do?

Speaker A: Well, there's a million reasons. But since it's, um. I talk about it in terms of a two by two, I'm going to boil it down to two. One is, I think that from the time we get our first job, you know, we're maybe 18, 19, 20 years old. We're right at that moment in our lives when our egos are maximally fragile, but our Persona is beginning to solidify. And right at that moment, someone will come along and they'll say, be professional. I think an awful lot of us, without even realizing what we're doing is we think what we should do is leave our emotions, leave who we really are, leave our humanity at home and show up at work like some kind of robot. And you can't possibly care personally if you're showing up at work like some kind of robot. So that's one reason is this sort of be professional, uh, training that's been pounded into our head since we were. Got our first job. But I think even deeper is this training that prevents us from, um, challenging directly. I don't know about you, but it's almost as soon as I learned to speak, and also as soon as my children learned to speak, I made the same mistake that my parents made, which is to say, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Right.

Speaker B: Definitely said that to my two sons as they've been.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, well, and they do say some pretty harsh things, children. Uh, and so I really worked hard to teach my kids to be respectful, but to say what they thought. Uh, when I was conscious, sometimes they would say stuff and this would come popping. So this, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Training that's been pounded into our head since we learned to speak, our first word really gets in the way of challenge directly. So I think those are the two big drivers. I mean, of course sometimes we're busy, we're stressed, uh, you know, we're not at our, we fail to eat breakfast for what, whatever reason, we're not at our best. But I think a lot of people, I was, I was working with a group of business school students and they said that for them feedback was a source of existential dread. And I think a lot of people feel that way about it.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I'm British, so they often say, you know, on that professional angle that you talked about, they have to say, oh, you know, you gotta have a stiff upper lip.

Speaker A: Yes, exactly.

Speaker B: And uh, but actually, you know, being strong is sometimes that care personally, you know, showing vulnerability, creating that safe place where others can come to you and be open with the conversations is so important, isn't it?

Speaker A: Yeah. And it's really interesting. I mean, a lot of what I learned about teaching people how to show they care personally at work came from this guy, Russ Laraway, who I worked with at Google and then he and I started a company together and he got his training as a Marine. Like, who knew that the Marines were a source of touchy feely leadership training. But he said you've got to teach that part of leadership is caring for your people at a very personal level.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I, I listen to your podcast and yourself and Russ, that first one where he talks about that. Uh, yeah, in the podcast and explains and it was eye opening to me, like you say, because I didn't really expect that from the Marines in terms.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So your latest book, uh, Radical Respect, uh, focuses on fighting bias, uh, creating fairer workplaces. So what is Radical Respect? How did your own journey uh, and the conversations after your first book, uh, you know, how did they lead you to Radical Respect? Not as this separate idea that I saw, but as this foundation, if you like, for Radical Candor?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. In many ways, Radical Respect is sort of the prequel to Radical Candor. And I started, you know, if you write a book about feedback, you're going to get a lot of it. And indeed I did. Uh, and, um, hands down, the most helpful feedback that I got came when I was giving a talk at a tech company in San Francisco. And the CEO of that company had been a colleague of mine for the better part of a decade. She's a person I like and respect enormously. So I was really excited to go talk to her team. And after I gave the Radical Candor talk to her team, she pulled me aside and she said, kim, I'm excited to roll out Radical Candor. I think it's going to help me build the kind of, um, innovative culture that I want. But I got to tell you, it's much harder for me to roll it out than it is for you. And she went on to explain to me that as soon as she would give people even the most compassionate, gentle criticism, they would call her an angry black woman. And I knew this was true, and I knew how unfair it was. She's one of the most chee reasonable people I've ever worked with. And also, uh, as soon as she said, uh, made me have four different realizations at the same time. The first thing that I realized was that I had not been the kind of colleague that I want to be, that I imagine myself to be. I had failed to take into account the toll it must take on her to have to show up unfailingly cheerful and pleasant and every meeting we had ever been in together, even though she had what to be pissed off about from time to time, as. As we all do, but she was not allowed to show it in the way that I was allowed to show it. So that was, number one. I hadn't been the kind of colleague that I want to be, I think, because in part, I didn't want to think of her or myself as a victim. And that brings me to realization number two was that not only had I been in denial about what was happening to her, I had also been in denial about the kinds of things that were happening to me. And I had gone through so much of my career pretending that a whole host of disrespectful attitudes and behaviors were not happening, even though they were happening kind of hard for the author of a book called Radical Candor to Admit. But anyway, there it is. I wasn't even radically candid with myself about the things that were happening to me or to my colleagues. Now, the third thing I realized was even harder to come to grips with, because the third thing I realized was that even less than wanting to think of myself as a victim, that I want to think of myself as the culprit. And so the thing that I had been most deeply in denial about were the times when I was the one who had been disrespectful to my colleagues in one way or another, m making it harder than it needed to be for them to get their job done. And then the fourth thing that I realized was that not only had I been in denial about my own actions, I had been in denial about disrespectful attitudes and behaviors that were happening on my teams. Because, you know, when you're a leader, you kind of view your team as an extension of yourself. Oh, no, my team wouldn't be disrespectful. And, uh, of course it was. So I was not able to create this BS free zone that I was trying to create where everybody could do the best work of their lives and. And build the best relationships of their career. So that was a big drink of water from a little quick bit of feedback, and it really made me take a deep breath, sit back, and decide to write Radical Respect. And it's organized around those four different roles that we all play. Sometimes you're the observer. Hopefully you're the upstander, not the silent bystander. Sometimes it's happening to you, sometimes you're doing it to others, and sometimes you're the leader. And. And I wanted to think about what are our different levels of responsibility in the face of these disrespectful attitudes and behaviors that. That happen in every meeting, every day, everywhere, billions of times a day.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad you said it was. It was more of a prequel, because that's the way I saw it. I saw it, I suppose, a manual for establishing baseline foundations, uh, especially in diverse teams, as you say, where, yeah, unchecked bias might prevent someone from ever feeling safe enough to receive, like, that candid feedback or to give it, you

Speaker A: know, or to solicit it. I mean, I think, you know, you're not going to care about someone or challenge them if you don't respect them. And so it was interesting to think about what gets in the way of respect. And by the way, respect has two very different meanings. One of the, uh, one of the meanings of respect is, you know, I have to earn your respect for myself as a writer by writing a good book. But that's not the definition of respect I'm talking about in radical respect. The second definition is the unconditional regard that we owe each other for our shared humanity. It's not something we have to earn. It's a birthright. It's everybody's birthright, something we owe to one another. And that's really what I'm talking about. And very few people woke up this morning saying, you know, I have no regard for the shared humanity of the people with me. Uh, I mean, there are maybe a couple, but, uh, for the most part, that's not how most of us wake up in the morning. And so it's, it's interesting to think about what gets in the way of that kind of respect.

Speaker B: Yeah. Although if you read the news these days, then, you know, the world does need a lot more.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. If you read the news, everybody is hell bent on disrespecting everybody else. But, uh, it's not my. It's very interesting. There's a big gap between my experience day to day, and maybe I'm just incredibly lucky with the people who I work with and, and the organizations that I go in, but there's a big gap between my real experience of m. My in real life life and what I read about in the media. Like, I don't know how. Yeah, anyway, yeah, that's a whole other topic.

Speaker B: I'm with you on that, Kim, that's for sure. So we've talked about one framework, but in radical respect, you introduce us to another framework to distinguish between bias, prejudice, and bullying, uh, that you've just, uh, described there. And so this is this powerful diagnostic tool that we as managers need to, uh, know. So what, what does using this framework look like in practice? Can you walk us through a bit of an example and how we diagnose which of these three we're actually dealing with and how we respond to them?

Speaker A: Yeah. So to answer the question of what gets in the way of respect, Again, a million things. But I broke it down to these three. Bias, prejudice, and bullying. And I think one of the problems is that we often conflate bias, prejudice, and bullying as though they're the same thing. But there are actually three very different things. And the way to solve a hard problem, and certainly lack of respect is a hard problem that we need to solve, is to break it down into its component Parts. When it all gets munged together, it feels impossible. And that's why I sort of broke it down this way. So bias is really not meaning it. In fact, um, Radical Respect got banned from the Naval Academy library. And so there are some organizations who aren't allowed, thanks to the US Government these days, to talk about bias. So for those organizations, I call bias unintended offense. It's just, you know, my Sam is dot literature skills from the Soviet Union are coming into play. I never thought I would have to use them against the censors in the U.S. but here we are anyway. So bias is just not meaning it, whereas prejudice is meaning it. It's a very consciously held belief. You could also, if you can't use the word prejudice, you can call it an intolerant belief. Uh, and, and bullying has nothing to do with belief, conscious or unconscious. It's basically just being mean. So bullying most people, uh, ah, the censors don't object to bullying for whatever reason. So bias, prejudice, and bullying. And it's useful to think about how to respond differently to each of them. So I'll tell you three different stories and give you three different responses. Is that all right? It's gonna be. No, definitely.

Speaker B: That would be really helpful.

Speaker A: I've. I've been told I, I ramble. So, uh, so feel free to interrupt. Okay. One of my favorite stories about disrupting bias comes from a friend of mine who walked into a meeting with two colleagues who were met, and she had the expertise that was going to win her team the deal that they were working on. So she sat in the center of the table and her two colleagues sat to her left. Left. The first person from the other side walked in and sat across from the guy to her left. The next guy sat across, and they were all guys from the guy to his left. And then everybody else filed on down the table, leaving my friend dangling by herself at the end. And, and she was undeterred. She started talking. But when the other side had questions, they addressed them to her two men colleagues. And it happened once, it happened twice. Finally, the third time it happened, one of the guys got frustrated and he stood up and he said, I think we should change seats. That was all he had to do to totally change the dynamic in the room. So it's. That's a great example to me of using an I statement to respond to bias. Uh, because the other side didn't realize what they were doing. They didn't intend to do it. It just sort of happened, these unconscious thought patterns. And as soon as they realized what they were doing, they were a little embarrassed, but it was no big thing. They changed their behavior. So an I statement sort of holds up a mirror to the other person to real. To help them realize, uh, that this unintended, um, offense, they should stop because they don't intend to offend someone. It's. It's a unconscious bias. However, if the problem is prejudice or an intolerant belief, then you need, ah, what I call an IT statement. An IT statement appeals to a law. It can appeal to a company policy, or it can appeal to common sense. So I'll give you another story about an IT statement. This happened to me shortly after I returned to work from maternity leave. So I've been out for several months, and I was. This is my second day back in the office. I was having all the feelings that one has at this moment. And I was just chatting with a guy before a meeting, and he said to me, oh, my wife doesn't work because it's better for the children. So for me, this was like a punch in the gut. Uh, but I didn't think he really meant it the way it sounded. So I tried to make a joke and I said, oh, I decided to show up at work today because I choose to neglect my children. And, you know, I was expecting your response. I was expecting him to laugh, maybe apologize, and we would move on. But no, that's not what happened. He doubled down. He said, oh, no, Kim, you don't understand. I'm going to send you some research. It's really bad for your kids that you're back at work. And so now I know I'm not dealing with unconscious bias. I'm dealing with a very consciously held belief, a prejudice. And so I used an IT statement. I said, it is an HR violation for you to tell me I'm neglecting my children by showing up at work today. Which it was at that company. And that's why these company policies, it's really useful to have them, to be able to invoke them with an IT statement. And that had the intended effect. He was, like, backed up, but I wasn't gonna. I, uh, said to him, look, I'm not going to make a thing of this to hr, but it's my. I think you and I can agree it's my decision, together with my partner, how we raise our children, just as it is your decision, together with your wife, how you raise yours. And so another IT statement, this time appealing to common sense rather than hr, uh, because I didn't Want to over, over delegate to hr. I think a lot of these conversations are better, better off. You know, I felt safe. So, yeah, I felt safe in part because I had the company policy on my side and I could tell it hadn't, it hadn't quite landed by the two previous. So I tried a third IT statement and I said, also, it's my guess that you don't want to read my research any more than I want to read your research. And uh, and that then he kind of laughed and acknowledged that, you know, we could have different opinions. We were not fortunately raising children together. We were selling double click ad servers together. So, uh, so, so we could, uh, we could disagree on this. And, and it was important, I think that I had that conversation with him for several reasons. One, it was important for our relationship. If I had said nothing, I would have sort of hated him a little bit and he would have said something again, probably that, that bothered me and I would have hated him a little bit more and would, uh, have been hard for us to work together. And also it was important at a practical level, not just at a relational level because he had a lot of influence on who got what deals. And if he thought that not only should I not be at work, he definitely thought I shouldn't travel. And for me to succeed in my career, I needed to travel. So anyway, it was important at a practical level as well as a relational level to, to do that. And I think that draws, you know, an IT statement is not holding up a mirror. It's just drawing that boundary. But if you are, if what you're experiencing is bullying rather than bias or prejudice, showing, uh, someone who's bullying you where the boundary is a bad idea because they're going to try to kick past it. And you also don't want to hold up a mirror to a bully. And so I learned this actually from my children. They were, I have twins, they were in about third grade. They were getting bullied on the playground. And I was saying, uh, you know, tell this child I feel sad when you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They both banged their fists on the table, they rolled their eyes and they said, mom, they are trying to make us feel sad. Why would we tell them they succeeded? I was like, oh, that's a really good point. Yeah, so you want a use, you know, you can't talk to me like that. A you response to confront bullying, uh, or, you know, a you question. What's going on for you here? Why are you behaving this way? Or even just a You non sequitur. Where'd you get that shirt? The point of the U response is that you're not taking whatever it is they're dishing out at you. You're, you're sort of, uh, in an active stance in the conversation. You're asking, you're making the response, you're choosing what you talk about.

Speaker B: Well, very wise twins you've got there.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, listen to your bait. You know, from the mouth of babes. Kids have good, uh, they're good at calling bs.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think it's so, it's so important because, you know, confusing them will be disastrous, wouldn't it? You know, you can't bully a bully out of, can't uh, coach a bully out of bullying. You know, a bias workshop or, you know, likewise. You know, it's, uh, you know, you shouldn't fire someone for just an unconscious bias, you know, microaggression. They don't even realize, uh, yeah, you

Speaker A: want to coach them out of that, out of bias. Uh, and, and you need, you need consequences to, uh, to deal with bullying.

Speaker B: You've said in your book that radical respect deepens the care personally access that we talked about, uh, previously. So can you give an example of how a manager might think that they're caring personally but without radical respect, perhaps due to an unconscious bias that they hold, they're missing the mark and therefore, you know, undermining the uh, the relationship?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think in many ways respect is kind of the floor on the care personally. If you, if you want to stay above the line, if you don't want to fall, if you think about radical candor in terms of a two by two and you don't want to land in obnoxious aggression or manipulative insincerity. Respect is the floor above which you want to stay. And there are definitely times when, uh, when a manager, like there was one time when a manager that I had clearly did not. He thought he was being very supportive, but he kept giving me advice about my clothing. Like before I even interviewed for the job. He, uh, was like, do wear this, don't wear that. He called me up and told me, um, what to wear and I thought, gosh, that's kind of weird. And it eventually ended up with him buying me super tight jeans. And uh, because he thought the problem was I wasn't stylish enough for this particular organization, which was, I would not say, I mean it was a tech company, so let's get real. And so I think he thought he was being, I think he thought he was being compassionate. I think he was. I don't think he bought me those jeans to try to. And they were like, really tight. I was not. And I had just had twins. Like, I was not going to wear these pants. Um, but I think he thought he was being helpful and I was experiencing what he was doing as, you know, something between, uh, bias and, and harassment, actually.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. If I. As I was reading both the books that, you know, examples were popping into my head from my time of, you know, setting up, running, managing my previous research agency. One instance that I can recall where I got it all wrong was, uh, um. A manager of mine was having a tough time in her life. You know, she'd recently been divorced, so I knew she was juggling. She had a couple of kids, so juggling a lot at home. And I thought I knew the situation. So I didn't give her a couple of big global projects and gave it to her colleagues to manage instead of doing it. Doing a favor there.

Speaker A: Yeah. And.

Speaker B: And then she, one day, you know, she comes into my office and breaks down, says, you know, that she's not getting the, the visibility, the help. The visibility for the projects to grow her careers. She. And I got it totally wrong. She was managing the situation. Uh, and highly, uh, ambitious. She was, you know, she was on top of her home life. And so this care personally bit, you know, you do need to understand people's.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Ambitions and struggles and uh, and. And, you know, I suppose that's where they're equating to, to the situation. Uh, it's where respect and candor, I suppose, merge, don't they? And yeah, I got it wrong.

Speaker A: Yeah. And. And checking to make sure that you are understanding what the other person wants. Months. I think another story I tell in the book is a friend of mine had a. Had a big job at a big tech company and, uh, she decided to have a child on her own. So she was becoming a single mom and she went to her boss and she said, Look, I've got 24, seven child care. And it's my belief that by the time this child is in middle school, that's when she's really going to need me. But I need to put my foot on the grass on the gas of my career right now because I need to make enough money so that by the time she's in middle school, I'll be more available. Like, this is my time to. And he didn't get it. He. He kept saying, oh, you don't want to do this. You don't want this promotion because you want to be home with this baby. And she said, uh, did you not listen to me? You know, and she left the company, took a bigger job, you know, that required tons of travel and did it did an, you know, incredible work there. And in order to replace her, he, you know, one of the things he wouldn't do is give her a promotion. In order to replace her, he had to hire someone at that next level. So it was very, uh, it was frustrating for her. But it's, you know, understand that this guy's not a bad guy. He just didn't, he didn't take the time. He was so sure he knew in his brain what was right, that he wasn't listening to what she was saying to him.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think a problem that we all see, and you know, that's why the book is so important. We, we promote our best individual performers, you know, yes, the hierarchy, uh, into management as a reward, but then, you know, fail to, to train them on that role. That's is fundamentally different from the one that they've just, you know, uh, moved out of. So it sets up this cascade of problems. How does the framework of, of radical candor and um, radical respect help these managers for what they actually need to learn?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's so hard because I think you're exactly right. But in order to teach management, we just consistently throw people into the deep end of the pool. We don't teach them. And, and the problem there is not only is that person likely to drown, but they're going to drag a whole team of people down with them. And so it's a very expensive mistake not to teach management. And yet most places don't really teach management. Uh, in fact, I left Google to join Apple because Steve Jobs had decided that all their management training needed to be thrown away and they needed to start again from a blank piece of paper. But even so, Apple was making a big investment in management training, which I respect. I loved working at Apple. I respect the company enormously. But even at Apple, which was making this big investment, they hired like the dean of Yale School of Management to come and be the dean of Apple University. Even there, how much time could we get on people's calendars to teach them? A day and a half. You know, uh, it's a big, it's a big set of skills. So I really sat down to write the book. And for people who get promoted into management, who are struggling, who need some help, and one of the most meaningful moments in my career Came recently, I'd given a talk and a young woman came up to me and she said, I became a manager for the first time about six months ago. And then she took a deep breath and she said, and it was really hard, you know, and her eyes filled up with tears and she said, and when I read your book, I felt like I had an, you know, an older brother or sister along with me.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, and that, that like, to me that that makes everything worthwhile. Like that was my hope because nobody taught me how to be a manager when I became a manager for the first time. And I didn't want to screw it up and I also didn't want to become a jerk, you know?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I remember one manager saying to, to me, sat him down and I just, you know, clarified that, that there was this role shift going on because they were placed into a new position, but they were just carrying on really with the same job. They weren't taking ownership of it, emphasizing the fact that it's no longer about the work that they do. It's about building that team m getting the great work done. And this means your success is measured on the growth and output of others, not necessarily, you know, your particular role. And he was like, oh, thought, oh, I kind of get it now. And you know, more ownership then in terms of that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So from my time in business, I see managers as having these different responsibilities, I suppose three in the main, creating a culture of feedback, building a high performing team and then achieving great results. And uh, you write a lot of great stuff, Kim. And most recently, uh, there's this new insights report that your team have published called the Trust Gap.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And it showed that executives want this honest communication across the whole company. But. And it's a big but. Employees don't feel safe giving it. So you've got these two sides of the coin. How do you think you. Well, why is this happening? How do you generally solicit and encourage feedback? Uh, you know, and especially if it's criticism, given that. And given that employees might not trust, uh, you with confidence.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think one of the most important things that leaders can do to create a culture of psychological safety is to learn how to solicit feedback and then reward the candor when they get it. And when we go into an organization and teach leaders how, how to create a culture of radical candor, I think they often expect that we're going to be teaching them how to give criticism. But actually we start by teaching them how to solicit criticism. We Say there's an order of operations to radical candor. It should always start by, you know, it's. Get it, give it, gauge it. Start by soliciting feedback, then give praise and criticism, and then gauge how it's landing. So I think there's. I mean, there's a lot more to it, but the, uh, tldr, but please do read. And we'd love to come in and help people. But the four things that leaders need to keep in mind when soliciting feedback is, one, they need to think consciously about how they're going to ask. Uh, because if you go into your next meeting and you say, do you have any feedback for me? You are wasting your breath. I can already tell you the answer, you know, oh, no, everything's fine. So you want to think about. You want to make sure you're not asking in a way that can be answered with a yes or a no. You want to make sure that it sounds like you. For example, the question I like to ask is, what could I do or stop doing? That would make it easier to work with me. But don't write down my question, because if you sound like Kim Scott and not like yourself, people won't believe that you want the answer. And then the third thing to remember is you want to make sure that you're paying attention to the impact that your question has on others. So when I was working with Krista Quarles when she was the CEO of OpenTable, she said, you know, Kim, I could never imagine your words coming out of my mouth. The question I like to ask is, tell me why I'm wrong. Okay, that's fine, too. But there were a couple of people on Krista's team who found that too aggressive, so she had to ask them in a more gentle way. So that's the first thing is think about how you're going to ask the question. The bad news is, no matter how good your question is, the other person is still going to feel uncomfortable. So your second step is. Is to really embrace the discomfort. Like, close your mouth and count to six. I only made it to three. Just there, and I could tell you were almost going to say something. Um, almost. No one can endure six full seconds of silence. So embrace the discomfort. Give the person an opportunity to say something. Then your next step, the third step, is to listen with the intent to understand, not to respond. Because even though you just solicited feedback, you're probably going to feel defensive when you get it, and that is okay. That does not mean you're shut down to feedback. It does not mean you're a lesser mortal. It just means you're human and your humanity is an asset, not a liability. So you want to, you, you want to make sure that you're sort of asking a follow up question, uh, to make sure that you really understand what the other person said. And then the last thing you need to do is reward the candor when you get it. It's not enough to manage your own defensiveness. You actually have to if you agree with the feedback, fix the problem that the person pointed out to you or explain why you agree. But for whatever reason you can't fix the problem which happens, which is painful. But that's life. Uh, and if you disagree with the feedback, you need to have a real open, honest conversation about why you disagree. It's tempting to fear that, that a disagreement is going to hurt our relationship, but it's unspoken disagreement that is a relationship killer, not actually having the respectful disagreement.

Speaker B: Yeah, such wise advice there Kim. Uh, I suppose building on that previous question I'm m interested in your thoughts about building a team uh, from the ground up. So you know the conventional wisdom is to hire the best people but your work suggests something deeper. And so in this world that demands radical candor for high performance, radical respect for true inclusion. How does this philosophy change how people should look to assemble a high performing team?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that, I think that one of the mistakes that people make when they, when they hire is they, they rely on their own personal network and uh, our networks are incredibly biased. So one, one thing I think is really important is to get beyond your network like make sure that you're opening your aperture so that you're, you're getting uh, access to, you get to interview with a broad range of people for the role and then you want to make sure that you're building a team on which everyone is taking a step in the direction of their dreams. Uh, and this is one of the things that Russ Laraway taught me when I worked with him. I m meant I mentioned him before but he would fly people managers from all over the world to Mountain View when we worked together at Google to teach them how to have these get to know you conversations. And so the first conversation that you need to have with everyone on your team is you know, it doesn't have to be often begins like starting with kindergarten. Tell me about your life. Uh, and if the person doesn't want to talk about their childhood that's fine but, but you want to get the oral version of the person's story. Uh, and this, you can do this in place of your regularly scheduled one on one, one week. So you want to, you want to understand the person's past. Then in another one on one, instead of having the usual, uh, usually scheduled agenda, I recommend that, or Russ recommends that you sort of look into the future. Tell me about your dreams. You know, imagine yourself and tell me three different dreams. You know, in, in 15 years, you've got everything you wanted. What does it look like? And, uh, and this way you're getting a sense of sort of what motivates them from the past and from the future, where they want to go. And then the third conversation that I recommend having with everyone on your team is, is to make sure that you are helping them come up with a career action plan. How could, how could you change their job a little bit so that they're taking a step in their direction of their dreams? Are there courses they could take? Are there people you know, that you can introduce them to? And when you do this for everyone on your team, uh, everyone on it, you don't just do it for the high performers, you do it for everyone on, on the team. You begin to understand sort of how to give people the right roles so that they're maximally motivated. And you also begin to understand who on your team is in, I'll call it superstar mode and who is in Rockstar mode. Uh, who, who really is putting all their energy into growing. They want the next big job. And who on your team is a force of stability as a rock star. Thank you. Think Rock of Gibraltar. Not Bruce Springsteen. Uh, who, who is the person on your team or the people on your team who don't want your job? They don't want to be Steve Jobs. They just do a great job. And if you don't screw it up for them, they'll continue to do a great job for years at a time. And you want to make sure that you're honoring people in Rockstar mode and giving growth opportunities for people who are in superstar mode. And when you can do those things for your team, you become a thought partner for everyone on your, your team. Not a micromanager and not an absentee manager.

Speaker B: M. Yeah, again, so, so wise and, and so helpful for, for people growing their teams and making sure that there's room for them to grow, uh, and grow within the organization. Yes, with, um, with the way that the world is at the moment and hybrid work, uh, increasing polarization, you know, creating cohesive teams, it, it, it probably feels harder than ever for some people. So this combination of radical candor and radical respects, how does that provide the blueprint for building trust and achieving these goals in this new hybrid environment?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that most of it uh, just requires you to be a little bit more conscious. So one of the things, for example, I recommend that you solicit feedback at the end of every one on one and so make sure that you're showing up for your one on ones. All the advice in the real world applies to the hybrid world. Uh, just because the person's not in the office or you're not in, none of you are in the office or very rarely in the office, you still need to make sure that you're, you have touch points that you're connecting with people. So in a hybrid environment, or if someone is in a different city than you are, I actually recommend having more frequent one on ones. More frequent, shorter one on ones. But regardless, you gotta keep, make sure that you're, you can't have a relationship with someone if you don't spend one on one time with them. So you must do that. Uh, and it should be time that you look for. It's somebody you're excited to get to know, excited to talk to. And so those, all those kinds of touch points can still happen. It's so important though that you either talk on the phone or on video that you're having real human conversations. And then in terms, when it comes to giving feedback, I really recommend not doing that in your one on one meetings, but in these impromptu two minute conversations. And these work the same way in a hybrid work environment that they do in an in person work environment. You just accept that you're picking up the phone and calling instead of walking to the office, uh, or to your next meeting with the person. And these impromptu two minute conversations. Actually I do. Whether I'm in person or remote, uh, hybrid, I do the same thing. If I notice something happening in a meeting, I'll wait till two minutes before the meeting ends and I'll send the person a text and I'll say can we talk right after the meeting? And if it's in person, I'll walk. If it's not in person, I'll say I'm going to call you right after the meeting. And it's so important to offer that feedback right away not to wait. Because I can tell you, whenever I tell myself, oh, I'm going to wait for a better moment, what I'm really telling myself is I'm never going to have that conversation. So you want to have it right away. I mean, and the purpose of praise is to tell people what to do more of the purpose of criticism is to tell them what to do less of. So you want to have those conversations right away, whether you're in a hybrid situation or, um, or you're. You're in person. And you also mentioned. Do you have a. Were you going to say something?

Speaker B: No, no. I was just thinking, you know, it's more important than anything, isn't it? Because body language, when you are, you know, on a zoom call or, you know, you're not in the same room, uh, you know, we have to be more explicit with praise and criticism. Say, when we do like that body language.

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. And we're often wrong. One of the things that I have learned, and this is why I recommend a phone call rather than a video call actually, uh, for a hybrid, is there's research that shows, especially in a hybrid environment, there may be more noise than signal in body language. Um, bias creeps in. And because we don't have the context of real life, more bias creeps in when people are just little, little squares on a screen. And we may totally, in fact, we more often than not totally misinterpret. So like, for example, if you see me tearing up in a meeting, that does not mean I'm sad. It means I'm furious. But you may not know that you know. So you want to make sure that you are having these real human conversations with people in which you're really paying attention to the words that they use. And for that, you know, the phone may be even better than a video call. And in fact, if you're in person, I recommend for the same reason, take a walk, don't sit across and stare at someone. So anyway, some thoughts on strange stuff happens to our ability to interpret each other when we're not in person. Although, frankly, it happens in person as well. We're not as good as we. I always thought I was really good at reading body language. And, uh, I have learned to ask. And I realize I'm totally misinterpreting body language more than half the time.

Speaker B: And this is coming from an expert listener. So let's take it from Kim. To finish, Kim, I, uh, have a few questions I ask all my guests. So my, My previous guest was Andrew Winston, ah, Leading strategist on sustainability and the author of, of the book Net Positive. Um, and his question to you is, with everything that's going on in the world and especially in the US Right now, uh, how does this change or challenge your thinking on building a culture of collaboration and cohesiveness.

Speaker A: I think that it's really interesting. One of the things that is so important to me is just learning how to talk. Uh, even if I have a belief, and I'm not going to change my belief. Belief, and let's say you disagree vehemently with my belief, it's important for us occasionally to have conversations because an unchallenged belief becomes a prejudice. And so figuring out how to create an organization where people can really talk to each other. Ah, there was. There was a colleague of mine who I disagreed with on pretty much every political thing that you could agree, uh, uh, disagree about. And I, at one point, and he was very much in the minority. You know, in the US we had these super majorities. So this was when I was working at Google. Google, uh, had, uh, a lot of super liberal. At least on my team, there are a lot of super liberal people. But there was this one conservative. And I used to say this. We're going to have a funny story from the weekend. And this was. I'll date myself. This was when there was a funny Saturday Night Live skit, uh, about Sarah Palin saying I could see Russia from my house. And I thought this was hilarious. And. And I showed it, and he pulled me aside later and he said, look, you often make these political comments assuming that everyone in the room agrees, but I disagree and I'm alone, and that is isolating. And it makes me, you know, not. It makes it hard for me to do my best work. And so I think realizing that and this, he and I wound up working very closely together because we could challenge each other and show that we cared. It allowed us to collaborate better and better and better throughout our careers. I'll, uh, I'll share another anecdote. There was a time when I was. I was invited to speak to this policy network, and I didn't really investigate the organization, uh, until right before I got on the plane. And then I was like, oh, my gosh, I disagree with all these policies that this policy network. But I thought, well, you know, in the spirit of radical candor, we should be able to challenge each other and have open conversations. So I went. And I was about halfway through the talk, and people, it was great engagement, getting good questions, and. And I had this. This. It was like someone in my head with a loudspeaker saying, these people are not your enemies. These are your, you know, your fellow humans. And I really thought, gosh, why did I, Why did I have that? Why Did I come into this with this? And then after the talk was over, a woman came up to me and she said, so you believe this? You believe that? Uh, yes, yes. And she kind of cocked her head and she looked at me and she said, huh, you don't seem evil? Uh, uh. And I would have thought she was ridiculous, except that I had just had more or less the same thought myself. And so I think that it's really important, like the whole injunction. Don't talk about race, religion and politics at work. That doesn't work, actually. We need to be able to talk to each other. We can't ban speech. I mean, we can ban speech at work, but, uh, I think it's really important to learn how to talk to each other and to create the rules of engagement so that we know how to talk to each other respectfully. That's again, why the policies, company policies about. It's easy for me to sit here and to say, you've got to make it clear where the line is between one person's freedom to believe whatever they want, but they can't impose that belief on others. Others. Yeah. And there's not one right place to draw that line. The important thing is to be clear about it. So there are some, some, some organizations draw the line in a place that I totally disagree with. Like Hobby Lobby is, you know, won't, won't pay for birth control, which I think is wrong, but at least they've made their line clear. So I don't have to go to work at Hobby Lobby if I don't want to, you know. And so I think it's important to make the line clear, you know, so that people can use that it statement. Like it was very clear at the company where, where I worked when I had kids that you couldn't tell someone, you know, it is, uh, you know, you're neglecting your children by showing up at work.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, it's a great answer and a great story. I think it really shows, you know, the importance of, uh, you know, being frank, but, uh, being open minded as well. To, uh, a couple of questions, uh, from the listeners. Kim. So, uh, firstly is from Miranda Davidson. She's in San Francisco and she asks. Meetings are a daily pain point of mine. And I see them where collaboration goes to die because they're often dominated by a few voices lacking clear outcomes and breeding frustration. What's the one rule I should implement tomorrow so they are more candid and respectful?

Speaker A: Yes. Uh, well, I recommend there's a great book on meetings by Steven Rogelberger, which I recommend, uh, and I feel the meeting, meeting pain. Like I used to have this New Yorker cartoon up and it was like, how about Thursday? No, Thursday's out. How about never is never good for you? And yet at the same time, if I think about meetings, uh, in a less cynical way than the New Yorker cartoon, meetings are where we do collaborate, uh, rather than if they're run well. And so I recommend, like when you're structuring a meeting, make sure that you're bringing your Mrs. Dalloway to the game. Not, um, you know, Alexander the Great. The idea of, the idea of a meeting is that if you have a clear goal and you set, set it up so that it optimizes for collaboration in the meeting and doesn't repel everyone's freedom to say exactly what, that you know exactly what they really think in the meeting, uh, then you're gonna, then, then meetings become the place where collaboration happens rather than going to die. I think that, that one of the things that can really help in this is using, especially in a hybrid environment, you can use AI, you can use your note taker and don't do this for others, don't. But you, but, uh, encourage everyone in the meeting to be aware of what percentage of the time they talked.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And if there's five people in the meeting and you talked 50% of the time, you're talking too much. If you talked 5% of the time, you're talking too little. And help people to learn to use these AI tools to help them self regulate.

Speaker B: Yeah. Again, great, great advice there, Kim. Secondly is Daryl Peters in, uh, Los Angeles who asks, my boss is very data driven. Are there any metrics I can use to move, uh, your thinking around radical candor and radical, uh, respect from being just soft skills to be more measurable competencies?

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, it's funny, when I, when I sat down to write Radical Candor, True confession here, I decided, which was a very countercultural decision here in Silicon Valley, that I was not going to gather data, that it was hard enough for me to make sense of my own experiences. And so I made a very conscious decision that I was going to share what I thought was the truth, uh, about my experience being a leader. The good news, that's the bad news for the data driven boss. The good news is that other people have gathered the data and it shows that I'm right, uh, in my effort to make sense of my own experiences. Some of the best data comes from Amy Edmondson, who demonstrates that a psychologically safe environment is, uh, way outperforms meetings where everyone talks roughly the same amount of time, dramatically outperforms, uh, Google's Project Oxygen and Project Aristotle have a lot of data around psychological safety and, uh, success. I think also Liz Wiseman has incredible data in her book Multipliers about how, uh, an organization where leaders learn how not to tell people what to do, but to drive results collaboratively, uh, they get 2x out of each person, whereas the command and control founder mode kind of gets half of, half of a person's capacity, what a person has capacity to give. So you get four times more with a more collaborative work environment, uh, than a more command and control work environment.

Speaker B: Yeah. So like you say, there's lots, lots of other data out there. In fact, I know Amy's. I've spoken to Amy on a previous podcast that I ran. But yeah, so uh, go out and, and, and have a look at those books as well as Kim's Darrell, and that will, uh, definitely give you the, uh, the ammunition you need.

Speaker A: Yeah. Amy Edmondson, Liz Wiseman, Project Aristotle and Project Oxygen, I think are some of the best data, but there's tons of other people have collected incredible data around what works and what doesn't work for leaders.

Speaker B: What's the best piece of business advice you've ever been given?

Speaker A: Don't forget to quit. I think so often we feel trapped at work and just realizing that you could quit, that you could totally change your environment, uh, often is what gives people the freedom to go and share what's wrong. And often you can fix just the fact that, you know, you have one foot out the door and then you go and talk about what the problem is, gives the people around you the opportunity to fix that problem, and then maybe you don't have to quit it. So, uh, remember, I think we're more, we are more free than we feel often at work.

Speaker B: I think that's really powerful, Kim. In fact, you know, I've asked that question to many, uh, of my guests, and I've never heard that, uh, feedback before. So I, But I can see how it is strong and it gives you that, like you say, that freedom to just act.

Speaker A: There it was Gretchen Rubin, the author of the Happiness Project and a lot of other great books, who told me that I was in a job, I was miserable. She's like, kim, don't forget to quit. I'm like, oh, yeah, I can do that.

Speaker B: Who would you like me to reach out to and invite to come on the podcast in the future?

Speaker A: You know, I think I think that Liz Wisman would be an incredible guest if you haven't had her already. Her books are just fantastic, uh, packed with practical advice and she did gather the data, but she also tells great stories.

Speaker B: Now when you mentioned Liz's name then before, and I've read one of her books before and I thought, yeah, she uh, she will be another great guest to have on. So thanks for the recommendation. I'll, uh, I'll reach out to Liz. And um, finally, my next guest is Charlie Mullins obe. You might not have come across Charlie. So he's, he's a very different, uh, person to, to who you are, Kimber. He's, he's one of the UK's best known entrepreneurs in that he's ah, built his previous plumbing business, uh, from nothing to selling it in 2021 for 140 million. And then he's now starting a new venture called We Fix London. So there's so many stories within that, ah, about entrepreneurship. Um, so what question would you like to ask Charlie?

Speaker A: I. Here's my question for Charlie. The question is, does Charlie think that radical candor is different, uh, with a group of plumbers than a group of software engineers? And I'll tell you my hypothesis. I don't think it's any different. My experience is that anytime you've got a group of people together and you're collaborating to try to get something done, it's the same basic, the same basic things are needed. You need to solicit feedback, you need to give both praise and criticism. You need to gauge how it's landing. Uh, you need to do all of that in a respectful way. You've got to build teams on which people are taking a step in the direction of their dreams. They may have different dreams, but your job as a leader is very much the same. And you've got to focus on getting stuff done without telling people what to do. Because telling people what to do doesn't work. And I think that's true no matter what kind of work you're doing. But I wonder if he agrees with me, if Radical works as well, uh, um, uh, in, in his world as, as it does in mine.

Speaker B: Well, I agree, my hypothesis is the same, but we'll, uh, we'll wait and see. I'll pose that question to him next week. Kim, thanks. Thanks so much for what's been truly illuminating conversation. So much, so much help, so many helpful hints, frameworks, ah, to help us. Uh, and what I'm taking away from this, uh, is that radical candor and Radical respect, uh, like you say, one prequel to the other, even though it came after. They're not two separate ideas. They are definitely two sides of the same coin. And radical respect I suppose could be argued it's the soil, it's weeding out the bias and ensuring fairness, uh, valuing humanity as you say. And then um, radical candor is the plan that grows from it. The clear, caring, direct communication that uh, can only thrive in a healthy environment. So one without the other, you know, is, is hollow or harmful. So, so important all your thinking, um, listeners, if you're in management, and a lot of you are, then you need to go out and buy both books, Radical Candor and Radical Respect today. Um, Kim, as well as buying the books of course. Where can people go in order to, to learn more?

Speaker A: RadicalCander.com uh, Will, Will share a lot of our blog, our podcast, tell um you more about uh, the sitcom that we made about Radical Candor. Talks and workshops we do, uh, uh, and a newsletter. We love to keep in touch with folks. So radicalcander.com and lots of other, you

Speaker B: know, interesting insight reports, the, the uh, the trust gap report.

Speaker A: Yeah we're, we're now we are gathering some data so we're, we're offering surveys. We had, I don't know, 650 leaders signed up uh, to, to take that survey. So it was great.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, thank you again Kim for all that you do and, and uh, follow Kim on LinkedIn as well because there's some fabulous, fabulous content that she puts out there weekly on there too. So, so thank you again for your time.

Speaker A: Thank you so much. Take care.

Speaker B: Where to start in terms of picking three key takeaways from today's conversation. So much valuable information was given today, but I think we need to start with understanding or going back to understand what Radical candor is. Kim talked us through the two by two radical candor framework with one axis being about care personally and the other being about challenge directly. And she talked us through the four quadrants of obnoxious aggression, ruinous empathy, manipulative insincerity and Radical Candor. And I think it's important to understand these different behaviours that everyone falls into at one time or another so that we better understand what kind, clear, specific and sincere communication really looks like. We then talked about radical respect. And this happens in workplaces that do two things at the same time. They optimize for collaboration, not coercion. And they honor individuality and they don't demand conformity. And it's, it's radical because it's so fundamental, yet it rarely occurs. And so use the different questions that Kim taught us through to understand. If you're dealing with a bias, this is often unconscious, uh, a prejudice, and that's very different. And, and is a conscious belief and bullying, which is very different. Again, a conscious action. And getting the diagnosis right using the questions and examples Kim gave is the first act of radical respect. And finally, maybe to finish on the important responsibility of a manager to create a culture of feedback. In the recent report, we talked about the trust gap, uh, by the Radical Candor team, uh, that's just been published, and it states that 70% of managers said they'd never had the chance of chance to practice soliciting feedback or giving feedback before they became managers. We just promote people and hope for the best, and then we're surprised when it doesn't go well for them or their teams. Leaders. You need to go about first by asking for specific criticism on your own behavior, sharing what they're working on. The ultimate way to encourage more feedback is to then act on that feedback received and circle back to show how it influenced a decision or change. And this proves that the process isn't just performative. Remember, Kim said that management is hard because we've spent our whole life being told, if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all. And now all of a sudden, it's, uh, our job to say it. It's not a problem that fixes itself. And so that's why her books are, uh, vital reading for any managers out there who's struggling with how to give feedback. See you next time on the World's Greatest Business Thinkers podcast.