Home » Blog » The secret to being a better boss: radical candor

The secret to being a better boss: radical candor

It sounds so simple to say that bosses need to tell employees when they’re screwing up. But it very rarely happens.

That smartest bosses know, however, that criticizing your employees when they screw up is not just your job, it’s actually your moral obligation.

That simple management mission is what prompted Kim Scott, former Google rising star to found Candor, Inc. and write her book “Radical Candor –Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity.”

Scott explains that her earliest epiphany of this enlightened management style came when she was working for Sheryl Sandberg, also at Google (but now the COO at Facebook.)

Scott had just made a presentation to the founders of Google and other key leaders, and Sandberg took her aside to provide feedback. Sandberg complimented her on a fine presentation but was concerned that Scott said um a lot.

Scott thought “no big deal, who cares, I’m doing great work.”

But Sandberg didn’t stop there. She asked about nervousness, and even suggested a presentation coach. Scott was dismissive.

“Finally, Sheryl said, ‘You know, Kim, I can tell I’m not really getting through to you. I’m going to have to be clearer here. When you say um every third word, it makes you sound stupid.’”

That got Scott’s attention. And now she’s made it her professional focus to operationalize what it was that made Sandberg such a great boss. She calls it radical candor.

Scott has boiled down radical candor to a simple framework:

“Picture a basic graph divided into four quadrants. If the vertical axis is caring personally and the horizontal axis is challenging directly, you want your feedback to fall in the upper right-hand quadrant. That’s where radical candor lies.”

“The vertical axis is what I call the ‘give a damn’ axis,” Scott says. “Part of the reason Sheryl was able to say to me so bluntly, ‘You sounded stupid,’ was that I knew that she cared personally about me.

The horizontal axis is what Scott calls the “willing to piss people off” axis.

Challenging others is difficult for many people; saying anything short of positive feels impolite. But once you become a boss, it’s your job to do be equally clear about what’s going wrong, and what’s going right.

Scott has created an acronym to help people remember the framework and methods:

HHIPP: “Radical candor is humble, it’s helpful, it’s immediate, it’s in person — in private if it’s criticism and in public if it’s praise — and it doesn’t personalize.”

That last P makes a key distinction: “My boss didn’t say, ‘You’re stupid.’ She said, ‘You sounded stupid when you said um.’ There’s a big difference between the two.”

Scott says being a jerk is still bad. But being a softy can be even worse.

When you don’t coach your team members up, you fall into the quadrant of ruinous empathy. That’s where most management mistakes occur.

People are allowed to limp along, never knowing that better performance could be just one candid comment away.

Radical candor takes practice. Be truthful. Be direct. Be calm.

And take time to give people the kind and clear criticism they need to grow and make a contribution.

Have a great week.

Sign up for The Sunday Snippet!

Sign up for The Sunday Snippet!

Good ideas to help you prosper delivered fresh each Sunday morning.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *