The Exchanges

Q No, it absolutely does. I do, I do have to bring a rather topical issue to the fore and ask, is this a gender issue? Did it, did it start this way?

A I don't, I don't think it is a gender issue. I think it's equally difficult for men and women to be radically candid. I do think, however, that there is a, there's a diversity aspect to it, not just gender, but because I think it's hard enough to To be radically candid with people who look like you, it's even more difficult to be radically candid with people who don't look like you. So there's a couple of dynamics that I see play out time and time again. One of them is that if you're a woman working for a male boss, it's highly likely that he's going to pull his punches when giving you feedback versus the men who work for him. Versus your male colleagues. And that's bad for you because feedback is good for you. And it's not because your boss is some sort of misogynist trying to hurt you because you're a woman. It's because men have been trained since they were very young children to pull their punches with women, to be gentler with women. And so I think if you're a woman working for a man, you need to go out of your way to pull the feet, to solicit feedback, to make sure that You are getting just as, uh, just as clear feedback as your male counterparts. The editor of the book, Radical Candor, Tim Bartlett, who's one of the loveliest human beings I've ever worked with in my life, not a misogynist bone in the man's body, tells a really good story about how this plays out. He was …

AI assessment note: “I don't, I don't think it is a gender issue.”

Q I do want to ask you, because with the inherent difficulties that we did touch upon in terms of kind of instigating this, why is it so difficult in the first place, do you think?

A I think there are two things that make radical candor difficult. I think one of them begins when we get our first job. We're 1819, 20 years old, and we're told we're right at that moment in our lives when our egos are very fragile and our personas are beginning to solidify. And right at that crucial moment in our lives, we're told be professional. And for an awful lot of people, that gets translated to mean Leave your emotions, leave who you really are, leave the, leave your humanity, leave the very best part of yourself at home, and come to work as something less than human, as, as some sort of robot, and it is really difficult to care personally about others if you can't bring your whole self to work, so I think part of what I would like to see change in the world is helping people feel free to bring their whole selves to work, And to encourage their whole, to create an environment where everybody on the team can bring their wholesales to work. So that's problem number one. Problem number two actually is much more fundamental and begins much earlier. I think problem number two begins when we're 18 months old, and our parents tell us some version of, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. And it's fascinating to me, like, every culture in the world has some version of Of that saying. In Russian, it sounds very different. It's don't stick your finger in a …

AI assessment note: “I think there are two things that make radical candor difficult.”

Q I do want to ask you, because with the inherent difficulties that we did touch upon in terms of kind of instigating this, why is it so difficult in the first place, do you think?

A I think there are two things that make radical candor difficult. I think one of them begins when we get our first job. We're 1819, 20 years old, and we're told we're right at that moment in our lives when our egos are very fragile and our personas are beginning to solidify. And right at that crucial moment in our lives, we're told be professional. And for an awful lot of people, that gets translated to mean Leave your emotions, leave who you really are, leave the, leave your humanity, leave the very best part of yourself at home, and come to work as something less than human, as, as some sort of robot, and it is really difficult to care personally about others if you can't bring your whole self to work, so I think part of what I would like to see change in the world is helping people feel free to bring their whole selves to work, And to encourage their whole, to create an environment where everybody on the team can bring their wholesales to work. So that's problem number one. Problem number two actually is much more fundamental and begins much earlier. I think problem number two begins when we're 18 months old, and our parents tell us some version of, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. And it's fascinating to me, like, every culture in the world has some version of Of that saying. In Russian, it sounds very different. It's don't stick your finger in a …

AI assessment note: “I think there are two things that make radical candor difficult.”

Q A, about your phenomenal work that you did at Talley, uh, but B, he wanted to know, given all that you've Stated there and kind of building that incredible dialogue and kind of conversation. Uh, how do startups and companies sustain that past the initial phases where everyone's in the, in the honeymoon phase, say, of being radically candid? Are there challenges, inflection points in, in how to sustain it?

A Yeah, I think there's a few simple things that companies can do that help this become a virtuous cycle. One of the things that is really helpful that a lot of companies we've worked with have done is, Just reinforcing a shared vocabulary. So they'll print the radical candor framework up. It's a vertical axis, care personally, horizontal axis, challenge directly, radical candor, obnoxious aggression. Put these terms up, and then when people are having meetings or one-on-ones, it becomes easy to say, you know, I'm feeling like this is obnoxiously aggressive. It becomes easier to give people a signal of how you're feeling about the conversation so that they can adjust. So that's one Really simple, pretty much free thing you can do to help. Another thing that companies have done to great effect is to enforce a policy of what I call clean escalation, or don't know backstabbing, or don't talk badly about people behind their back. You can call it whatever you want, but basically the idea is to get very disciplined about, especially if you're a manager, not letting one employee Come and talk to you, complain about another, but rather say, have you talked to so-and-so directly? And if the answer is no, say, well, go talk to that person directly, and if you can't work it out, come to me together, and I'll help you come up with a solution. The key thing is that they do come to you togethe…

AI assessment note: “there's a few simple things that companies can do that help this become a virtuous cycle”

Q But a fantastic story, and it actually brought up an element that I'd love to discuss with regards to radical candor and hierarchies then, whereby if one was on an elliptical trainer and heads down in email and a valued employee is in the room, is it up to that employee to be radically candid and say, I think I deserve your attention?

A You know, I think that when you're giving feedback, whether it's up, down, or sideways, the sort of formula is the same, because it's hard to give feedback, and, and you want to do it in the right way, and I think the best thing to do is to start by soliciting feedback, so saying, is there something I could do or stop doing that would make it easier to listen to this presentation or something, and that's Better done, frankly, not in the moment, but later in private. Maybe, you know, who knows what was happening that day. Maybe there was some giant crisis, and my presentation, you know, I, I, sometimes you do just have to kind of suck it up. You're not always the center of attention, and realizing that, I think, is, is part of being a good professional. So start by asking for feedback, by soliciting it. Don't immediately jump to the conclusion that, These people are arrogant jerks because they're not listening to me. Start by figuring out what you could do to improve the situation. Second of all, I think it's good to focus on the good stuff. There's usually more good things than bad things going on, and giving voice to the things you're happy about, sort of giving praise, is the next step. And then if you feel like there's a situation that's really bothering you, then you Say, I have some feedback for you. Are you open to hearing it? Or there's something that's not going as well…

AI assessment note: “start by soliciting feedback... and that's Better done, frankly, not in the moment”

Q But a fantastic story, and it actually brought up an element that I'd love to discuss with regards to radical candor and hierarchies then, whereby if one was on an elliptical trainer and heads down in email and a valued employee is in the room, is it up to that employee to be radically candid and say, I think I deserve your attention?

A You know, I think that when you're giving feedback, whether it's up, down, or sideways, the sort of formula is the same, because it's hard to give feedback, and, and you want to do it in the right way, and I think the best thing to do is to start by soliciting feedback, so saying, is there something I could do or stop doing that would make it easier to listen to this presentation or something, and that's Better done, frankly, not in the moment, but later in private. Maybe, you know, who knows what was happening that day. Maybe there was some giant crisis, and my presentation, you know, I, I, sometimes you do just have to kind of suck it up. You're not always the center of attention, and realizing that, I think, is, is part of being a good professional. So start by asking for feedback, by soliciting it. Don't immediately jump to the conclusion that, These people are arrogant jerks because they're not listening to me. Start by figuring out what you could do to improve the situation. Second of all, I think it's good to focus on the good stuff. There's usually more good things than bad things going on, and giving voice to the things you're happy about, sort of giving praise, is the next step. And then if you feel like there's a situation that's really bothering you, then you Say, I have some feedback for you. Are you open to hearing it? Or there's something that's not going as well…

AI assessment note: “Better done, frankly, not in the moment, but later in private.”