On Radical Candor | Hacker News Reader

On Radical Candor

firstround.com

99 pointsgmays58 comments

I agree with you there is a huge difference between candor and asshole. Sounds like I could have been more clear about that in my talk, so this is helpful.

In my experience the difference between radical candor and obnoxious aggression lies in how much the boss cares about and knows employees at a human level. I also agree with you that the relationship between a boss and employee is not a friendship. But it IS a relationship. That was how Sheryl knew she had to say to me "you sounded stupid," and how she knew I would welcome her question about whether I felt nervous. Other people on Sheryl's team were less stubborn than I am, and she could get through to them in a gentler way. BUT she DID have to get through to all of us.

It's never fun to hear when you've screwed up. I think too much management advice puts too much pressure on bosses to tell people things that will inevitably sting in a way that somehow won't sting. That's just not possible...That's why being a boss is so hard.

I think "assholes" might be people who personally care AND practice direct challenges, but do so in a way that shame and blame individuals. Calling out mistakes is fine, as long as you don't assign biased blame to the person making the mistake. Startups are already difficult endeavors without the added pressures of being directly on the hook for a mistake. Teams should accept the suffering from an individual's mistakes with the assumption mistakes will be made by team members. If a given team member makes too many mistakes, then perhaps a review is necessary, but otherwise, it's a team mistake which can be learned from and used to improve the team and product.

I think that the key is to make it safe to make mistakes...this also makes it safe to point them out...

This may be sematics, but in my experience, the bona fide assholes don't point out mistakes because they care about helping the person who made the mistake to improve. And so when an asshole sees they've made a person suffer, they don't care, and don't take the time to reassure the person that they have confidence in their abilities. When a person is being radically candid and they see the person is suffering, they take the time to show they care and to reassure that person they have confidence in their abilities--but it a way that makes it clear the mistake was a mistake, or that their work isn't good enough...

Sure, bona fide assholes do that. Maybe what GP is getting at, though, is that there are people out there who, despite genuinely caring for other people, thing that the right way to react to mistakes is shaming and blaming. Whether because they don't know a better way, think that other ways are ineffective, or because of a quasi-religious feeling that it's right to act that way.

Do you have any suggestions for people in an IC role that appreciates "radical candor" but in an organization where management are trained to be guarded? I wouldn't say it is manipulative but it is definitely insincere. The best way I can describe it is a paternal top down management culture that often feels patronizing. It's not toxic, it's just not radical or candid.

Definitely! I am writing a whole book about that :) I can send you a lot more if you want it. But here's the one page version:

First, focus on slowing down and remembering that you’re talking to a person, even if that person happens to be your boss or boss’s boss. This sounds silly, but we all forget to do it. Here is a story: A couple months after joining Google, I disagreed with Larry Page about his approach to an AdSense policy. I wrote an email to several colleagues, which said, “Larry claims he wants to organize the world’s information, but his policy is creating clutter sites, muddling the world’s information.” I went on to imply that his policy was focused on increasing Google’s revenue rather than doing the right thing for users. (Nothing could have been further from the truth. I just didn’t understand what Larry was trying to achieve because, not surprisingly, he was about 15 steps ahead of me.)

If Larry had worked for me instead of co-founding the economic powerhouse of our century, I would never in a million years have sent such an arrogant, accusatory email. I would have asked him privately why he was proposing the policy when the results seemed to be in violation of Google’s mission. If I agreed with his rationale, that would have been that. If I disagreed, I would have explained, again privately, that he seemed inconsistent, and tried to understand his point of view. I didn’t do any of that.

Why did I behave this way? Partly because I believe there’s a special place in hell for those who “kick down and kiss up.” At least I wasn’t making that mistake. But the main reason was that I didn’t really think of Larry as a human being. I saw him as a kind of demigod whom I could attack with impunity. Just because there’s nothing more despicable than “kissing up” and “kicking down” doesn’t mean the opposite is admirable. This is so obvious that I feel ridiculous writing it. I’m sharing it here, though, because I hope that reading this story will help you avoid my mistake.

The clutter sites incident with Larry is a good example of how even well-intentioned criticism can be obnoxiously aggressive if you don’t think of the person you’re criticizing as fully human. The first problem with my email was that it wasn’t humble. I had just joined the company, and I didn’t understand much about how Google’s systems worked. Nor had I bothered to ask any questions about why Larry might be taking the stance he was taking. Instead, I just made a bunch of assumptions and concluded (wrongly, as it turned out) that Larry was more concerned with making money than he was with Google’s mission. Furthermore, my suggestion for how to address the policy issue was not helpful at all because I didn’t really understand the problem that Larry was trying to solve. My other miscalculation was criticizing Larry in a public forum, rather than in private, which would have been the respectful thing to do. And I personalized. I impugned his character by accusing him of hypocrisy. Lesson learned!

So, remember you are talking to a person. Find something about that person that is interesting to you. There are people in your life you care about. Apply what you know about those personal relationships to your work relationships. Work relationships are not friendships, but they are still relationships. When you’re challenging somebody who knows you care, that person will likely take your criticism in the “right way,” even if you say it the “wrong way.” Be “kind,” but don’t just try to to be “nice.” The problem with all the “how to say it nicely” advice out there is that it can make you sound insincere. If you say it “nicely,” but don’t genuinely give a damn about the person, they’ll see through you every time. You’ll look and feel like you’re kissing ass...Another thing you can do is to be open to criticism yourself. Remember, you may not have full context, and you may be wrong.

Also, here is some more about what I mean by radical candor being HIP (Humble, Helpful, Immediate, In person, Private criticism / Public praise, do not Personalize). What follows are some additional thoughts on what that means. But, please don’t let the additional thoughts or the acronym paralyze you. Whatever you do, don’t sit there saying nothing trying to remember what I stands for. For the vast majority of people, the really important thing is to just say what you think.

I think you made only one mistake: you made assumptions. That's the root cause of so many problems, both personal and technical that it is incredible that this is not focused on more frequently and more directly. Do not make assumptions. Verify, detect when you're making them and test them to make sure that they have a foundation to rest on or you'll end up making no end of trouble.

Only expressing yourself to another in private is not being candorous to the rest of the team.

What does it mean to remember that you are talking to a person? I generally only talk to persons. That is, if I am talking, it is to a person. I also generally know when I am talking.

I also think that if you are talking to a person, you must personalize it.

Well, if you are criticizing a person, then the rest of the team may not need to hear it. For example, if the person consistently makes sloppy mistakes, that's a conversatin that is better had in private. If you're just saying there's a typo on that slide, that's a correction of somebody's work not a critisim of somebody, and fine to do in public. If it's a debate about an idea that obviously needs to be in public. But a debate is very different than criticism in my mind.

I agree it does seem ridiculous to say remember you are talking to a person :) But people forget all the time, and that is why they often say things in an overly harsh way.

If you are talking to a person, it must be personal, but it doesn't have to personalize. If you say, I think that's wrong, and that is something somebody has worked on for a long time, they will take it personally so it is personally. But you haven't personalized--saying you're wrong or you're always wrong is personalizing unnecessarily.

If you want I'll send you about 10 pages I've written on this stuff--would love your reaction, it's very helpful!

>Well, if you are criticizing a person, then the rest of the team may not need to hear it.

Perhaps. Everyone cannot hear everything. There is just not enough time to process it all. Each must be able to work on their own pieces. However, I would say that any time things are being said in private, there is the opportunity that candor is being lost to the rest of the team.

I can believe that people can forget that they are talking to a person. I'm just having a hard time imagining what that would be like.

I think I get what you are saying about personalizing things. I want to say that the rule should be, "Don't treat your perceptions as reality, they could be wrong."

You can send me anything you've got.

Not the commenter above, but I would certainly be interested in reading your full thoughts on this! As an entry level developer I send feedback up the chain by default.

Here is some more about what I mean by radical candor being HIP (Humble, Helpful, Immediate, In person, Private criticism / Public praise, do not Personalize). What follows are some additional thoughts on what that means. But, please don’t let the additional thoughts or the acronym paralyze you. Whatever you do, don’t sit there saying nothing trying to remember what I stands for. For the vast majority of people, the really important thing is to just say what you think.

H is for Humble.

You can’t care personally or challenge directly if you’re not humble. It’s really hard to care at a personal level about somebody if you feel superior. When one person feels intrinsically “better” than another, a good relationship is impossible. And, you can’t challenge directly and be open to the reciprocal challenge if you’re not humble enough to realize you may be wrong.

The first time a person in a class I was teaching raised his hand asked me how to be humble, I sat there with my mouth open. It was all I could do not to break into the song from the 70’s show HeeHaw. “Oh lord, it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way!” How to answer a question like that?? I didn’t take it seriously until about the 20th time somebody asked me. Finally, I realized it was a legitimate question and I needed to give a serious answer.

The reason is that criticism does feel arrogant. How can you feel humble and tell somebody when their work isn’t good enough at the same time? It can feel equally arrogant to tell people when their work is great. I often bristle at praise because it sounds insincere or patronizing or somehow belittling. When somebody says to me, “I’m so proud of you!” I think, “Who are you to be proud of me?” It’s the fear of sounding arrogant that sometimes makes me hesitate to give praise to people properly.

Ask questions: I’ve always found it really helpful to offer both criticism and praise in a spirit of inquiry rather than a spirit of self-righteous certainty. When criticizing, I try to keep top of mind the possibility that I may be wrong. The other person might learn something from my criticism--but it’s equally possible that I will learn something from their rebuttal to my criticism. Put another way, it’s always made it much easier for me to criticize somebody when I realize there are two benefits to doing so. One, I may be helping them to fix something that is wrong. Two, I am giving them an opportunity to fix my opinion, which is wrong. The same goes for praise: if you see something impressive, ask a question. How did you do that? What gave you that idea? Can you teach others to do that? etc. This shows that you are not some godly arbiter of what’s good and what’s bad, but a fellow learner.

Power trips you up: Nothing is more corrupting to humility and to giving a damn than formal power. Part of what gives bosses trouble with humility is that they have a little bit of power. Part of what makes it hard for employees to be radically candid with their bosses is the power thing. Part of Google’s management genius was removing that power. But even if you don’t work at a company like Google, you can remember that you can easily get another job, and so find the courage to speak your mind.

Don’t let yourself get too mad/hungry/tired: Most people find it harder to be humble when they’re mad, hungry, or tired.If I focus on managing my emotions it’s easier for me to prevent my ego from getting the better of me.

“Left hand column” and “ladder of inference:” Chris Argyris developed a method useful for keeping oneself humble called the “left hand column.” The idea here is that what you are really thinking, which is often arrogant, leaks out into what you say. If you can be more conscious of what you’re thinking, and can adjust it, you can probably find a productive way to address it. For example if you are thinking, ‘Joe is a bozo and shouldn’t even be at the company,’ you’re not likely to be “HIP” when you criticize the typos you saw in his last ten presentations. However, if you realize what you’re thinking and dig a little deeper, you may realize that you’ve hit the bozo bit too fast. Or, you may realize you should be helping Joe to find a job that’s a better fit for him, not coaching him in a role he’ll never be great at. Argyris also came up with the “ladder of inference” tool. This can help you be humble enough to question your assumptions and get out of recursive loops as you judge people.

“Ontological Humility:” Fred Kofman wrote a great chapter called Ontological Humility in his book Conscious Business. The idea is that when you remember your criticism may be wrong, it can help you to challenge others in a way that invites a reciprocal challenge, and helps you see things from the other person’s point of view.

>What does it mean to remember that you are talking to a person?

Your interpretation is overly literal, IMO. In the context of giving critical feedback, it's easy to focus on the problem, the specific area you want to correct, and reduce the person on the other side to just being the cause of the problem.

For example, you're a team lead and have a developer on your team who routinely writes buggy code and shipped a broken feature last release, which caused a kerfuffle with a major client.

When you meet with them to discuss what happened, in your mind, you're not talking to "a person". You're talking to the developer who caused this big problem you have to deal with. In your mind, you are handling a problem, not talking to a person.

It's easy to forget that the developer is a person with a lifetime of experiences different from yours, a different perspective, different strengths and weaknesses, different insecurities, different stuff going on in their personal life. You need to remember they are "a person" and as such, entitled to a modicum of dignity and respect.

So, sure, address the problem with radical candor, but remember this problem does not define the entirety of the person. In other words, treat them how you would want to be treated, because I assure you, their life is just as important to them as yours is to you.

At least, that's my interpretation.

And if your response is still, "Duh, that's obvious," then maybe you're just better at giving critical feedback than most people. I haven't been on the receiving end myself, but I have often seen managers give feedback that is belittling and reduces the entire worth of a person to a single mistake.

>Your interpretation is overly literal, IMO.

I did not give an interpretation. I asked a question. I don't think a description of what it means to remember you are talking to a person was given even though it was claimed that one should do it. If I should be doing it, I need to know what it is. Then, I can see if I am actually doing it, and if I am not, start doing it again. I think it is an entirely reasonable question.

>In the context of giving critical feedback, it's easy to focus on the problem, the specific area you want to correct, and reduce the person on the other side to just being the cause of the problem.

Certainly. People are generally not the causes of problems, so looking there is probably a waste of time. I think the far more effective strategy is working to eliminate the problem and modify processes to ensure that the problem never happens again. Any problem, in a corporate context, is a failing of the entire team, not any individual.

>It's easy to forget that the developer is a person with a lifetime of experiences different from yours, a different perspective, different strengths and weaknesses, different insecurities, different stuff going on in their personal life.

Maybe our difference is on how easy this is. I don't think that is very easy to forget. All you need to do is realize that you are a person with all of those things and that you are not that other person.

>I haven't been on the receiving end myself, but I have often seen managers give feedback that is belittling and reduces the entire worth of a person to a single mistake.

I think it's a rampant problem. I guess people just want to blame others rather than make things better? I seem to detect instances of it all the time, that seem to be casually accepted by most. For example, General Motor's response to a faulty piece of equipment they were using in their cars was to fire the engineer who designed it. Almost no mind was paid to the fact that GM's process allowed critical parts to be wholly designed and signed off on by a single individual.

Thanks Kim, this was great!

What is candor? Speaking one's mind? Revealing one's deepest thoughts? Mentioning things that you know some people won't want to hear?

When we think of candor we imagine a straight-talking cowboy type, or a brash New Yorker, or a direct and confident woman, etc. These images make us feel that if only we could tell it like it is all the BS would go away.

What candor really means is being unguarded. Think candid camera. We are candid when we make no pretense and avoid posturing, when we keep it real. This means we don't tailor our perspective and behavior to get a specific result or to seem impressive, we just do our own thing, like the victims of candid camera videos.

Real candor requires trust. Where organizations have major trust lapses is where candor seems the most lacking.

If a project is behind schedule, the organization should simply respond appropriately, which means either changing scope or changing the timeline. When there is finger pointing and pressure to lowball estimates, there is a trust breakdown from the outset.

If there is sufficient trust, there is no issue with candor because you just say what you want and everyone knows you are trying to make things better. When trust breaks down, your words might seem critical or like personal attacks.

So having radical candor is great, but it means having radical trust. It must be safe to be on either end of the candor event :) That includes cases when a team member is not able to perform or when a team member wants a promotion that he/she isn't quite ready for. It must be OK to be honest in either direction, which means the firm should respect it if the employee wishes to leave, and the employee should respect it if the firm isn't happy with performance and there doesn't appear to be a path to improvement.

All in all, having a systems mindset and a growth mindset goes a long way toward having a high trust culture. But startups are at a disadvantage from the start since everyone is expecting a massive growth trajectory and in many cases founders are quick to blame mistakes on specific individuals to explain a bad quarter. Having a culture of trust requires the team taking it on the chin and the board supporting and encouraging a systems approach.

So if your founder is the only one in board meetings, chances are that is because blame is being cast and deception is occurring on in both directions.

"Sandberg pushed forward, asking whether Scott’s ums were the result of nervousness. She even suggested that Google could hire a speaking coach to help. Still, Scott brushed off the concern; it didn’t seem like an important issue. “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.’”

"“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."

This doesn't sit well with me because I am skeptical that bosses are going to be able to hit the proper mean of communication that works for each employee. Additionally, I am skeptical that bosses "caring personally for their employees" is actually fully possible or desirable all of the time, since there's always a frequently severe and irreparable conflict of interest between the institution and the individual. I don't want to give or receive friendship from my bosses (as we are only temporary means to an end for each other), I want courteous distance and realistic, bite sized action items to improve on.

For the author, her boss gave her highly appreciated and blunt criticism, and offered a solution. For another employee, the boss has just ruined their day, week, and possibly self image, while (incorrectly) assuming that the boss and the boss's boss thinks they are stupid. For yet another employee, the message of the boss is noted and acted upon, but the pushy probing regarding nervousness is weirdly personal and not at all appreciated.

I am usually pretty blunt, but I don't understand the fascination in managerial culture with intentionally toeing the line between asshole and "candor"-- and it pops up in more dimensions than just feedback. For whatever reason, there is glorification of putting down other people in a professional context.

In that example, Sandberg tried a tactful approach twice before being blunt. If she had stopped giving the guidance because Scott didn't understand the tactful suggestions, Scott would not have learned from that scenario and may have been less successful in the long run.

I don't see anything in this story that paints Sandberg as an asshole. And the only thing "radical" about her candor is that most managers (myself included sometimes) shy away from pushing if our directs don't understand what we're saying the first time.

This article gave me some useful encouragement to push myself to give feedback to people who need it even if it's uncomfortable for me.

What's wrong with, "As a listener, it's very distracting; moreso than you might think. You need to kick that habit to be an effective public speaker."? It's entirely possible to be candid without putting another person (your direct report, even!) down.

And this would have been a third attempt in the same vein. Kim may have then replied "Why does it matter if I am a good public speaker, the numbers were great!", in which case, you have to remove the last case of sugar coating and tell it how it is.

But that isn't how it is. Someone who says "um" a lot while speaking doesn't sound stupid. They're grating, to many in the audience, but that doesn't reflect on the speaker's ability (except, obviously, their public speaking ability). That means the audience will be focusing on the speaker's verbal tics instead of the message that was intended, which is the root problem. The word "stupid" was intended to startle the employee into action by how rude it was.

I mean, obviously, in this particular instance with this particular person, it was effective, and for all I know, the manager is a really sharp observer of her reports and knew this was the right approach in this situation. I don't think it's a good general approach, and I'm afraid people are going to take away the wrong thing from this article. It's not good managerial advice to say, "Tell your employees they sound stupid if they are bad public speakers!" It's better managerial advice to say, "Know your employees, and how each individual might be best motivated, and don't accept complacency." You have to be really careful when taking cues from drill sergeants, because for a lot of people, that approach will backfire horribly, and the message will be overshadowed by the delivery style.

I'm a bit confused at the certainty of your argument. There are many people who believe that someone saying "um" sounds stupid. Your absolute assertion to the opposite seems rather like "I don't think someone saying 'um' sounds stupid so this isn't a valid criticism".

Are people going to hear critiques if they don't want to? The message getting through is what matters, that's a person by person problem. Saying something make someone sound stupid is certainly not "taking cues from drill sergeants".

On your first point, I agree that the message is most often overshadowed by delivery. But I also agree with mentat's point that at some point "um" can make the speaker sound stupid.

> It's not good managerial advice to say, "Tell your employees they sound stupid if they are bad public speakers!" It's better managerial advice to say, "Know your employees, and how each individual might be best motivated, and don't accept complacency."

I completely agree with this, and I got this from the article/video as well. In the "um" story, the manager tries twice to tell her in a nice way, offering to bring in a coach, etc, but she doesn't get it. Knowing her employee, she tells her that she sounds stupid and this works. Kim says in her talk that Sheryl had done several things to establish trust in their relationship previously, so she knew that this case was not a personal attack.

The correct response to the hypothetical "Why does it matter if I am a good public speaker..." statement is "it matters if you are going to be giving presentations and doing public speaking", not "saying um a lot makes you seem stupid". I still can't imagine a world in which being that directly accusatory to an employee is a good way to help someone.

To which someone could respond "But my job isn't public speaking, it is doing X" where X is providing ads, making widgets, etc. No matter how many times you rephrase, you may hit a point where you just say "you sound stupid" or "you're not good at this job".

In my opinion, the whole point of this talk is that giving honest feedback without tact is better than no feedback at all. If someone just doesn't get it when you say it diplomatically, just cut the fluff and say what you need to say.

> In that example, Sandberg tried a tactful approach twice before being blunt.

This seems to be an overlooked aspect of the anecdote. If we were to pay more attention to what people are saying (and try to look at things from their perspective), there might be fewer occasions for bluntness. A word to the wise...

I think Scott addresses that critique in the article:

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.”

Where would you suggest people try to be on those two axes instead?

The flip side of this is being able to accept constructive criticism. While Scott learned a lot about how to be a manager herself, the true takeaway here is probably more that Scott was able to recognize and accept Sheryl's valid criticism. Just because someone tells me the truth -- candidly or not! -- doesn't mean I'm going to listen. There has to be a level of respect and trust in that relationship. I have to believe them when they say that.

I'm terrible at accepting feedback like this from my friends, but when I met my old boss for lunch last week, he gave me almost the same advice they did. And somehow it stuck. I'm self-aware enough to realize that I put a lot of stock and respect into what he thinks of me and I trust his opinion, more than I trust my friends who aren't necessarily tech people or managers.

And maybe that's another fault within myself. My friends clearly gave me solid advice, but it took someone else to give it to me again before it stuck. How can I learn from this and possibly take that advice sooner?

I appreciate Scott's story, and I absolutely agree with her conclusions across the board, but I think it's only a small piece of the overall puzzle.

I know a few people who pride themselves on their unblinking candor. Most of them, in reality, just get a kick out of constantly shitting on people and they use "candor" as cover for their behavior.

Here is a good rule of thumb: Is telling someone something hard going to directly benefit them, you, or someone else their behavior is affecting? The go for it and give them constructive and actionable feedback. Just telling them they blew it, they are pissing you off, etc is just shitting on them.

OTOH, not giving people hard feedback because it is awkward is a betrayal of the relationship you have with them because you aren't helping them be better or at least understand the situation they are in when you could have just to save yourself from your own squeamishness.

I think that's basically what she means with the graph. Radical candor exists in the section where you confront them because you care about them.

I agree.

A wise man once noted - it is not only easy to criticize - it is fun too! But blunt criticism is not radical - I would assert it is the default; both easy and fun.

What makes the candor radical is that it is rooted in care for the person.

I know this approach as simply "being Dutch". And it's a major source of culture shock for expats working in the Netherlands.

This jumped out at me:

“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. She had done a thousand things that showed me that.”

This suggests that before one can practice radical candor, one needs to build a foundation of caring and trust first. Without it, my experience suggests that the results will be more hit-or-miss -- some people just get defensive almost no matter how you frame it.

The hedge fund Bridgewater Associates has a very similar philosophy (some would say a cult[1]); they call it "radical transparency". It's a major component of Ray Dalio's "Principles", which is a 123 page manuscript[2] that prospective candidates and new joiners are advised to read and absorb.

Not that Bridgewater should be the ultimate test case for this way of operating but it's a notoriously unforgiving place to work. The turnover rate there is 25% in the first 18 months[3].

It seems you just have to have really thick skin (or be really jaded) to be able to handle "radical candor" or "radical transparency". Furthermore, it's evidently really tricky to avoid devolving into pure invective. (I guess, in terms of Kim's graph, it's hard to stay high enough on the Y axis as you drift to the right on the X axis.)

[1] http://nymag.com/news/business/wallstreet/ray-dalio-2011-4/

[2] http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgew...

[3] http://www.ai-cio.com/channels/story.aspx?id=3735&page=3&p=3

> Not that Bridgewater should be the ultimate test case for this way of operating but it's a notoriously unforgiving place to work. The turnover rate there is 25% in the first 18 months[3].

What's the turnover rate after 18 months? Maybe they're just "bad" at hiring (or their hiring criteria is such that they need more than a few hours of interviews to satisfy them), but the people who really fit stay there a long time.

TLDR: Give people honest feedback, but make sure you have proven that you care about them first.

Unfortunately, this post's strong no-bullshit language is contradicted by the substance and form of the message given (magic quadrant warning). It takes a long time on the windup and goes light on the proof.

The Sheryl Sandberg anecdote, which is trotted out as an example of effective candor, is actually a perfect example of a trivial correction made in the face of overwhelming performance. Not a hard thing in the realm of hard things.

All candor is radical, and partial candor is a lie ... of omission. So the radical is just branding, and so is the culture of "guidance". Making up language is how academics and corporate gurus differentiate themselves, often needlessly.

Finally, there are deeper flaws in the idea of candor promotion:

* There is no one truth. We don't always arrive at a consensus or an objective truth by airing our differences. So let's be clear before embarking on that path, that we may just manage to create a very candid fog of strong opinions, as different subjective truths battle it out.

* In a culture that values candor, all liars are candid. That is, promoting candor does not solve the underlying dynamic, which is that one side will likely win and one will lose, and not every side is fighting for the right reasons.

* In a culture that values candor, bosses get to be candid first. That is, there is a real risk of feedback flowing from HQ to the trenches and not vice versa. Beware of candor as privilege.

Anyone who needs this type of advice should just go straight to "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" by Ben Horowitz. It's all there, without the rebranding.

On the example mentioned in the article about the "um" issue, getting feedback like that from someone (a boss, or whoever) is one thing when you have actually requested it or when it's part of some kind of formal meeting where mentorship or guidance is expected. But during some random/off-the-cuff chat "on a walk" or in a hallway or whatever? That's ridiculous. I wouldn't want to work at a company where every time I give a presentation or put some kind of effort out there, some boss is going to pounce on me and start telling me what they think I did or did not do right or if I seem stupid or whatever. Way to go turning your employees into cowering bundles of nerves.

Ugh. Every time I think maybe, just maybe, the cult of being a Jobs-ian *-hole is loosing its appeal in tech circles, this kind of stuff rears its ugly head. Meh.

I'm surprised by this reaction. Here's a more sympathetic reading: Sheryl thought Kim showed great potential and was doing great work. HOWEVER, it was clear to Sheryl that the presentation was super awkward from an audience POV. The problem would probably never be obvious to the speaker, because we usually are unaware of our Ums while giving a presentation. So Sheryl only wants to help the speaker. Is it a little embarrassing? Maybe, but it shouldn't be.

Now the author is a better speaker, and better professionally for it. Isn't that a great outcome?

I have a family member that is incredibly smart but thinks 'on the hoof', in the middle of a sentence he'll just freeze and go 'umm'. I'm always tempted to finish the sentences but I've learned to bite that back and wait, usually the wait is more than worth it. Some people can form their thoughts and then spit them out fully formed in one coherent stream, others are confronted with their own words as input when they speak them and will adjust their thinking in real time. Both can lead to new insights and I wouldn't immediately say that someone sounds 'stupid' for pausing in the middle of a sentence and doing some inner processing, especially not if the outcome is good stuff.

This sounds similar to Bridgewater's culture of radical transparency. The first I had a debrief with my boss I cried all afternoon, but now it's growing on me a bit. Or I just have Stockholm syndrome.

There is a huge difference between Bridgewater's approach, which I think is called radical honesty, and radical candor, at lesas as I see it (but tell me why I'm wrong and I'll learn something:)

Here is why Bridgewater's approach is obnoxious aggression in my book. There, employees are encouraged to be brutal in their criticism, a policy called “radical honesty.” In one meeting, the criticism got so harsh that somebody started to cry. The conversation was taped, and an executive decided it would be a good idea to send the taped conversation, tears and all, out to the whole company to listen to. He thought people could learn a lot from the incident. My friend who worked there learned he wanted to get a job at a company with a different kind of culture.

The intentions here were probably not as bad as the results. The leaders at the company wanted everyone to say what they really thought. The idea of radical honesty is really appealing to me. But, I saw two big problems with this approach to encouraging criticism. The obvious one was encouraging public rather than private criticism. Public debate and disagreement, yes. Public criticism, no. This mistake was compounded--criticism wasn’t just public, it was publicized in a way that humiliated an employee. The less obvious mistake was that the policy of “radical honesty” inadvertently sowed the seeds of arrogance, not humility. Why? If honesty is good, surely radical honesty is better. Interestingly, it was the words of a Jesuit missionary in the Congo who best explained the problem with honesty to me. “It’s very important to tell the truth,” he said, and then looked heavenward. “But who knows what the Truth is???” When somebody says, “I’m going to be honest with you,” it implies they know the truth and you don’t. There’s not a lot of humility in that.

This is why I use the term “candor.” “Honesty” can lead to arrogance.

Can we not use the word radical for things that are not radical?

What would you call this, and what do you consider radical?

I think it describes the nature of it things like "radical honesty". Honesty is just the same old virtue and approach we all know, just interpreted slightly differently and taken to an extreme.

What a radical suggestion.

I find this pretty disgusting. So the expectation for everyone else is to behave as though you're in a safe space and speak no ill of another person, but if you have enough money you can just throw all common courtesy out the window?

You might want to re-open the tab and do a browser-find for "Encourage Your Whole Team to be Radically Candid" and read the part of the article you skipped.

You may still not agree, but you speak as if the article is about management only, which is objectively untrue.

I would submit that anyone who thinks employees are ever going to feel 100% free to bluntly criticize the person who approves or signs their paycheck to their face is an idiot.

(Does that qualify as radical candor?)

You are right, that is HARD. That's why bosses have to work so hard to get their employees to criticize them...To GET criticism. Will have a bunch of suggestions in the book I'm writing for this. Open to others that you have. That's also why I recommend a bunch of things that put bosses on a more equal footing with employees.

You're getting priceless feedback on the first-order misunderstandings people have about this idea here. :)

Do you have a mailing list or anything for when the book is done? (If you look at my HN profile I've got an email address you can stick on it, if you set one up later.)

I do find myself wondering if perhaps the book will face an issue from missing tone & body language that naturally happens in a talk. If I were to go kinda far out on the crazy idea scale, I would consider borrowing something from the indie video game world; you can do a lot of setting the tone of a long series of text snippets by recording high quality voice samples. Once we have the sense from high-quality voice acting, we can fill in the gaps from there. It might be interesting to experiment with pairing the book with a presentation given on the first chapter in video form, which would then set the tone for the rest of the book. (I think people, rather understandably, have a lot of preexisting emotion they are bringing to this topic, and it may be worth taking extra steps to try to defuse it, so you have a chance of communicating your points.)

Crazy thought, anyhow.

You are right, these comments are really helpful! It's so easy to say something that gives people the idea quite opposite to what I'm trying to say...

Yes, adding you to mailing list...

Love the idea of turning the book into a kind of video game; also thinking of building some tools that will make it easier to implement ideas, and buidling community around the book...

Well, I just meant a recorded video to set tone, but if you get a good idea off of "video game" far be it from me to discourage that.

Isn't that exactly why it's worthwhile to point out that bosses need to go out of their way to encourage it?

Humans come equipped with instinctive hierarchial behaviors, but they're optimized towards producing functioning tribes, which is not quite the same thing as high-functioning modern cooperatives (which includes, but is not limited to, for-profit corporations). They're close enough that they're a potent starting point (or humanity would not have even come this far), but the optimal point in the modern world requires a bit of conscious effort to attain.

I didn't feel comfortable being candid with my employer until I was financially independent.

Which makes sense, sure. But equally consider: did you miss out on opportunities to learn more, quickly from your employer by not being direct about where you disagreed and trying to understand whether she was wrong or you were?

As 'kimscott is trying to point out in thread -- there are ways of being candid that aren't simply "you're wrong and I'm right, so shut up and listen" -- which is not how you should behave, either with your boss or with your subordinates. All things being equal, candor (with empathy toward the recipient and openness to being wrong) leads to better results than keeping your opinions to yourself and stewing silently.

> Which makes sense, sure. But equally consider: did you miss out on opportunities to learn more, quickly from your employer by not being direct about where you disagreed and trying to understand whether she was wrong or you were?

Yes. And in some cases, I left jobs out of fear of losing mine for being candid. Better to leave on your terms than someone else's. I'd share my concerns in my exit interview, and move on.

> All things being equal, candor (with empathy toward the recipient and openness to being wrong) leads to better results than keeping your opinions to yourself and stewing silently.

I agree. I don't think this will happen in at-will employment environments though. Are you going to be candid, even when told your job is safe, if you can be fired at anytime with no recourse? NOPE.

> if you have enough money you can just throw all common courtesy out the window?

Empirically, the answer appears to be "yes".

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