Radical Candor

People do listen to you in an intense way you never experienced before you became a manager. They attribute meaning—sometimes accurately, sometimes not—to what you say, to the clothes you wear, to the car you drive. In some ways, becoming a boss is like getting arrested. Everything you say or do can and will be used against you.

I realized that people actually don’t believe it can be quick… They think giving good guidance is going to add hours of meetings to each week. They think of it like a root canal. Try thinking of it as brushing your teeth instead. Don’t write it in your calendar; just do it consistently, and maybe you won’t ever have to get a root canal.

It’s crucial to remind people that an important part of Radically Candid relationships is opening yourself to the possibility of connecting with people who have different worldviews or whose lives involve behavior that you don’t understand or that may even conflict with a core belief of yours.

Don’t think of it as work-life balance, some kind of zero-sum game where anything you put into your work robs your life and anything you put into your life robs your work. Instead, think of it as work-life integration. The time you spend at work can be an expression of who you are as a human being, an enormous enrichment to your life, and a boon to your friends and family.

Learn. It takes a huge amount of discipline to take a pause and step back to actually learn from your experience. You may have to admit your past mistakes. That can be painful.

Execute. Do not get far away from the people executing the task. Be a part of the team.

Persuade. It is a big mistake to expect others to do things without explaining why they have to do them. Moreover, it is not enough to explain the mere logic: you will have to appeal to people’s emotions, as well as focus on your past accomplishments.

Decide. As a manager, you will have to plunge into a lot of details to get to the true facts, which can get distorted by many people who pass them to you.

Debate. It must be a discussion where “individual egos and self-interest don’t get in the way of an objective quest for the best answer.” Debates take time and emotional energy, but are very productive.

Listen. There are two models of listening: quiet, when you silently make people assume what you think, and loud, when you actually give a response and, even more, insist that they challenge you back.

Drive Results Collaboratively: Telling people what to do doesn’t work

That’s a lot of steps. Remember, they are designed to be cycled through quickly. Not skipping a step and not getting stuck on one are equally important. If you skip a step, you’ll waste time in the end.

You were also born with a capacity to connect, to care personally. Somehow the training you got to “be professional” made you repress that. Well, stop repressing your innate ability to care personally. Give a damn!

When Radical Candor is encouraged and supported by the boss, communication flows, resentments that have festered come to the surface and get resolved, and people begin to love not just their work but whom they work with and where they work. When people love their job, the whole team is more successful. The resulting happiness is the success beyond success.

A good rule of thumb for any relationship is to leave three unimportant things unsaid each day.

“Radical Candor” is what happens when you put “Care Personally” and “Challenge Directly” together.

Guidance, team, and results: these are the responsibilities of any boss.

Ultimately, though, bosses are responsible for results. They achieve these results not by doing all the work themselves but by guiding the people on their teams. Bosses guide a team to achieve results.

Good thinking often needs clarification. It can be provided by brainstorming, when you quickly differentiate between good and bad ideas, or a 1:1 conversation when you discuss the details without any judgment in a friendly environment.

Christopher Wren, the architect responsible for rebuilding St. Paul’s Cathedral, was walking the length of the partially rebuilt cathedral when he asked three bricklayers what they were doing. The first bricklayer responded, “I’m working.” The second said, “I’m building a wall.” The third paused, looked up, and then said, “I’m building a cathedral to the Almighty.