Radical Candor读后感精选
《Radical Candor》是一本由Kim Scott著作，St. Martin’s Press出版的Hardcover图书，本书定价：USD 20.0，页数：272，特精心从网络上整理的一些读者的读后感，希望对大家能有帮助。
《Radical Candor》精选点评：
●管理学发现了scrum。
●湾区科技公司工作入门指南
●后面有一点点cliche 但是对如何managing up以及更好的发展一种supportive and open-minded的工作关系还是很有用的
●确实五星好评 最开始感觉作者有些老是甩大人物和硅谷例子，看到中期开始渐入佳境，很多例子还是颇为实用的。目前自己也是steep growth阶段，感同身受不少。 其实读书都是这样的，不可全信，独立思考，精炼出适合自己生活做人家庭工作的精华，学以致用，达成人生目标。
●Extremely enlightening while highly practical. Got some of my major questions answered. Will definitely revisit it.
●部分内容对我来说还太遥远，等之后再看
●愈加发现只有shit happened之后读这种东西才能relate否则乍一看就觉得在扯鸡汤…(遇到那种既不care personally又不challenge directly的lead只能跑为上策了
●A fairly good book with plenty of real examples and stories which I believe should be beneficial to anyone who works in a corporate environment.
●如何管理下属，radical candor and transparency
●如果每位领导都像 Kim Scott 和 Sheryl Sandberg 一样擅长管理，我保证天天都想上班。她们不仅关注你在这个岗位上做什么，还关心你和你的梦想。我喜欢。
《Radical Candor》读后感(一)：四星的管理学书籍
书主要由在职场直言不讳的好处展开，说到如何才能做到直言不讳而又不伤人，继而说到有效管理下属，上级的办法。总体是言之有物的一本管理学书籍。
作者是谷歌和苹果的前高管，书中提到很多她的管理经历和职业生涯中见证的故事，尤其对乔布斯提及的很多。读这些故事对谷歌和苹果截然不同的管理风格也会有更深入的理解。
用思维导图做了笔记，贴在这里。
Radical Candor, by Kim Scott (未经同意不得转载）《Radical Candor》读后感(二)：从老板的裤裆拉链看 Google 管理之道
一位先哲说这世界上一共有三大窘境：一个是空调房里没有 Wifi，一个是有 Wifi 的房间里夏天没空调，另外一个就是，提醒老板裤裆拉链没拉。
这是非常考验一个人情商的场景。
想象一下，你的一位敬重有加的老板刚吃完午饭，摸着鼓胀的肚皮，悠闲地从众人面前走过去。
昂首又挺起了肚子，让他裤子拉链没拉这件事显得格外瞎眼，而他自己自上而下的眼光却被肚子挡住了。
你一以贯之的责任感以及向老板示好的拍马屁习惯在驱使你告诉他这样一个事实，不过等等，好像这件事怎么说都显得贼拉尴尬。
你甚至连想象你盯着对方裤裆说出一句“老板，你拉链没拉”，就会略微感受到其中的尴尬。
其实，在这个场景里，你有四种选择。
第一种，你虽然很想上去帮他解决这个问题，但犹豫再三，因为想要避免尴尬，或者担心会冒犯到他，所以你还是决定任由老板敞着裤裆被更多人偷偷地嘲笑，沦为今日公司最佳。
这种情况下，你的行为叫做“破坏性的同情心（Ruinous Empathy）”。这种“同情心”是毫无用处的，是键盘侠式的，只能让问题在得不到解决的情况下，变得越来越糟。
第二种，你大步流星地向他走去，然后气沉丹田，像作报告一样大声地说出一句，“老板，你拉链没拉！”。公司里陷入了可怕的寂静，随后众人掩面哭笑不得——笑老板拉链没拉，哭你这个人脑子有点问题。
这种情况下，你的行为叫做“可憎的侵犯（Obnoxious Aggression）”。这种帮助是侵犯性的，以别人的尊严作为代价，实际上给别人造成了极大的不适感。老板最终没有选择打你，然后隔天解雇了你。
第三种，隔壁部门的 Terry、Tony、Tom 三人组正好迎面走来，你突然觉得有人拉链没拉这件事很好笑，可以很他们分享一下，还能增进大家的感情，于是就在他们耳边悄悄说了句“看！老板拉链没拉！”
Terry、Tony、Tom 都忍不住笑了，虽然马上憋住，但还是引起了老板的注意，顺着三个人的视线，他明白了一切——赶紧拉上了拉链，瞪了你们四个一眼，然后飞速走开。
这种情况下，你的行为叫做“操纵式的伪善（Manipulative Insincerity）”。一念之间想要帮他，一念之间又只想分享笑话。比起前两种情况，这种行为是在有意识伤害别人，最为可恶。
那正确地做法是什么呢？第四种，你走到他身边，拍下他的肩膀，小声而自然地说一句，“老板，有个不成熟的小提示，你的拉链没拉”，微笑着继续说，“希望你没觉得我有些冒犯”。
我知道，你一定不会觉得这是非常巧妙到让人拍额头大呼“我之前怎么没想到”的做法，灵光一现需要即刻的运气，这只是一种稳定的行为思路，叫做“坦诚相待（Radical Candor）”，可能不是那么精妙绝伦，但胜在容易学习，还能借鉴到其他事情上。
什么叫“坦诚相待”呢，就是直截了当，但又不缺少人性关怀——既让他知道自己拉链没拉，又照顾了他的面子。
这个情景虽小，但是其实背后有很深的管理学原理。
读来觉得“坦诚相待”的道理并不复杂，甚至有点老生常谈，但是为什么很多人还是处理不好这些事情呢？
试想你在路上碰到了一个同事没拉拉链，实际生活里，你不会花很长的时间去思考有哪些方式去提醒他，只会用潜意识里觉得可行的方式去做。
所谓潜意识，就像是运动员的肌肉记忆。我们都知道，运动员的差距有时候就在肌肉记忆里。优秀的肌肉记忆平时没有什么显露，一到需要短时间决策的时候，就显示出它的力量了。
为什么要说这样一个道理呢？因为“坦诚相待”是一个并不新的概念，就像对于篮球运动员来说，人人都知道“队友漏人了要去补防”这个道理。
然而，优秀的运动员遇到队友漏人是可以不假思索及时补位的，而平庸的运动员直到赛后才想起当时没补防。
那这种能力从哪来？就是真正去理解习以为常的概念或者道理，并且加以刻意练习而得来的。
硅谷著名女性创业者金.斯科特（Kim Scott）于 2017 年 3 月份出版了新书《坦诚相待：成为一个散发人性光辉的卓越老板（Radical Candor: Be A Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity）》。
金.斯科特是硅谷里非常有名望的人物。她毕业于哈佛商学院，曾经在 Google 负责过 AdSense、Dobleclick Online Sales、YouTube等业务，在 Apple 的 Apple University 开发“Managing at Apple”课程。
积累了大量作为管理者的经验以后，她陆续为 Dropbox、Twitter 等明星企业培训它们的 CEO。目前，金创建了一家与本书同名的企业，用于推广她在书中提到的管理工具。
本书的核心在于用“私人化关怀（Care Personally）”和“直接发起挑战（Challenge Directly）”这两个维度来对管理的方式进行分类。
如图，横轴表示的是你“直接发起挑战”的程度高低，也就是说，如果你在管理过程当中直来直去、不拐弯抹角，习惯于有事说事，那这种程度就可以定义为“高”，相反，则是“低”。在横轴上，越往右，这种“发起挑战”的“直接程度”就越高。
纵轴表示的是“私人化关怀”的程度高低，相应的，如果你在管理中，比较关心员工的个人情绪和状态、愿意给予发自内心的关怀，那么这种程度就可以定义为“高”，反之则“低”。在横轴上，越往上这种“私人化关怀”的程度越高。
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《Radical Candor》读后感(三)：不存在好老板和好文化的选择题
E A PARTNER- hands-on, ears on, mouth off
找工作选offer的时候，很多人会问：我该选一个公司文化好的呢，还是选一个文化一般但老板很好的职位呢？乍一听好像没啥问题，但仔细想想这个前提很奇怪：为什么会存在文化差但老板好的工作？所谓的好老板如何fit进糟糕的公司文化？他能保证小组内的文化没问题吗？他能向上变革吗？变革若是失败，他呆的久吗？反过来，如果fit得了糟糕的公司文化，他真的是你所想象的好老板吗？
什么才能叫好老板？他/她应该是你的partner，一个 hands-on, ears on, mouth off的partner。他至少应该懂的向下管理，最好也能向上管理。前者决定了短期你能不能干好工作，在team能否立足，而后者决定了你长期在公司的成长空间。这本书着重于向下管理。幸运的是，在这本书里我看到了好几任老板的影子。每一次和新老板的第一个one on one，主题永远都是分享自己的故事，以建立关系。而后不断challenge directly。无数次对话中我能感觉到很多细节老板们拿捏得很让人舒服，读这本书的时候，才发现这些容易让我略过的细节，其实全都是书里的加黑加粗注意点。
这些细节，是公司文化的折射，也影响着team小文化的建立和发展。很喜欢的一句话“Culture eats strategy for lunch”。公司大文化和team小文化永远是我衡量一份工作的首要标准。文化的建立究竟是从下而上还是由上而下，大概depends on很多因素。但我倾向于是个top-down的过程：大文化影响老板层面，老板层负责建立维护小文化。不存在好文化和好老板的抉择。
回到我自己的例子，不幸的是我的好老板们一个接一个都走了，会玩弄政治的差老板反倒能待的很久。当然，这说明了老板的老板很糟糕，公司文化已经发生了质变，是时候可以走人了。同时也说明我的好老板们还不够会向上管理。是时候看看《向上管理》这本书了。
按照惯例，放上笔记：
Part 1: The Philosophy Radical Candor FrameworkThey are sensitive to context. Got measured at the listener's ear, not at the speaker's mouth
Challenge Directly ++, Care Personally ++ = Compassionate Candor (Praise "I admire that about you" Criticism "To keep winning, criticize the wins")
Challenge Directly ++, Care Personally -- = Obnoxious Aggression
Challenge Directly --, Care Personally ++ = Ruinous Empathy
Challenge Directly --, Care Personally ++ = Manipulative Insincerity
Manager's responsibility1. Guidance: get, give and encourage guidance
2. Team-building: understand what motivates each person on your team
一个健康的team需要super star和rock star以达到稳定高效
一定要了解属下到personal level- to understand how they derive meaning from their work
了解属下在Growth Trajectory (Steep or Gradual) & Performance (Excellent or Low) 四象限的位置
3. Results: drive results collaboratively
GSD WHEEL: Listen -> Clarity -> Debate ->Decide -> Persuade -> Execute -> Learn -> Listen
- Listen: quiet or loud, you need to create a culture of listening
- Clarity: Be clear to your own mind and to others. Choosing what to select, what to eliminate and what to emphasize depends on the idea and the audience. 当在给CMO做presentation的时候，想一想她最看重的是什么。例如How to measure the success of a channel/ campaign
- Debate: create an obligation to dissent. You are usually not the decider. Decider should get facts not recommendations
- Persuade: to get people on board 你可能会对某个decision有感情，但你应该关注的是对方的emotion而非自己的。注意使用We而不是I。Show your logic, rather than just describing the idea
- Execute: block time to execute
- Learn: be consistent 有变化的时候怎么办？Communication: explain clearly and convincingly why things have changed. When the facts change, I change my mind. 这里可以运用Elegant Pitch的三层理论：Background (why), what has changed, solutions (how)
Part 2: TOOLS AND TECHNIQUESuilding relationships first!
Guidance: getting/ giving/ encouraging praise and criticism
- Getting criticism: e.g. "What could I do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me ". Count to 6 before saying anything
- Giving criticism:
Adopting the mindset that guidance is a gift ensures that your guidance is helpful even when you can't offer actual assistance
Give criticism in 2-3 mins between meetings. Don't make it a big deal
ever reply ALL when you must criticize or correct someone over email
- Praise
Whenever praising in public, explain that you weren't doing so because the person wanted public praise. but so that everybody could learn from what had happened.
How to be radically candor with your boss with caution
1. ask for guidance before you give it
2. ask permission to give guidance "Would it be helpful if I told you what I thought of X"
Gender and guidance (女性的困难之处)：这是一个大课题，本笔记不再展开。
erformance Review：
- 360 degree
- spend half the time looking back (diagnosis), half the time looking forward (plan)
- 强烈建议把rating/ compensation和performance review分开
Results:
1:1 convo, staff meetings (learn: review key metrics 20'; listen: put updates in a shared document 15'; clarity: identify key decisions and debates 30'), think time, big debate meetings, big decision meetings, all-hands meetings, meeting-free zones, kanban boards (make activity and workflow visible), walk around, be conscious of culture.
《Radical Candor》读后感(四)：谁说鱼和熊掌不能兼得？跟Google高管学习管理智慧
01 为什么不能和同事坦诚相待？
曾经有一个长得像川普的资深同事，跟我推心置腹的说过他自己的管理哲学。他说：你这样对你团队成员不行的，你不能让你的团队知道你到底在想什么，你要Play Good Cop and Bad Cop (好警察和坏警察，意思就是该唱红脸唱红脸，该唱白脸唱白脸）。
看来他不但长的像川普，管理智慧也是师承于他。虽然我理解他的用意，不过一直觉得这种胡萝卜＋大棒的管理策略有点问题：你把别人都当傻子吗？我就不喜欢像小白兔一样被威逼利诱。还有，这种策略的实施需要掌握点厚黑学，像我这种对人际关系天生迟钝的类型，实在困难不小。
罗永浩的创业哲学是，不玩阴谋阳谋那一套，干干净净的，一样可以站着把钱赚了。管理也是一样，为什么不能和同事坦诚相待？
直到最近读到这本《Radical Candor : Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity》（坦诚相待: 做个让员工又爱又恨的老板）, 算是部分解答了我心中的疑惑。
Radical Candor
这本书今年3月刚刚出版，作者Kim Scott。她被桑德伯格招进Google，跟着她工作多年，负责Adsense的市场推广业务，做到高管，然后跳槽去Apple专门为Apple University (苹果大学）设计培训课程。现在和她在Google的老同事Ross Laraway，开了自己的公司Radical Candor Inc.，以这本书总结的管理哲学为指南，做管理咨询。
这本书一上市好评不断，Google Read 评分4.2，同类的管理类经典彼得 • 德鲁克的《卓有成效的管理者》评分也只有4.1。虽然新书容易刷高分，但也可见这本书还挺受认可。一般来说，一本英文书从上市到翻译成中文在国内出版，大概需要1年。大概明年春天，中文版就会在国内上市，如果有名人大V推荐一把，很可能会摆在机场书店的显著位置。不如我今天就带你先睹为快。
这本书的管理哲学，从书名就能看出来：坦诚相待: 做个让员工又爱又恨的老板，书封面的十字架，是另一种解读方式：Care Personally and Challenge Directly (关心要无微不至，但也要不断用难题挑战）
Kim在Google和Apple都工作多年，是为数不多的在硅谷的两个文化截然不同的大公司里，都做到高管的人。她的书里，也自然使用了很多她观察到第一手的鲜活故事。下面随便举两个我印象深刻的例子。
02 Care Personally (意译：对待员工要想春天般温暖）
在Google的时候，Kim管理Adsense的一支分布在全球10个不同城市的团队，需要经常出差。她当时年届40，生娃的事不能再拖，但总是和老公Andy隔着半个地球，这造娃运动显然没效率。Kim在和她的老板桑德伯格1:1的会议上，小心翼翼的提出了自己的难题，没想到老板的回答直接了当：
“Oh, that’s easy!” she said. I was all ears. “You can’t. And you don’t have any time to waste. You need to make getting pregnant your top priority.”
(“那好办”，她说，我全神贯注的听着。“你没法边满世界跑边生娃。你也没时间继续浪费了。你必须把怀孕当成头等大事”）
Remember that global off-site meeting your team wanted but we had a hard time getting budget for？” Sheryl asked. “Let’s take another crack at getting the budget. That way you can fly everybody here. They want to come, and you don’t want to go. Seems like a win-win.”
(“记得你团队一直想来总部开会，但我们总是没预算？”，她说，“我们干脆这次把预算的事拿下，这样的话你可以让大家都飞到这儿。他们想来，你又不想去，这是个双赢的事儿”）
读到这儿，我简直有点感动的泪目。想想前一段时间微信上刷屏的新闻，主角是在德勤连续加班，后来得癌症被辞退的审计小妹，就知道作为老板，能说出“你必须把怀孕当成头等大事”，有多不容易。Care Personally，能做到这点，已经是极致。事实上，Kim的说法是，好的老板能把员工自己的利益放在公司利益之上，这个说法，能公开提出来，还是有点冲击性。
Kim当时的老板桑德伯格，现在是Facebook的COO，我之前的文章也多次有提到。她可不是个只会关心人的“好好夫人”，这样的人也没法在硅谷混。她前两年写过一本非常畅销的书《Lean In》(向前一步），主张女性充分发挥自己的潜力，是女性成长必读。
Lean In
我去年怀孕的时候，公司岗位变动，当时看到一个比较感兴趣的职位，因为怀孕，有点犹豫。当时就想到了这本《向前一步》，犹豫之后还是选择主动要求承担新工作。虽然因为怀孕，不大可能有升职加薪的机会，但毕竟怀孕也要在公司呆上9月，有的日子还会超过8小时。好在脑子和手又没坏，可以照常思考写报告，为啥不能学点新东西？就当胎教了好吧！
03 Challenge Directly （意译：对待工作要不断挑战难题）
只是Care Personally，大家每天你好我好的打哈哈，公司早完蛋了。所以才有Challenge Directly。之前我有篇文章我们不玩儿小孩子过家家｜“硅谷最重要的文件”教给我们什么？，硅谷公司的管理哲学是”We are a team, not a family” (我们是个团队，不是家庭），在家里总有人逼你跳出舒适区，挑战难题，是挺烦的，但公司不是慈善机构，没有效率，不出成绩，公司也就没有了存在的价值。
在激励员工不断挑战更好的表现方面，没有比乔教主更厉害的了。Kim在书里谈到她在加入Apple之前，和Intel的传奇CEOAndy Grove喝咖啡寻求建议，Andy说：
“FUCKING STEVEALWAYSgets it right” (该死的乔布斯总能弄对）
Kim以为他在开玩笑，说：“Nobody’salwaysright,” （没人永远是对的）
“I didn’t say Steve is always right. I said he always gets it right. Like anyone, he is wrong sometimes, but he insists, and not gently either, that people tell him when he’s wrong, so he always gets it right in the end.”
（我没说乔布斯总是对的，我是说他总能弄对。和任何人一样，他有时候也犯错，不过他总能坚持，让大家在他犯错的时候告诉他，即便用不是很绅士的方式。这样他最终总能把事情搞对）
乔帮主的事迹，很多人都有耳闻。Apple甚至有对敢于挑战他的员工的每年的表彰大会。这些事迹，在他的自传《史蒂夫 • 乔布斯》里，有更多描述。
04 鱼和熊掌可以兼得
Kim的公司，现在在全球做各种workshop，推行她总结的这套“坦诚相待”的管理哲学。说到具体怎么实施这套管理哲学，真正把事情做好，书里提出了一个提出了一个闭环理论，并且给出了很多实用的工具。
倾听－澄清－辩论－决定－说服－执行－学习的闭环
以上这个闭环理论，其实非常直接，一点也不花哨，甚至你会觉得这些都是常识啊。但稍微有点工作经验的人，就会理解，具体实施起来，会遇到多大的困难。
北美的职场环境，一向被认为更为直接简单。但有人的地方就有江湖，有办公室的地方就有办公室政治。这一点，古今中外，概莫能外。想要挑战老板，提出不同的意见？虽然在北美，在电梯里偶遇CEO也可以直呼其名（很多国内的外企也喜欢叫xx总了），但人这种动物，跟同样是群居动物的蚂蚁有一点特别不同，那就是ego(自我意识）相当的强，天生不喜欢听不同意见。
我曾经亲眼看到同事在会议上提出不同意见，然后在会下被他老板骂。有同事被开，也有传闻是言语间得罪了自己老板。创造这种坦诚沟通的文化，绝非一朝一夕。需要从上至下，慢慢建立大家的信心。
Kim Scott
所以，提醒读者，如果要对老板Challenge Directly，需要非常小心。如果你在公司还是个小萝卜，或者明显感到你的老板并不真的认同这套东西，嘴上认同不算啊，那实施起来就要格外小心了。我看亚马逊上的书评，有北美的读者反应，用了这套东西，被老板一巴掌拍飞...
伟大的公司总是少数。就算这套东西再好，能完全成功实施的，最后还是少数。不过，至少，作者用她在Google和Apple的经历告诉我们，这是可能的。
You can be nice and also get things done. You can have the cake and eat it too.
（你可以做个好老板，也把事情做做成。处理的好，鱼和熊掌也可以兼得。）
文章首发自公号：Echo同学在约克
《Radical Candor》读后感(五)：如何彻底地阳谋，硅谷老鸟如是说
Kim Scott是原Google和Apple的中层管理人员，相比很多讲大道理的书，她讲了不少亲身经历，包括在Google、Apple。
个人读此书时速度不是很快，主要是触景生情，看到某些片段会时不时回想起自己在项目管理上犯的很多错误，碰过的钉子。比如前言里Kim提及她犯的一个错误，就是没有及时指出创业团里一个人的不足，对方在被开时显得十分震惊。个人也因为同情一个哥们上有老下有小，没有狠心开人而是努力去推他，结果最后把自己弄得十分被动。
全书的核心有两点：care personally, challenge directly。
翻译过来应该是：关心个人，直接挑战。
但是到底怎么做有非常多的讲究。比如比起说 You are shit，乔帮主的Your work is shit就要好得多，但是这种方法因人而异，要考虑文化和与对方的关系。很多人会用更好的说法，直接挑战对方也要注意方式方法；同时你与对方的关系也非常重要。良好的人际关系会让沟通更具效果。
很多人（包括楼主）在直言方面常常显得大义凌然、一副为你着想的样子，但是因为对对方的感受照顾得不够，关系不够到位，对方往往非常抗拒，甚至会跳起来。
同样，我们不能/不用老想着压制下属，了解他们的愿景，帮助其成长。甚至可以在将来为某些潜力股下属打工。
日常工作中，如何鼓励下属表扬或批评你，如何表扬或批评下属，如何提拔员工、鼓励员工、奖励员工、开除员工、防止职场的疲劳、维系团队稳定，书中都有一一讲解。
管理是一个与人打交道的长期、琐碎的过程，需要非常用心。如作者在书中所说，讲哲理并没什么卵用，得结合实际操作才行。
这本书就是一本管理理论结合实际操作方法的书。Kim Scott 用其多年经验，告诉你实际的步骤，如何更好的处理。
如果你是老鸟，有可能可以从她学到如何更进一步；如果是新手，那么可能比较有帮助。
看书过程中摘选了一些个人认为有用的句子，记录如下：
ART I: A NEW MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY
1. BUILD RADICALLY CANDID RELATIONSHIPS:
ringing your whole self to work
There are few things more damaging to human relationships than a sense of superiority.
CARE PERSONALLY: THE FIRST DIMENSION OF RADICAL CANDOR
Caring personally is not about memorizing birthdays and names of family members. Nor is it about sharing the sordid details of one’s personal life, or forced chitchat at social events you’d rather not attend. Caring personally is about doing things you already know how to do. It’s about acknowledging that we are all people with lives and aspirations that extend beyond those related to our shared work. It’s about finding time for real conversations; about getting to know each other at a human level; about learning what’s important to people; about sharing with one another what makes us want to get out of bed in the morning and go to work—and what has the opposite effect.
CHALLENGE DIRECTLY: THE SECOND DIMENSION OF RADICAL CANDOR
Challenging others and encouraging them to challenge you helps build trusting relationships because it shows 1) you care enough to point out both the things that aren’t going well and those that are and that 2) you are willing to admit when you’re wrong and that you are committed to fixing mistakes that you or others have made. But because challenging often involves disagreeing or saying no, this approach embraces conflict rather than avoiding it.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell once remarked that being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.
2. GET, GIVE, AND ENCOURAGE GUIDANCE:
Creating a culture of open communication
Just remember that being a boss is a job, not a value judgment.
e as specific and thorough with praise as with criticism. Go deep into the details.
tart by getting feedback, in other words, not by dishing it out. Then when you do start giving it, start with praise, not criticism. When you move on to criticism, make sure you understand where the perilous border between Radical Candor and Obnoxious Aggression is.
tart by asking for criticism, not by giving it Don’t dish it out before you show you can take it
osses get Radically Candid guidance from their teams not merely by being open to criticism but by actively soliciting it. If a person is bold enough to criticize you, do not critique their criticism. If you see somebody criticizing a peer inappropriately, say something. But if somebody criticizes you inappropriately, your job is to listen with the intent to understand and then to reward the candor.
How do you criticize without discouraging the person？ First, ......, focus on your relationship. Also, ... ask for criticism before giving it, and offer more praise than criticism. Be humble, helpful, offer guidance in person and immediately, praise in public, criticize in private, and don’t personalize.
3. UNDERSTAND WHAT MOTIVATES EACH PERSON ON YOUR TEAM:
Helping people take a step in the direction of their dreams
When assessing a person’s past performance, it’s useful to consider both their results and more intangible things like “teamwork.”
your job is not to provide purpose but instead to get to know each of your direct reports well enough to understand how each one derives meaning from their work.
e a partner, not an absentee manager or a micromanager
One of the most common mistakes bosses make is to ignore the people who are doing the best work because “they don’t need me” or “I don’t want to micromanage.” Ignoring somebody is a terrible way to build a relationship.
Managers often devote more time to those who are struggling than to those who are succeeding. But that’s not fair to those who are succeeding—nor is it good for the team as a whole.
And seeing what truly exceptional performance looks like will help those who are failing to see more clearly what’s expected of them.
In addition to top ratings, a great way to recognize people in a rock star phase is to designate them as “gurus,” or “go-to” experts. Often this means putting them in charge of teaching newer team members, if they show the aptitude for it.
Is it time to fire her？ There’s no absolute answer to that question, but here are three questions to consider: have you given her Radically Candid guidance, do you understand the impact of Peggy’s performance on her colleagues, and have you sought advice from others？
--If the answer is yes and you have not seen improvement, or have seen only flickers of improvement, it’s time.
Make sure that you are seeing each person on your team with fresh eyes every day. People evolve, and so your relationships must evolve with them. Care personally; don’t put people in boxes and leave them there.
4. DRIVE RESULTS COLLABORATIVELY:
Telling people what to do doesn’t work
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
The process, which I call the “Get Stuff Done” (GSD) wheel, is relatively straightforward.
GSD wheel:
listen -> clarify -> debate -> decide -> persuade -> execute -> learn, and backforth
Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, once said at an Apple University class that a manager’s most important role is to “give the quiet ones a voice.” I love this. Google CEO Eric Schmidt took the opposite approach, urging people to “Be loud!”
You have to find a way to listen that fits your personal style, and then create a culture in which everyone listens to each other, so that all the burden of listening doesn’t fall on you.
ome people feel a quiet listener is not listening at all but instead setting a trap: waiting for others to say the wrong thing so they can pounce. If you’re a quiet listener, then, you need to take steps to reassure those made uncomfortable by your style.
It’s hard enough to get yourself to listen to your team members and let them know you are listening; getting them to listen to one another is even harder. The keys are 1) have a simple system for employees to use to generate ideas and voice complaints, 2) make sure that at least some of the issues raised are quickly addressed, and 3) regularly offer explanations as to why the other issues aren’t being addressed.
At Google, people constantly came to me with good ideas—more than I could handle, in fact—and it became overwhelming. So I organized an “ideas team” to consider them. For context, I circulated an article from Harvard Business Review (HBR) that explained how a culture that captures thousands of “small” innovations can create benefits for customers that are impossible for competitors to imitate. One big idea is pretty easy to copy, but thousands of tweaks are impossible to see from the outside, let alone imitate.
othing is a bigger time-sucker or blocker to getting it right than ego. On a broad level, this means intervening when you start to sense that people are thinking, “I’m going to win this argument,” or “my idea versus your idea,” or “my recommendation versus your recommendation,” or “my team feels…” Redirect them to focus on the facts; don’t allow people to attribute ownership to ideas, and don’t get hijacked by how others who aren’t in the room might (or might not) feel.
Another way to help people search for the best answer instead of seeking ego validation is to make them switch roles. If a person has been arguing for A, ask them to start arguing for B. If a debate is likely to go on for some time, warn people in advance that you’re going to ask them to switch roles. When people know that they will be asked to argue another person’s point, they will naturally listen more attentively.
One of the reasons that people find debate stressful or annoying is that often half the room expects a decision at the end of the meeting and the other half wants to keep arguing in a follow-up meeting. One way to avoid this tension is to separate debate meetings and decision meetings. Another way to ease the anxiety of the people who want to know when the decision will get made is to have a “decide by” date next to each item being debated.
I recommend setting up a weekly “big debate” meeting.
That is why kick-ass bosses often do not decide themselves, but rather create a clear decision-making process that empowers people closest to the facts to make as many decisions as possible. Not only does that result in better decisions, it results in better morale.
The decider should get facts, not recommendations
When collecting information for a decision, we are often tempted to ask people for their recommendations—“What do you think we should do？”—but as one executive I worked with at Apple explained to me, people tend to put their egos into recommendations in a way that can lead to politics, and thus worse decisions.
Even explaining the decision is not enough, because that addresses only the logic; you have to address your listener’s emotions as well. And you must establish that the decider, whether that’s you or somebody else on your team, has credibility if you expect others to execute on the decision.
ut even more democratic, open bosses often get so lost in explaining the rationale for a decision that they forget how people must feel about it, or vice versa.
Aristotle was troubled that so much rhetoric and persuasion came down to manipulating people’s emotions. He thought that there had to be a better way to get an idea across to a large number of people who don’t have the time or knowledge to understand it completely. He resolved this by explaining that to be legitimately persuasive a speaker must address the audience’s emotions but also establish the credibility and share the logic of the argument.
When Steve Jobs had an idea, he wouldn’t just describe the idea; he’d share how he got to it. He showed his work.
ut you need to learn to toggle between leading and executing personally. Don’t abandon the first for the second; integrate the two. If you get too far away from the work your team is doing, you won’t understand their ideas well enough to help them clarify, to participate in debates, to know which decisions to push them to make, to teach them to be more persuasive. The GSD wheel will grind to a halt if you don’t understand intimately the “stuff” your team is trying to get done.
It can take almost superhuman discipline to step back, acknowledge when our results could be a lot better or are simply no good, and learn from the experience.
ART II: TOOLS & TECHNIQUES
5. RELATIONSHIPS:
An approach to establishing trust with your direct reports
In life, I learned that too much emphasis on shareholder value actually destroys value, as well as morale. Instead, I learned to focus first on staying centered myself, so that I could build real relationships with each of the people who worked for me. Only when I was centered and my relationships were strong could I fulfill my responsibilities as a manager to guide my team to achieve the best results.
Hard times are made much harder when you’re not at your best. And they can make it particularly hard to “care personally” about the people you work with, not to mention those you live with.
The essence of leadership is not getting overwhelmed by circumstances.
It’s even more important to focus on making time for whatever keeps you centered when you are stressed and busy than when things are relatively calm.
You can guide your team to get results if you’ve built a trusting relationship with each person reporting to you, and there can only be real trust when people feel free at work. The first rule of building the kind of relationship with the people that will make them feel free at work is to relinquish unilateral authority.
uilding trust in any relationship takes time because trust is built on a consistent pattern of acting in good faith. It’s a big mistake to assume too much trust too quickly (e.g., by prying into deeply personal questions when you barely know a person). On the other hand, you do need to start somewhere.
robably the most important thing you can do to build trust is to spend a little time alone with each of your direct reports on a regular basis.
You don’t have to share the same deeply personal values to build good relationships at work; and it’s a terrible idea to try to convince your colleagues that your values are “right” and theirs are “wrong.” But you do need to respect other people’s values when they do share them with you.
A radically candid relationship starts with the basic respect and common decency that every human being owes each other, regardless of worldview. Once again, the work is the bond everybody on a team does share, and the most productive way to strengthen that bond is by learning how to work together in ways that benefit everyone involved.
If you have a truly terrible emotional upset in your life, stay home for a day. You don’t want to spread it around any more than you’d want to spread a bad virus around the office, and emotions are just as contagious as germs.
Emotional reactions can offer important clues to help you better understand what’s really going on with the people you manage.
o don’t respond to outbursts or sullen silences by pretending they are not happening. Don’t try to mitigate them by saying things like, “It’s not personal,” or “Let’s be professional.” Instead say, “I can see you’re mad/frustrated/elated/____”
When somebody is frustrated or angry or upset enough about a situation at work that they react emotionally, this is your cue to keep asking questions until you understand what the real issue is. Don’t over-direct the conversation; just keep listening and it will become clear.
UILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH your direct reports takes time and real energy. Sometimes, especially when things are not going well, this will be the most depleting part of your job. Remembering that it is central to your job will help. And if you can power through these times, you may find as I have that these relationships give your work meaning far beyond the results that you achieve together.
6. GUIDANCE:
Ideas for getting/giving/ encouraging praise & criticism
That’s why when you become the boss it’s important to work so hard to earn your team’s trust. You may be worried about earning their respect, and that’s natural. Unfortunately, though, being overly focused on respect can backfire because it’ll make you feel extra defensive when criticized. If, on the other hand, you can listen to the criticism and react well to it, both trust and respect will follow.
When you encourage people to criticize you publicly, you get the chance to show your team that you really, genuinely want the criticism.
When you’re the boss, it’s awkward to ask your direct reports to tell you frankly what they think of your performance—even more awkward for them than it is for you. To help, I adopted a go-to question that Fred Kofman, author of Conscious Business and my coach at Google, suggested. “Is there anything I could do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me？”
Most people will initially respond to your question with something along the lines of “Oh, everything is fine, thank you for asking,” and hope that’s the end of the conversation.
One technique is to count to six before saying anything else, forcing them to endure the silence. The goal is not to be a bully but to insist on a candid discussion—to make it harder for the person to say nothing than to tell you what they’re thinking.
...... developed a technique called “situation behavior impact” to help leaders be more precise and therefore less arrogant when giving feedback. This simple technique reminds you to describe three things when giving feedback: 1) the situation you saw, 2) the behavior (i.e., what the person did, either good or bad), and 3) the impact you observed. This helps you avoid making judgments about the person’s intelligence, common sense, innate goodness, or other personal attributes.
If you wait too long to give guidance, everything about it gets harder.
e sure to let people know immediately how their work is being received. If you ask somebody to do work to help you prepare for a meeting or a presentation where that person won’t be present, be sure to let them know the reaction to their work.
I found that praising people at a public all-hands meeting was a great way to share significant accomplishments. However, I often found that following up in person at a 1:1 carried more emotional weight, and following up with an email to the whole team carried more lasting weight.
When offering guidance to your boss, use the same tips above: be helpful, humble, do it immediately and in person, praise in public (if it doesn’t look like kissing up), criticize in private, and don’t personalize.
The ability to be Radically Candid with your boss is crucial to your success. One of the most difficult things about being a middle manager ... is that you often wind up responsible for executing decisions that you disagree with. This can feel like a Catch-22. If you tell your team you do agree with the decisions, you feel like a liar—or at the very least, inauthentic. If you tell your team that you don’t agree with the decisions, you look weak, insubordinate, or both.
Radical Candor is the way out of this dilemma.
Asking each of my direct reports to give me a performance review before I gave them one was helpful. The main advantage here was that it made the review feel more like a two-way conversation and less like an arrogant one-way judgment.
end half the time looking back (diagnosis), half the time looking forward (plan).
ONE OF THE most important ways to create an environment in which Radical Candor trumps political BS is to never let one person on your team talk to you about another behind their back.
ROXANE WALES, WHO worked first at NASA and then in Learning and Development at Google, once told me that one of the most important things any manager of managers could do to foster a culture of guidance was to have so-called “skip level meetings.”
ever have a skip level meeting without prior consent of your direct report. Instead, ask the managers who report to you to explain the whole thing to their teams beforehand. It’s vital that everyone understands that the meeting with you is in support of, not an attack on, their boss.
roject the notes you take during the meeting, and let people know that you will share them with the manager.
THE KEY TO success when implementing any of these suggestions is to return to core principles, rather than following step-by-step instructions....
Whenever you feel yourself getting lost in the weeds, simply return to these two questions: “Am I showing my team that I care personally？” and “Am I challenging each person directly？” If the answer to both questions is yes, you’re doing just fine.
7. TEAM:
Techniques for avoiding boredom and burnout
He taught every manager on his team to have a succession of three forty-five-minute conversations with each direct report over the course of three to six weeks.
Russ’s approach was so successful that an internal survey of employee satisfaction showed the people on his team displaying a marked increase in optimism about their futures at Google and their positive feelings about their managers. Nobody from HR had ever seen such an improvement.
Conversation one: life story
The second conversation: dreams
Russ suggests encouraging people to come up with three to five different dreams for the future. This allows employees to include the dream they think you want to hear as well as those that are far closer to their hearts.
The final part of Russ’s second conversation involves making sure that the person’s dreams are aligned with the values they have expressed.
Conversation three: eighteen-month plan
Helping people clarify values and dreams and then aligning them as closely as possible with their current work will invariably make your team stronger.
Too often, the people who have the most senior roles are given the highest ratings when in fact they are surfing on the productivity of the people working for them. Don’t let that happen!
In practice, most management teams respond in the reverse manner—a greater percentage of senior rather than junior people get put in the superstar box. If this happens, ask some hard questions and make sure there’s an identifiable, justifiable reason for it.
An example of a good prescreen is a skills assessment: ask potential candidates to do a project or solve a problem related to the job they’re applying for. This will weed out a number of candidates who look good on paper but can’t actually do the work. It will also give candidates who’d be great at the job but look bad on paper the opportunity to interview.
Four people is about the right size for an interview committee. Ideally, the interviewing committee is diverse....It’s also helpful if at least one of the interviewers is on another team. This prevents “desperation hiring.” When there’s a “hole” on a team, people become so eager to fill the position that they ignore warning signals. Somebody who isn’t feeling the pain of the hole on the team as acutely is more likely to point out these danger signs.
Casual interviews reveal more about team fit than formal ones.
Another good practice is to have people intentionally create more casual moments—take candidates to lunch, walk them to the car. Ask the receptionist and schedulers if they had any reaction to the candidate. In unguarded moments, candidates will do or say revealing things.
Make interviews productive by jotting down your thoughts right away. Write down your interview feedback; doing that is as clarifying for you as it is for the rest of the committee, and it will result in better hiring decisions.
The best advice I ever got for hiring somebody is this: if you’re not dying to hire somebody, don’t make an offer.
Firing people is hard, and it ought to be hard. But if you do three things, you can make it far, far easier on the person you are firing—as well as on yourself and your team.
Don’t wait too long
Don’t make the decision unilaterally
Give a damn
Follow up
Announcing promotions breeds unhealthy competition for the wrong things: documentation of status rather than development of skill.
Focus on the work the person is doing, not the status they’ve achieved in the company for doing it.
THERE ARE FEW pleasures greater than being part of a team where everyone loves their job and loves working together. You can build a team like that if you have career conversations with each of the people on your team, create growth-management plans for each person who works for you once a year, hire the right people, fire the appropriate people, promote the right people, and reward the people who are doing great work but who shouldn’t be promoted, and offer yourself as a partner to your direct reports.
8. RESULTS:
Things you can do to get stuff done together—faster
Whether you want a structured agenda or you prefer a more free-flowing meeting, the agenda itself should be directed by your direct report, not you. Your job is to hold people accountable when they come unprepared—or to decide that it’s fine to have an agenda-less 1:1 from time to time.
If you hear only good news, it’s a sign people don’t feel comfortable coming to you with their problems, or they think you won’t or can’t help. In these cases, you need to ask explicitly for the bad news. Don’t let the issue drop till you hear some.
An effective staff meeting has three goals: it reviews how things have gone the previous week, allows people to share important updates, and forces the team to clarify the most important decisions and debates for the coming week.
I have found that the most effective solution is simply to fight fire with fire. For the same reason, I blocked off think-time in calendar; I also found it necessary to block off time in my calendar to be alone and execute. I encouraged others to do the same. This helped them say “no” to more unnecessary meetings.
Awareness of these small problems can be useful in several ways.
First they’ll help you find the devil in the details.
econd, being aware of small problems and maybe even rolling up your sleeves and fixing them yourself is the best way to kill the “it’s not my job” or, worse, the “that’s beneath me” mentality on your team. If nothing is beneath your attention, then others will pay attention to details as well.
Third, when you show that you care about the small things that contribute to customer happiness or the quality of life on your team, suddenly everybody cares more about them, and some of the big things start working better, too.
“CULTURE EATS STRATEGY for lunch.” A team’s culture has an enormous impact on its results, and a leader’s personality has a huge impact on a team’s culture. Who you are as a human being impacts your team’s culture enormously.
When you become the boss, you are under the microscope. 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.
When you’re the boss and shit happens, it’s your responsibility to learn from it and make a change. If you don’t, you create a culture that doesn’t learn from its mistakes.
The most amazing thing about a culture is that once it’s strong, it’s self-replicating.
GETTING STARTED
ow it’s time to start putting the suggestions in this book into practice.
HARE YOUR STORIES
EXPLAIN RADICAL CANDOR to your team so they understand what you’re up to. You can also ask them to read the book, or show them videos that are on the Radical Candor website. But it’s best if you explain it in your own words.
ROVE YOU CAN TAKE IT BEFORE YOU START DISHING IT OUT
TART ASKING YOUR team to criticize you. ... And remember, don’t let people off the hook when they don’t say much—because they won’t, at first. Embrace the discomfort to move past it. Pay close attention if you aren’t getting any criticism.
oliciting guidance, especially criticism, is not something you do once and check off your list—this will now be something you do daily.
ow you’re ready to start having career conversations. Begin “career conversations” with your team. Start with people whom you’ve been working with for the longest.
Like getting criticism from your team, “career conversations” are not something you do once and check off the list. Remember, people change, and you need to change with them!
In parallel: perfect your 1:1 conversations.
ext. After you have explained Radical Candor, asked for guidance, had career conversations, and improved your 1:1 conversations, you’ll notice that you are earning your team’s trust and building a better culture. Now you’re ready to start improving the way you give impromptu praise and criticism. Remember, impromptu guidance happens best in one- to two-minute conversations.
Take a deep breath. Assess.
Don’t try to do more new things until you feel 1) you’ve made good progress on the fundamental building block of management: getting and giving guidance, 2) you’ve gotten to know your direct reports better, and 3) you’re happy with your 1:1s.
If the answer to these three questions is “yes,” you’re ready to perfect staff meetings, decisions, and debates for your team.
Return to guidance. Make sure you are encouraging guidance between people on your team. Establish a “no backstabbing” or require a “clean escalation” norm on your team.
Fight meeting proliferation. Make sure you’re not getting overscheduled. Think very consciously about what you are doing that you can stop doing. Put some think time in your calendar.
lan for the future of your team. Start doing a growth-management plan for each person on your team.
Return to guidance. Ask your team to start gauging each other’s guidance. There are more of them than there are of you, so anything you can do to get them to give one another more Radically Candid praise and criticism will reinforce a Radically Candid culture and provide you with more leverage than any amount of guidance you can give or get personally.
Walk around. ... Put aside some time each week to walk around and have informal spontaneous chats with people. If you have a feeling that things are still not going well, and that there’s a lot of skepticism on the team, go back to step one.
egin to take a more Radically Candid approach to the processes that your company may have in place. Be Radically Candid when hiring, firing, promoting (see chapter seven), as well as giving formal performance reviews (see chapter six).
Don’t get too bogged down in the details before plunging in, though, because it is the rewards of the process that will keep you energized and moving forward. Remember: once you build Radically Candid relationships with the people who report to you, you will eliminate a terrible source of misery in the world: the bad boss.