Kim Scott

It's a virtuous cycle, radical candor.

And the reason why it works

is that we, both of us, believe that the floor on the care personally dimension of radical candor is respect.

Respect is something we owe to everyone.

And when we can show respect and common human decency, we actually wind up loving the people who we work with.

Not in the HR disaster sense of the word that we read so much about today, but in the true sense of collegiality.

So to understand how to do this, I want to explain to you the radical candor order of operations, going back to this Alex story.

I failed pretty much on all dimensions with Alex.

I failed to solicit feedback.

Radical candor, no matter who you are, should always start with soliciting feedback.

Don't dish it out before you prove you can take it.

But I didn't do that with Alex, so let's give me a report card.

I failed to solicit praise and I failed to ask Alex what I could do or stop doing that might make it easier for him to work with me.

Maybe, just maybe, I was doing something that was frustrating Alex so much he was forced to toke up in the bathroom three times a day.

I don't know, because I never asked him, right?

So solicit feedback.

You also need to give praise.

The kind of praise I gave to Alex was really just a head fake, and you need to tell people when their work isn't nearly good enough.

Because I failed to do that, I couldn't possibly gauge how my feedback was landing.

So I'm gonna give myself an incomplete there.