Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Kim Scott on How to Foster Honest Feedback and Build Trust | EP 542
Thu, 05 Dec 2024
In this episode of the Passion Struck podcast, John R. Miles sits down with bestselling author and workplace culture expert Kim Scott to explore the transformative power of honest feedback and trust in leadership. Drawing from her groundbreaking books Radical Candor and Radical Respect, Kim delves into the core principles that help leaders foster open communication and build high-trust teams.Link to the full show notes: https://passionstruck.com/kim-scott-foster-honest-feedback-and-build-trust/Call to Action: This episode is packed with valuable lessons on how leaders can model openness, encourage honest feedback, and build cultures rooted in respect and trust. Whether you're a seasoned manager or just starting your leadership journey, Kim’s wisdom offers actionable takeaways to elevate your workplace relationships and foster a more engaged and collaborative team.Sponsors: Mint Mobile: Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at “MINT MOBILE dot com slash PASSION.” Hims: Start your journey to regrowing hair with Hims. Visit hims.com/PASSIONSTRUCK for your free online visit. Quince: Discover luxury at affordable prices with Quince. Enjoy free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/PASSION. In this episode, you will learn: The four quadrants of communication—Radical Candor, Ruinous Empathy, Manipulative Insincerity, and Obnoxious Aggression—and how to navigate them effectively. Why "caring personally" and "challenging directly" are essential for fostering honest feedback and building trust. Practical strategies for addressing bias, prejudice, and bullying in the workplace. How to transition from Ruinous Empathy to Radical Candor to improve communication and relationships. The importance of creating psychological safety and encouraging open feedback in teams. Kim Scott’s actionable framework for becoming an "upstander" and addressing difficult situations with courage and clarity. The role of real-time interventions and shared vocabulary in promoting respectful communication. How leaders can balance empathy and directness to build stronger, more effective teams. Connect with Kim Scott: https://kimmalonescott.com/For more information on advertisers and promo codes, visit Passion Struck Deals.Join the Passion Struck Community! Sign up for the Live Intentionally newsletter, where I share exclusive content, actionable advice, and insights to help you ignite your purpose and live your most intentional life. Get access to practical exercises, inspiring stories, and tools designed to help you grow. Learn more and sign up here.Speaking Engagements & Workshops Are you looking to inspire your team, organization, or audience to take intentional action in their lives and careers? I’m available for keynote speaking, workshops, and leadership training on topics such as intentional living, resilience, leadership, and personal growth. Let’s work together to create transformational change. Learn more at johnrmiles.com/speaking.Episode Starter Packs With over 500 episodes, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. We’ve curated Episode Starter Packs based on key themes like leadership, mental health, and personal growth, making it easier for you to dive into the topics you care about. Check them out at passionstruck.com/starterpacks.Catch More of Passion Struck: My solo episode on The Science of Healthy Habits My episode with Rob Kalwarowsky on the Secrets to Conquering Bad Bosses Can’t miss my episode with Alison Fragale on Master the Science of Status for Success Watch my episode with David S. Yeager on the Science of Inspiring Young Minds If you liked the show, please leave us a review—it only takes a moment and helps us reach more people! Don’t forget to include your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally.How to Connect with John:Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMiles and on Instagram at @John_R_Miles. Subscribe to our main YouTube Channel here and to our YouTube Clips Channel here. For more insights and resources, visit John’s website.Want to explore where you stand on the path to becoming Passion Struck? Take our 20-question quiz on Passionstruck.com and find out today!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the main focus of Kim Scott's work?
Chapter 2: How can leaders disrupt bias in the workplace?
If we ignore these comments, then we reflect and reinforce them.
Welcome to passion struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.
If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hey, PassionStruck fam, welcome back to episode 542 of the PassionStruck podcast.
I'm your host, John Miles, and I am so grateful for your continued energy, passion, and commitment to living a more intentional life. Week after week, you show up ready to elevate yourselves, and that's what makes this community so powerful. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome to the PassionStruck family.
You've just joined a global community focused on igniting purpose and living boldly with intention. And we're thrilled to have you with us. Before we dive into today's episode, let's take a moment to recap my conversation from earlier this week.
On Tuesday, we were joined by Cody Sanchez, author of Main Street Millionaire, who challenged us to rethink wealth creation through her innovative approach to investing in sweaty and boring businesses. Cody shared actionable strategies for building financial freedom by acquiring established cash-flowing businesses.
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Chapter 3: What is Radical Candor and why is it important?
I first read this book, which we're going to talk about, Radical Candor, during my time as I was transitioning from Lowe's to Dell. And the wisdom, especially when I was in the Dell environment, was truly transformational for me. And then more recently, I picked up an audiobook of Radical Respect, so I can't show it, unfortunately, for those who are watching. But to kick things off, there it is.
You've got it. Can you share with us the journey that took you from writing Radical Candor to Radical Respect? What inspired you to build on that earlier work?
sure in many ways radical respect is a prequel to radical candor radical candor is all about feedback and caring personally and challenging directly and if you write a book about feedback you're going to get a lot of it and indeed i did and some of the best feedback i got came when i was at a tech company in san francisco giving a radical candor talk
And I was really excited to do this talk because the CEO of that company had been a colleague of mine for the better part of a decade. She's a person I like and respect enormously. And when I finished giving the radical candor talk, she pulled me aside and she said, Kim, I'm excited to roll out Radical Candor.
I think it's going to help me build the kind of innovative culture that I need in order to succeed. But I got to tell you, it's much harder for me to roll it out than it is for you. And she went on to explain to me that as soon as she would offer people even the most compassionate, gentle criticism, they would call her an angry black woman. And as soon as she said it, I knew it was true.
And I knew how unfair it was because she's one of the most even-keeled, cheerful people I've ever worked with. And as soon as she said this to me, I had four different realizations at the same time. And these actually became the four chapters of the book. The first thing that I realized was that I had not been the kind of colleague that I imagined myself to be. I had not been an upstander.
Instead, I had been a silent bystander, which is not who I want to be, not how I imagined myself to be. But I had never taken into account the toll that it must take on her to have to show up unfailingly cheerful and pleasant and And every meeting we had ever been in together, even though she had what to be pissed off about at work, as we all do. And so that was realization number one.
I wanted to think about how I could be a better upstander in the future. The second thing that I realized was that not only had I been in denial about what was happening to her, I'd also been in denial about about what was happening to me in the workplace.
Hard for the author of a book called Radical Candor to admit, but I was pretending that a whole host of disrespectful attitudes and behaviors were not happening to me that were actually happening. And by being in denial that way, I was not able to choose a response. I defaulted to silence.
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Chapter 4: What mistakes do leaders often make in feedback?
He was smart. He was charming. He was funny. His name was not really Bob, by the way, but, and he would do things like we were at a manager offsite and we were playing one of those endless get to know you games. And everybody was getting more and more stressed out. It was a software startup. There was what to be stressed out about.
And Bob was the guy who had the courage to raise his hand and to say, I can tell everyone wants to get back to work. I've got an idea. It'll be really fast.
Chapter 5: How can leaders balance empathy and directness?
whatever his idea was if it was fast we were down with it and then bob says let's just go around the table and confess what candy our parents used when potty training us really weird but really fast weirder yet we all remembered hershey kisses right here and then for the next 10 months every time there was a tense moment in a meeting bob would pull out just the right piece of candy for the right person at the right moment so
Bob brought a little bit of levity to the office. Quirky, but funny. Everybody loved working with Bob. There was one problem with Bob. He was doing terrible work. He would hand stuff in, super creative, but filled with messy mistakes, sloppy mistakes, careless mistakes. And I would say something to him along the lines of, oh, Bob, this is a great start. You're so smart. You're so awesome.
We all love working with you. Maybe you can make it just a little bit better, which of course he never did. So let's pause. Why did I say that to Bob? Part of it was truly ruinous empathy. I really did love Bob and I really did not wanna hurt his feelings. But if I'm honest with myself, there was something more insidious going on because Bob was popular and Bob was sensitive.
And there was part of me that was afraid that if I told Bob in no uncertain terms that his work wasn't nearly good enough, he would get upset. He might even start to cry. And then everyone would think I was a big, you know what? The part of me that was worried about my reputation as a leader, that was the manipulative insincerity part.
The part of me that was truly worried about Bob and his feelings, that was the ruinous empathy part. And this went on for 10 months and eventually the inevitable happened. And I realized that if I didn't fire Bob, I was going to lose all my best performers. Because not only have I been unfair to Bob not to tell him what he was doing wrong, I've been unfair to the whole team.
And everyone is frustrated. Their deliverables are late because Bob's deliverables are late. They're not able to spend as much time as they need to on their work because they're having to spend so much time redoing Bob's work and correcting his mistakes. And the people who are best at the job, they were going to quit. They were going to leave.
They were going to go work somewhere where they could do the best work of their lives. And so I decided it was time, past time, for me to sit down and have a conversation with Bob that I should have begun, frankly, 10 months previously. And when I finished explaining to him where things stood, he pushed his chair back from the table.
He looked me right in the eye and he said, why didn't you tell me? And as that question was going around in my head with no good answer, he looked at me again and he said, why didn't anyone tell me? I thought you all cared about me. And now I realized that by not having this conversation with Bob sooner, thinking I was being so nice, I'm having to fire him as a result of it. Not so nice after all.
But it was too late to save Bob because at this point, even he agreed he should go. His reputation on the team was just shot. All I could do in the moment was make myself a very solemn promise that I would never, make that mistake again, and that I would do everything in my power to help other people avoid making that mistake. Because it was so painful. It was painful for me.
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Chapter 6: What are the differences between bias, prejudice, and bullying?
And I think it's really important to work with people.
I absolutely agree. And Kim, To wrap up today, what is one practical step anyone who's listening can do to start implementing and creating a culture of radical candor and respect?
I think the most important thing that we can do as leaders is to get on a level playing field and build real human relationships with each of our direct reports.
So the one thing, practical tactical thing I'm going to leave folks with is make sure that you are soliciting feedback every single time you have a one-on-one with each of your employees and have a one-on-one once a week with each of your employees. Spend that time with them. And there's four things to remember when you solicit feedback. Okay. Because if you say, do you have any feedback for me?
You're wasting your breath. Oh, no, everything's fine. So think about the question that you're going to ask. I like to ask, what could I do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me? But don't write down my question. Because if you sound like Kim Scott and not like yourself, then people won't believe you really want the answer.
I was working with Krista Quarles when she was CEO of OpenTable. And she said, I could never imagine your words coming out of my mouth, Kim. The question I like to ask is, tell me why I'm wrong. OK, that's fine. Ask it in a way that feels authentic to you. So that's number one is be authentic. Number two is remember that authenticity does not mean ignoring the impact you're having on others.
So there were some people on Krista's team who found her question too aggressive. So she had to soften it for a couple of people in order to get an answer. Number three, remember that your question shouldn't be answered with a yes or a no. So don't say, is there anything I could do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me?
But what could I do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me? So if everybody can write down their question, whom they're going to ask it of and when they're going to ask it, our time today will be extremely well spent.
Well, thank you for sharing that. And I think I'll leave everyone with a good story that I had from my time at Lowe's. One of the most respected people in the entire company was a gentleman named Larry Stone. Larry, by the time I was working with him, had been in the company for 39 years.
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Chapter 7: How can leaders create a culture of respect?
So we'd love to hear from folks about radical candor and radical respect. I also want to say we're recording this on Veterans Day. So I want to thank you and all the veterans of our country for their service.
Thank you so much. And I really appreciate that. And all the veterans who tune into the show on a regular basis, thank you so much for your service as well. Well, Kim, such an honor to have you on the show. Thank you again so much for joining us.
Such an honor to chat. Really love the conversation. Thank you.
Wow, what an insightful conversation that was with Kim Scott. From mastering the balance of care and candor to understanding how respect can transform workplace culture, today's discussion has been a true masterclass in intentional leadership.
Kim's approach to addressing obstacles like bias, prejudice, and bullying is both powerful and practical, reminding us that it's within each of our control to create environments where everyone feels valued.
As we wrap up, I encourage you to think about what you can do to bring more radical candor and radical respect into your life, whether it's offering clear feedback with empathy or stepping up as an upstander when you see disrespect. Remember, it's these intentional actions that build stronger relationships and healthier cultures, not just at work, but in all areas of life.
If Kim's message resonated with you, please leave us a five-star rating and review. Your support helps keep bringing these impactful conversations to the PassionStruck community. And if you know someone who could benefit from Kim's insights, please share this episode with them. A single conversation can be the spark for meaningful change.
You can find links to everything discussed today, including Kim's books, Radical Candor and Radical Respect in the show notes at passionstruck.com. The video version is available on YouTube. And don't forget to check out our sponsors and deals at passionstruck.com slash deals. Supporting those who support the show keeps us going strong.
Before we close, I want to remind you that I'm passionate about sharing these insights with organizations and teams through speaking engagements. If today's episode resonates with you and you think my message can inspire your company, head over to johnrmiles.com slash speaking to learn more. Let's work together to create intentional change and ignite growth.
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