The need to normalize Radical Candor
Life is too short to build products that consumers don’t love, at a company where everyone dreads Monday morning.
?That is why two things are critical for an enjoyable work journey:
?Unfortunately, far too often I find that people are nowhere close to enjoying their journey.
?In fact, throughout my career, former colleagues and clients have approached me for advice on how to deal with interpersonal and cultural health issues that are draining the environment of enjoyment.
?Along the way I have chronicled these behaviors and cultural impacts.
Sometimes I have luck in offering corrective actions; steps that allow them to better handle the behavior of others and provide a more stable work environment. Minimally allowing them to recognize the humanity in someone's behavior, right or wrong, and provide a mechanism of how to cope with such behaviors.
Sometimes I have the opportunity to assist the person who actually exhibits the unproductive behavior and help them understand the impact of their actions, bringing their behavior into harmony with their intentions.
Most often we villainize people with negative behaviors, when people are simply unaware of how their actions are perceived and impact others.
In other cases, where I cannot help offending person correct the root toxic behavior, I have found that just being able to verbalize the struggles and validate that the impacted parties are not crazy, helps insulate the impact of external chaos from effecting inner peace.
In all cases I have found that we don't openly talk about negative behaviors and their impact on team unity.
There are plenty of people out there talking about how to embrace positive behaviors. Yet many people that I have worked with believe that they are effectively following that playbook, and yet they fail to recognize the negative behaviors they are exhibiting - even though it is clear to everyone around them.
This is because we infrequently see our limitations, or mistakenly believe that these weaknesses are actually our strengths. We are simply too close to the problem to be able to see it with clarity. Frankly, the pace of life is too fast for routinely reflecting on the effectiveness of our behaviors.
When we lack examples of bad leadership or poor partnership behaviors, we are prevented from comparing and contrasting our behaviors to see what could be done differently.
This is true for everyone.
Early in my career I was blindsided by an explosive response to a negative behavior that I unaware I was exhibiting. I myself was villainized when I simply didn't recognize how it was impacting my teammates and how it was detracting from my desired team spirit.
In hindsight of course it was clear.?
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Unfortunately, as is common with everyone that I talk with, we rarely hear about theses irritations until they have turned into deal breakers for the other party. If transparency was shared earlier, the situations could be resolved before they turned explosive or crossed the point of no return.
In my case, it was a turning point for me to recognize the need to develop my EQ to self-monitor my behavior. In fact, it was an event that set me on a path for trying to help others along the same journey.
A journey that must start by normalizing radical candor.
Recognizing radical candor as a gift that we give to others to help them reach their potential and live more fulfilling lives.
We need to recognize that by helping someone become aware of their negative behaviors, we are presenting them with a door that have not discovered on their own.
?A door that will unlock a new level of performance that they may not even know they desire.
?We need to help them recognize that these behaviors are not who they are. The behaviors are just characters that we may be playing.
?It is the journey of recognizing behavior characters that no longer serve them, and helping them push through the door to embrace new, positive behaviors.
?It may sound scary to some, but I promise that they will recognize it as a gift. It may not be a gift that they appreciated in the moment, but one that they will ultimately cherish. If they do not, you can rest assured that your generosity was well intentioned.?
To help set the tone here, I am going to share 52 weekly episodes in '23 from the Chronicles of Chaos to illuminate the villainous roles that are often played.
If you recognize your behaviors in these villains then I hope this gives you a healthy dose of radical candor that you need to unlock the door to your next level of performance.
If you recognize the behaviors in these villains with a team member, I hope you find a way to use this as a way to relay the radical candor. Even a laughing emoji response to a LinkedIn post may be enough to pass along the message to your colleague in need.
If you want to take it one step further, pair up with a peer to have a 15-minute discussion on the weekly chronicle to help get some perspective, and have a little fun with it at the same time.
Each edition is squarely aimed at having fun while expressing radical candor.
I hope you will join me in sharing these weekly gifts and let me know if there is anything that I can do to help you.
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