A Secret to Having Hard Conversations Without Destroying Morale

Welcome to part four of our series on enriching work life using the Four Tendencies and Radical Candor. This week, guest writer Kim Scott shares her insights. For more from Kim, subscribe to her Radical Respect LinkedIn Newsletter.

What Is Radical Candor?

Radical Candor describes the kind of communication in which people “Care Personally” and “Challenge Directly” at the same time when they have disagreements or concerns.?

When you can put this idea into practice, it will help you do the best work of your life and build the best relationships of your career. It will help you at home too. Radical Candor is even more important in your personal relationships than it is at work.?

Caring and challenging seem pretty basic. Why, then, is this kind of communication so rare that we call it radical??

To understand, let’s look first at the “Care Personally” or the “give a damn” dimension of Radical Candor. Very few people think, “I don’t care about this other person, so I’m going to be a great employee or colleague or boss.” What, then, moves us the wrong way??

The problem here begins when we are 18 or 19 years old. We are at that moment in our lives when our ego is most fragile and our persona is beginning to solidify. We get our first job and someone tells us to “be professional.”?

Too often, it seems like that is an exhortation to leave our emotions, who we really are, and even our humanity–everything that is best and most unique about us–at home and show up at work like some kind of robot. You can’t possibly “Care Personally” if you’re showing up like a robot. So you’ve got to find a way to build real, human relationships at work. There is a lot of evidence that shows when there are a few people who you trust at work, you are happier and more successful.?

At the very least, we owe common human decency to the people we work with. And when we are really lucky we love at least a few of the people who we work with. The relationships we form at work unleash our potential to do the best work of our lives.

Love is Not All You Need

However, unfortunately, love is not all you need. You also need the “Challenge Directly” dimension of Radical Candor, which I sometimes think of as the “willing to piss people off” dimension of Radical Candor.?

The problem here begins when we are 18 months old, and a parent says to us, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all!” Now, congratulations, you’re at work and it is your job to say it. And if you care about your colleagues, it’s also your obligation to them to say it.

This is really hard. One of the things that makes it a little bit easier is to give names to what happens when we fail on one dimension or another–which we are all bound to do from time to time.

Obnoxious Aggression

One mistake that people often make about Radical Candor is to think it gives them license to act like a jerk. That is not Radical Candor, it’s Obnoxious Aggression! That’s what happens when we remember to “Challenge Directly” but we forget to show that we “Care Personally.” That hurts the other person unnecessarily.?

It’s also inefficient. If I am a jerk to someone, they are likely to go into flight or fight mode, and then they literally cannot hear what I am saying, so I’m wasting my breath.?

Manipulative Insincerity

Another problem with Obnoxious Aggression I’ve found is that my instincts for what to do when I’ve acted like a jerk are all wrong. Instead of going the right way on “Care Personally,” I go the wrong way on “Challenge Directly.” That’s the hero’s journey to the worst place of all: Manipulative Insincerity. This is what happens when we neither care nor challenge. If Obnoxious Aggression is front-stabbing, Manipulative Insincerity is backstabbing. It’s where passive-aggressive, political behavior creeps in.?

It’s fun to tell stories about Obnoxious Aggression and Manipulative Insincerity because these behaviors create drama. However, they are not the most common mistake that most people make most of the time.

Ruinous Empathy

By far the most common mistake, though, is Ruinous Empathy. This is what happens when we do show that we Care Personally, but we are so worried about not hurting someone’s feelings or offending them that we fail to tell them something they’d be better off knowing in the long run.

Putting Radical Candor Into Practice

When you’re faced with telling a person something that might be hard for them to hear, the Radical Candor framework can help you think it through—to ensure you’re communicating in a way that shows you care enough to be really clear when giving them feedback.?

I once had a colleague I’ll call Bob. Despite having a stellar resume, Bob was doing terrible work. Instead of letting Bob know his work wasn’t good enough, I acted from a place of Ruinous Empathy. When he showed his work to us, there was shame in his eyes.

Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I’d say something along the lines of, “Bob, you are so awesome. We all love working with you. This is a great start, but maybe you could make it a little bit better?” Which he never did because I hadn’t made it clear that he had to. My praise was not specific or insincere. My criticism was not kind in the long run, and never clear.

Because I didn’t want to hurt Bob’s feelings and because I wanted to be “nice,” I inadvertently set him up to fail–not so nice after all. That was the ruinous empathy part. If I’m honest though, there was a bit of Manipulative Insincerity in my response as well. Bob was popular and sensitive.

I was afraid if I told him in no uncertain terms that his work wasn’t good enough he might start to cry and then everyone would think I was a big you know what. My worry about my reputation–my desire to be liked–resulted in Manipulative Insincerity. My worry about not hurting Bob’s feelings resulted in ruinous empathy.

Here’s a summary of how to and how not to tell Bob he’s making too many sloppy mistakes.

Acting from a place of Radical Candor builds trust. When people know you’re not going to talk about them behind their backs, blow up at them, or fail to tell them something they’d be better off knowing in order to spare their feelings, your relationship improves—and so does their work.

Next Steps

Here is my proposed September resolution for you: just say it–with love! Because, at its core, Radical Candor is Compassionate Candor. It engages the heart (Care Personally) and the mind (Challenge Directly). What makes it radical is that it’s rare.

Further Resources

• For a limited time, Work Happier readers get 10% off the new Radical Candor workplace comedy digital course. Learn to build trusting relationships and have candid conversations through improv exercises with Kim Scott and David Alan Grier.
• Want to go deeper? Check out the replay of our recent virtual workshop on Applying the Four Tendencies at Work. It sparked a lively discussion on how to collaborate and motivate different personality types. So many insightful audience questions too!