Radical Candor: Fully Revised & Updated Edition

Because I had already dismissed Ned as an asshole, and therefore deemed him not worth talking to. So I was making the fundamental attribution error, and my behavior was “manipulatively insincere.”

there’s a special place in hell for those who “kick down and kiss up.”

MANIPULATIVELY INSINCERE GUIDANCE happens when you don’t care enough about a person to challenge directly.

People give praise and criticism that is manipulatively insincere when they are too focused on being liked or think they can gain some sort of political advantage by being fake—or when they are just too tired to care or argue any more.

When Steve Jobs asked Jony why he hadn’t been more clear about what was wrong, Jony replied, “Because I care about the team.” To which Steve replied, “No, Jony, you’re just really vain. You just want people to like you.”

When you are overly worried about how people will perceive you, you’re less willing to say what needs to be said.

you may feel it’s because you care about the team, but really, in those all-too-human moments you may care too much about how they feel about you—in other words, about yourself.

THERE’S A RUSSIAN anecdote about a guy who has to amputate his dog’s tail but loves him so much that he cuts it off an inch each day, rather than all at once. His desire to spare the dog pain and suffering only leads to more pain and suffering.

THERE’S A RUSSIAN anecdote about a guy who has to amputate his dog’s tail but loves him so much that he cuts it off an inch each day, rather than all at once. His desire to spare the dog pain and suffering only leads to more pain and suffering. Don’t allow yourself to become that kind of boss!

They create the kind of work environment where “being nice” is prioritized at the expense of critiquing, and therefore, improving actual performance.

Toyota’s leaders painted a big red square on the assembly line floor. New employees had to stand in it at the end of their first week, and they were not allowed to leave until they had criticized at least three things on the line. The continual improvement this practice spawned was part of Toyota’s success.

The most important thing I think you can do for somebody who’s really good and who’s really being counted on is to point out to them when they’re not—when their work isn’t good enough. And to do it very clearly and to articulate why … and to get them back on track.

for criticism to be effective, it’s crucial “to do it very clearly and to articulate why … and to get them back on track.”

I have always found it enormously difficult to reassure people that I have confidence in their abilities while simultaneously making it clear that I think the work is not good enough. Being extremely clear about the quality of the work can sometimes feel like you’re just being mean.

When putting the right people in the right roles on your team, you’ll also have to challenge people even more directly than you did with guidance—and in a way that will impact not just their feelings but also their income, their career growth, and their ability to get what they want out of life. Building a team is hard.

To keep a team cohesive, you need both rock stars and superstars,

for too long I believed that pushing everybody to grow super-fast was simply “best practice” for building a high-performing team.

we encouraged managers to ask themselves questions like, “What growth trajectory does each person on my team want to be on right now?” or “Have I given everybody opportunities that are in line with what they really want?” or “What growth trajectory do my direct reports believe they are on? Do I agree? And if I don’t, why don’t I?” Sometimes people really want to grow and are capable of contributing more than they have been allowed to; at other times, they simply want more money or recognition but don’t really want to change the way they work or contribute any more than they do already.

This set of questions around growth trajectory can help you discover what motivates each person much better than a set of questions around “potential” or “talent” could. And the insights it produces will help you avoid burning out the rock stars and boring the superstars. These questions will help remind you that trajectories change and that you shouldn’t put permanent labels on people. They will help you build stable teams that achieve astounding results. Scott was right. Words matter. GROWTH MANAGEMENT It’s getting better all the time SHIFTING FROM A traditional “talent management” mind-set to one of “growth management” will help you make sure everyone on your team is moving in the direction of their dreams, ensuring that your team collectively improves over time. Creativity flourishes, efficiency improves, people enjoy working together. You can use this “growth management” framework to clarify your thinking about how to manage the two different types of high performers—those on a steep growth trajectory and those on a more gradual growth trajectory—differently. It will remind you to help people conduct their careers in the way they desire, not in the way you think they should want to. You can also use it to remember to push everyone on a team toward excellent performance, as well as to figure out whom to hire, whom to fire, and when a person’s poor performance might just be the boss’s (your) fault.

This set of questions around growth trajectory can help you discover what motivates each person much better than a set of questions around “potential” or “talent” could. And the insights it produces will help you avoid burning out the rock stars and boring the superstars.