Radical Candor – Book Summary

NEW Book Summary – Radical Candor by Kim Scott: Be a kick-ass boss without losing your humanity

Why did I choose to read this book?

In management and working with people, I think we all fall somewhere in the spectrum of one side being blunt/aggressive, and the other end is being empathetic/too nice. My natural tendency is to be on the “too nice” side, and looking back I felt at times I compromised a solution or some much needed feedback to a person because I didn’t know exactly how to convey the message without “hurting” the person.

I was wrong. And I knew I was wrong.

It’s brutally hard to tell people when they are screwing up. We also learned early on that “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Why this is not good advice?

It’s bad for the poor performer: That person is being deceived into believing they are doing a good job. They’ll continue the same way and not improve

It’s bad for you: For every subpar work you accept, for every missed deadline you let slip, you begin to feel resentment and then anger. Then you’ll think the person is bad.

It’s bad for your team: they will wonder why you accept such poor work, and then they begin to wonder if you know the difference between great and mediocre

Radical Candor is the sweet spot between managers who are obnoxiously aggressive on one side and ruinously empathetic on the other. It’s about providing guidance, which involves a mix of praise as well as criticism – delivered to produce better results and help employees achieve.