The Blog: Radical Reading

Read stories and advice to help you bring Radical Candor to life.
Improv Radical Candor

How to Make Learning to Have Effective Feedback Conversations Fun

Every once in a while, if you’re lucky, you get to work on something that is so fun you can’t believe it’s work. For me, collaborating with my team and the folks at Second City Works to create a workplace comedy series, The Feedback Loop, was one of those experiences. Not only was it fun for me, it will make feedback conversations fun for everyone. Since Radical Candor was published, my team and I have been working hard to figure out the best…

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Emotional Labor

Acknowledging the Intense Emotional Labor of Being the Boss

The story below is from a time in my career 20 years ago, long before we were in the grips of the current global Covid-19 pandemic. I’m sharing it now because I thought it might help managers who are struggling with the emotional labor of being the boss. I described this story in the section of Radical Candor about why caring personally about each employee is central to your job as a leader. That is more true now than ever…

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Radical Candor

Gender & Radical Candor: Why Gender Politics & Fear of Tears Makes Radical Candor Harder for Men

I had such an interesting talk with the folks at First Round Capital about gender bias and Radical Candor. Read the full article, or check out these highlights: I was recently talking to a physics professor whose student didn’t know the quadratic equation. (I don’t remember it from high school algebra either, but I’m not majoring in physics.) Stunned, and wondering how she’d gotten this far with such a gaping hole in her knowledge, he told her she needed to…

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The Feedback Loop

Welcome to “The Feedback Loop,” a Laugh-and-Learn Workplace Comedy Series

Let’s face it, giving and receiving meaningful feedback is hard. But learning how to do it by applying the principles of Radical Candor — Care Personally and Challenge Directly — doesn’t have to be a bore or a chore. Welcome to The Feedback Loop, a laugh-and-learn comedic adventure following two fearless leaders stuck in a cycle of communication chaos (think Groundhog Day meets The Office). After unsuccessfully trying to escape their office building, the pair realize the only way to…

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Give Immediate Feedback Because Feedback Has a Short Half Life

Radically Candid praise and criticism is immediate. You'll remember the specifics much better when you point something out right away, so you’ll be more clear with your feedback. You’ll also be more kind (and results oriented) because you’ll give the person the opportunity to repeat the good or fix the bad faster. Continuing our tips and techniques for the HIP Approach, here are some reminders and practical suggestions for giving immediate feedback. Feedback has a short half life Remember, the…

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Radical Candor: Be A Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

Radical Candor Book Club Discussion Questions: A Complete Guide

A great way to practice the principles of Radical Candor is by starting a virtual book club. We’ve put together this list of Radical Candor book club questions to get you started with the discussions for each chapter. In addition, this guide to rolling out Radical Candor can help you bring the concepts to your team. There are tons of tools to help you create your virtual book club. If you want to use one platform to manage everything, head…

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Micromanager

Micromanager, Absentee Manager or Thought Partner — Which One Are You?

We call managers who have low, almost non-existent involvement in their team’s work absentee managers. Those with extremely (maybe excruciatingly) close involvement are micromanagers. And in between those are the thought partners, the ones who empower, enable and encourage their teams to do the best work of their lives. How can you determine where you fall on this spectrum so you can learn how to move in the right direction instead of being a micromanager or an absentee manager? To help you figure out when you’re…

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Radical Candor With Strangers

How to Practice Radical Candor With Strangers

"I can see how Radical Candor works when I already have a relationship... but what about with people I barely know. Isn’t it too risky?" Our Radical Candor coaches get this question fairly often, and I won’t pretend it isn’t risky to offer feedback to a complete stranger. It is. But not being Radically Candid is also risky. And the rewards of being Radically Candid for you and for the other person can be enormous. In fact, the idea of…

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Challenging Conversations

The Biggest Reason We Run from Challenging Conversations

In order to build Radically Candid relationships, it's important that you don't try to prevent, control or manage other people’s emotions. Instead, acknowledge the emotions, react compassionately and try to master your reactions to other people’s emotions versus the emotions themselves. This is especially important when you're engaging in challenging conversations. In this guest blog post, Radical Candor Coach Farrah Mitra explains why challenging conversations are difficult and how caring personally and challenging directly can help you master them by…

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Brutal Honesty And Radical Candor

Brutal Honesty and Radical Candor: 6 Ways You’re Getting Radical Candor Wrong and 5 Ways to Get It Right

We have learned something really important from the way that the press sometimes covers Radical Candor. And we want your advice on how to communicate this idea more clearly. We want to learn to describe Radical Candor in a way that is not open to misinterpretation: too often press articles assert that Radical Candor is the same thing as brutal honesty, as front-stabbing, or that it is some sort of license to be a jerk. It is none of those…

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