Radical Candor is Growing Because Relationships May Not Scale, But Culture Does

What started as an epiphany after receiving candid advice from a stranger (“it’s not mean, it’s clear”) has not only become a bestselling book – Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity – it’s also blossomed into a company dedicated to bringing Radical Candor to teams around the world. Over the past year, we’ve seen a huge appetite for the management philosophy and its practices, and as a result, Radical Candor the company is growing.

While almost all the problems we’ve seen companies encounter are covered in the book, and in suggestions for Rolling Out Radical Candor, there are limitations to how much people can put the Radical Candor framework into practice from a book. Because, let’s face it, some things are still better explained by a real live human being. This is why we believe that the best way to spend our time is focusing on supporting people and teams who want to transform their work by developing a culture of Radical Candor.

To put this into practice, Jason Rosoff – former chief people officer and chief product officer at Khan Academy – joined me in 2017 to co-found Radical Candor, LLC., a training and development company based on the Radical Candor management principles.

Previously, working in partnership with The Gates Foundation and Google, Jason helped Khan Academy improve educational outcomes for over 100 million students and teachers worldwide. Prior to that, Jason was a product leader at Fog Creek where he helped build the teams that created StackOverflow and Trello. Early in his career, Jason led engineering operations at a white-label producer of photo books for Apple.

Jason is the yin to my yang, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have him as a partner on this journey.”

Because Jason and I want to help managers be kick-ass bosses instead of having employees who want to kick their asses, we began building a team. Working with our Candor Coaches – management and leadership experts who share our passion for bringing Radical Candor to life – we spend most of our time delivering talks and workshops to teams around the world, helping them develop a culture of Radical Candor.

As the Radical Candor, LLC., CEO, Jason’s ability to focus on growing our business allows me to do what I love most – write.  I’m working on my next book, exploring how the principles of Radical Candor can be applied to gender dynamics in the workplace.

To help the spread the message of Radical Candor, Amy Sandler has joined the team as chief marketing officer and globetrotting Candor Coach. After business school, while most of us were getting jobs  in something called “the internet,” Amy moved to Los Angeles and got an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA while also continuing to deepen her practice of yoga and meditation.

As a speaker and coach, Amy helps leaders and teams align their purpose and optimize performance through mindfulness and resilience-training. As one of the first certified teachers of the Search Inside Yourself program developed at Google, she really knows her stuff. And after a career leading marketing teams at organizations like YPO, Vistage and UCLA, Amy has now come full circle, bringing Radical Candor to companies like Facebook, Uber, and Google. I am so excited to have her on the team! And, of course I’m still in close touch with the fabulous Russ Laraway, former COO and co-founder of Candor, Inc., who is vice president of people at Qualtrics.

More than 20 years after Amy and I attended Harvard Business School together, we’ve reconnected to help rid the world of bad bosses.”

As Radical Candor continues to evolve, some of you may remember that we built three apps before it became clear that the reason they weren’t working is because when you’re trying to get people to put their phones away, look each other in the eye, and have a real human conversation, an app is counter intuitive. This is why we’ve pivoted to focus on the things that do work: working with companies to roll out Radical Candor.

By working with teams in person, we’re able to actively help people change their mindset and their behavior. As we continue to grow, we’re listening and learning, discovering what’s working and what’s not, and doing our best to help you put these ideas into practice. Have questions about Radical Candor? We’d love to hear from you!