What's Your Radical Candor Story?

What’s Your Radical Candor Story? Candor Coaches Share The Feedback They’re Most Grateful For

What’s your Radical Candor story? Radical Candor means giving a damn about the people you work with, sharing more than just your work self and encouraging everyone who reports to you to do the same.

This means actively soliciting feedback from your manager, peers and direct reports about what’s working well and what could be better.

It also means giving feedback — both praise and criticism — that’s kind, clear, specific and sincere, even when it feels awkward to do so.

Sounds simple, right? We like to say that practicing Radical Candor is simple but not easy. Despite it feeling daunting at times to deliver difficult feedback, most people are grateful they’ve been told something they need to know.

After all, no one can fix a problem or change their behavior if they don’t have information about what needs to change and why.

In the six videos below, some of our Radical Candor Coaches share stories about times they received feedback that helped them succeed, correct a mistake, leave a job and be better leaders.

1. The ‘Thinking Face’ Radical Candor story

 

 

Radical Candor CEO and Co-Founder Jason Rosoff shares a story about a time a colleague gave him invaluable feedback about how he came across during an important presentation.

His colleague’s kind and clear feedback allowed Jason to address and correct misperceptions about how he felt about a big project moving forward.

 

2. The ‘Do You Want This Job’ Radical Candor story

 

 

Stephanie Usry, our first Candor Coach, shares a story about a time she received feedback she was falling short in one area of her job performance.

The question was less about whether Stephanie could meet expectations and more about whether or not she wanted to.

After some soul searching, Stephanie realized that what she really wanted to do was to be her own boss and she may have never had the courage to take the leap if she hadn’t received this specific piece of feedback.

 

3. The ‘Intention Verus Impact’ Radical Candor story

 

 

Candor Coach Farrah Mitra received feedback as she was moving on to a new job that helped her be a better boss in her next role.

Farrah’s direct report shared with her that while it was clear Farrah cared about the team deeply, sometimes that care manifested in her withholding information from her direct reports and this made some of them feel unsafe.

This feedback allowed Farrah to recognize that her good intentions were having a negative impact.

 

4. The ‘Too Many Sports Analogies’ Radical Candor story

 

 
 

Candor Coach Mike Pugh shares a story about the time he was delivering a Radical Candor workshop he was sure was going brilliantly.

The feedback he received from the organizer during the break helped Mike change his approach for the second half of the workshop and give attendees a more inclusive experience.

 

5. The ‘You Could Have Sounded More Confident’ Radical Candor story

Candor Coach Melissa Andrada shares a story about the time she asked for feedback after a pitch meeting and was told she could have come off as more confident.

She took this feedback to heart and it changed her life and career.

6. The ‘It’s Not Mean, It’s Clear’ Radical Candor story

 

 
Radical Candor Author and Co-Founder Kim Scott shares the OG unsolicited-feedback story that took place more than 20 years ago at a New York City crosswalk and planted the seeds of Radical Candor in her head.

What’s Your Radical Candor story?

Send us your Radical Candor story by emailing it to advice@radicalcandor.com.

*This post was updated July 17, 2023.

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Need help practicing Radical Candor? Then you need The Feedback Loop (think Groundhog Day meets The Office), a 5-episode workplace comedy series starring David Alan Grier that brings to life Radical Candor’s simple framework for navigating candid conversations.

You’ll get an hour of hilarious content about a team whose feedback fails are costing them business; improv-inspired exercises to teach everyone the skills they need to work better together, and after-episode action plans you can put into practice immediately to up your helpful feedback EQ.

We’re offering Radical Candor readers 10% off the self-paced e-course. Follow this link and enter the promo code FEEDBACK at checkout.

A professional writer, editor, storyteller and content strategist with more than 15 years of experience, Brandi Neal is the director of content creation and marketing and the podcast producer for Radical Candor. Some of the stranger things she has done include walking on fire (twice), hiking to the top of an active volcano in the middle of the night, hanging from the wing of an airplane (and letting go) and participating in an impala dung-spitting contest, which is just as gross as it sounds. In a movie of her life, she wants to be played by Stana Katic.