HIP

Radical Candor Feedback

Don’t Give Feedback About Personality

There is a big difference between Caring Personally and giving praise or criticism about somebody's personality. The final tip in our HIP approach to feedback is that Radically Candid praise and criticism is not about personality. It’s about the work, not the person. People can't alter their personality, so saying things like "You're a jerk" or "You’re sloppy" is neither kind nor does it provide specifics to make the direct challenge clear. Saying "you’re a genius" when somebody does great work…

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Radical Candor Obnoxious Aggression

6 Tips for Giving Helpful Feedback

The best feedback is Radically Candid. It Challenges Directly while showing you Care Personally. To make that easier to do, we break it down and say that Radical Candor is HIP: Humble, Helpful, Immediate, In person, Public praise/Private criticism, not Personalized. But, what do we mean when we say "helpful?" Techniques for delivering Helpful feedback can help you think before you speak. 1. Get clear about how you intend to help Take a moment to think through the reason why you…

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Constructive Feedback

The Problem with "Constructive Feedback"

A question that we’ve gotten from a number of readers is: I tried to give X constructive feedback, but then X got all defensive. How can I get through to X? When a person begins a conversation by saying or even just thinking, “I’ve got some constructive feedback for you,” the other person’s defenses go up right away. There are three problems with the way that’s phrased. The first is the construction of the sentence--basically, “I’m gonna tell you a…

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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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Direct Reports Radical Candor

Direct Reports and Radical Candor: 5 Tips for Giving Guidance and Feedback

This article about practicing Radical Candor with direct reports originally appeared on Deliberate Directions. Your relationships and your responsibilities at work reinforce each other positively or negatively, and this dynamic is what drives you forward as a manager—or leaves you dead in the water. What’s more, your relationships with your direct reports affect the relationships they have with their direct reports, and your team’s overall culture. Like it or not, your ability to build trusting, human connections with the people…

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Video: Why to Avoid "Don’t Take it Personally"

It's hard to take general management and feedback advice and visualize how to apply it in real-life situations. Some Radical Candor readers have mentioned to Kim that it would be helpful to see various feedback and management scenarios acted out. So she and Eleanor Scott did this fun improv role play to help with one of Kim's pieces of advice: Eliminate the words 'Don't take it personally' from your vocabulary."   Here's why it's such a bad idea to say,…

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Candor’s “Give Feedback” Playbook

We’ve been so excited about all the engagement we’ve gotten from our podcast listeners. We are getting great, thoughtful questions after each episode, and we know they’re questions that others have as well! So we’ll be sharing some of the advice we’re giving to individual listeners here on the blog. Here’s a question from Kathryn: My question relates to how one can challenge directly regarding inflexibility. I have a staff member that really struggles with his daily responsibilities I think…

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Video Tip: Radically Candid Criticism is Not About Personality

Radically Candid criticism is not about someone's personality. When you give criticism, it is best to talk about how the work product could be improved, not about (alleged) flaws in the person's character. Saying things like "You're a jerk" or "You are sloppy" is neither kind nor helpful. And it's almost always an imperfect analysis of the situation. So whenever possible, focus your feedback on the work. Now, this isn't always possible, and Russ shares some tips for how to approach criticism…

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Video Tip: Praise in Public, Criticize in Private

When thinking about how to best deliver feedback, think not only about the manner in which you give it, but also the setting you choose. Radically Candid praise is delivered in public and Radically Candid criticism is delivered in private. When you share specifically what was great and why it was great publicly, not only does it have more meaning for the person being praised, it helps the whole team learn something new. If you're criticizing a person, it's much kinder…

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Video Tip: Radically Candid Criticism is Humble

Radically Candid criticism is humble. When you Challenge Directly, you don't have to be right. And when you are open to learning that what you think is dead wrong, you show that not only are you willing to Challenge Directly, you are willing to BE challenged directly. This builds trust. Be happy to be proven wrong. What you care about is helping others do the best work of their careers, and getting to the best answer. Watch this video for more thoughts…

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