Manipulative Insincerity Archives

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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Feedback, the Law, and Mandated Manipulative Insincerity

I spend a lot of time these days showing people how to put the Radical Candor framework of “Care Personally + Challenge Directly” into practice by providing frequent feedback, and how to use the framework as a way to guide difficult conversations to avoid falling into Ruinous Empathy, Obnoxious Aggression, or Manipulative Insincerity. When it comes to difficult conversations, some of the most difficult are around gender. I have found that gender politics and fear of tears push men away from being as radically candid…

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Keeping it Real

The good news is that the term “Radical Candor” has entered the lexicon. The bad news is that there’s a risk it becomes a meaningless buzzword. We need your help to fight this. Please let us know which ideas in the book or the podcast you have rolled out with your team. What’s working? What’s not? If you’re willing, we will feature your stories in our blog and email newsletter. If you want it kept confidential, we will honor that…

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Video: A Manipulative Insincerity Story

Manipulative Insincerity is the worst of the quadrants in our Radical Candor 2x2 because you don't Challenge Directly or show you Care Personally. Unfortunately, when you or those around you behave with Manipulative Insincerity, it's often reciprocated and difficult to break out of. We shared a story from Joe Dunn last year about Obnoxious Aggression. Now here's a continuation of that story, when Joe found himself in a meeting surrounded by Manipulative Insincerity. https://youtu.be/nu49ePRFmLI Have you experienced something like this? Share your story with…

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Video: Kim’s Manipulative Insincerity Story

Remember that the labels that we use for the Radical Candor framework (Radical Candor, Ruinous Empathy, Obnoxious Aggression, Manipulative Insincerity) are not labels for people. They're ways to describe specific interactions, to help make Radical Candor easier. By sharing stories that show how these types of behaviors come about, we hope to remind you that we all make mistakes and help you learn from ours. Last month we shared a story from Kim about Obnoxious Aggression, and as you know if you've been…

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Video: A Journey to Manipulative Insincerity

We've shared a couple of stories from Russ, telling about a time he was Ruinously Empathetic with his feedback, and then how he shifted to Obnoxious Aggression. What happened next is a common path; his Obnoxious Aggression led to Manipulative Insincerity. You may remember it from Stephanie Usry's story a couple of weeks ago. Watch this video to see Russ's full journey through each of these areas of the Radical Candor 2x2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT7Dr6Xb7HE It's easy to see how we could all…

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Video: From Obnoxious Aggression to Manipulative Insincerity

Most of us don't consider ourselves to be jerks or rude people. So if we discover that we've been Obnoxiously Aggressive, we're chagrined! Unfortunately, the natural tendency then is to back off the Direct Challenge. Obnoxious Aggression turns into Manipulative Insincerity. In our latest video, Candor Trainer Stephanie Usry tells her stories about following this journey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaDhSO2j898 Next time you find yourself being Obnoxiously Aggressive, remember this story. Instead of backing off your Direct Challenge, push yourself higher on the Care…

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Fighting Bloviating BS with Radical Candor

Radical Candor can be applied not just in feedback conversations, but in all interactions. Think for example about Radical Candor during meetings, brainstorming, public relations, etc. Each of these types of communications have their own unique challenges related to Radical Candor. For example, here’s a tricky situation sent to us by a reader: As an entrepreneur, pre-funding, having invested a great deal of life-savings into our young business, putting it all on the line to pursue my dream, I am…

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Tips to Avoid Manipulatively Insincere Criticism

If you think you've given criticism that was Manipulatively Insincere, check out these tips for moving towards Radical Candor! Criticize kindly and clearly Just say what you really think. It’s not mean if it’s clear enough. If others have rated your criticism as Manipulatively Insincere, you’re not showing you care or challenging them directly enough. It’s hard to break free from the “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it at all” advice that was pounded into…

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Praise & Manipulative Insincerity

Manipulatively Insincere praise is given not because it is genuine, but for another motive or agenda. Here’s a story about how realizing you have been Obnoxiously Aggressive can lead to a worse place, Manipulative Insincerity — a not uncommon path. A couple months after joining Google, Kim had a disagreement with Larry Page about his approach to an AdSense policy and wrote an openly critical and arrogant email (watch the video here). Kim still didn’t understand why her assessment of Larry’s…

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