Now it’s Jason’s turn! On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Jason tackles the same frequently asked questions about Radical Candor posed to Kim last week. He shares his perspective on defining Radical Candor, addressing its misuse, and handling feedback in various work environments, including remote, hybrid, and multi-generational workplaces.
Listen to the episode:
Episode at a Glance: The Q&A About the FAQs
Radical Candor Podcast Checklist
- Question number one, what do you suggest I do if someone is using Radical Candor as an excuse to act like a jerk? Let them know that their approach really isn’t working for you and suggest a way for them to show that they care personally.
- Question number two, is Radical Candor, harder in a remote or hybrid work environment? It is because it’s harder to build relationships. Make the effort to, make the time to build those stronger relationships by taking time to connect.
- Question number three. How does Radical Candor work in a multi generational workplace? A multi generational workplace is really the same thing as a multicultural workplace. So keep that sensitivity in mind and remember that each person is unique. And take it seriously to find a way to communicate with each of your team members in a way that shows them as individuals that you care personally and are willing to challenge them directly.
- What if someone works in a toxic culture and their boss is unwilling to practice Radical Candor? Can it still be used and how? Radical Candor can be used in a toxic environment. But it’s really important to start by putting your oxygen mask on. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself. You’re giving yourself enough time, space, and energy to actually practice Radical Candor. And if you discover that your efforts are unrewarded, start looking for options. You know, find the different ways that you can get out of that situation without putting yourself, your financial situation, your relationships outside of work, etcetera, in jeopardy.
The TLDR Radical Candor Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Jason Rosoff: Hello everybody. Welcome to the Radical Candor podcast. I’m a slightly under the weather, Jason Rosoff.
[00:00:09] Amy Sandler: I am with the weather, Amy Sandler. You might notice Kim is not here today. So we are going to try something fun, and experiment, and hopefully this will help Jason feel a little bit better. And be fun for you all. So let us know.
[00:00:24] Last week we did an FAQ with Kim. Kim and I had a conversation where I asked Kim a bunch of frequently asked questions that she gets about Radical Candor and Kim isn’t here. But I’m going to ask Jason the same exact questions and we are going to see, uh, how might Jason answer them as opposed to Kim.
[00:00:48] And part of why we’re going to do this, asking the same questions, is because as you know, if you’ve been listening to us or reading the book, et cetera, that Radical Candor, while at its core it means care personally and challenge directly. It’s going to show up and mean different things to different people in different contexts.
[00:01:08] Jason, how might you even say that differently than how I just said it? Why are we doing this?
[00:01:14] Jason Rosoff: The way that I think about Radical Candor is more like, uh, Kim says this, right? It’s sort of a compass that leads you in the right direction. But the destination, the specific destination is going to be unique for each conversation and, uh, and each person.
[00:01:31] And my goal is, when I think about applying Radical Candor, is to make sure that at the end of the conversation, the other person feels that, they feel the care, they feel that I care about them, and they’re also really clear on what, whatever it was that we discussed. So those are my goals.
[00:01:51] And I think the care personally challenged directly, you know, I tend to abstract those out to kind and clear, uh, and, and that helps me. But I think other people probably think about it slightly differently. And that’s okay as long as the result, the end result is that the other person feels cared for and understands, and is clear about what the communication is that you were trying to have with them.
[00:02:18] Amy Sandler: I find kind and clear is a really helpful proxy. And also one of the things we’ll talk about is that my intention might be that the other person feels that I have been kind and clear. They feel that I have been caring, but it might not land that way. So to that point, question number one, Radical Candor FAQs. Jason, what do you suggest I do if someone is using Radical Candor as an excuse to act like a jerk?
[00:02:46] Jason Rosoff: You should be a jerk right back.
[00:02:47] Amy Sandler: That’s right. You tell them.
[00:02:49] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. It is helpful when you feel, if someone is using Radical Candor as a shield. So an example of this might be saying, in the spirit of Radical Candor, and then behaving like a jerk. So let’s say they invoke Radical Candor, but then they behave in what you think, uh, is an obnoxiously aggressive way, which is high on challenge directly and low on care personally.
[00:03:12] If someone did that to me, I might say exactly that. I might say, hey, I suspect that your intent was to be radically candid because that’s what you said. But the way it came across to me was very high on challenge directly and low on care personally. And I think it’s situation dependent because if it was someone who reports to me, I probably wouldn’t give them that feedback in the moment. I give people who report to me quite a lot of latitude.
[00:03:38] Amy Sandler: Oh, shut up. Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. That was my get free out of jail card. Just for those who are listening, uh, I report to Jason.
[00:03:52] Jason Rosoff: But if it was a peer or if it was my manager, I probably would let them know that, um, in addition to, this is how it landed for me, that it’s hard. Like, when I feel like someone is being a jerk, it’s harder for me to incorporate what they’re saying, to take what they’re saying and turn it into, uh, into behavior. So if the goal of, uh, I want to support them in their goal of giving me some feedback, and I would just let them know, like, a helpful way to give feedback is to make sure that you, you’re reasonably high up on care personally, where it feels like there’s, you know, mutual, at minimum, mutual respect. Because that, to me, that’s the time, that that would be my trigger. It is like, it’s not so much about just being a jerk or sort of maybe being obnoxious in the way that you deliver it. But if I feel like it’s disrespectful, that’s probably what would cause me to give someone this feedback.
[00:04:45] Amy Sandler: What’s going through my mind is wanting to edit what I said because I would never actually be so obnoxious. And so it felt strange to even say it. And so one of the things that can be hard is if I might say something to you, and right now we’ve got Brandi and Nick observing, and so they know me and they know our dynamic. But it, you know, for a podcast audience who doesn’t know me and how that might land. It becomes hard when, you know, there might be, part of why this becomes complex is the relationship that you and I have where I could say something to you in a joking way, but how other people might be observing it.
[00:05:26] So I’m curious, like, just to use that specific example, like how do you think about the idea that if it’s measured, not at my mouth, but at the listener’s ear, knowing that there could be listeners who have never met me and they’ve just heard that for the first time, an attempt at humor could actually land really poorly.
[00:05:44] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. Amy, I think that’s such a good, that’s such a good point. Like a lot of the time we are working in a way that’s observable by others. And I would say that even if it wasn’t a joke, we want to be really thoughtful about that. Because I remember when I was, uh, maybe like two years in at Khan Academy, my last job. And I had a really great relationship with my counterpart in the engineering team, and we would sometimes get to sort of disagreements where they would get heated.
[00:06:20] They weren’t disrespectful, but they would get heated, and it made a lot of other people really uncomfortable. So we didn’t, neither of us felt like, oh, you know, Jason or Ben is being a jerk. Like, we didn’t feel like it was disrespectful. But for other people, it was disconcerting to see that, to see us arguing. Um, and, and so like, I think it’s really important when you think about being a, when you are being observed, to think about not only how the person you are talking to might receive it, but how other people who are observing it might, uh, might perceive what you’re saying.
[00:06:53] Amy Sandler: Yeah, and I would never say, shut up. Like, anyone is just not in my frame. Um, and so I think it’s such a good point about, um, about respect and really part of why Kim wrote Radical Respect is really a prequel to that. So it’s interesting as a tee up to our next question about observable behavior. And so right now we’re doing this, we’re able to see each other on video and people are probably listening and they’re not getting the different body language and gestures.
[00:07:26] So the question is, is Radical Candor harder in a remote or hybrid work environment?
[00:07:32] Jason Rosoff: Since Radical Candor is based on your relationship, and I think relationships are harder to build when you can’t be, when there’s no time spent together in person, I think by definition Radical Candor is harder. The antidote to that is to spend, to care a lot about those relationships and to intentionally spend time building them. You know, human beings, you know, we evolved to live in small communities, like close together, physically close together, right?
[00:08:00] Like that’s our hardware and software is reliant on that. Still, we haven’t out evolved, uh, that, that state of being. And so, it’s valuable to recognize that more effort is required in that situation to make sure that especially the care personally is there. But also when we can’t, when we can’t see each other, when we can’t hear each other, especially when we can’t hear each other, when we’re communicating in text or something like that, there’s so much that can be very easily misunderstood.
[00:08:34] And so the way that I think about this is, uh, you know, number one, invest the time to build a relationship, which means, you know, spending time with that person outside of feedback conversations. Like you don’t want your only conversations where your relationship is like necessary for you to get your work done. You don’t want the only conversations you have with them to be either like only tactical, meaning like only focusing on work output, or only a sort of like outcome driven, uh, where you’re trying to get something from that other person. Like you want to spend some time in the human relationship building element, which is like getting to know that person, what they like, what they don’t like, um, how you can work better together with them, uh, those things are really important.
[00:09:20] And then I would go a step beyond that and say, I would make an extra effort to try to ensure that if I was giving feedback, especially critical feedback, that the care personally was coming through clearly.
[00:09:33] Amy Sandler: Let me ask a couple of follow up questions on that. Do you have any specific tips for, I don’t even know where to start, like how do I start to build the care personally, the relationship with someone? You know, maybe we’re all virtual or we’re all so busy or it’s a new person. I’m just curious, do you have one practical tip for someone to start building that relationship?
[00:09:59] Jason Rosoff: To me, the most important thing is have one on one conversations with people that you work with regularly. I think this is a thing that, you know, is generally considered to be in the purview of managers. But I think it is helpful to have like an out of band one to one conversation with the people you work with regularly, regardless of what,
[00:10:18] Amy Sandler: Did you say out of band?
[00:10:21] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. So like out, out of, uh, out of like the normal rhythm, uh, of work. So like, you know, most people who are working on projects together, you probably have some kind of standup meeting and a status check in, and some kind of report out thing that happens at a regular basis. If those are the only times that you see the people that you work with regularly, it’s going to be really hard to develop a relationship with those people as human beings.
[00:10:45] So I’m suggesting adding something to that, which is like one on one conversations with the people you work with most closely, whether or not they report to you. That’s probably my number one recommendation for building relationships on a team that is entirely or largely remote, uh, or distributed.
[00:11:02] Amy Sandler: Yeah, I think that’s great. And do you have any follow up on the distinction between remote, sort of purely remote, versus hybrid?
[00:11:09] Jason Rosoff: The only thing I would say is, like, words matter here. If hybrid means some people work in the office and some people are fully remote, then I think my guidance is exactly the same. Like, it’s really easy actually. It’s the most detrimental set up, team set up that I’ve had for building relationships, or it was when some people were in the office pretty much all the time and some people were remote pretty much all the time. That was like the worst possible setup because the people who are remote often felt like the people who were together in the office didn’t make an effort, make enough of an effort to build a relationship with them.
[00:11:51] And on top of that, from like a purely practical, tactical work perspective, didn’t do enough to make sure that they were included in work, like just the meeting, you know, like a, well, let’s say we’re having a virtual meeting, um, but half of us were in an office, you know, a conference room somewhere. We noticed that talk time was left mostly to the people who were in the room together. Uh, and a lot of people who were remote were excluded.
[00:12:21] I think what I would say is like be thoughtful about creating time when your work situation is in flux. So let’s say you have some people who are in the office some of the time or in remote some of the time. Be thoughtful about making sure you have connection points, even if that’s just at the beginning of a meeting, for example, like taking five minutes to check in and see how people are doing.
[00:12:43] Amy Sandler: Knowing that everyone is unique, what have you found for you is an effective way for someone to reach out to you to schedule a one on one? Um, especially like peer to peer maybe, or someone that you’re working with, um, but they’re not part of your day to day. I know a lot of folks struggle in our workshops. Okay, well, I don’t know how to reach out to this person, or that feels sort of weird. Like, why am I asking this person to meet? What works for you?
[00:13:13] Jason Rosoff: I haven’t had quite the same experience, so I don’t want to try to speak for them, but I’ll share the approach that I’ve taken that has worked reasonably well for me.
[00:13:23] So, and your mileage may vary, I guess is what I’m saying. The approach that has worked reasonably well for me is just to, to state it as a fact, like, hey, our relationship is really important. And so at least for the duration of this project, I’d love to find a time where we can meet somewhat regularly. And usually if the person doesn’t report to me, I would say like, you know, once a month is probably fine, uh, for this kind of one on one check in. You know, can we schedule thirty minutes once a month where we just, uh, where we check in and it’s an opportunity for us to solicit feedback from each other. Um, check in and see how things are going from the other person’s perspective and just make sure that there isn’t anything we can be or should be doing differently in order to make sure that we’re happier, more successful working together. And people are pretty open to it. I’ve, I don’t think I’ve ever had someone say, no, I can’t give you 30 minutes once a month.
[00:14:16] Amy Sandler: I love that. I think that’s great. And I think that gives people some really good food for thought. And as you say, your mileage may vary. You might run into someone that they’re not necessarily bought into the value of building the relationship. Do you feel like if you get that feedback, is it just sort of like, okay. Um, or have you found that maybe there’s another way you could build a relationship with that person if a one on one doesn’t seem to land?
[00:14:41] Jason Rosoff: Well, usually what I’ll say is like, well, this is a method that’s worked for me. Uh, like, I tend to think of our relationship, you know, beyond the work as being important to make, to give us an opportunity to get to know each other a little better as being important.
[00:14:56] If it doesn’t work for you, that’s great, but is there something else that you’ve done to make sure that you’re staying on the same page over the course of working together with someone who doesn’t report to you? So I’d open it, I’d like ask a question and see if there’s another way, um, if I could adapt my approach to that person.
[00:15:11] And if someone says, look, you know, I don’t see the value in spending time, like we have plenty of work meetings and all the other stuff like, uh, I will usually, like, I would imagine I would let that go and until there was a moment in which I needed to have a conversation with that person. And then I might ask them again to say like, hey, this conversation might’ve been easier for us to have if we had some sort of regular, uh, check in of some kind. Are you open to exploring that now?
[00:15:42] Amy Sandler: That’s great. In some ways, it’s kind of like when we’re on big projects, we have standing meetings and if there’s no business to share, then, you know, we might just have a quick personal check in and that, that’s sort of that, but to your point, at least it’s there and we can almost lean on that structure.
[00:15:59] Jason Rosoff: Yep.
[00:15:59] Amy Sandler: Cool. Jason, how do you think Radical Candor works in a multi generational workplace?
[00:16:07] Jason Rosoff: My reaction to that is, like, having worked in several multi generational workplaces, my reaction to that is that I think when we get that question, it’s coming from a place of frustration and fear, uh, right? Because usually the subtext of that question is, I can’t get, like, I can’t give feedback to the older generation, or I can’t give feedback to the younger , they’re just not open to it.
[00:16:28] Or you know, I’ve tried to give feedback, and I went terribly wrong, and I feel like now I have to, like, repair this relationship with a person who I don’t have that much in common with or don’t understand particularly well. What’s missing usually is, like, the translation layer.
[00:16:43] So one of the things that we like to say all the time is that Radical Candor, if you abstract it out, like, abstracts out to love and truth, and there isn’t a culture on the planet that doesn’t value love and truth. It’s just, like, the way we express love and truth is going to vary from culture to culture. And I think generational differences are essentially cultural differences. Like that, that, that is the form that they take. Um, you know, we were literally raised in a different time and different place from each other.
[00:17:12] And on top of that, just like, national cultures or ethnic cultures, generational cultures are not monoliths. So not every person who’s a part of a particular generation is going to prefer the same things or dislike the same things. Uh, the way that I think about this is like, again, to be curious. So when I was, uh, like twenty-five, I was given my, you know, my first management role. And I was managing a team of people who are significantly older than I was on average, you know, people in their late thirties and forties. And, uh, I even had one team member who’s in his sixties.
[00:17:53] So I had people who were at very different stages of their lives and careers, let alone generational differences. And the thing that I did that I think helped the most was to acknowledge it openly and to say like, hey, like we’re all really different. We’re coming from different places. We have different kinds of experience. You know, I’m, my job is to make sure that we are collectively successful. And in order to do that, I need to make sure that I know how to communicate with each of you and all of you collectively. So I’m going to be going on a bit of a listening tour to figure out like, what it is that you need from me as your manager.
[00:18:33] Uh, because, uh, you know, you may have had a boss in the past who thought they needed, you know, they had all the answers, or they needed to have all the answers, like, I’m not that kind of a boss. Like, I’m actually genuinely curious about what it is that you need from me in order to be successful. And just by naming that thing, I think it deflated a lot of the tension that existed.
[00:18:56] Because there was a lot of expertise that I could tap into. And what I wound up doing was sort of following the order of operations and starting by soliciting feedback. And then as I got to know what people were really good at, like offering people some public praise to say, hey, we’ve got these experts on the team that we can rely on. And that acknowledgement of like the existence of knowledge and expertise went a really long way to helping to bridge the gap, the generational boundaries that might’ve existed in the way that people wanted to be communicated with.
[00:19:27] And on top of that, we got into the details of like, some people didn’t text, some people texted all the time. So like, we got into like basic communication thing of like, you know, I had one of the guys on my team, you know, he checked his email like once a day, right? Which was like weird to me because I was checking my email, you know, a couple of times an hour, probably. And he was one of my older employees and he was like, I’m just not like, I’m not used to this.
[00:19:54] We, and for context, this job, we were working in a factory, basically. Um, so checking email wasn’t necessarily the easiest thing. Like, people were often on their feet, up at machines doing, um, you know, working, working with machines. And computers, but not at a, like, a desk at a personal computer. But I had to, like, figure out how to do that.
[00:20:14] So we had these like, uh, we had these like standing meetings once a day where we literally got together physically in the plant to talk through, you know, whatever issues were on the table for that day. Uh, and that was better than emailing everybody. Uh, since the use of email was uneven across the team.
[00:20:40] Amy Sandler: Just to repeat what I’ve heard, there were a couple of things that I thought really resonated. One is that we’re really talking about different cultures, right? Like people were raised in a different place and time. Um, but just like any other differences, Radical Candor is really all about individuals. So just reiterating that we don’t want to be putting people in boxes. Oh, you’re this generation or that generation. So therefore Radical Candor looks like this for you. It’s really all about the individual. You talked about being curious and the actual value of naming the differences when you were coming in as a young boss and acknowledging the knowledge and expertise. I think that’s so interesting that that went a long way because there’s sort of this, well back in the day.
[00:21:26] Jason Rosoff: Yeah.
[00:21:26] Amy Sandler: Like I had to, you know, walk, you know, in the snow to do this, et cetera and so, um, it kind of does a nod to that.
[00:21:35] Jason Rosoff: Kim and I are closer in age. There’s no generate, there’s no real generational difference between Kim and I. We’re close enough in age that, you know, we both lived before the internet, for example. Like that, I actually think in an interesting way, more than like generational boundaries, like that’s a pretty interesting difference. Like if you live, if you’ve only lived after the existence of the internet, like it’s kind of hard to imagine what, uh, life might be like without email. You know what I’m saying?
[00:22:04] Amy Sandler: Yeah.
[00:22:05] Jason Rosoff: Like we have lived without, we’ve lived without those things. And maybe we’re in an interesting place where we’ve sort of like, we can bridge those differences. But the further we get away from, uh, from that, meaning like the, for the folks who have lived always with the internet or now always with social media, right? We have people entering the workforce for whom social media is like has been around since they had consciousness of like how to use technology. Uh, like those differences, like there’s knowledge and expertise that that generation has that I don’t have.
[00:22:38] Amy Sandler: Yep.
[00:22:39] Jason Rosoff: Like recognizing that that exists is really valuable. And so, you know, Kim and I answering these questions, I think the value there is, you know, we’ve each had to navigate these things in our own careers, and hopefully there’s a surface area, a large enough surface area of advice here that it’s helpful to others. Because I know this is a real challenge. I just want to recognize that.
[00:22:57] Amy Sandler: Yeah.
[00:22:57] Jason Rosoff: There’s some real pain associated with managing a cross generational difference.
[00:23:03] Amy Sandler: And I think acknowledging the knowledge and expertise, you know, again, like across the board that people are going to bring different expertise because of that. Um, you mentioned about communication differences and we can drop in the show notes, the conversation Jason that you and I had about sort of app overload and some of the history of email, which might be an interesting add on.
[00:23:24] Before I move on from this question, you know, one of the things that you said, the reason why this question tends to pop up is frustration. And the frustration that I’ve experienced quite a bit in workshops and other sessions is around this sense of, people not having a sense of accountability or there’s this, uh, kind of lack of willingness to do, um, sort of what is in the job description.
[00:23:51] And I usually feel that sometimes that just goes back to Radical Candor. Like, is it clear what good looks like, because that been really clearly explained. But I’m curious, um, if you’ve gotten any flavors of those questions around generational differences.
[00:24:06] Jason Rosoff: Yeah, to like put it bluntly, like one thing I hear a lot is like the new generation feels so entitled and they’re unwilling, like the younger generations feel so entitled and they’re unwilling to like do the work. And I think that that is a symptom of like a, maybe a more stark cultural difference, which is my generation, a job was seen as like a valuable thing that was given to the employee by the company. And I think in the generations that are coming into the workforce now, there’s a deeper, especially in the West, there’s a deeper questioning about whether or not that’s true. Because the thing that I have noticed is that the younger generation tends to have this attitude, which is like, my labor is the valuable thing that I give to the company.
[00:24:56] That is a, there’s like a fundamental perspective difference there of like where, you know, who’s the giver and who’s the receiver of value in the employment relationship, uh, that I think creates a lot of tension in those conversations. And I think there’s a little bit of like, everybody’s right here, right?
[00:25:18] I think like the job is valuable. We live in a capitalist society, like, you need income in order to, like, survive, so the job is clearly valuable. But I think for too long, that completely overrode the other perspective, which is, like, the labor, the energy, and effort that people give to their companies is incredibly valuable.
[00:25:40] And we talk about these things in abstractions, right? We talk about how we want to reduce churn, right? Like how organizations want to reduce churn, which really means that we don’t want to have to constantly rehire people. Or we worry, organizations worry about things like brain drain, which is like, what if we lose a bunch of people who know lots of stuff about how the company works or how our products work or whatever it is?
[00:26:02] Um, and really what we’re saying is, like, the energy, effort, and knowledge that our employees give to the company is incredibly valuable, and we should be prioritizing that and trying to retain as much of that as possible. Um, but that, but it, but again, like, I think we can recognize it on the one hand and then sort of like forget in the moment when someone presents us a frustratingly different worldview about their relationship to work than the one we think they might, they should, in quotes, have.
[00:26:38] Amy Sandler: That is so well said. Well, I think that’ll be a conversation we’ll continue to explore. I want to close with two questions that are related to each other. So I’m going to put them together and you can choose to do them together or individual. One is how can I be radically candid with my boss?
[00:26:58] And the related question, what if someone works in a toxic culture and their boss is unwilling to practice Radical Candor, can it still be used and how? So starting first, how can I be radically candid with my boss?
[00:27:13] Jason Rosoff: I think there are a couple of ways to think about giving Radical Candor to your boss. But I think it starts with remembering that your boss is a human being. Uh, just like you have needs, wants, and desires for how you want to be cared about personally or challenged directly, they have those things also. So part of it is sort of trying to decode, what is it that my boss is looking for? I have found a useful tactic, especially if you’re new to a role, you don’t have a great relationship with your boss, is to appeal to your boss’s enlightened self interest. This is a thing I talk about all the time.
[00:27:48] Appeal to your boss’s enlightened self interest, which is to say something to the effect of, I want to be the best whatever it is, director of marketing that I can possibly be for you. You know, I joined the company because I really care about what we’re doing here. And in order to be the best, you know, version of this, there’s some things that, uh, there are some ideas I have about how we might work together differently that would really help me accomplish that, right? If they’re a good boss, so we’re not talking about toxic relationships yet, if they’re a good boss, they should want that also.
[00:28:22] And so that is one level of care personally. Like, I think if you know more things about your boss, or maybe you’ve intuited some things about your boss’s approach to their work, you could be more specific than that. You could say like, hey, I know how important it is, um, you know, for us to all be singing from the, you know, the same sheet of music, uh, maybe they’ve like used that metaphor before, like that being on the same page is something that they really value. Uh, and I had some pointers for you on, on, on ways that, you know, we can more easily get on the same page, uh, the same sheet of music.
[00:28:59] I think most bosses are open to that kind of feedback, right? They’re open to this, I, like, if you’re, ’cause like, you’re not just asking something of them, you’re giving them something back. And you’re reminding them of the fact that if they change their behavior, they’re going to get more from you, more value from you.
[00:29:16] So that’s an effective way, uh, that I’ve found. I think if I were to answer this from the Radical Candor sort of textbook, I would say, you might want to remember, like, think about the order of operations, like, start by soliciting feedback and make sure to offer them some praise on the things that they’re doing well. Um, but I think if I wanted to fast forward that, I might take an approach like the one I just described.
[00:29:38] Amy Sandler: Yeah, that’s great. And you mentioned the important caveat of this is a boss who wants to be a good boss. Um, what about that?
[00:29:47] Jason Rosoff: And wants you to be successful, which is part about, which is part of being a good boss.
[00:29:51] Amy Sandler: Yeah. And so maybe that’s good to be explicit about that, that we believe part of being a good boss is wanting to make you successful. Um, what about that person who feels like their boss is not willing to practice Radical Candor and they’re in what they would describe as a toxic culture?
[00:30:09] Jason Rosoff: Look, it’s not, that is a crappy position to be in. I think there are a couple of things that I would usually, uh, I’m speaking from experience here. I’ve had very, the unfortunate experience of having several very toxic managers over the course of my career. A couple, like where the toxicity was to the point where it could start to affect my health, it was like very, very challenging.
[00:30:36] Um, and one of the things that I’ve realized is like, that’s priority number one. When you’re in a toxic working environment, you have to figure out how you can stay healthy, uh, that, I mean, both mentally and physically. Because there’s no way, there’s no way to fix that. If you’re burnt out, worn down, completely, feeling completely defeated, you have no chance of getting things sort of back on the right track.
[00:31:04] So that was the thing number one, is like, figure out what you need, put your oxygen mask on, like, figure out what you need to do to feel reasonably, uh, healthy or well, uh, in that situation and start doing those things, uh, as quickly as you can.
[00:31:20] Second thing is like, start looking for options. That doesn’t necessarily mean leaving the company or even leaving your manager. Um, but start, look, start looking for what your options might be. Is it just your manager that’s toxic? And like, maybe there’s another team that you could work for in the organization. Um, uh, that could be an option. And the way that I would start exploring that is finding out like, hey, has anybody ever switched teams here before? What did they do? Um, how did that work? I’d be looking around for guidance from folks about how making a change like that might work. And if I decided like there’s some chance that I think I could get things on the right track with my boss, the options I’d be looking for are like, who can I recruit to help me have this conversation with my manager? Maybe it’s a person in HR, maybe it’s a peer manager that you have a good relationship with, maybe it’s another person on the team that seems to have a great relationship with your boss, um, but see if there’s some options there to explore.
[00:32:23] And then last but not least, I wouldn’t ignore the possibility of finding another job. Like, sometimes, like, the cost, like, the, to you, the physical and mental cost of being in a toxic relationship is really not, there’s really no way to justify it, even economically, to, like, continue down that path. And that was the position that I found myself in relatively early in my career where I was making really, really good money. And I was literally like, I was twenty something years old and I was, uh, I had like really high blood pressure and high cholesterol and like was physically, um, being killed by this job. Like if I had stayed there, eventually it would have literally killed me. My dad had a heart attack at forty-four years old. So like I was on a direct path to something like that or worse. He survived, uh, that, that heart attack. Uh, and so I was like very conscious of that.
[00:33:29] Um, and you know, I was fortunate enough to have a good, you know, a partner who was understanding. Um, and I said, look, we’re going to take a financial hit. I can’t figure out a way to make, to like keep the same salary. Like we might have to move or like change our situation. Um, so it really wasn’t easy to leave that job, but I did it. And we, I, you know, I took a significant salary cut. Um, you know, we managed through the, like, you know, through some downsizing and things like that to like make it work for a couple of years.
[00:34:02] Um, and you know, the good news is there’s like pot of gold for me at the end of the rainbow. I wound up, you know, twenty years later, working for Radical Candor, having a great job and like an amazing team, uh, and a group of people. So there’s hope also as I think the message that I want to leave people with is like, even though that transition may be incredibly difficult, there, there is like the possibility of something better.
[00:34:23] Amy Sandler: I really appreciate that story. And even just from that perspective of like, you know, managers and bosses are, are people too. And just hearing the challenge, um, and just, I imagine just being, you know, having gotten to know you these past, gosh, like seven years, but that those experiences have shaped you into the person that you are in terms of really leading with the empathy, the care, the focusing on the overall wellbeing of the people that work with and for you.
[00:34:52] So, um, so I’m sad that you had to go through that. And I think hopefully people listening to that will take, um, some real inspiration just knowing that there are other options and you’re not alone. And I know that’s a topic we’ve been talking about, you know, in other podcasts.
[00:35:11] All right, before we wrap up and Jason, just to give you a moment or two to prep, this is going to be a rapid fire round where I’m going to ask you the questions, but you’re just going to do a sentence or at the most two quick, quick, quick.
[00:35:25] Jason Rosoff: Okay.
[00:35:25] Amy Sandler: Um, I have to say, I still feel badly about telling you to shut up, even in jest. Um,
[00:35:33] Jason Rosoff: I loved it.
[00:35:34] Amy Sandler: Just how I’m wired. It goes against every way that I, it just, uh, so I just have to name that, that sometimes in this sake of humor, we say things. Um, so thank you for making it okay, but Brandi and Nick as additional participants in the conversation, um, should we include it or not? Brandi?
[00:35:54] Jason Rosoff: Brandi says keep it.
[00:35:55] Amy Sandler: Okay.
[00:35:56] Nick Carissimi: It was hilarious and it landed and we all know you were joking and it should stay.
[00:36:03] Amy Sandler: Okay. All right. Well, I have been, uh, overruled, so thank you for the feedback. Um, and now listen up everyone. It’s time for our Radical Candor checklist. Okay. Rapid fire. Jason, answering these questions as fast as you can.
[00:36:21] Question one, what do you suggest I do if someone is using Radical Candor as an excuse to act like a jerk?
[00:36:28] Jason Rosoff: Let them know that their approach really isn’t working for you and suggests that they, a way for them to show that they care personally.
[00:36:37] Amy Sandler: Question two, is Radical Candor harder in a remote or hybrid work environment?
[00:36:43] Jason Rosoff: It is because it’s harder to build relationships. Make the effort to, make the time to build those stronger relationships by taking time to connect.
[00:36:52] Amy Sandler: Question three. How does Radical Candor work in a multi generational workplace?
[00:36:58] Jason Rosoff: A multi generational workplace is really the same thing as a multicultural workplace. So keep that sensitivity in mind and remember that each person is, uh, is unique. And take it seriously to find a way to communicate with each of your team members in a way that shows them as individuals that you care personally and are willing to challenge them directly.
[00:37:20] Amy Sandler: Question four, how can I be radically candid with my boss?
[00:37:24] Jason Rosoff: Remember that your boss is a person too. And you can follow the order of operations, you can solicit feedback from them, offer them praise before you offer them criticism. And, or, you can think of ways to appeal to their, uh, their sense of enlightened self interest. And remind them that the feedback that you’re giving them is helping you helping them help you be successful.
[00:37:47] Amy Sandler: Jerry Maguire, always helpful. Question five. What if someone works in a toxic culture and their boss is unwilling to practice Radical Candor? Can it still be used and how?
[00:37:59] Jason Rosoff: Radical Candor can be used in a toxic environment. But it’s really important to start by putting your oxygen mask on. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself. You’re giving yourself enough time, space, and energy to actually practice Radical Candor. And if you discover that your efforts are unrewarded, start looking for options. You know, find the different ways that you can get out of that situation without putting yourself, your financial situation, your relationships outside of work, etcetera, in jeopardy.
[00:38:32] Amy Sandler: Thanks, Jason.
[00:38:33] For more tips, visit RadicalCandor.com/resources and show notes for this episode are at RadicalCandor.com/podcast. Praise in public, criticize in private. So if you like what you hear, we hope you do, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening to this podcast. And if you’ve got criticism, we welcome that too. You can email it podcast@radicalcandor.com. And again, these were Jason’s questions. Go ahead, check out if you haven’t heard them, Kim’s answers to these same questions. Bye for now.
Radical Candor Podcast Resources
- The Evolution of Email: From DARPA to Daily Overwhelm | LinkedIn
- Frequently Asked Questions About Radical Candor
- Radical Candor Q&A: Kim Answers Our Most Frequently Asked Questions 6 | 27
- App Overload At Work | Radical Candor Podcast 6 | 21
- How to Practice Radical Candor With Your Boss | Radical Candor Podcast 3 | 10
- Don’t Let A Bad Boss Derail You | Radical Candor Podcast S6 | 18
- Practicing Radical Candor In Remote Workplaces | Radical Candor Podcast 3 | 7
- How to Choose a Radically Candid Boss | Radical Candor Podcast 3 | 13
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Episodes are written and produced by Brandi Neal with script editing by Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co-founders Kim Scott and Jason Rosoff and is hosted by Amy Sandler. Nick Carissimi is our audio engineer.
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