30 min read
Most leaders learn on the fly—and Kim knows the bruises that come with it. In this episode she joins longtime Google Distinguished Designer Ryan Germick to discuss the innovative "Kim Scott Portrait," an AI-powered tool designed by Google Labs (and trained by the real Kim) to scale Kim's expertise and deliver Radically Candid advice 24/7. Discover how this new technology aims to humanize AI, free authors from the burden of answering repetitive questions, and foster more productive communication in the workplace.
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What if your favorite leadership coach could live in your pocket—and call you out when you're being ruinously empathetic?unpack the why behind building a tech version of Kim, what it means for the future of feedback, and how to avoid the trap of ruinous empathy—especially when you're tired, overwhelmed, or just don’t know how to say it.
[00:00:00] Kim Scott: Hello everybody. Welcome to the Radical Candor Podcast slash stream. I am here with Ryan from Google. And Ryan and I, and his team, and the Radical Candor team, have been collaborating to build the, a Portrait, what's called a Portrait of, of me, I am the first. So, Ryan, tell folks what was on your mind when you launched this project, which I have been, it's been so much fun to work with you and you're doing well.
[00:00:34] Ryan Germick: Thank you for having, thanks for being an amazing partner.
[00:00:37] Kim Scott: Ryan, tell folks about you.
[00:00:40] Ryan Germick: So, I'm Ryan Germick, uh, been at Google for 500 years and have lived many lives. But the through line is humanizing technology. You know, whether it was with the Google Doodles or the Google Assistant, and now in Google Labs, finding ways to take my art school education, my liberal arts education, and apply it in the world of technology.
[00:00:58] How do you take this awesome of large language models and voice technology, even some of the cool imagery things you can do with generative AI, and bring voice to people. And have an opportunity to surface the expertise of folks like you, Kim. And you know who better to build the future with and co-create with than someone whose call to fame and expertise is giving great feedback.
[00:01:20] Kim Scott: Well, you know, it's been, this is what, this is what gets birthed at the intersection of art, Slavic literature and, and, and technology.
[00:01:29] Ryan Germick: That's right. That's right. And hopefully giving you more time to write more Slavic literature somewhere in there.
[00:01:33] Kim Scott: Yeah, exactly. In fact, rather than explaining, let's show, don't tell.
[00:01:37] So let's, why don't you ask me a question. Some kind of management dilemma or communication dilemma you have. Ask me a question and I'll answer it, and then we can have the Portrait, so that people can understand what the Portrait is rather than trying to explain it abstractly.
[00:01:55] Ryan Germick: We'll do some stunt demoing.
[00:01:56] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:01:57] Ryan Germick: I'm gonna give you a hard one. How do I give feedback to someone who's underperforming, but whom I think has great potential?
[00:02:03] Kim Scott: Yeah, this is what I call the look yourself in the mirror quadrant of management. Because very often when someone is underperforming, but you believe they have great potential, maybe the problem is something they're doing wrong, but also maybe the problem is something you've done wrong, right? Maybe you've put them in the wrong job. Maybe you have not made the expectations clear enough. Whatever. So I think going into this conversation with a good deal of humility, saying, I, you know, I believe in your potential, but being so, so that's like the care personally part, but also being really, really clear about exactly what they're doing wrong. And saying, I, you know, you can succeed in this job and I'm here to help you, it's my job to help you succeed in this job. Part of helping you succeed, you can't do right if you dunno what you're doing wrong. So that's the real Kim Scott answer. Let's see what the Portrait says.
[00:02:57] Ryan Germick: Alright, I'm gonna it up.
[00:02:59] Kim Scott: By the way, while you're pulling it up, I'll say that one of the things I love about the Portrait is that real Kim Scott tends to be a little bit long-winded and the Portrait is pretty snappy. So let's see what it says. And maybe you'll have to ask the Portrait a couple of follow up questions since
[00:03:14] Ryan Germick: We'll see. How do you give feedback to someone who's underperforming, but you think has great potential?
[00:03:24] Kim Scott Portrait: That's a classic situation. You wanna help them realize that potential, right? The key is to focus on specific behaviors and express your confidence in their ability to improve.
[00:03:34] Kim Scott: I'd love to hear your comments about whether you like, and I will not be offended if you like the, if you like the Portrait answer better than my answer,
[00:03:44] Ryan Germick: It's your, it's your Portrait. It's you, you, you can take credit.
[00:03:46] Kim Scott: Yeah. And look, my grandmother used to tell me about growing up in Galveston, Texas. And they would have a race between the horse drawn fire extinguisher and the firetruck, the new mechanized firetruck. Of course, everyone would cheer on the horse drawn, but of course the mechanized was able to be faster. And the reason why I am so excited about this Portrait is that what it, like, I am filled with guilt all the time about the number of emails I miss with people asking questions of me, the number of LinkedIn messages I miss, like I want to have all these conversations with all these different people who've read the book.
[00:04:33] Like one of the, I wrote a bunch of books that never got published. This one did get published and did okay. And so the good news, that's the good news, the bad news is people wanna talk and I'm only one person and I can't answer all the questions, and now I can. So this Portrait is in addition to being really helpful to other people a liberator for me. So I have time now not to answer all these questions, not to feel guilty about all the ones I can't answer, but to go write the next book. And also, I think this Portrait will help sell more copies of Radical Candor.
[00:05:06] Ryan Germick: We hope so.
[00:05:07] Kim Scott: Yeah. I'm certain. I don't just hope so. I'm convinced. Have conviction on that point.
[00:05:13] Ryan Germick: Uh, any more questions for Kim Scott Portrait? Or can I get the real Kim for a while?
[00:05:16] Kim Scott: Yeah, you can get the real Kim for me. If folks have questions, folks in the stream, Jen or whoever's watching, Jen said, it was amazing. Definitely sounds like you. I showed it to my daughter last night. She was like, oh mom, that really sounds like you. So other, other questions for real, Kim Scott, Ryan?
[00:05:38] Ryan Germick: Well, I mean, any hot tips on what your next book is? Now You got me curious as a, as a, as a Kim Scott fan, I wanna know.
[00:05:44] Kim Scott: Yeah. One of the things that I have, my twins are 16 years old now, and one of the things that I have noticed about them and their friends is that they're not especially optimistic about the future. And for good reason. I mean, there's a lot of problems in the world right now, but one of the things that I felt growing up in the seventies and eighties, that it was, those were kind of, in some ways optimistic decades, and I feel like the optimism served me well. So I'm writing a book, it starts in 2020, and then it fast forwards to 2070. It's about the high school class of 2020. And their 50th high school reunion, and they will have fixed everything. Justice will have rained down like water. So that's what, I'm trying to imagine a better future for my kids.
[00:06:30] Ryan Germick: I love that. Where, you mentioned some experiences with your kids using their Portrait, your Portrait. How's that going in the household? Are they leveraging it to get out of trouble or to get more privileges or what are they using it for?
[00:06:41] Kim Scott: Yeah, so my son actually spent more than an hour arguing with the Portrait about, in California you turn 16, you can get your driver's license, but you cannot drive with your friends in the car. You cannot drive with other minors in the car, which is a great law, I think, because there's a lot of evidence that shows that a distracted brain, which a 16-year-old. Is very much a distracted brain, it gets much worse when you have your friends with you. And so great law, I support the law, but it's frustrating for them, you know, they, they have this sort of partial freedom and they have a taste of freedom, but not actual.
[00:07:18] So he spent a full hour arguing with my Portrait about why he should be allowed to, to drive with his friends. And it was hilarious because the Portrait sort of thought the conversation was over about the, at about the same time Mark that I, myself, it was like, let, let, why don't I summarize our conversation. Richard was like, but he really wanted to keep talking and, and he talked and talking and, and it was really enlightening for me because I realized as I was watching this, I cut off conversations with, with him and his sister, probably before I should, and, and so that was, that was cool to see. I had to finally take it away from him. I'm like, you gotta go finish your homework. So that was, that was cool watching it.
[00:08:10] Ryan Germick: And I'm, in the course of our collaboration, you also mentioned that it was a bit of a running joke from, from some of your team that Kim Scott bought would've really been, been helpful and, and we were confronted by the progenitor of that idea recently, who, this is the opportunity to give credit.
[00:08:26] Kim Scott: Absolutely. So when I was working on the AdSense team at Google, the great Dobromir Montauk who,
[00:08:33] Ryan Germick: The history, now this was the origin of,
[00:08:36] Kim Scott: Yeah, we loop Dobromir in here. As an April Fool's joke, 'cause I was very much pushing the team to automate a lot of the customer support work that we were doing. That was the theme of the year, was automation. And as an April Fool's joke, Dobromir said, great news, I've automated Kim and he gave, there were kind of five responses, almost canned responses that I tended to send to people. You know, they'd send me some great idea and I'd like, great idea! Make it happen. You know, don't bother me anymore. Hopefully that was not the, but that was the joke was, was, was that, that was sort of how I tended to respond.
[00:09:17] Ryan Germick: I'm, I'm proud all these years later we've added to the canon, you know, like, sorry, I didn't understand what you said and can you please try again? That is against my terms of service to discuss, so, we're, we're, you know, you know, launching and iterating the Kim Scott.
[00:09:29] Kim Scott: Yeah. Well, I will say one of the things my son tried to do with the Portrait is to break it, and he threatened to do some, some very dangerous things, and I was, I loved the way the Portrait convinced him not to do those dangerous things. So this has been, in many ways, this has been like a lifelong dream of, of, you know, because when you're a writer, in fact, the reason I wrote Radical Candor was that I had become a, a CEO coach. And then a bunch of people wanted me to coach them. And coaching really doesn't scale.
[00:10:06] Like I, I find if I'm working with more than five people at a time, I'm neglecting all of them. And, but again, I was filled with guilt that I couldn't say yes to everyone. So I wrote the book actually. I was like, okay, I'll just write down, and then anyone, you know, can for $15, or if they can't afford $15, they can go to the library and check it out for free, can read what I think. And in many ways, books do scale. You know, as a writer you can write the book once and then thousands of people, millions of people can read the book with no incremental work on the part of the, of the author. But if a book does well, and you're lucky, I mean, I've written a lot of books that never even got published, but this one luckily did get published and a lot of people read it, and now all of a sudden people had all these questions for me.
[00:10:57] And, and I, and so now I'm back to the scaling problem. Like I'm only one person. Like, I, I would love to do a million book signings. I would love to have a, a million conversations, but I physically can't. And so now I'm back to the, you know, racked with guilt kind of problem. And the, again, this is why I am so excited about the Portrait is that it, it, it scales. Now I can answer, or I can answer, AI can answer everyone's question all the time, and it will, it will give good answers. It's not, it's not, I think one of the problems with with large language models is that it's a mathematical average.
[00:11:40] Ryan Germick: Right.
[00:11:41] Kim Scott: And average just gets you to average, you know? And the Portraits will get you spiky answers from specific people. And as more Portraits, as you all launch more Portraits, like maybe we can argue with each other.
[00:11:56] Ryan Germick: I, I get a lot of value out of this world at LM's, but sometimes when I'm asking questions, it feels like you're going to a restaurant and asking the waiter like, what's good on the menu. The answer is, it depends what you like. Here are the 15 different things you might enjoy, and it's not helpful. But we've got all these experts out there who have structured their thoughts in books or podcasts or other things that are truly valuable, right? We all can get so much value out of these experts that help us in these personal growth ways. And to just go with the mathematical average seems like a missed opportunity, not just for the person on the, and the user at the end who's getting that advice. Or the writer who doesn't get to have that specificity or control, but also the platform itself, I think would benefit from more of the human voice.
[00:12:39] Kim Scott: Exactly. Like now you can do the equivalent of asking the person who loves cheese fondue if the cheese fondue at this restaurant is, rather than just asking,
[00:12:50] Ryan Germick: You're not supposed to leak our next Portrait.
[00:12:51] Kim Scott: The cheese fondue Portrait is next. All right. Sorry, I, I gave it, I gave it up.
[00:12:56] Ryan Germick: Heard it here first.
[00:12:57] Kim Scott: Yeah. Uh, the other thing that is really wonderful about Portraits is that I got to be involved with creating it. So, Laura, Laura asked, have you ever seen your Portrait give a response that is different than what you would typically give as advice? And one of the reasons why I feel so, confident about launching this, I mean, it's an experiment, so it's not gonna get everything right. It's okay, but the reason why I feel so confident is that I got to be involved in training it. So, so I spent a bunch of time asking it a bunch of different questions. And at the, in the first version, you know, it did sometimes give an answer, or even a tone. There was, I got it. I was sort of rude to it and it was a little rude to me back in the early instance and now it won't do that.
[00:13:45] Ryan Germick: Turn the sass dial a bit. But I mean, a Google app's got three values. It's built to learn this, as you mentioned, this is an experiment, but a third value is to co-create and, you know, uh, we don't pretend to have all the answers. We have access to some the technology, but yeah, we're really looking to find ways to bring out the best in and, you know, people and, and partnering with folks like you has, has helped a ton. And, and shout out to the team who worked really hard to respond to all your excellent feedback and your team's excellent feedback. You know, there's a lot of grinding that went into, you know, quality and, and you know, one of the reasons we're focusing on a single Portrait as a launch vehicle is to really go deep with craft and care to give answers that are as accurate and as helpful as possible. It's easy to say, here's a couple pages, pretend to be this person. Um, but it's sort of like garbage in, garbage out. And we're, we're trying to push it to the art for quality. So good, Kim uh, good question for Kim, Laura, but yeah, that's really the value. I think the currency of this opportunity is, can you really scale someone who's got a lot more things to say, but not all the time to say it.
[00:14:44] Kim Scott: I mean, it's interesting because I have found that since Radical Candor came out there, there are about 80 frequently asked questions that represent kinda 80 or 90% of the questions. And I think a lot of authors struggle with this. Like you write a book. A lot of people read it and people are gonna have the same kind of question over and over. And it's exciting that people wanna, you know, a journalist will send me a question, and on the one hand I'm thrilled that a journalist is interested in the book, but on the other hand I'm like, would you just read the damn book? And that's not a very radically candid, that's an obnoxiously aggressive answer.
[00:15:22] Ryan Germick: Yeah, we're in the wrong quadrant. Yeah.
[00:15:23] Kim Scott: Yeah. I mean, I'm human and sometimes I get, I get impatient and, and luckily not only is the Portrait available 24/7, it has unlike me infinite patience. And it, it doesn't mind answering the same question over and over and over again. And that liberates me to go write the next book. So love, love that about what you all built with me and I love that I got to be included in the process.
[00:15:51] Ryan Germick: We're looking for cheese fondue experts, so if there's anyone in the audience, you know? Authenticity.
[00:15:57] Kim Scott: I've already had a bunch of people say, I wanna build a Portrait, so I've been sending
[00:16:02] Ryan Germick: Keep them coming. You know, starting small, but thinking big. We'd love this to be a platform that really is good.
[00:16:07] Kim Scott: Yeah, somebody, somebody asked, sorry, the questions are coming in and I'm losing the names 'cause they're, but somebody asked, you know, what's next? But one of my dreams for this, you heard it first here, is to get several Portraits kind of having what I call a Rogerian argument. In other words, not an obnoxiously, like one of the things the Portraits could do is teach people how to disagree productively. And so I would love to, to have my Portrait have a disagreement with somebody else who has a different view of management maybe than I do. And I think that would, not only would it help people flesh the ideas out, it would also teach people how to disagree productively. Yeah.
[00:16:48] Ryan Germick: Performative dialogue out there.
[00:16:51] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. In my novel, the hero of the novel, the heroine of the novel, does Miranda Bailey is her name, it is that, no. Miranda Morales. I changed her. Miranda Bailey is from Grey's Anatomy. Uh, Miranda Morales, one of the things that she does is she builds sort of personality extender that will help people online learn how to not bully and be obnoxious with each other, but to discuss things. So maybe the novel is gonna come out in this.
[00:17:26] Ryan Germick: I love that.
[00:17:26] Kim Scott: And another, uh, thing that people have asked about here and also on LinkedIn and other places is when this will be available in other languages and in other countries. So maybe.
[00:17:39] Ryan Germick: Part of the process is to launch and iterate and you know, this is our first crack of the experiment. More international ,availability is top of our list. Please keep the feedback coming. We'd love to respond to suggestions and feedback, but more languages, particularly availability, more features, more Portraits. We've got a long list of wonderful things in store.
[00:17:58] Kim Scott: Another thing that I have really loved about doing this with you and your team are the ways that users, like you all do really good user testing, and the way that various users have interacted with the Portrait. One of my favorite stories, but I wonder what one of your favorite stories is, Ryan, was a mother who had to have a conversation with her child's school about a special program they needed to put in place for her child. And she was dreading, understandably, dreading this conversation because the, you know, you're never more, you're a hostage to fortune when you have children. She said she spent some time talking through the situation with the Portrait to help her prepare for the conversation. And she said by the time she was done, she actually was looking forward to the conversation instead of dreading it. And that really, that meant a lot to read that to me.
[00:18:51] Ryan Germick: Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe I shouldn't admit this, but you know, as a communication coach, you're very valuable for communication. You know, I want to brag about my team's work, and so when I'm thinking about, what do I post on social media? This, this, you maybe gave a profound, beautiful example, but I was like, hey, Kim, like how should I talk about this thing? You know, and I've workshopped my, you know, LinkedIn post or whatever.
[00:19:12] Kim Scott: Oh wow.
[00:19:13] Ryan Germick: It was, it was very helpful.
[00:19:14] Kim Scott: Oh, good.
[00:19:15] Ryan Germick: But I mean, like, I mean, you know, as a product builder in technology, you kinda get a, you get sort of like really close to your work and you think everybody should be in love with it. Then I went on vacation like somewhere in this process, like a month ago. And I was in Hawaii chilling with my family and didn't have to open a computer or a laptop or anything. Just chasing a couple young kids on the beach. I asked myself at a moment like, you know what, I don't have a review this week. I don't have to like work on some design this week, would I still use this thing? And I had it on my phone. And lo and behold, there were moments where I was like, even like domestic disputes or whatever, like, you know, like how should I approach this?
[00:19:51] And having that supportive companion help me workshop and things, and also the context that it kept from our previous conversations was extremely helpful. I find one of the greatest values of this thing is, of course there are specific work things that you're just like, hey, I'm want have a difficult conversation with my boss or my report, or how can I be a better manager? But also just like I've got a thing to bounce off of somebody and the, the value that I see is what I call like from rambling to reflection. As you know, as I'm just, as I'm exhibiting right now, I love to ramble.
[00:20:21] Kim Scott: You're not rambling.
[00:20:23] Ryan Germick: But then, then having a, a infinitely patient listener who can then leverage the power of LM's, but through the filter of understanding of your particular framework of communication and empathy, bring back to me something that's more structured and truly helpful. And so I think that's like a rinse and repeat thing that, you know, if there's any magic here, that's the magic for me.
[00:20:43] Kim Scott: I love that. My husband, who also worked at Google for even more years than I did, and I were taking a walk yesterday and we were talking about the product and we were also talking about the collaboration with you and your team and how much fun it's been. And he said to me, he said, one of the things that I really miss about working at Google is having this, a big number of really supportive, compassionate, kind, but super sort of, let's go, make shit happen, you know, get shit done, kind of colleagues. That combination is exciting and it's fun, and I feel like in building these Portraits, you're gonna give that experience to everyone in the world. If you can have a group of people, everybody can build their own sort of personal board of directors. Like, who are the people I wanna get advice from? Who are the people I want to challenge me, but also in a supportive, kind, exciting way. So I'm really, I'm really thrilled about what, what you all are putting out into the world and super excited to be the first one.
[00:21:49] Ryan Germick: Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a reason I've been at Google all these years. I think I said 12 in the beginning. It's been closer to 19. It's a long time.
[00:21:55] Kim Scott: That is a long time.
[00:21:56] Ryan Germick: But you know, like, you know, the lore of Google in the heyday of lava lamps and colorful beanbag chairs and snacks every a hundred feet. I mean, some of it's really true and, um, I feel a great sense of privilege, but also obligation to try to share as much of that good fortune with others. And so whether it was through like creating educational or fun doodles or trying to make Google Assistant more accessible, you know, I really do think that being able to share the power of technology in a way that is welcoming on a human level where you don't need to understand even what a prompt is. Like we don't, we don't talk about prompts or even like really talk about AI. It's just like, you know, this is an entry point that's meant to reduce all the barriers to the value of the technology. And it's an awesome partnership because you know, the secret ingredient, the not secret ingredient, but the thing that really brings it to life is that human interface of like, I can understand where this person's coming from. So that information comes to me from a perspective that is all the more valuable to me.
[00:22:50] Kim Scott: I mean, part of the reason why I decided to join Google back in 2004, which is around the same time you?
[00:22:58] Ryan Germick: Yeah, a couple. I was a couple years later, I'm pretty sure it went.
[00:22:59] Kim Scott: But it was, one of the, like if we go in the way back machine that like the world was different, the internet was different and most companies were building these sites that kind of felt to me like I was the user like a fly in a Venus fly trap. They were sticky and then I was gonna get eaten up. And, and Google was doing the opposite. Google was measuring its success by how fast you got off the site, how fast Google was able to help you get where you really wanted to go instead of trapping you in their echo chamber. And I feel like in many ways what you all are doing with AI is something similar. Like you're not trying to force everyone to stay in your mathematical average. You're like, okay, we're gonna work with creators and we're gonna allow them to use AI to get their content to more.
[00:23:51] Ryan Germick: That's the vision for the experiment is, you know, like, I mean, there's times where you know that the baseline LM is exactly what you need. But there are times when, you know, there's no right answer and you wanna go to a perspective that you can relate to, that you can understand, or debate with, or disagree with. And that's part of the beauty of being human. If we can bring some of that into the technology, I think that's a net positive. And yeah, agree. Like, you know, as I talk about all the time, I think there's an opportunity to consider what I maybe called characters or some people, like, call them agents, but this idea of a humanlike representation of information and perspective that can be applied all over the place. It reminds me of like, yeah, the new website or the new app. You know, this idea that containing in an interface, information, a brand, a point of view, services, that can be understood by other people as a person like entity. I mean, that sort of been an area of exploration for some time for me and many people on the team, and it's exciting to see it come to life.
[00:24:57] Kim Scott: That's another thing that was very different about working with you all than all the other people out there who are trying to do, I mean, there are a lot of people who are trying to create AI versions of personalities, right? And one of the things that you all offered that I think, at least, I mean, I'm sure someone else out there is, but nobody else I talk to anyway is offering, is that we can put the Portrait on our website. Like you're not trying to own the user. You're allowing Radical Candor the opportunity to use this on their site and build their own relationship with our own users.
[00:25:29] Ryan Germick: Yeah, I mean, it's early days, but you know, we look at platforms like YouTube as a model of, you know, like we provide the infrastructure and technology for you to package and distribute your goods and services however you see fit. You know, you could maybe discover them on the YouTube.com or in the app, but also embed them on your site. And you know, we want this to be extremely creator friendly. We want this to help your audience get more of the mountains of content that you already have. A great place to do that is like right next to where the content already is.
[00:25:58] Kim Scott: So super, super exciting and empowering for everybody involved. I also think, I mean, and this is my kind of worldview, but I imagine you have a similar one. Like there are some things where there really are right answers. You know, there, there human knowledge is a thing, you know,
[00:26:16] Ryan Germick: Kim Scott says you gotta wear orange sweaters. It's not a debate. Yeah.
[00:26:19] Kim Scott: But that is not truth. That is just an opinion. Like our, I feel like human knowledge is a raft on which we're sitting, but human ignorance is much bigger ,and is much bigger than our, our ignorance is a way, way, way bigger than our, than our knowledge. I think that part of the benefit, like when I sat down to write Radical Candor, a lot of, you know, I'm in Silicon Valley writing this book and people are like, you gotta do research. And I'm like, no, I don't have to do research. Like, and, and ambiguities of experience, James March says, there's a few different paths to truth. One is through data and research, but another is through making sense of your own personal experience. And it's, it can, and you know, maybe the research follows that, the insights that come from, but that's why I think the humanities and the humanity that you're bringing to this is, is so important.
[00:27:11] Ryan Germick: But I might argue also that that lived experience is a type of research. You know, you, you've, you know, you've, you've experienced, you know, data in a way that has informed your hypothesis, has sharpened your hypothesis, and has had confirmations and disproven elements. Maybe it's not the typically packaged numerical, like quantifiable data, but it is really valuable. I mean, I'm at, to say, the middle point in my career where it's, I was talking to a designer on my team yesterday about it still surprises me. 'Cause I still think of, I don't think of myself as some seasoned veteran, even though I've been around for a while, like I think of myself as still actively learning and curious and figuring it out.
[00:27:47] But there are clearly people in their, you know, students or early in their career where things that are free to me are valuable to them. And that gives a lot of gratification that like, oh, no, no, no, that's not you. Have you considered that way? Or maybe like, it's this way. And just even offering a perspective, even if it's not empirically factual corrections. Like in my lived experience when confronted with, with a situation like that, here's how I handled it. Something that you might consider. And that's valuable to them. It's, it's great 'cause it's like a, it's like a alchemy. It's like, it's nothing to me, it's gold of them. That's it. If you can scale that, you know, it's just like making value where there was nothing before. That's, that's a beautiful thing.
[00:28:24] Kim Scott: In, in addition to, in their whole lives. But like I think that one of the things for me about the first time I became a manager, it, it's so lonely. It's like an incredibly lonely job. And having a group of people who I could go to and say, I'm experiencing this thing, what should I do? And the best answers I ever got to those questions weren't, do this thing, but here's what happened to me when I was in a similar situation, and maybe, here's what I did wrong. Don't do that. Or, here's what I did right. Do that. And so I tried to tell a bunch of those stories in Radical Candor, in the book. And I hope, for me, one of the most meaningful moments of my whole career came when I met someone who had just become a manager, and they said I was promoted to this job. I got no training on what it was or what it meant. I felt ignorant and lonely. Like that, that, you know, like, and, and they said when I, when I got the book, it, I felt like I had a friend.
[00:29:30] Ryan Germick: That's amazing.
[00:29:31] Kim Scott: And, and I, you know, my eyes filled with tears. Like it was really incredible. And one of the things that I found is that people may read the book and feel they have a friend and then their faced, they're in the moment, and they don't remember the page in the book to turn to. And I think that the Portraits can really help solve that last mile problem.
[00:29:50] Ryan Germick: And personalized too, like available, always are personalized. So it could be like, you know, well here's how my situation is different. And having a back and forth about how to adapt that to your particular situation is really, really valuable. Also, in our observation of the opportunity space for this, oftentimes when people need someone to talk to, and having a sounding board, management's a great example because you're promoted because you were really good at a complicated thing. You were expert in this numbers for the sales or the design complexity of some big app. But then when you get to management, it's not complex. It's multidimensional, human directly. There's almost never a right answer, you know? And so having that sounding board to navigate that complexity personalized to you at that moment, yeah, like by all means, everyone should read Radical Candor, great book. We have my endorsement. Uh, you don't need it, but you got it. Um, but, um, but, but yeah, in the moment where you're like, okay, five minutes, I gotta have this tough,
[00:30:50] Kim Scott: Yeah. I can't read a whole book and then,
[00:30:52] Ryan Germick: Yeah, or flipping the page, or control F on the Ebook or whatever. Like, I actually need, like, no, but like my boss like never has time and like I, I, this is my one shot to make my pitch, like what's most important. And having that right then and there is awesome. I'm just, you know, again, grateful for your partnership because you know, not only is it wonderful for us, but also excited about the people that get to use it.
[00:31:11] Kim Scott: Yeah. The other way that I have found that people are using it is sometimes they're not a manager, but they do have a manager. And it's not always so easy to build a relationship with someone. They're very few things more damaging to a real human relationship than a power imbalance. And I hope part of what Radical Candor and what the Kim Scott Portrait will do is it will help level the playing field. It'll help folks remember, you know, your boss is a person, your boss is a person. Because there's, you know, there's a lot of bad bosses out there. We've all had, uh, I'm sure everyone,
[00:31:46] Ryan Germick: Google, I've never had a bad boss, on the record, just saying.
[00:31:50] Kim Scott: Yeah, everybody was perfect there, but before you joined Google, you probably had.
[00:31:54] Ryan Germick: Yeah, before Google, disaster.
[00:31:55] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah. And so, but bad bosses are very rarely bad people.
[00:32:00] Ryan Germick: Yeah.
[00:32:01] Kim Scott: Very rarely bad people. It's just that very few people, when they become a manager, get taught how to do the job. And, and so I hope that this will help people who are having, I mean, there are truly evil people. I don't wanna be too Pollyannaish about, but most people are not truly evil. So I hope that this book will help people who are struggling with a bad boss figure out what to do about it. And I hope it will help them feel a sense of agency, but also maybe extend a little bit of grace to that bad boss so that you can work the situation out. And I hope it'll teach people who do become managers how to do the job a little bit better. Because bad managers really do create an awful lot of misery in the workplace.
[00:32:45] Ryan Germick: Well, I wanna thank you very specifically 'cause my, not my boss, but a very senior stakeholder to me and the, project at one point in a larger team meeting had talked about how they were gonna have a difficult conversation with someone on their team, and they used the Kim Scott Portrait to help them. And, and me and another person, uh, Pavin, and we both worked together on this, like, um, shout out to Pavin. We're like, was he talking about one of us? We're like, we're like, is he not? We're like, we, like, even in our immediate, you know, circle, we're pretty sure that our, our all managers are amazing, but I think they're using the tool themselves to, you know, better have a sounding board better to, you know, kind of work through difficult conversations and, and have that reflection of your expertise to navigate the messiness of human communication.
[00:33:30] Kim Scott: Yeah, I mean, and frankly, I've used it in the same way too. Like even though it's my advice, it's hard for me to take, it's easy for me to say, be radically candid. There are, believe me, every day there's a moment in which I hesitate, you know. I am tempted to be ruinously empathetic and say nothing. Or I'm mad and so I say something maybe not in the nicest possible way. And sometimes I turn to my own Portrait to give me advice for situations to remind me to take, 'cause it's, this is hard. I mean, this stuff, we are really trained since we're, learn to speak, not to say what we really think, because we might say it in a bad way and then we go from bad to worse, I think.
[00:34:11] That's like, my overall hope for the Portrait is that it will, I think the vast majority of people tend towards what I call ruinous empathy. You know, where, where you're not saying the thing because you don't wanna hurt the person's feelings or you don't want to offend them. Even though it would be better off for them in the long run if you said the thing. And I think if we can move the majority of people towards Radical Candor, to say the thing, and to try to, they do care, so they're probably gonna say it in a kind way. Then we undo the advantages that people who tend to be obnoxiously aggressive, that obnoxious aggression,
[00:34:54] Ryan Germick: But the self-promoter, scary people can get ahead. Yeah.
[00:34:57] Kim Scott: If the majority of people are being ruinously empathetic, that leaves room for obnoxious aggression. It makes it easier to get away with obnoxious aggression. And I hope we can teach people how to engage with each other in a way that is more productive, but also kinder.
[00:35:15] Ryan Germick: So in your novel in 2050, where's Portraits, what product placement can we get, you know, in this, you know, future, 25 years from now?
[00:35:24] Kim Scott: You know, I, I hope that people can use Portraits to maybe, some of the best career advice I ever got was, if it feels too good to hit send on that email, don't hit send. And I hope that if people can learn that, retweet that, or you know, whatever.
[00:35:47] Ryan Germick: Re-X.
[00:35:48] Kim Scott: Yeah, Re-X. I don't know what to say. Hopefully in 2050 X will be gone, uh, and it will be replaced with a better social media platform. But before you amplify something or before you respond to something, if your answer feels too good, that probably means it's too mean. And so pause and think about a different way to say it. A different way to engage with people. Uh,
[00:36:13] Ryan Germick: So now humanoid robots. I was trying to lead you into humanoid robots, but.
[00:36:17] Kim Scott: No, no, no, no. I think that, well, some of the feedback I got about the Portrait, you know, 'cause the subtitle of Radical Candor is Be a Kick Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity. And so he said, I have to ask, have you lost your humanity?
[00:36:31] Ryan Germick: You omit that part of your book moving forward.
[00:36:35] Kim Scott: The humanity part? I think like render unto technology the things that scale, so that I as a human being can do the things that don't scale. And in many ways this Portrait allows me to focus on the next book because it's answering questions that I've already answered in a previous book.
[00:36:55] Ryan Germick: I mean, colloquially we talk about like there's no replacing Kim, but this is hopefully the aspirations to be the next best thing.
[00:37:03] Kim Scott: I, so in my novel, what the product that they build is called are personality extenders.
[00:37:10] Ryan Germick: Yeah, there you go.
[00:37:11] Kim Scott: Uh, and so I view this as a, you know, my hair can be even longer. It's a personality extender. I still have my real hair. But it's a personality extender.
[00:37:20] Ryan Germick: I like it.
[00:37:21] Kim Scott: I think we're almost at time, but Jen has said, that at some point in our career we do encounter someone difficult to work or communicate with? Yes. I think that is a universal thing. And one of the, one of the struggles of writing the book is that this is an end-to-end problem. Like someone who may be really easy for me to work with may be really hard for you to work with and vice versa. And, you know, you and I both think you and I are easy to work with, but other people may, may find us difficult. And, and so one of the benefits of the Portrait is that it will, it will both pay attention to whoever's asking it questions, it'll, it'll pay attention to that end. And then it can also imagine the other end, and, and, and that I think is really valuable.
[00:38:17] Ryan Germick: Well, speaking of really valuable, thank you again for your collaboration and, and taking a chance on this. And, you know, we think it's the start of something that could be uniquely helpful for people leveraging this technology in a way where end users, creators and Google all come out ahead. Uh, so thanks for helping us be more than the sum of our parts and being such a great partner.
[00:38:36] Kim Scott: Huge thanks to you and to your team, and also to the Radical Candor team, to Jason, who is a technical genius on AI.
[00:38:45] Ryan Germick: To Jason's AI note taker and whatever gibberish they had to sum up after our calls.
[00:38:51] Kim Scott: And to Brandi and Leslie and just the whole team for making this a success. To Pavin for responding to my random LinkedIn inquiry. I did a little LinkedIn stalking to get involved. By the way, for other people who want to build a Portrait of, how, how should they reach out to you?
[00:39:09] Ryan Germick: So on the actual site, um, Portrait or Google, Labs@Google.com/Portraits, there is a link and a form where you can fill out your interests. As I mentioned, starting humbly, but thinking big, we'd love to scale this out. And so if you've got, if you go to the site, you'll be able to find the form on the homepage to submit your information.
[00:39:30] Kim Scott: Amazing. And then I will not be in solitary splendor anymore. I want company, my Portrait wants company. So excited to see the folks who come next.
[00:39:39] Ryan Germick: There's more to come, so stay tuned.
[00:39:40] Kim Scott: Awesome. Thanks so much Ryan. Really enjoy the conversation and love working with you and the team.
[00:39:46] Ryan Germick: Likewise.
[00:39:47] Kim Scott: Take care.
[00:39:48] Amy Sandler: The Radical Candor Podcast is based on the book, Radical Candor: Be a Kick Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, by Kim Scott. Episodes are written and produced by Brandi Neal, with script editing by me, Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co-founders Kim Scott and Jason Rosoff, and is hosted by me still, Amy Sandler. Nick Carissimi is our audio engineer. The Radical Candor, podcasting music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Follow us on LinkedIn, Radical Candor the company, and visit us at RadicalCandor.com.
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Improvising Radical Candor, a partnership between Radical Candor and Second City Works, introduces 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.
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The Radical Candor Podcast is based on the book Radical Candor: Be A Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott.
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.
The Radical Candor Podcast theme music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Order his book: The Reason For The Rhymes: Mastering the Seven Essential Skills of Innovation by Learning to Write Songs.
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