Introducing Radical Candor to Your Team

Building Pockets of Excellence: Introducing Radical Candor to Your Team 6 | 39

Amy and Jason discuss how to effectively introduce Radical Candor to teams, emphasizing the importance of starting small with focused groups to drive meaningful cultural change. By creating “pockets of excellence,” where team members hold each other accountable and share success stories, organizations can build momentum toward a more open, feedback-driven environment.

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Episode at a Glance: Introducing Radical Candor to Your Team


Practical examples from real-world experiences highlight how celebrating small wins, using intentional communication, and involving leadership can help teams adopt and sustain a radically candid culture that benefits both individuals and the organization as a whole.

Pockets of excellence can ignite larger cultural shifts.”

 

Key Takeaways:

  • Starting small is crucial for impactful change.
  • People must choose to change; they cannot be forced.
  • Creating pockets of excellence can inspire broader cultural shifts.
  • Accountability should focus on success, not punishment.
  • Communicate the rationale behind cultural changes clearly.
  • Real-world examples can demonstrate the value of change.
  • Encouraging feedback is essential for growth.
  • Celebrate small wins to build momentum.
  • Join communities for support in implementing change.
  • Vulnerability in leadership fosters a culture of openness.

Radical Candor Podcast Resources

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Radical Candor Podcast Tips

  1. Tip number one, start small. Focus on one team or one group of people. At Radical Candor, we’ve seen how these pockets of excellence can become a spark that ignites a larger cultural shift because they become a model for others. As more people see the benefits, the momentum starts to build on its own and you get a pull versus push type of change in culture. 
  2. Tip number two, lead by example. Communicate to your team that you recognize the need for more radically candid interactions and that you’re committed. You are the one who is starting to make the change. So share your intention to improve. Ask for their help by inviting them to give you feedback on your feedback style. This kind of collaborative approach, it’s not going to only accelerate your growth, it encourages others to embrace the change, especially when you share vulnerability, where you’ve made mistakes, where you’ve received Radical Candor.
  3. Tip number three, you can join the Radical Candor community, which is our new home, online home, for leaders to gather and help one another apply the principles of Radical Candor to succeed at work. Anybody who’s listening can head on over to community.radicalcandor.com and sign up for an account today.

The TLDR Radical Candor Podcast Transcript

Introducing Radical Candor to Your Team

[00:00:00] Jason Rosoff: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Radical Candor podcast. I’m Jason Rosoff. 

[00:00:07] Amy Sandler: I’m Amy Sandler. Today we’re talking about a topic that we get lots of questions about, which is how can I introduce Radical Candor to my team? And Jason, you recently wrote a LinkedIn post about this recently. It offered a fresh perspective that folks may not have considered. And I’m just going to quote you, if I may. 

[00:00:26] Jason Rosoff: Sure. 

[00:00:27] Amy Sandler: Thank you. You wrote, quote, when building a more radically candid culture, I’ve found that starting small is the way to go. As someone who loves to tinker and experiment, I’ve seen firsthand how big changes often start with small tweaks. Trying to change the culture of an entire company or organization all at once is like trying to boil the ocean. It will take all of your energy, and it’s impossible. And I’m wondering when you were reflecting on that, were you thinking of certain examples where companies have tried to sort of just go so big that it wasn’t able to be impactful? Or what was on your mind when you were thinking about the start small guidance?

[00:01:13] Jason Rosoff: One of the reasons I recommend starting small is because you can’t make people change, people have to decide to change. And from my perspective, that means you need to create the conditions that make change seem more interesting than staying the same. And I’ve never found a way to do that really big. Uh, because when you try to do that on a really large scale, I think there’s a little bit of like, uh, like bystander syndrome, like everybody’s waiting for somebody else to go first. 

[00:01:43] Whereas if you do it in a small group, it’s really easy to sort of, to encourage a small group of people to all take a step forward together. Uh, and I can think of an example, uh, that’s unrelated to feedback. But if you think about, you know, wanting to, let’s say, go to yoga more or something like that. It’s a lot easier to commit to that change if you have a friend or two who are willing to go to you, go with you to class, you know what I’m saying?

[00:02:15] Because like, there’s a small commitment that you’re making to that person. They help to hold you accountable. You feel like you were sort of missing out on something by not participating in it. And I think the same thing is true for any other kind of, uh, social activity, which feedback is a social, is a fundamentally social activity.

[00:02:32] And so if you say, we’re all going to take a small step together, uh, that’s an easy, that’s a better place to start. Than, you know, the whole company, everybody is responsible for doing this. And that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t communicate about the intention, like where you want to go as an organization. 

[00:02:49] Amy Sandler: Yeah.

[00:02:49] Jason Rosoff: That’s fine. But the actual implementation really requires you to start small. And that, and there’s some other reasons for that, but that’s my primary thing. 

[00:02:57] Amy Sandler: Yeah, I love that. And just, well, you know, if we kind of drill down on what you’re saying. There’s one part, which is start small, and then there’s another part about communicating.

[00:03:07] So we’ll start with the starting small piece and what you said is really interesting. I think both in terms of individual change and also organizational change. So even just from an individual change perspective, uh, I know for myself, I teach these things to help myself, hold myself accountable. 

[00:03:26] It’s not just starting small, what I hear you saying though, you’re also talking about supporting with other people. Like we don’t have to do it on our own. So it’s almost like start small, but not so small. One person small. Small, actually with success partners, a small group. And one of the things that I really liked that you introduced in that LinkedIn post was this idea of pockets of excellence.

[00:03:51] So talk a little bit more about, um, first of all, just the phrase pockets of excellence, I think is something that’s quite memorable. But what is it about a small group, um, that can get some momentum going? 

[00:04:03] Jason Rosoff: Going back to the yoga example for a second, I think the idea of a small group is like, it’s sort of easy for one person to fail and nobody to notice. It’s a little bit harder for two people to not keep their commitments. I don’t want to say fail, to not keep their commitment and for no one to notice. It’s really hard for three people to not keep a commitment and nobody notices. Uh, so there’s like a minimum group size. I think it’s like, it’s a minimum of about three people that know what’s going on and are helping to hold one another accountable. But the idea of a pocket of excellence, like it really was born out of this sense that you want to show people, to be able to demonstrate to people why this change is worthwhile. 

[00:04:47] And that I think requires some, uh, some social proof, some, a demonstration of like what the benefits of this can be. And it’s easier to extract those stories and those benefits more quickly if you’re starting with a smaller group of people, right? And imagine a hundred people just taking the time to get the stories from people about, you know, what worked and what didn’t. Like, it would take weeks to collect all the data and all this other stuff, but a small group, three to five people, I feel like you could get a couple of those stories and share them pretty quickly, right? 

[00:05:16] Amy Sandler: Yeah.

[00:05:16] Jason Rosoff: Within a week or two, you would already have some data that you could share back with others. 

[00:05:20] Amy Sandler: Yeah, that’s great. And even the language I think is important. I know we shifted language a bit, even from accountability partners to success partners. 

[00:05:30] Jason Rosoff: Yeah.

[00:05:30] Amy Sandler: Like, um, invested in your success accountability can sound a little bit like somebody is just waiting for you to quote fail. Like you were saying, rather than we are our own pocket of excellence, how can we support each other in growing? 

[00:05:43] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. I think, I’m not so afraid of the word accountability but I understand why other people are. I do think that the problem with the word accountability is people assume that not meeting the thing that you’re accountable to will lead to punishment.

[00:06:02] I think like, that’s like a, that’s a cultural thing to pay attention to. Like, if people are afraid of accountability, they’re probably not actually afraid of accountability. They’re afraid of being punished and probably afraid of being punished unfairly for not accomplishing something. Um, but I think the point is a good one, which is that the focus should not be on failure, the focus should be on success. And what you’re looking for in the pocket of excellence are success stories, right? The times where it worked well. This is sort of, uh, aligns with our guidance around praise. 

[00:06:34] When we say focus on the good stuff. If you talk about what’s working well, that’s not only helpful to the person who did the thing because they learned something valuable about how they could succeed again in the future. But to other people to learn something about what success looks like. It’s the same principle applied to sort of group dynamics or sort of social behavioral change. We say we want to talk about the moments that we’re successful. Our failures are important to recognize because if there’s something systemic that we can do to help prevent those failures, that’s really useful information.

[00:07:07] But most of the time, what people are struggling with is they don’t know what a positive example of a feedback culture looks like, they’ve never experienced one. And so sharing those success stories makes a big difference because it actually creates a space in people’s minds where they can imagine what it would look like to have that culture and have it be a positive experience.

[00:07:28] Amy Sandler: Yeah. I love that you brought in the praise. I may have mentioned this on previous podcasts, but one of the things that we did, um, through having more virtual sessions was being able to have a first session and then a second follow up session. And so in that second follow up session, we’ve been able to check in on, hey, how’s it going with your practice of specific and sincere praise? How’s it going with your go to question? Your soliciting feedback practice. And one of the things that has worked really well with that was that people realized, oh, when we focus on the good stuff, the praise doesn’t have to be, hey, Jason, you just launched this whole huge thing, you know, this big effort.

[00:08:07] It was actually, hey, Jason, thanks for mentioning this new product update in the most recent, you know, team meeting. It helped me realize where we are with that project. I wasn’t sure and it gave me a direction for what I could do to support it, right? It can be small incremental changes and people start to realize, oh, like you’re saying, it’s a model of success, people don’t have to wait for something really big. 

[00:08:30] Jason Rosoff: Exactly. I think, I’m sure everybody who’s listening to this has been part of an organization who has announced some cultural initiative. But they’re like, we’re going to fundamentally change, we’re going to become customer focused, or we’re going to fundamentally change the way that we do something. And part of the problem with that communication is it’s hard to simultaneously make it seem like an important change and not make it seem too difficult to get there, right?

[00:08:57] Because like, when you, when it’s important enough, it seems far away, right? Like, if it’s really important that we make this change, the tendency is to imagine, well, we must have a long ways to go. And I think the problem with that is it’s very demoralizing. You know what I’m saying? 

[00:09:10] Amy Sandler: Yeah. 

[00:09:10] Jason Rosoff: First of all, it starts you out feeling like you’re sort of, you’re already failing, right? There’s like a sort of internal assumption that somehow you’re already failing. And secondly, I think it’s sort of paralyzing because you’re like, it seems so insurmountable. Like, how are we going to ever get to where we’re going? And if instead, those things, the approach to that communication was, you know, we’ve realized that this is really important and this is a direction that we need to move. And here are some examples where it’s already happening. And what we’re going to do every week for the next six months is we’re going to highlight a positive example of a team actually living up to this ideal, or expressing this value, or behaving in accordance with this idea.

[00:09:54] One, it gives you hope, right? It makes the problem seem less insurmountable. Uh, and two, like, it helps to build momentum because there’s someone else in the organization who’s going to look and say, I can do that. Like, what that team did, like, I can do that. Like, Amy and I could accomplish that together. Um, and I think we forget how hard behavioral change actually is. You know what I’m saying? 

[00:10:17] Like, I think as we think about what it’s going to take, um, we forget how hard individual behavior change is. Um, and we focus on the sort of, like, the group too much. Um, and so focusing on like those pockets of excellence, those really good positive examples of where the behavior is already happening or where the shift has already occurred, um, it creates a sense of optimism that is often missing from, uh, from conversations about change.

[00:10:49] Amy Sandler: That is such a good point. And I think so to be clear, when we talk about one of our tips, which is to start small, what we’re saying is to start small, both in terms of the number of people. Not so small that you feel like you’re alone in an island trying to make change, but maybe it’s you with two, three, four other folks, pocket of excellence. And start small with not boiling the ocean in terms of the project, like we’re changing the whole organization, but it’s hey, for the next month, let’s focus on specific and sincere praise.

[00:11:18] Like that’s going to be our focus for the next month. So small, both in terms of groups, but also in terms of digestible, practical steps and showing people examples of those. And I’m curious, Jason, we’ll get into communication, which I heard you mention. But have you found with some of the companies that you’ve worked with examples of how they’ve kind of bucketed out that start small or how they showcased internally in the organization? Like the good stuff that folks were doing?

[00:11:48] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. A really good example of this comes from my, uh, my Khan Academy days where we wanted to bring the voice of our users, our students, that were using Khan Academy into the organization. And we’re in Silicon Valley, like right down the road, um, from all of these amazing sort of like, you know, software design studios and all this other stuff. And there’s a lot in the zeitgeist of like, you have to do user research and be incredibly rigorous and all this other stuff.

[00:12:24] Um, and, uh, there was a lot of resistance to the idea that, A, we could afford it, like, it seemed very expensive, right? And very difficult. Uh, and that, B, like, there was this risk that it wasn’t going to be useful. That if we actually tried to implement this, like, the risk was that we wouldn’t learn anything. And so what the design team that I was managing at the time decided to do. And I don’t get credit for this, they decided to do it, is they took someone um, and they said, you know what? We’re just going to conduct a couple of, uh, user interviews. We’re going to take a couple of cycles from one designer. We’re going to have them go out and conduct just a handful of interviews. We’re going to record them, and then we’re going to share some of the insights that we get with the rest of the team at, uh, we have, we have like a weekly all hands where a team could sort of raise their hand and say, I want to present something.

[00:13:16] And so what they did was they took a video of, uh, simultaneously of the person’s face and the screen as they were trying to use, uh, the software. Uh, and they were able to show these, like, very simple things that the person was trying to do that were clearly very frustrating to them. And there was something so tangible about the emotional impact of seeing a young person, uh, trying to use the website and failing in a meaningful way to find what they were looking for, uh, to succeed in the goal that they had.

[00:13:49] That was like very moving actually. I think people were sort of like became emotionally invested in this. And the point of this was not to like, get budget for user research, but just to show the power of like, really representing the voice and the experience of the people that we were trying to serve and making it very tangible.

[00:14:08] Because, you know, we were getting all these accolades and students, you know, writing to us saying it’s changed my life and teachers saying it’s so meaningful. But we felt like there’s a story out there that we’re missing, which is like, some things are just more frustrating than they need to be. And maybe the people we want to help the most, uh, who maybe don’t have the fastest internet connection or whatever it is, like, they might be struggling more than average. We’re able to tell that story by starting really, really small. And so this wasn’t a user research study. We didn’t draw any broad conclusions. All we did was say, hey, there’s more to be learned here, uh, about what we could do differently. And it’d be valuable to, um, spend the time and try to do, like, a more, uh, official research effort, uh, based on this. And we did wind up, um, the team wound up succeeding. I supported them, uh, and we wound up hiring, uh, at first, an external firm to help us because we didn’t have the capacity internally to do it. But over time, uh, we actually created user research as a discipline inside the team as a result of that.

[00:15:12] So it was really just like, in some ways it was that one video, you know what I’m saying? Like that made the difference. Um, they, this person actually conducted three user interviews. It took them about a day of actual like total wall time between conducting the interview, uh, editing the video and doing the presentation. So eight total hours and it had this huge impact on the perception that the team had about the value of user research. 

[00:15:38] Amy Sandler: You know, as you were sharing that story, I was kind of going through my extrapolation machine in my head of like, okay, what sort of the potential version of that for our listeners or people who are trying to bring Radical Candor to their teams, to their pockets of excellence and beyond.

[00:15:55] And so one idea I’m curious, let me know what you think is like. Let’s say Jason, you and I worked at a really, at a big company and, uh, you were my manager there and we started practicing Radical Candor. I could imagine like we could, rather than some formal interview where we had, you know, fancy video equipment, like the two of us could have a conversation, like film it on an iPhone or in a Zoom and just be like, hey Jason, you started asking me for feedback.

[00:16:22] This worked, this didn’t work so well. You know what I’m saying? Like is that kind of what you’re thinking like almost just like it doesn’t have to be big and fancy. Just kind of real and heartfelt and just kind of get it out there. 

[00:16:33] Jason Rosoff: Yeah the software that we use to conduct the user research cost us nineteen dollars a month. Like that was the, so like the fancy video is the result of like us paying twenty bucks to like to use this online software that captured the screen and turned the camera on at the same time so you could actually like gather this data. If you found the cheapest possible way to accomplish this goal, um, which is important. 

[00:16:59] I think, you know, not just because we are a nonprofit, but because we wanted to show that, um, like the value of the insights far outweighed the cost that we might incur to actually try to gather them. And I think that the spirit of what you’re saying is exactly correct. So for example, I could imagine an even like lower tech version of that, which is something I mentioned in the article, which is just having, um, uh, you know, having someone talk about the feedback that they received that was really helpful to them.

[00:17:29] Like, it seems like such a small act, but just to say like, hey, uh, Amy, Brandi and I had decided that we were going to solicit feedback from each other. And I solicited feedback from Amy last week, and she gave me this really great feedback. Um, and, you know, I’m sharing with you one, because I thought it was really valuable, but two, I’m kind of curious.

[00:17:47] Does anybody else, you know, does anybody else experience that me in the same way? You know, maybe I’m talking over people in a meeting or something like that. Does anybody else experience me in the same way? And all of a sudden the team feel, because like, usually it is the case, right? Usually it’s not just one person’s observation. Usually there’s more to it than that. All of a sudden the team sees not only is feedback helpful to this person. But it’s helpful to me, like I’m a secondary beneficiary of this feedback because now Jason is more aware of this behavior and hopefully will be working to correct it. 

[00:18:21] Amy Sandler: Yeah. I love that. And also just what you’re saying that, and we talked about this, you know, having opportunities in meetings to, especially if we’re the leader to share feedback. One thing, and Jason, you and I’ve talked about this, is let’s say, I don’t feel comfortable being named in that meeting. You know, before saying that you would check with me, hey, Amy, is it okay if I share that you gave me this feedback or would you like it just to be, hey, I got some feedback from the team? 

[00:18:46] Jason Rosoff: Yeah.

[00:18:47] Amy Sandler: Anything more to kind of distill on that?

[00:18:49] Jason Rosoff: No, I don’t think so. I think that that’s exactly right. I think whatever it is that you do you want to make sure that you have the buy in of the people that you’re practicing with to communicate about it in the way that you want to communicate. So I think as we talk about communication in general, like, you want to communicate intent and then you want to make sure that the content of what you communicate uh, feels good to the people who are a part of your pocket of excellence. Uh, so that it’s encouraging to them, right?

[00:19:17] You don’t want to encourage other people, but then discourage the person who helped you, um, by commun, by talking about it in a way that makes them uncomfortable. Sure. Yeah.

[00:19:37] Amy Sandler: So speaking of communication, you know, if you think about if you’re a leader in a large organization and you’re starting, you know, maybe with a smaller group in this pocket of excellence. How would you think about communicating out more broadly? If, uh, if we’re aware that we don’t want to boil the ocean and we don’t want people maybe starting to think, oh my gosh, there’s this big change a brew in and, you know, without really knowing what it is. And people tend to fill in the blanks, um, with fear typically. So how do you think about a broader, you know, more, uh, organization wide communication? 

[00:20:11] Jason Rosoff: You have to decide your order of operations here. I think in my experience, one of the way like if I was doing this, if I was thinking about how to counsel someone to do this. Or if I was doing this on my own team, what I would say is there’s almost always a reason that people pursue these things. I will say that, like, nobody starts the process of trying to change the culture of an organization without a pretty good reason. Because everybody’s at least soberly aware of that that is going to be challenging to accomplish that. Um, so the way that I would think about communicating this is you start out with the rationale, right?

[00:20:46] You say, like, and it’s almost always the case that if change is necessary, you want that change to, you want there to be a pull for that change. Or you want to find the place where there’s a pull for that change and start there. But the most common thing that we hear is like, hey, we ran a survey of people in the organization. We ran some sort of engagement survey. And here’s what we got back, right? What people said was that, you know, they’re not getting the kind of guidance that they need in order to be successful in their role. Okay. Uh, and because of that, we think we want to try to bring in, um, this idea of Radical Candor to help us, uh, create an environment where it’s easier for people to have these kinds of conversations. 

[00:21:32] And what I would love to do is to get some, I’m curious, are there some volunteers? Are there some people who either feel like they’re already practicing this or, um, you know, would be excited to sort of try this out? We’d love to figure out what it is that folks need in order to achieve this goal of giving each other the kind of guidance they need to be successful, kind of inspired by Radical Candor. So I think you can make some decisions. You can say like this we’ve chosen a framework, um, but we’re asking for volunteers.

[00:22:04] Uh, and in my experience, there’s somebody who’s like, it’s almost always the case that somebody’s willing to experiment. And then the goal is for people to hear from those folks, right? What we just described, which is the sort of like run the experiment, talk about the successes, uh, acknowledge the failures. But, you know, focus more on positive examples of like the way you can make it, the ways you can make it work, uh, you know, make them into the heroes, right? So like they get to tell their story. So, you know, it was the couple of designers who decided to do this, that got up in front of the company and presented the results, right? It wasn’t me going, you know, getting in front of people and saying, look what my team did. It was really making them and the work that they did, the story. It communicates a couple of things at once. One is that like, uh, all the stuff that we talked about that’s possible to be successful and there’s model that you can follow and all the other stuff. 

[00:23:01] But two, it makes it clear that the, this change, the goal of this change is not self serving, right? It’s not like leaders think this is important. Um, it’s not like I say, therefore you do, right? This is like your colleagues, your peers, they find real value in this, but let’s showcase them, um, and it requires effort. So it’s worth celebrating the effort that it took to achieve this positive result. Uh, and make them the heroes or the sort of examples of that change. Um, now some people may not be comfortable with that, may not want to do that. They’re probably not your best first volunteers. Uh, but I would say almost everybody enjoys, uh, to, at least to some level, you know, talking about a thing that they tried, um, and describing like what they thought was helpful or successful about that. Like, you know people take pride in their work and they want to be able to have a chance to talk about it. This isn’t really any different. 

[00:24:07] Amy Sandler: Yeah. I was wondering as you were sharing, I was putting myself in the position of someone who might reach out to us. Maybe they run L&D, uh, or training, maybe they’re a leader in sort of the middle of an organization. They’re like, oh, I really am passionate about Radical Candor. I think it’s great. And not sure how my CEO or how my executive team is thinking about it. Like what guidance do you have for folks who, there’s maybe some pockets there, but there’s others that are not yet there? 

[00:24:39] Jason Rosoff: We’ve been talking, the example that I just gave is when like cultural change is something that is being like the organization has decided to invest in.

[00:24:47] But there are other ways that culture changes and one of the ways that culture changes is that people demand it. And the one, the way that they demand it is through their behavior, right? They change what they’re doing in order to get closer to the culture that they want. When I think about the types of objections that we get from executives and CEOs and things like executive wall stripes, but especially CEOs. It’s more like skepticism that there’s actual value to be derived from trying to shift the culture. Like, that’s the healthy kind of objection, right? Skepticism is not unhealthy. 

[00:25:22] Um, I do think that there’s another kind of objection that you can get from an executive or CEO. Uh, which is, I don’t actually agree with this culture. I do not think this is the right culture for our organization to have. Like, I don’t agree with Radical Candor as a concept. Like, I don’t agree with care personally and challenge directly as a frame. And, um, that’s a very difficult objection to overcome, uh, and going back to point number one, which is like, you can’t change people. 

[00:25:51] Like people have to choose to change. That may not be, that environment may not be open to this kind of change. But skepticism is often interpreted as the same thing as being against, holding a different belief. And I don’t think that that is true. In fact, most of the time, I think what executives are probably worrying about is like, this is going to take a bunch of time, potentially cost a bunch of money, and we’re not likely to get a significant result. And so if you could start by showing results, right? 

[00:26:23] You start with the end in mind and you say, like, here are the positive results. Like this team, uh, has seen, uh, you know, an increase in productivity or retention or whatever it is. Like you’ve seen some positive results of this, uh, or just sentiment, right? The feeling as though they’re getting the kind of guidance that they need in order to be successful. I think when you start with those results that often perks up an executive’s ears to say, because then the question is, okay, so how much does this cost? And like, how is this really different from what we’re doing? Those are all the, that’s all healthy skepticism. But that’s worth trying to, uh, trying to address, I think. 

[00:27:03] Amy Sandler: Yeah. And you had mentioned about, um, experimenting, being a tinkerer yourself and those pockets of excellence. So if you were, you know, let’s say rather than working at, you know, a small company of Radical Candor, let’s say that you had a new role and you’re, you wanted to experiment in a large organization. Beyond, you’ve started with the pockets of excellence, like where would you go from there? Like if you were kind of doing a year of Radical Candor, like what would that look like, um, based on where you sit right now?

[00:27:38] Jason Rosoff: I think the next thing that would be on my mind is like, is there, can I identify another team or somebody else to try? ‘Cause I wouldn’t assume that like the pockets of excellence that I have are necessary, like, you know, two data points are not, you know, they, they’re not a pattern necessarily. So I would say like, that would be my next thought is like, can we expect, can we create like a pocket of, pockets of excellence program? Is there a way for us to share, um, like quick tips or ideas for these other teams to try? And see how it goes with teams and other parts of the company or organization.

[00:28:15] Because ultimately like what I want to be able to report back to my CEO if I’m, you know, chief people officer or whatever and I’m put in charge of trying to make this change, is that not only is this effective, but like people enjoy, like they, they like it, right? Like they’re asking to be a part of it. Uh, so that’s what I’d be thinking. I was like, how can I make it attractive for people to sort of raise their hand and be, and try out some of the things that these pockets of excellence, uh, have done.

[00:28:46] And you know, incentives don’t hurt. Like, I think this is a case where even a small incentive or acknowledgement of like, you might benefit, like, uh, you know, for the first five teams that sign up to, you know, to experiment with this, there’s, you know, we’ll buy you, you know, we’ll take the team out for lunch or something. You know what I’m saying? 

[00:29:06] Like, I think you can, uh, I think you can incentivize people to, because they’re taking a risk. And so we want to make sure that we do something to reward, uh, to reward that risk taking. So that’d be like the next thing I’m thinking of. 

[00:29:22] Which is how do I, is there a way to avoid sort of like the tendency, which is like you start to see some success and then there’s this desire to create a top down mandate that people like must start doing things. Um, which I don’t think is particularly effective and it like runs the risk of being the boiling, like creating the boiling the ocean problem.

[00:29:45] And then, you know, maybe the most important thing is to remember that part of your job, if you’re trying to be a cultural change agent, is to be a marketer, is, you know what I’m saying? It’s like, sell the story of, uh, of what’s happening, um, and, why you think it’s working? Uh, and then to solicit feedback, you know, from people, to be open to, uh, to people’s, you know, concerns, apprehensions about, you know, what this might mean, uh, for the organization if we’re successful.

[00:30:16] Amy Sandler: Awesome. Well, I think what might be helpful, Jason, as we wrap is to think about things to try as an individual. Let’s say you’re in your own sort of initial pocket of excellence, like as an individual, um, in your own practice of Radical Candor. Um, and then I’m also curious, like, let’s say how might I get started if I was, um, if I was, as that change agent?

[00:30:40] So I think, you know, thinking about if I am, let’s say you and I are starting up our own pocket of excellence, we could, you know, with Brandi, uh, we could start soliciting feedback in one on one conversations with each other. Is that, would that be one of the places to start? 

[00:30:56] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. In the blog post, I think I suggested a couple of different things, which is like small groups of people can do a couple of things, um, that are pretty simple, uh, to get the ball rolling. One of them is make a commitment to solicit feedback from one another over the course of a couple of weeks. So don’t make this like a long drawn out thing, make it shorter and more intense, right? So for the next month, once a week, we’re going to do, we’re going to solicit some feedback.

[00:31:20] And again, it doesn’t need to be a team of twenty, like a team of three is a fine place to start. Uh, the other, another great place to start is by focusing on, you know, practicing CORE public praise, like giving public praise. But, like, using CORE as the framing for it so that you start to create a sense of what it looks like to receive helpful developmental, uh, praise.

[00:31:44] And remember, like, uh, to share, to focus on the, uh, like results and next steps. Like the context and the observation and like what the person did well in what situation. That’s really important, but focusing on the result, uh, and what’s going to happen next is, uh, because of that, uh, is really motivating. Uh, and then finally, uh, like the simplest way to start is to have a conversation to share stories, uh, share a story with your team and encourage some other people to do the same, of a time that they received feedback that was really helpful to them in their career.

[00:32:19] I think the, sometimes the motivation for there’s like latent motivation for a being a part of a more radically candid culture. Uh, and we have to remind ourselves because there is, it does kind of feel scary and there’s some risk associated with it. We have to remind ourselves why it’s important. Um, and one of the best ways to do that, and that is encouraging to other people, is to make ourselves vulnerable and to share a time when we were criticized that was really helpful to us, uh, to demonstrate that not only do we value this, um, but we’re open to it, right? Like, we’re willing to receive criticism. So not only did it help us, but we’re kind of excited for more of it. 

[00:33:09] Amy Sandler: So those are some great tips for what we can do wherever we are in an organization individually. And if you are looking to bring Radical Candor into your culture, develop a more radically candid culture, here’s some tips you can use to get started.

[00:33:26] Jason Rosoff: Tip number one, start small, um, focus on, you know, one team or one group of people. Doesn’t even have to be an entire team, uh, a group of three to five people. At Radical Candor, we’ve seen how these pockets of excellence can become a spark that ignites a larger cultural shift because they, uh, become a model for others. As more people see the benefits, the momentum starts to build on its own and you get a pull versus push type of change in culture. 

[00:33:54] Amy Sandler: Tip number two, lead by example. Communicate to your team that you recognize the need for more radically candid interactions and that you’re committed. You are the one who is starting to make the change.

[00:34:05] So share your intention to improve. Ask for their help by inviting them to give you feedback on your feedback style. This kind of collaborative approach, it’s not going to only accelerate your growth, it encourages others to embrace the change, especially when you share vulnerability, where you’ve made mistakes, where you’ve received Radical Candor.

[00:34:27] Jason Rosoff: Tip number three, you can join the Radical Candor community, which is our new home, online home, for leaders to gather and help one another apply the principles of Radical Candor to succeed at work. Anybody who’s listening can head on over to community.radicalcandor.com and sign up for an account today.

[00:34:44] The community, uh, has been in beta for a little while now and there’s already a whole bunch of really great tips from leaders around the world about how they are building more radically candid cultures with their teams.

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Radical Candor Podcast Listeners Get 10% Off The Feedback Loop

 
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.

Radical Candor podcast

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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