How to measure feedback

Say What? How to Measure Feedback Responses 6 | 41

We get a lot of questions about how to measure feedback. To measure your feedback effectively, it’s crucial to understand that Radical Candor is measured not at your mouth but at the listener’s ear. This means paying close attention to how your feedback is received and adjusting your approach accordingly. We explore practical strategies for handling emotional reactions while keeping your communication clear and compassionate. Learn how to stay present in tough conversations and create a space where open dialogue leads to growth and stronger relationships, both at work and in life. We’ll also cover how to effectively solicit feedback and navigate defensiveness, ensuring that your interactions are not only productive but also supportive and understanding.

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Episode at a Glance: How to Measure Feedback

Gauging feedback involves paying close attention to the recipient’s reactions and adjusting your communication style accordingly. It’s about recognizing that feedback is not a one-size-fits-all formula; what works for one person may not work for another.

Learning the art of gauging feedback takes practice and patience. But by being mindful of the recipient’s reactions and adjusting your communication style accordingly, you can ensure that your feedback is heard, understood, and ultimately leads to positive change.

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Radical Candor Podcast Tips: Measuring Feedback

  1. Solicit feedback on your feedback. After giving feedback, ask the recipient to share their thoughts on how it was received. Questions like “How did that feedback land for you?” or “How could I have been more clear?” can open up a dialogue and give you a better understanding of their perspective.
  2. Minimize misunderstandings by ensuring that your feedback is clear, specific, and delivered with compassion. If defensiveness arises, acknowledge the emotion and offer to discuss it further, reinforcing your intention to help rather than criticize. Remember, the goal is to foster an open dialogue where feedback can lead to growth and improvement for both parties involved.
  3. Remember, the goal of Radical Candor is to create an environment where feedback is seen as an opportunity for growth, not as a source of just criticism. By handling the situation with care and understanding, you can help alleviate feelings of shame or blame and foster a more open and productive dialogue.

The TLDR Radical Candor Podcast Transcript

How to measure feedback

 

[00:00:00] Kim Scott: Hello everybody, welcome to the Radical Candor podcast. I’m Kim Scott. 

[00:00:07] Jason Rosoff: I’m Jason Rosoff. 

[00:00:09] Amy Sandler: And I’m Amy Sandler. Before we jump in today, if you’re new to Radical Candor, hello, welcome. And go listen to our season three mini episode, What is Radical Candor? If you are just getting started, you can get a six minute crash course. And if you are ready to jump in, we are going to jump into a topic, Kim, you and I have different perspectives on, this is about gauging feedback. First of all, just, it’s a hard word to spell. So, 

[00:00:38] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:00:38] Amy Sandler: GAUGE, there’s a lot of U’s before A’s, it is the A before the U, but it is a hard word. When we talk about gauging feedback, we’ve talked about this in a bunch of other episodes. Because it really is such a big part of your Radical Candor framework. Jason, you and I have had a conversation also in season three, that was episode four, specifically on gauging feedback. We’ll put that in the show notes. Today we do want to get a bit more nuanced and we want to go into more detail about what to do when you are picking up that someone is getting defensive or brushing off your feedback. Because Kim this is something we’ve had some conversations about. I think you and I might respond a little bit differently there.

[00:01:25] So before we get into that, can you just explain why you feel so strongly about gauging feedback as being such a fundamental part of Radical Candor? 

[00:01:34] Kim Scott: Yes. Uh, I’ve said it before, but I’m going to say it many, many more times. Radical Candor gets measured, not at the speaker’s mouth, but at the listener’s ear. But how do you know what’s going on inside another person’s ear? You do not know. And that actually is the most important first step to recognize that you don’t know, you can’t predict. People are going to have different reactions to what you say. 

[00:02:00] And so what you want to do is you want to say something. You don’t want to go to the outer edge of challenge directly right at first. And you don’t want to get pre belief personal right off the bat. You want to start in kind of a neutral place, notice how the other person responds. And then what you want to do is, depending on their response, adjust how you’re talking.

[00:02:25] Before we go into this, it’s worth noting that nine times out of ten, the person is probably going to respond pretty well. They’re going to say, oh, thanks for pointing it out. I’ll do more of that if you were praising them, or I’ll do less of that if you’re criticizing them. Like literally nine times out of ten, these conversations are no big thing. A two minute impromptu conversation and it’s really stays at two minutes. But I don’t want to over promise. There are going to be times when the person does have a bad reaction. Sometimes they’re sad or mad and that’s your cue to move up on care personally. And other times they brush you off and that’s your cue to move out on challenge directly. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today is what happens if the person brushes you off . And Amy and I had an interesting conversation, which I think is worth, uh, going deeper on. 

[00:03:20] Amy Sandler: Cool. And just to kind of locate people, especially if you’re newer to Radical Candor, Kim, when you’re giving these sort of visual gestures, if anyone’s watching a video, Kim is moving her hand sort of up and out. So we’re really talking about this two by two framework where care personally is the vertical sort of Y axis and challenge directly is the X axis. And one of the, 

[00:03:41] Kim Scott: Horizontal, who knows what X and Y, I can never remember. 

[00:03:44] Amy Sandler: Horizontal, horizontal, thank you. 

[00:03:47] Kim Scott: So that’s on a two by two, uh, care personally is vertical, challenge directly is horizontal. 

[00:03:53] Amy Sandler: Yeah. And I think that’s helpful because one of the beauties of the framework of Radical Candor is that we’re doing both caring and challenging. And so we’ll often say to use the framework like a compass to guide your conversation to a better place. So that’s kind of what you’re saying when you’re talking about move up on care personally, or move out on challenge directly. 

[00:04:13] Um, Jason, do you have anything more on actually just anchoring people into that idea of the framework as a way to sort of locate yourself in a conversation?

[00:04:21] Jason Rosoff: What came to mind is the two of you were talking was that I think gauging, another word for it is measuring, like, I think that I like gauging because it starts with a G and get it, give it, gauge it, sounds great together. But in case, uh, there are some people who are out there and like, what is the action that we’re doing?

[00:04:42] But like, we’re just, we’re measuring the impact, uh, of our feedback and then we’re choosing how to move. I think this idea of like Radical Candor, acting like a compass is one that is not immediately obvious to people because it’s so tempting. Like every other communication framework out there is basically a personality test.

[00:05:01] And so I really love this idea of treating Radical Candor like a guide. And so many times in workshops when people have the Aha moment, which is like, oh, I can change my behavior in response to how I’m gauging or measuring the feedback of somebody else and I might get a different result, that Aha moment is so powerful.

[00:05:19] So hopefully we can condense that all down to the next thirty minutes for people. And you get the benefit of, uh, of a Radical Candor workshop in the form of a podcast. 

[00:05:27] Kim Scott: I love that. I think it is also, not only do people, is the Aha moment, oh, I can change how the conversation is going depending on how the person responds. It’s also like we can let go of this notion, that there’s a perfect way to say it. And if we say it perfectly, then we can control how the other person responds, because we can’t control, we cannot. And not only can we not control how they’re going to respond, we also can’t predict it. It’s, uh, even with someone like, even with my kids or my husband who I know as well as I know anyone, uh, I can’t control or predict how they’re going to respond to something that I say.

[00:06:12] Amy Sandler: Yeah. And something that Jason said recently that really has stuck with me is, you know, at the end of this conversation, does the person feel like I care about them? Like, do they feel like they experienced that I was caring about them in the conversation? And do they feel like they’re clear about what the next step is?

[00:06:30] So we’ll often use clarity or being clear as another proxy sometimes for challenging directly. So I think that’s another really helpful like Aha for me that comes out. And then also just to your point Kim, you might be saying something to me and you might, I might experience you as caring and I might experience you as being clear. And I’m still gonna have an emotional reaction about it.

[00:06:53] It still might be hard for me to hear what you’re saying. So it’s like all of those things can be true and part of what we’re saying is that, you know, people will often say, just give me the script, tell me what to say. But so often it really is just about being present with the other person and knowing that they’re going to have whatever experience they’re going to have. So I think that’s where we want to go in this conversation. 

[00:07:13] Kim Scott: Yeah. And I think another thing to let go of is like, if I have a conversation with you, or let’s say you tell me something, Amy, and I get upset. I, you know, maybe I even start to cry. That does not mean that you fail, right? It’s it means that you got through to me. Uh, and you know, uh, the fact that I got upset may have nothing to do with the fact that you told me or how you told me. It’s just like, I know I screwed up and I feel bad about it and I’m frustrated and I start to cry. Uh, and so often when I’m coaching people and we’re kind of getting them ready for a conversation that they’re going to have.

[00:07:54] And then they’ll call me afterwards and they’ll say, oh, I failed, you know, they got so, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that they failed. It means that the other person was upset and the success looks like staying present for that emotion. 

[00:08:09] Amy Sandler: Yeah. In fact, you know, this might be helpful to bring in as we’ve been continually going through the Radical Candor content and updating it and iterating it based on what we’re hearing, what really feels relevant for people. And one of the things that we did was that we were identifying, why is it so hard to challenge directly? And so this phrase that we have been playing with, Kim, is fear of emotions. We are afraid that if we challenge directly, this other person is going to have an emotional response.

[00:08:40] So in many ways, It’s exactly what you’re saying, which is that I need to say this thing and this person may have an emotional response and I’m going to avoid it because of I’m afraid of that person’s emotional response. 

[00:08:53] Kim Scott: And the person might have an emotional response. Like, like when we communicate, when we communicate, we communicate on an emotional plane and on an intellectual plane at the same time. And part of our job is to remain present for those emotions. If we avoid those emotions, we’re just not going to communicate very well. 

[00:09:14] Amy Sandler: So I would love actually, if we can just pause on that and talk a little bit about what practices have each of you done to be able to stay more present with someone else’s emotion? Um, because I think just to be really explicit that we do need not only our own self awareness, but also our ability to manage emotions. And so Jason, what have you done to kind of flex that muscle for yourself so that you’re able to be more present if someone else is having an emotional response? 

[00:09:47] Jason Rosoff: I feel like the most important work that I’ve done there has nothing to do with other people’s emotions and it has everything to do with understanding my own emotions. Uh, like I think, the reason why is that human beings, we have mirror neurons. So like when someone has an emotion, like we actually, our bodies respond to that emotion, whether we like it or not. 

[00:10:13] Uh, and the reason why I said, it’s like the work on my own emotional state and understanding it is helpful, it’s like, it wasn’t until i was like thirty-five years old that I realized that emotions, were, uh, were not sort of fixed, they’re transient things, and there are things that can be observed even while they are happening. Uh, like I went thirty-five years thinking like emotions were some magical thing that happened inside your body that you have no control over or ability to like fully understand.

[00:10:48] Uh, so I, but as soon as I started to do that, I started to be able to identify the difference between staying present for somebody else who is having an emotion, and becoming caught up in my own emotional response to their emotion. And I think that helped me more than anything, because when I realized, like, this is really about them and trying to make sure that I’m available to them and trying not to be swept away by my own emotion, instead noticing that emotion.

[00:11:18] And, uh, we’ve spoken of him before, but Thich Nhat Hanh has a really great way of, he calls emotions visitors. And you, and he imagines he creates this visualization of imagine a strong emotion like sadness comes to your house and instead of rejecting the emotion, you welcome the emotion in. Come into my house emotion. 

[00:11:39] Amy Sandler: Yeah. 

[00:11:39] Jason Rosoff: Uh, you are a welcome guest. You’re a welcome visitor. 

[00:11:42] Amy Sandler: Yeah. It’s like Rumi’s Guest House. 

[00:11:44] Jason Rosoff: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. 

[00:11:46] Amy Sandler: Yeah. 

[00:11:46] Jason Rosoff: Uh, and as soon as I did that, uh, it created space, it create, it made me more available to stay present for somebody else’s, uh, emotion because up, I think up until that point, I would often be carried away by my own emotional response to other people’s reactions. 

[00:12:06] Kim Scott: One thing that has helped me often when I’m, if I’m going into a conversation and what I’m fearing is that the person will feel sad or mad. And then what I experience is that they brush me off, is the emotion that comes to visit me in my house at that moment is anger or you know sort of despair. One of those two, and those are related emotions. And one of the things that I have done, uh to help me sort of let that emotion roll off my back and remember that my job here is to be clear. And that it’s not kind to this person not to say it again more clearly because they seem to be brushing me off. Is to think about the physics video I saw in eleventh grade, which is the Tacoma State Bridge video.

[00:13:02] I think it’s Tacoma, but where the wind resonated with uh with the bridge and it caused the bridge to buckle. And I think often in these conversations, that where there’s going to be either my emotions or their emotions, is that if we hit a resonant frequency, uh, and we’re both resonating on the same frequency. So if they’re mad, I get mad or if they’re sad, I get sad, then I’m not doing my job. My job is to be like an emotional shock absorber in, uh, in that conversation, my job is not to amplify the emotion. And if I go in thinking about some, I don’t know why this helps me, but if I go in thinking about the Tacoma State Bridge and thinking this is not what I want to happen, my job is to, um, not to amplify the emotions, then that helps me.

[00:13:55] Amy Sandler: Yeah, I love these tips. Um, and one of my favorite tips is, and this was a big Aha similar to you Jason, of learning some of the actual physiology of what’s happening in the body with emotions has been very helpful for me. And just that shift from even a language shift from I am angry to I’m experiencing anger.

[00:14:16] And so even just rather than fully identifying with whatever the emotion is, anger, sadness, frustration, etcetera. But just that idea of, you know, there is this physiological sensation that, um, that I’m experiencing. And then even what I’ve found, the more granular you can get with the actual sensation in the body, it’s like, oh, and it’s a, you know, feeling of red warmth in my neck.

[00:14:38] And I start to recognize that as anger. And so the more quickly we can start to understand what’s happening in our body, we can start to manage that. So then, and then I bring in what, Kim, you’re talking about, which is, what is my role here? What is my intention? And how can I actually resonate more of a sense of calm?

[00:14:55] And maybe I know myself well enough to know, ooh, I’m getting really upset in this conversation. And I actually need us to take a break because this is not helping either of us. Um, and so I just want to say, I’m going to just put a pause here and whether we’ll keep this or not. I do want to read The Guest House at the end of this, um, the end of this episode, if I may.

[00:15:16] Um, but Kim, I want to go back to what you were saying about if you and I were having a conversation and one of us got upset and one of us, you know, that there were some tears. And the reason why I think that was really interesting, because one of the things we talk about in the workshop is there’s kind of two types of situations you might experience. One is somebody is having an emotion, they’re crying or they’re angry or they’re frustrated. That seems perhaps a little bit easier for us to spot.

[00:15:43] We might not know exactly what emotion, but we can sense that there’s an emotion. But then there’s this other one where, and you’ve, the design is the person has headphones on, kind of similar to what I’m wearing if you’re watching the video. And they’re not saying anything and we don’t know why.

[00:15:58] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:15:58] Amy Sandler: And that’s when you talk

[00:15:59] Kim Scott: Seem to be even brushing you off like, oh, it’s no big deal. You know, sort of like in the “um” story that I’ve told a gajillion times and I’m not going to tell it again today. But my boss had to try three times to get through to me. At first, I was like, oh, it’s no big deal It’s just a verbal tick. And then she offered to introduce me to a speech coach, and I’m like, I’m busy I don’t have time for that nonsense. And then she the third time she said to me when you say “um” every third word it makes you sound stupid. And that was what she had to say to me to get through to me. And I’ve gotten a lot of feedback about that story actually. Uh, a lot of people have said, you know, gosh if my boss said to me, uh, that I sounded stupid, it would devastate me.

[00:16:41] And so now when I tell the story, when I’m giving a keynote, I pause and I say, she knew me well enough to know that those words were not going to crush me. In fact, that was what she had to say to get through to me. And she never would have used those words with other people on her team who were perhaps a better listener than I was.

[00:17:00] So I think it is that the idea is that if a person is brushing you off or you’re not getting any reaction, which often you won’t, then you may need to go further out on the challenge directly dimension than you’re comfortable going. And this is where Amy, you and had a discussion that I think is useful to share with.

[00:17:21] Amy Sandler: Yeah. So what’s coming up, so in workshops, I will often reflect on your story and I will say, hey, Kim and I are really different, one isn’t better or worse. If my boss said to me, Amy, you said “um” a lot, I would have been horrified and embarrassed and felt like, this is a disaster, what can I do? And then my boss would say, oh, get a speech coach, etcetera.

[00:17:43] But I want to pause on this because if this was something that maybe I had spent a lot of time on or I felt really identified with. I mean, for example, like speaking, and if you shared some feedback that really kind of cut to the core of maybe how I see myself, I might not say anything in that moment because I am feeling a wave of different emotions that I’m trying to process.

[00:18:05] So I might be feeling a bit like a deer in headlights there. It’s kind of in that moment when you don’t know what’s happening for me and I’m trying to figure out what’s happening for myself. It’s kind of like to freeze frame on that moment and what might be, 

[00:18:17] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:18:18] Amy Sandler: Most helpful for someone like me versus Jason versus you.

[00:18:21] Kim Scott: So for example, if we, let’s put you in my shoes in the “um” story. If your boss said to you, Amy, you said “um” a lot in there, were you aware of it? Uh, what would be your emotion and what might your response be? 

[00:18:38] Amy Sandler: I, if I was not aware of it, um, I would be embarrassed and depending on how I had actually like felt so great about it. Then to find out that you’re now focusing on the “um”, I might’ve felt like deflated and kind of demotivated. ‘Cause like, oh my gosh, but I’m doing this great business. And so I would have probably, I would have heard it and I would have been processing kind of my own embarrassment and sort of inner self critic, like, oh my gosh, this is really bad. If I had not been aware of it. 

[00:19:14] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:19:14] Amy Sandler: If I had been aware of it, I might have been like, also horrified because I’m aware of it, and I know it’s something I do, and I’m still doing it, and maybe I can’t fix it. So, like a different, maybe, sense of embarrassment and defensiveness. 

[00:19:29] Kim Scott: Yeah. So, in both of those cases, I would say you’re having an emotional reaction and your boss should have taken an extra beat. Like, unlike me, I was not having an emotional, I was like, ah doesn’t matter. Like, I would say you were having an emotional reaction and your boss’s job would not be to keep going out on challenge directly. But rather, your boss’s job would be to move up on care personally. Is that what you’re, is that what you’re saying?

[00:19:58] Amy Sandler: Yeah, yeah, and I think the thing is if I am not necessarily saying anything, but I’m feeling those things, which may not be clearly visible to you, um, talking about what is the best, what would be most helpful for me in that moment is, um, you know, you’ve gotten kind of quiet, what’s like, can you share what’s happening for you?

[00:20:20] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:20:21] Amy Sandler: Right? So I would want rather than a, you need to go to the speech coach challenge. It would be more of wanting to take some time and inquire like, hey, what’s going. And I might say, I, you know, depending on do I feel safe to tell you like I’m embarrassed? 

[00:20:34] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:20:34] Amy Sandler: Maybe I don’t feel safe because maybe I’m like, oh my gosh, like, I’m, not only am I embarrassed, but I don’t actually feel like I can tell my boss what’s really going on for me. Jason, I see you nodding. I’m curious if you want to like add more there. 

[00:20:47] Jason Rosoff: I would say the reason why this topic comes up when we talk about the brush off, is that one very common version of the brush off is less clear than what you did with your boss. And that is, in my experience, the person becomes, uh, monosyllabic.

[00:21:11] Amy Sandler: Yes. 

[00:21:12] Jason Rosoff: They’re like, yeah, got it, got it. 

[00:21:15] Amy Sandler: I just said it monosyllabically, but yes, got it. 

[00:21:18] Jason Rosoff: Yes, yes, exactly. And that’s very confusing as a person who’s delivering feedback, because you, would assume that there’d be some kind of react, you know, like more than that. And the reason why I think this is relevant here is that sometimes, like, that’s all the person can muster because they feel like they’re on the verge of losing control of their emotions. And sometimes they don’t give a crap what you are saying and they just want to move on to the next topic.

[00:21:48] But from the observer’s point of view, it’s very difficult to discern those two things. I think unless you challenge that person to help you understand what it means, like, when you say got it, like, what does that mean? Like, help me understand. 

[00:22:05] Kim Scott: Yeah. And I think in those moments where you’re not sure, it’s useful never to say the word “you”. Start with the word “I”, I’m not sure that I understand your reaction. Or, you know, I know you really care about this project. And I think this is important and I can’t tell if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me.

[00:22:28] Like, I think the more, because in this moment, what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to own your communication. You’re not, you don’t want to say anything along the lines of you’re not listening to me or you’re not taking this seriously enough. You know, now you’re amplifying their emotions. You don’t know what they are, but you’re saying something that is likely, more likely, to amplify their emotions, than if you say, I’m not, you know, I’m not sure that we’re communicating here, is kind of what you want to say is the next step. And to me, at least Amy, here’s a question because I have a hypothesis, but I may be wrong. So I’m going to ask a question instead. If you were in my shoes and what your boss said next, so you’re feeling sort of frustrated and defensive that your boss just said, you said “um” every third word. 

[00:23:24] Amy Sandler: And more than frustrated at like, upset and embarrassed. 

[00:23:26] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:23:27] Amy Sandler: Even more. 

[00:23:27] Kim Scott: And maybe you also disagree. Maybe you’re like, I didn’t really say “um” that much. Like, let’s imagine that’s also part of it. 

[00:23:35] Amy Sandler: Yeah.

[00:23:35] Kim Scott: Um, I just said “um”, the question that I have is if your boss said to you, I know this great speech coach. Would you like to talk to them? I’ll get budget to pay for it. How would that land for you? 

[00:23:54] Amy Sandler: I would like to go to the speech coach and I feel like I would need some processing time on the, um, on the “um” problem. Uh, and so it would be in that conversation, like I have some ideas about how we might be able to like work on this. Like this is, I would, I think I would want to feel like this idea of like, this person has my back, they’re confident I can fix it. Like, hey, you know, I know how hard you are on yourself. You know, you, in so many ways, can communicate really clearly. And this is something that you can do that’s going to be really important for your continued success. And so I’ve got some ideas about, um, um, how we might 

[00:24:41] Kim Scott: That’s the problem with that “um” story. 

[00:24:42] Amy Sandler: It really is. Now I just, all I can see are “ums”. 

[00:24:45] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:24:45] Amy Sandler: So I’ve got some ideas about how we can work with you on that. Is this a time, would you be open right now to chat about it? Or do you want to check in on that later? So I think just giving me that opportunity to be like, where am I emotionally on the, 

[00:25:00] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:25:00] Amy Sandler: Openness to hearing it? Um, because I would want the speech coach, absolutely. And just depending how fraught this topic is for me, uh, just giving me that chance to sort of sequence it. 

[00:25:12] Jason Rosoff: I’m just trying to put myself in the position of receiving the feed, feedback. I don’t think I would be ashamed. I really, I understand that I have verbal tics, and I do think that the hard part would be, the hard part for me would not be the awareness of it. But the impact that it had, that somehow had gotten in the way of my being successful. And what I would be interested in is like, how can I fix it? Like, how can I fix the thing that happened as a result of the pro, the, 

[00:25:47] Amy Sandler: Yeah. 

[00:25:47] Jason Rosoff: The problem. So in this case, it seems like it didn’t have a huge impact, right? It didn’t like derail the meeting. And you, the folks that you were talking to understood what you needed and you kind of got to a good place.

[00:26:01] But in my mind, like that’s what I would go to is like, oh, is, does that mean that I’m not going to get the money I need for the engineers? Like, that’s what would be going through my head in that moment. And so I’d probably want to see, I’d probably seek to understand like, what does this really mean before I was trying, even got to like fix the “um” problem.

[00:26:21] Amy Sandler: That is so interesting because as you were sharing, I was thinking, well, actually, to Kim, to your point, I would want to make sure that I understood what the issue was and that I agreed with it. So what I heard you, so before we go to the speech coach, just to kind of get alignment. So what I heard you say was, I say “um” like every third word and it’s taking away my credibility and you want to.

[00:26:43] So first of all, it’s like, okay, I hear you on that issue. And then it’s like, then let’s go to problem solving. And Jason, you’re even more, I’m more thinking like, oh my gosh. So now this means I’m a terrible speaker and there’s no hope for me. Whereas Jason you’re going to, this actually got in the way of me achieving XY and Z, and so how can I troubleshoot that? So I just think that’s interesting just how we’re wired differently 

[00:27:06] Jason Rosoff: Yes.

[00:27:06] Kim Scott: If I were my boss giving this feedback to you, Amy, what I would be aware of, is you immediately got to the, it’s gonna hurt. You got what you wanted out of this meeting, but it’s gonna hurt your long term credibility. And uh and whereas in Jason’s case, Jason’s like well does it really matter if I got what I needed. And so I’m gonna have to work, I’m gonna have to maybe go further out on challenge directly with Jason than I would with you, Amy. Is that correct? 

[00:27:38] Jason Rosoff: I think, I think so. I would want, I think if you said, well, it didn’t really impact this meeting, then I would want to understand why,

[00:27:47] Kim Scott: It matters. 

[00:27:48] Amy Sandler: Yeah. I’m just like, oh my God, I said “um” a lot. 

[00:27:50] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:27:51] Amy Sandler: Let me process that and get me the speech coach. I don’t care if it didn’t matter. 

[00:27:56] Kim Scott: Yeah. So Amy, I think what’s, I think what we’re saying in this case is, sometimes, when someone seems to be brushing you off at first, it may be because they’re truly defensive. It may be because they actually disagree with you. So Jason, I don’t think you’re defensive. You just think it doesn’t matter. Uh, and so you’re a little bit more like I was like, ah, who the hell cares?

[00:28:20] I got my engineers, I got my marketing budget, like done, check, onto the next. And my boss had to say to me, actually, it does matter. It, you got what you wanted in the short term, but in the long term, if you don’t fix this problem, you’re going to lose credibility. And Amy, you, uh, on the other hand, are may, might initially brush, have brushed my boss off, not because you disagree, but because it’s so painful to hear that.

[00:28:50] And so that’s why you don’t, if someone appears to be brushing you off, you don’t want to go immediately to the outer edge of challenge directly. You want to make sure that you’re maybe taking another gentle step out on the challenge directly dimension so that you can understand what’s going on. Why is this person brushing you off? Are they brushing you off because they’re overconfident? Which was my problem. Uh, or are they brushing you off because they are having an emotional reaction.

[00:29:24] Amy Sandler: And actually, you know, Kim, even just the phrase brushing you off, because like from my perspective, I am not brushing the other person off, I wouldn’t be brushing the boss off. I’m going more to Jason’s like monotone, like, okay. Not because my intention is to brush you off, but because I’m kind of shut down because I’m processing that and I’m feeling internally critical. 

[00:29:47] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:29:47] Amy Sandler: But you’re experiencing that. Going back, like, that’s where this is so important of this resonance because how you’re receiving the feedback is then giving that, so it’s also incumbent on us how to receive things. You know, knowing not to be so hard on ourselves and knowing that that reaction is then going to elicit another reaction for the feedback giver. 

[00:30:06] Kim Scott: Okay, so I have a question. 

[00:30:08] Amy Sandler: Yeah. 

[00:30:08] Kim Scott: I have an important question. Then we should do some role plays. But I am prone to hear agreement always with me, I’m never prone to. So what I’m hearing, Amy, is that you’re like, yes, you’re right, Kim. You should keep moving out on challenge. But I have a feeling that’s not really. 

[00:30:28] Amy Sandler: Yeah, that’s not what I said. So that’s awesome. What I was saying was that actually the phrase brushing you off, um, implies that that is my intention. But that is actually not my intention as the person receiving the feedback. My, what is happening for me is that I am feeling upset, defensive, etcetera. You are experiencing that reaction as that I’m brushing you off. 

[00:30:54] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:30:55] Amy Sandler: But my intention is I’m actually really processing my own emotions and what you’re saying. 

[00:30:59] Kim Scott: Yes. And so that’s why it is important as you go into these conversations to be in the mindset that your job is to manage your own emotions, which is hard enough. But it’s impossible for me as the speaker to manage your emotions in this conversation. And in fact, I’m experiencing you as, like, because you’re not giving me a reaction. So it seems like you don’t think it’s important. Whereas what’s really happening is that you’re not giving me a reaction because you’re feeling, I mean I’m exaggerating now, but you’re feeling devastated by what I said. And so I think it’s important when you are the feedback giver to be gentle and to make sure that you understand what’s going on with the other person because you might not. 

[00:31:50] Amy Sandler: Hundred percent. I think just to bring in the word curious on this because if there’s just that real curiosity like hey, what’s, and I know you said that you would prefer to sort of own your reaction. But it would be fine for me If you said hey Amy, what’s going on for you right now? Like I know how invested you get in these presentations and I just want to check in and see how this feedback is landing for you. Like that would go over great for me. 

[00:32:11] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I would try to say it more along the lines of, I’m not sure that what I said landed and I want to know if it did, you know. Rather than what’s, because if you said what you said, what you just said to me, I would feel now I would start to get defensive. I’d be like. 

[00:32:33] Amy Sandler: Oh. 

[00:32:33] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. So it’s, this is the, 

[00:32:35] Amy Sandler: That’s so interesting. 

[00:32:36] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:32:37] Amy Sandler: So if I said to you, like the using the word you, 

[00:32:43] Kim Scott: If you said, I know you really care, it felt, it sounded, it felt a little patronizing to me. Which is not to say that it was patronizing, that’s the thing about this kind of communication, is that it’s going to land differently for everyone. And it doesn’t mean that you said anything wrong. It just means that that’s how I heard it. That’s how I would have heard it. If you said that to me. 

[00:33:07] Amy Sandler: That is so interesting. Yeah, I would want someone to acknowledge like, hey, I know how hard you worked on this presentation. I know how invested you are in it. And, this saying “um” got in the way of it. And so, you know, how did that land when I shared that with you? 

[00:33:20] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:33:20] Amy Sandler: Yeah. Jason, where do you land on the, uh, patronizing versus, uh, care personally side of things? 

[00:33:27] Jason Rosoff: Every person needs something a little bit different. What I’m hearing here is that Amy, you want to feel as though what, the good things that you did were recognized. And Kim, what I’m hearing from you is that, you’re fine with that as long as it feels like very sincere and specific and helpful. But if it feels like a preamble to something else, then you are going to feel, there’s a risk that it comes across as patronizing. 

[00:33:57] Kim Scott: Yeah, I 

[00:33:58] Amy Sandler: Like, if it comes across like I’m customer service, like your call is very important to me, like obviously that’s not going to land well. 

[00:34:05] Kim Scott: For me, the kindest thing you can do is just cut to the chase. 

[00:34:09] Jason Rosoff: Yes. 

[00:34:10] Kim Scott: But without a lot of preamble. But that’s not true for everyone. 

[00:34:15] Jason Rosoff: Yeah, I think. It is not true for everyone and what I would say is that different, cutting to the chase does not necessarily mean I or you won’t have an emotional reaction. It’s still the nicest thing to do, even if we get upset. 

[00:34:33] Amy Sandler: Oh yeah, you could tell me. I know you’re, you care a lot and you said “um” a lot. I’m still gonna have an emotional reaction. That’s okay. I think for me, the biggest takeaway with all of this is that people are going to have emotional reactions and that is okay, just to try to normalize that. 

[00:34:46] Jason Rosoff: Yeah, yeah.

[00:34:47] Kim Scott: I want to, can I give two examples of different emotional reactions I’ve gotten from folks and like how far should you push out on challenge directly. 

[00:34:58] Jason Rosoff: Sure. 

[00:34:59] Kim Scott: Because I think this is another hard question on the, if the person is brushing you off or they, maybe they like disagree with you about the feedback, how far is it okay to go?

[00:35:10] So there was one time, where I was manning, managing someone and he tended to, uh, say and do things that were offensive to people. And, uh, I had given him this feedback several times and he was getting incredible results. And a lot of, uh, a lot of people loved working with him and other people were like, oh, whoa, what’s going on here. And I think he was sort of, he was brushing me off. And then he did something that was, egregious, completely egregious. He sent this note out to his team, uh, and, that said some really, it was almost a fireable offense, it was so bad.

[00:35:56] And I went into the conversation with him knowing that he was going to brush me off at first. And that I was going to keep going out on challenge directly until he really showed me in some way that he understood that if this kind of thing happened again, he would be fired. And so, I dread as much as anyone making someone feel sad. I dread as much as anyone making someone angry, like, like every, every instinct I have is about avoiding those emotions. But I, so I had to really steal myself before I went into this conversation with him. And sure enough, when I finally said it strongly enough, he burst into tears. And then I knew that we were, that I had been clear. But I didn’t know until he burst into tears that he really, he, that he really understood how serious this was.

[00:36:59] And, I mean, I didn’t like walk in saying I’m going to try to make him cry. But when I got the tears, I felt relieved because I knew he heard it. And then I could move way up on care personally. But I had to be willing to keep going until I got that emotional response with him. And I would not do this with everyone, but with him, I knew that was necessary. And so I want to stop there and just get your reaction to that story. And then I’ll tell you a different story. 

[00:37:30] Amy Sandler: Well, I think on that story, Kim, a couple of things popping up. One is, it feels kind of similar to your sort of “um” story of it needed to happen in that way for you to hear it. And so my biggest question would be, how did that land for that person? Like if you were to ask them and say, hey, is getting to that emotional place, the tears, like, would you have heard it any other way? Like, that would be, 

[00:37:53] Kim Scott: No, I’ve gone back and asked him, and he said, you had to do that. So, you know, you had to keep going, and we’re, I mean, we’re still, we vacation together sometimes. 

[00:38:03] Amy Sandler: Yeah.

[00:38:03] Kim Scott: Like, we’re still very good friends to this day. Uh, so it’s not like it ruined the relationship. But it was all, it was very, it was terrible for both of us, like, neither one of us wanted to have that, have that happen. 

[00:38:17] Amy Sandler: It almost sounds like, I mean, I think, to me, the proof is in the pudding with that. It almost sounds a little bit like you will often talk about feedback debt. And so it was like, maybe because other conversations hadn’t quite gotten through and hadn’t quite gotten through. It had to come to this bigger place versus did we have, like, how can we prevent it from having to go to that level is almost what I’m hearing as well.

[00:38:40] Kim Scott: Yeah. I thought he had heard me until he did this last thing. And then I was like, oh my God. Like sometimes you think, like we’ve said many times, the biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has happened. Uh, and, you know, when he did this thing, I was like, Oh my gosh, I was not nearly clear enough.

[00:38:59] And I am going to be really, really, really, really clear this time. And I was. So I think that’s, you know, that, and he fixed it. Like he addressed it, he never did anything, like he got it and he fixed it. So that was a good, uh, that was a story with a happy ending. He did not get fired, he worked better with his team. He understood the problem and he fixed it.

[00:39:30] There was another time where I had a guy who was working for me and he wanted to have a lot of process. Like very detailed process and structure in the way that we worked, but it was a tiny startup. And all the other engineers on the project, they just, it was more of a, you know, we’re going to, it was more rapid experimentation. And he was driving the other engineers bonkers. They were very frustrated by him, and they had given him the feedback, and I had given him the feedback, and he just kept brushing us all off. He disagreed. It was like, well, this is the right way to do things. And this is the way, you know, and he wouldn’t adjust for the way the rest of the team wanted to work.

[00:40:18] And I had tried many, many, many times to talk to him. And finally I was having a conversation where I was really pushing him hard. And he sort of started shaking and sweating. I just realized I had pushed as hard as I should go and I should stop. And the right thing was to help him find a role where another team, somewhere else, needed someone who would put process in place. But like, I’d put, uh, he was the wrong person for that team. And so that’s really hard. That’s one of the hardest judgment calls any manager has to make, is have you pushed hard enough on the challenge directly dimension to convince yourself this is never going to change and it’s not going to work out and we have to, we have, we actually have to part ways. Or can you keep pushing? And that’s a judgment call. I don’t have a perfect explanation of how you make that decision. I don’t know what you all think. 

[00:41:18] Jason Rosoff: Maybe tangential is not the right word, but it’s, it feels related, but not directly, is that as a manager, one of the things that I’ve learned to pay attention to is how much time I’m spending with people, like coaching or developing people who, from my perspective, are not a great fit for their role and how much time I’m spending coaching developing people who seem we’re doing really well, 

[00:41:45] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:41:46] Jason Rosoff: Uh, in their role. And this doesn’t, this is why I’m saying it’s related, but not directly, which is there’s a warning sign when you’re spending the majority of your time working with someone who is not a good fit, like you may have reached the point of diminishing returns. 

[00:42:01] Kim Scott: It’s time to cut bait. Uh, yeah, it’s time to stop fishing. Because you’re going to get a better return on your time if you spend it with people who are doing great work than if you’re spending all your, 

[00:42:13] Jason Rosoff: And universally, the other person has also been unhappy because no one wants. 

[00:42:17] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:42:18] Jason Rosoff: You know what I’m saying? Like no one wants to be continuously coached. Like it doesn’t feel good on the other side either. So, uh, that’s one of the ways, where to your point, you can never know what’s going on for somebody else. But as soon as I start to get that feeling, that’s usually when I’m like, oh, we better zoom out here and make sure that we’re actually doing the right thing still.

[00:42:35] Kim Scott: Yes. That’s exactly the right metric to use. 

[00:42:38] Amy Sandler: I think that’s such a great metric. And it kind of reminds me of the conversation we had with Karen Snyder about inclusive meetings. And just one of the things I try to do in my workshops, if one person is sort of asking a lot of questions or taking up too much time and space. It’s like, oh, wait, my role as leading the workshop, as a manager, is like in service of the whole group. And if all of the energy is going to this one person, then other folks are starting to suffer. So I think it’s a great analogy, uh, Jason. Shall we get to our tips? 

[00:43:09] Kim Scott: No, let’s do a role play. 

[00:43:11] Amy Sandler: All right, so Kim is chomping at the bit to try out her improv skills. We’ve got two roles, Sarah, who’s a team lead trying to practice Radical Candor and Alex, who is a junior developer who tends to get defensive when receiving feedback. And a couple of things to note, Sarah has noticed that Alex’s code has been inconsistent in quality lately, sometimes excellent, others need improvement.

[00:43:34] Sarah is inviting Alex for a one on one meeting to discuss the recent project. And Sarah’s going to give some initial feedback and Alex is going to respond defensively. So Sarah’s going to have to adjust the approach to ensure the feedback is received more effectively and radically candid. 

[00:43:54] Kim Scott: Okay.

[00:43:54] Amy Sandler: Feedback. 

[00:43:55] Kim Scott: Can I be Alex? 

[00:43:57] Amy Sandler: Uh, what do you think Jason? 

[00:44:00] Jason Rosoff: Kim always, Kim always likes to play the defensive. 

[00:44:02] Amy Sandler: Kim loves a good role play of being defensive. Okay.

[00:44:06] Kim Scott: We can switch roles, and Amy, you’ll gauge the feedback. 

[00:44:09] Amy Sandler: Yes, I will be your coach. 

[00:44:12] Kim Scott: Yeah, at what point does,

[00:44:13] Amy Sandler: It all goes off the rails.

[00:44:15] Kim Scott: Did Jason go far enough out on the challenge directly dimension? Or did he actually need to figure out that he needs to move up on care personally?

[00:44:25] Amy Sandler: All right I’ve got my handy two by two ready. Looking at care personally and challenge directly. Jason? Sarah? 

[00:44:36] Jason Rosoff: Jason Sarah. Hey, Alex. I appreciate you taking some time to chat with me. I wanted to talk about your, uh, performance on the last couple of projects. Is now a good time? 

[00:44:47] Kim Scott: Uh, well, yeah. I’m here, aren’t I?

[00:44:50] Jason Rosoff: Well, uh, the thing that I’ve noticed over the last, uh, couple of months is that there seems to be some inconsistency in the way that you perform on different projects. And I’m trying to understand why that might be. 

[00:45:04] Kim Scott: Well, I mean, because consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. We both know that.

[00:45:12] Jason Rosoff: I think that, uh, in creative work, that is generally true. And while we’re starting on projects, 

[00:45:19] Kim Scott: Are you saying we’re not doing creative work here? 

[00:45:21] Jason Rosoff: No, no. I mean, I was actually in fact, about to agree with you that we do creative work. 

[00:45:26] Kim Scott: Okay. 

[00:45:26] Jason Rosoff: Um, but at the start of a project, when we’re doing the creative work of trying to figure out how we’re going to approach a particular coding problem, I do think that we shouldn’t be, uh, uh, 

[00:45:37] Kim Scott: We should try out different things and see what works best.

[00:45:41] Jason Rosoff: Yep. Exactly right. But at the end of a project, the code that we actually check into the repository, it has to work, and work correctly, and work correctly every time. Because our customers demand that of us. That’s the inconsistency I’m seeing. 

[00:45:51] Kim Scott: Yeah, course. I mean, I’m not filing bugs. I mean, I think my code has been really good. In fact, I also think it’s shorter than anybody, other people like do in ten lines of code, what I could do in one. 

[00:46:05] Jason Rosoff: Uh, I want to come back to that last point, but I think it’s important to say that there have been bugs in the code that you’ve been checking in. 

[00:46:14] Kim Scott: Well, not more than anybody else. I mean, and that’s besides, what is QA for? Aren’t they there to fix our bugs? 

[00:46:21] Jason Rosoff: They, no, QA is not there to fix your bugs. QA is there to help you find your bugs and you’re responsible for fixing them. That said, I do think that, what I’ve heard from, uh, the QA team, what I’ve observed by looking through your code reviews is that you are checking in more bugs on average on the projects that you’re underperforming on. On the projects that you’re performing well on you’re checking in very few bugs. So there’s some, there’s something that I don’t understand about the difference between those two situations 

[00:46:49] Kim Scott: Yeah, so, so, I mean like on average, you can’t just decide that the average is my worst projects. On average if you combine my worst, my best projects and my worst projects, I check in fewer, I know I check in fewer, fewer bugs than James. I mean James has a lot more bugs than I do. 

[00:47:10] Jason Rosoff: Well, I think the focus of this conversation should be on you. James isn’t here to defend himself, right? 

[00:47:18] Kim Scott: But you just said that I, you just said that I check in more, that QA reported that I check in more bugs and I deny that. 

[00:47:28] Jason Rosoff: What I said was that on the projects that you underperform on you check in more bugs.

[00:47:35] Kim Scott: Okay, so why, that sounds like more bugs than James and I deny that. James checks in more bugs than me. 

[00:47:45] Jason Rosoff: So, out of curiosity, what should, what would you like me to do with that information? What do you hope, how are you hoping I respond to it to you when you tell me that James is, uh, is checking in more bugs?

[00:47:56] Kim Scott: Well, I mean, I don’t know why you’re coming and telling me that I check in more bugs than other people, because I do not. 

[00:48:03] Jason Rosoff: Is that what you think this conversation is about? 

[00:48:06] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:48:07] Jason Rosoff: That you check in more bugs than other people? 

[00:48:09] Kim Scott: Well, yes, that’s what you said to me. 

[00:48:12] Jason Rosoff: That’s one of the things that I said to you. What I started out, the way we started the conversation was I said that there are projects on which you perform really well and projects on which you perform quite poorly. On the projects, 

[00:48:23] Kim Scott: I mean, there’s some projects that are just boring, that I really, I mean, there’s some, we do some really cool work and we do some really boring work and I love working on the cool stuff.

[00:48:35] Jason Rosoff: And from your perspective, you should be able to do let lower quality work on the less cool stuff? 

[00:48:42] Kim Scott: Well, from my perspective, I’d rather not have to work on the less cool stuff. Give that to James. 

[00:48:48] Jason Rosoff: That’s not an option here. You’re going to have to work on some less cool stuff. So my question is, do you feel like, uh, and I evaluate your performance across all projects, not just the projects that you want to work on. Every project that you’re assigned is important. Uh, and your performance is going to be evaluated on all those projects. So, do you have, uh, a recommendation for me about how to, uh, ensure that your work remains consistently high quality across all projects? 

[00:49:19] Kim Scott: My, uh, my first choice would be for you to put me, for, for me to have more choice about which projects I work on rather than just have them assigned to me.

[00:49:29] Jason Rosoff: Okay, so that’s, let’s, as a thought experiment, let’s say that that’s not possible. What’s my second best option?

[00:49:40] Kim Scott: Give me fewer of the boring, less grunt work. Like I’m, I think i’m your most creative engineer. So less grunt work for me. 

[00:49:49] Jason Rosoff: So, in that world, you would be getting just less work than other people. Because there’s grunt work that has to be passed around. 

[00:49:57] Kim Scott: Yeah, of course, but you can give me more of the cool, I mean it, I’m not saying I’ll never work on any grunt work, but give me more of the cool projects and less of the boring ones. And then you’ll see that I check in even fewer bugs than I do already. I mean, you can see that I can do work where I don’t check in any bugs, or very few. 

[00:50:17] Jason Rosoff: Yes, but there’s nothing in this conversation that makes me feel like when I assign you one of those grunt work projects, you’re not going to continue to do low quality work, as you’ve done up until this point. So I don’t feel confident based on what. 

[00:50:28] Kim Scott: Yeah. Okay. I mean, I can see that you’re right. I have not, yeah, yeah. I really, I don’t know. I mean,

[00:50:36] Amy Sandler: Wait a minute. Did Jason just turn the Kim Scott ship around on this? Because that is like an award winning presentation. I didn’t think it was poss, I really, 

[00:50:46] Kim Scott: I, what I was gonna say next is what do you do? How do you keep your interest on a boring project? 

[00:50:52] Amy Sandler: Ooh, I love that. 

[00:50:53] Kim Scott: Yeah. So, so we can declare victory. Jason, you have been victorious. 

[00:50:59] Brandi Neal: Can we do another one with the, like, how Amy would react with the, like, oh, you’re saying I’m a terrible person and I can never do good work, like, how do you? 

[00:51:07] Kim Scott: Yeah. Why don’t Jason, you have the same conversation, but Amy as Alex, and I’ll be the gauger.

[00:51:14] Amy Sandler: So Jason, I just want to highlight a few things you did so skillfully and Kim, you were in the conversation and you really gave him a run for his money. But there were a few times where you, like when Kim was bringing in James, you were asking questions like, uh, you know, what do you think this conversation is about? Or, you know, how would you, what would you want me to say? You know, you were really, you were hearing them and you were inquiring. Like, what is it that you are hearing or what is it that you want from me? So I’d love to know, is that a strategy when you feel like you’ve tried A and B, and then when you are beating your head against a wall a little bit to ask a question? Like, it just was so effective. 

[00:51:56] Jason Rosoff: I was genuinely like, what is this person hearing? Like in Kim’s role, like, because in my mind, because I knew the prompts, I was imagining that Kim was hearing what, uh, people in the Peanuts cartoons hear, when someone picks up the phone, 

[00:52:14] Amy Sandler: James, 

[00:52:18] Jason Rosoff: Like that, that’s what I was imagining was happening. So I was like, I, and, I know that like Kim was generous enough to like play along and actually respond to that. But I’ve been in situations where I like the response that I get back to, like, what do you think I, like, from your perspective, like, what have I been saying this whole time? And to say, like, you check in more bugs.

[00:52:38] Okay. Like now that makes sense to me. So I said, I focused on the wrong thing, which is I focused on the number of bugs. And so that was a bad, uh, that was a bad move on my part. It’s like a point of how exactly how many bugs is totally immaterial. Um, so I took the bait and I went down the wrong path.

[00:52:57] Kim Scott: It’s hard not to take the bait though. 

[00:52:59] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. The point was consistent performance across projects. And so that once I got that clue that that’s what, uh, Alex was hearing in the role play, it helped me think of, uh, take a different direction. 

[00:53:11] Amy Sandler: Really instructive. Okay. So I need to channel my inner perfectionist and start to get emotional.

[00:53:19] Kim Scott: But as soon as you as soon as you get emotional, he knows what to do. He knows to move up on care personally. 

[00:53:25] Amy Sandler: Alright. So what, how what do you how do you want me to do this one? 

[00:53:27] Kim Scott: So here’s, I’m gonna play director. Here’s the director’s note. 

[00:53:30] Amy Sandler: Okay. I’ll do my best 

[00:53:32] Kim Scott: Just be monosyllabic. Don’t show your emotion. 

[00:53:36] Amy Sandler: Okay.

[00:53:36] Kim Scott: Just, and make it easy for Jason to assume that you’re just being defensive.

[00:53:42] Amy Sandler: Okay. So, my character is monosyllabic, but underneath is a cauldron of self loathing. 

[00:53:49] Kim Scott: Or maybe not self loathing, but whatever. Well, maybe self loathing. Whatever. 

[00:53:55] Amy Sandler: Let’s see what’s in that cauldron. Okay.

[00:53:56] Kim Scott: Yes. 

 
[00:53:57] Amy Sandler: Let’s see what hornet’s nest you can stir up there, Jason. 

[00:53:59] Jason Rosoff: Sarah Jason begins again. Hey, Alex, I appreciate you taking the time to have this one on one with me. One of the things I wanted to talk about was, uh, your performance on the last few projects that we’ve worked on. 

[00:54:12] Amy Sandler: Alright. 

[00:54:13] Jason Rosoff: So, I, one of the things that I’ve observed is that there seems to be some inconsistency in your performance between projects. So, for example, on project A, you performed really well, your code was high quality, it passed tests on the first time it was checked in.

[00:54:31] But on project B, there were a whole bunch more bugs that got identified during code review. Um, and the, just the, it seemed as though there was a difference between those two projects but I don’t know what that difference is. And I really want to understand why there, there was such a different level of quality. Can you help me understand what was going on there?

[00:54:52] Amy Sandler: I mean, just different projects, different results. 

[00:54:59] Jason Rosoff: From your perspective, is there anything that could be done differently to get a different outcome? Um, let’s say on project B where, uh, you didn’t perform as well. Was there anything that we could have done differently to, or was there anything that you could have done differently to get a different outcome?

[00:55:18] Amy Sandler: I don’t think so. 

[00:55:19] Jason Rosoff: Well, tell me this, um, on project A, like what was it that you think made you so successful? 

[00:55:26] Amy Sandler: I mean, I just do what I do, like, it’s hard, I can’t really separate one from the other. But I mean, you’re my boss, like, I just don’t know what you’re asking of me. 

[00:55:37] Jason Rosoff: Well, what I’d love to have happen is that every single project goes the way that project A did. And what I don’t know is what the real, what the difference is, because, you know, you’re the same from project to project. And from my perspective, the projects are similar, but the results are really different. And that’s what I’m trying to understand. 

[00:55:53] Amy Sandler: Yeah, I honestly, I don’t know. 

[00:55:55] Jason Rosoff: You, strike me as a genuinely curious person though. Like, you’re creative in the way that you code. And so I’m struggling to understand your reaction to this conversation. Can you, can l me like what’s going on for you? 

[00:56:10] Amy Sandler: Yeah, I just, I don’t, I honestly don’t know why they’re different. And like, that’s upsetting. Like I would like, they all were great, but I don’t know why one is better than the other. So I, like, it’s upsetting to me that I don’t know the answer to your question. 

[00:56:25] Jason Rosoff: Well, here, here’s the thing. 

[00:56:27] Amy Sandler: I feel like I’m doing the same thing. 

[00:56:30] Jason Rosoff: I can work with that, because you have demonstrated your ability to do great work, and that’s exactly why we’re having this conversation, because you are capable of great work, and we want to get you to doing great work on every single project. So, is there, uh, is there something that I could do to help you figure out what the difference is? Like, how can I support you in thinking through the differences between these projects? What, what could I do, um, to help you figure it out? 

[00:56:59] Amy Sandler: That would be great because I feel like I give you something at the end, but I don’t know all those steps. So if you could check in with me, maybe at the beginning of a effective project, so we could then compare it to one of the harder ones, so that I don’t, I could sort of see what you think is working well, because it’s just hard. I can’t really assess myself. So that would, I just feel like I’m kind of all alone doing this, and that would be really helpful.

[00:57:25] Jason Rosoff: So I’m going to make a, how about a concrete recommendation? I’d like to try to do what we call a blameless retrospective for two projects. I want to take one of the really successful projects and one of the less successful projects, and I want to walk through it together with you. And I just want to try to, the best that we can remember to try to catalog what were the things that contributed to the success of the successful project, what were the things that got in the way in the successful project. And do the same thing for the less successful projects. Because my guess is that there were some things that worked well in those less successful projects and some things that really got in the way or hampered you. 

[00:58:01] Amy Sandler: I want to succeed. So that would be great. 

[00:58:04] Jason Rosoff: Okay. 

[00:58:04] Amy Sandler: I don’t like the word blameless. Like, maybe it’s like we get rid of the word blame, even though it’s less, it’s still blame. Inquisitive retribution. I mean, not retribution. Talk about a Freudian slip. 

[00:58:19] Jason Rosoff: Uh, yeah, sorry. It wasn’t, I was, I was referring to like a particular methodology, but I hear you on, on the word, on the word blame. Yeah, this is what they call it, but we can call it just a retrospective. How about that? 

[00:58:33] Amy Sandler: Jasona’s little project. No, sorry. I’m channeling another role. 

[00:58:37] Kim Scott: All right. I’m going to declare victory. So Jason I think that you showed an awful lot of patience. Uh, and, and you got to the point where you understood that the reason that Amy wasn’t hearing you is that it was upsetting. And so you moved up on, uh, on, on care personally when you got to that point. And I think the turning point came when you started asking for feedback on what you could do differently. And I think that is often, often when you get defensiveness from someone, you get it because they actually have some feedback from you, for you, and you haven’t solicited feedback often enough. And so I think if there’s one, if there’s one takeaway, I think we should add that to, to the key takeaways 

[00:59:30] Amy Sandler: I think that that’s exactly right. Because I was trying to channel someone who, as I was getting into the character, what was coming up for me was it was actually hard for them to analyze the difference between the pro, like from their perspective. And so it’s like, 

[00:59:47] Kim Scott: Isn’t that your job, Jason, you’re not doing your job. 

[00:59:49] Amy Sandler: And so it’s like, I’m just doing my, so it’s like, I actually need more help from you. And then it turned into like, I’m turning all this stuff in at the end and I don’t know what the difference is. So that, Kim, I think that call out is, is super helpful. That was what was happening in my brain, was like, if this person had been checking in more frequently, I could have, um, shared that with them. 

[01:00:08] Kim Scott: Exactly. All right. Let’s I think we’re ready for the checklist. 

[01:00:11] Amy Sandler: We are so ready.

[01:00:12] Kim Scott: Now it’s time for our Radical Candor checklist, tips you can use to start putting a Radical Candor into practice. 

[01:00:22] Amy Sandler: Tip number one, solicit feedback on your feedback. So after you give feedback, check in with the recipient, and ask them share their thoughts on how what you said was received. So questions like, how did that land for you, or how could I have been more clear, can open up a dialogue and give you a better understanding of their perspective. 

[01:00:43] Kim Scott: Tip number two, minimize misunderstandings by ensuring that your feedback is clear, it’s specific and it’s delivered with real compassion. If the other person seems defensive, acknowledge the emotion and offer to discuss it further, reinforcing your intentions to help rather than only to criticize. You’re not there just to say you’re wrong. You’re there to help them get it right. Remember, the goal is to foster an open dialogue where feedback can lead to growth and improvement for both parties involved. 

[01:01:17] Jason Rosoff: And tip number three. Remember that the goal of Radical Candor is to create an environment where feedback is seen as an opportunity, not just a source of criticism. So not just what needs to be fixed, but what would be better. By handling each situation with care and understanding you can help alleviate feelings of shame or blame, uh, that might be coming up for people and foster a more open and productive dialogue. 

[01:01:41] Amy Sandler: And tip number four, this one’s going to come in the form of a poem. And understanding that we are responsible for managing our own emotions. We can’t manage the other person’s emotions, but we can manage how we show up with them. So this is one of my favorite poems. This is by Rumi. It’s called The Guest House. 

[01:02:01] This being human is a guest house every morning, a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness. Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all. Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing. And invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

[01:02:40] I first heard this poem twenty years ago when I was at a yoga retreat. And I thought why on earth would I want to welcome a joy, a depression, a meanness, but I have found that that is where the magic can happen if we’re open to it. And to meeting the other person’s emotions, with a sense of gratitude that they are willing to be human with us. 

[01:03:03] Kim Scott: And also one’s own emotion, right? It’s not the other person’s emotion you’re welcoming. It’s also your own. Extending a little agency and grace to yourself as well as to the other person. 

[01:03:13] Amy Sandler: So I thought I was clear about that, but yes, let me be super clear. It’s about first welcoming our own emotions. 

[01:03:19] Jason Rosoff: How could I have been more clear? 

[01:03:21] Amy Sandler: How could I have been more clear, Kim, that I was referring first to greeting our own emotions as a guest house? 

[01:03:27] Kim Scott: I love that. Thank you. I’m going to carry that poem with me. I love it. Thank you for sharing. 

[01:03:32] Amy Sandler: Oh yeah, it is a gift. It has been a real, um, delight. 

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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.

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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