culture

Radical Candor in Digital Services: Interview with ThreeSixtyEight

Back in December, we learned about another company that has committed to a culture of Radical Candor. ThreeSixtyEight is a digital services company that specializes in creating beautiful design and brand experiences for their clients, and they have made Radical Candor a core value, both for internal and client interactions. Kenny Nguyen, the CEO, reached out to us via Twitter to share his company’s mascot: We were so excited by the ThreeSixtyEight “Radical Condor” mascot and wanted to learn more…

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Why Feedback Helps Teams Achieve Results

Most people don’t have any problem imagining how quality feedback can improve a relationship between two co-workers, and specifically, how it improves the relationship between managers and their direct reports. It just makes sense! The relationship between feedback and operating results, though, is often less clear in the minds of the customers that I talk to every week. Can feedback actually have a direct impact on the success of a company? To answer that question, let’s first look at the…

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Navigating Radical Candor and Cultural Differences

When talking about Radical Candor, I often get asked about how it applies to different cultures. Can Radical Candor be used for feedback and interactions across countries and cultures? Do you have to approach it differently for different cultures? Here are my thoughts on Radical Candor and cultural differences: Radical Candor is universally human, but interpersonally and culturally relative   I introduced this idea in a post about self-awareness and Radical Candor — the key is that Challenging Directly and…

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Reward the Candor

One of the tips we shared in our post about how to get more feedback is to reward feedback to get more of it. If you want to get others to open up and tell you what they think, you have to show them that you appreciate it. It’s a risk for them to tell you what they think, and if the risk isn’t worth it -- if they are punished for their real-talk or see that it is ignored…

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Radical Candor and Software Engineers: Interview with ZenHub

We frequently hear about companies who are excited about Radical Candor and trying it out in their organizations. Each time, our first reaction is to ask, “Wow! How’s it working for you? What have you learned? How can we make it easier?” We’ve been chatting with a few different companies to learn about their Radical Candor experiences, and we think their stories and specific contexts can help others as well. So we want to share those experiences with you, so…

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Video: Sam Adams and the FU Rule

When you’re the boss, it’s really hard to get people to tell you what they really think -- to be Radically Candid with you. Showing that you want feedback and genuinely appreciate it when it’s given is key. The worst thing you can do is to criticize the criticism you get. In fact, it can actually be helpful to encourage people to be Obnoxiously Aggressive with you. Here’s a funny example of Jim Koch, co-founder of the Boston Beer Company…

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Self-Awareness and the Candor Gauge

A question from one of our readers: I was facilitating an internal assertiveness workshop, and one of the dynamics I noticed was that, while everyone was engaged, and I think took away some useful insights, there was a thread of lack of personal awareness that seemed to stop some folks. People said things like, “I’m already pretty assertive, but I could see how this could be helpful.” This isn’t a new phenomenon in my experience. I’ve been doing workshops and…

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