Don’t be a jerk: Telling the truth in a kind way
I delivered my first feedback as a manager in my second year in consulting at the ripe age of 23. Nervous, I sat down across from the slightly more junior consultant. “This isn’t going to be an easy conversation,” I began. “Your performance needs to improve.” It was then that the junior consultant began to cry.
This week, my professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Allison Kluger, invited Kim Scott, author of the NYT & WSJ bestseller Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss without Losing your Humanity to our Reputation Management class. Kim Scott’s book would have saved me from my feedback delivery disaster of 5 years ago. Luckily, it’s not too late for me to start using her approach.
Kim’s approach to giving and receiving feedback boils down to a simple framework: Radical candor is at the intersection of care personally and challenge directly. Direct feedback is critical for growth and development. But first, we need to demonstrate that the feedback comes from a place of care.
In my first foray into delivering feedback, I stumbled into the Obnoxious Aggression quadrant. Without building a real, human relationship, my direct feedback fell flat.
Kim provided an example of radical candor based on her own experience working at Google with Sheryl Sandberg. After listening to Kim deliver a presentation, Sheryl pulled her aside and told Kim, “When you say ‘um’ every 3 words, it makes you sound stupid.” This blunt feedback was effective because Sheryl and Kim had developed a relationship. And now, years later, I didn’t hear Kim say ‘um’ even once in her presentation.
Building new habits is hard. Here are some tactical tips I took away from Kim’s session to get started:
1. Ask for feedback at the end of a 1:1. Have a go-to question (e.g. “what could I do/stop doing that would make your life easier?”) and listen with the intent to understand, not to respond.
2. Give praise & criticism in 2-minute impromptu talks. Be sure to criticize in private and praise in public. Feedback should not be about personality — make it about things they can change.
“If it’s something you would say to your dog, it’s not great praise.”
3. Gauge how feedback lands in real-time. Respond to strong emotions and identify feelings in the room. Move further along the Challenge Directly or Care Personally spectrum as appropriate.
4. Encourage radical candor with your team. This includes “clean escalation” — don’t let people talk badly about each other to you. Insist they talk with each other directly. Choose common human decency over office politics.
If you’ve goofed on feedback as I have, I hope you’ll give radical candor a try. Be a kickass boss, but don’t forget to be human.
