[MUSIC]
Hello everybody and welcome to the Radical Candor podcast.
I'm Kim Scott, co-founder of Radical Candor,
an author of the book, Radical Candor and Just Work.
I'm Jason Roseoff, CEO and co-founder of Radical Candor.
And I'm Amy Sandler, your host for the Radical Candor podcast.
And today we're going to talk about how to give feedback to
how to coach, how to advocate for someone who is described as a
thoughtful, introverted employee in a culture where multitasking
extroverts are rewarded.
And we'll explore what each of these words mean in greater detail.
I'm going to go start reading this letter.
It's somewhat lengthy, so I have given Kim and Jason permission to
jump in with interruption.
So off we go, quote, I'm a senior manager at a big four consulting firm.
I've been here 12 years.
I love building teams, mentoring and sharing advice on how to navigate
the complexities of our firm.
However, well, I'm really good at sharing big picture advice.
I found I'm really struggling to provide advice to people to
explain how to get them ready for promotion to the next level.
I just want to say I feel this person's pain.
Promotions are often sort of what it means to get promoted and
why you get promoted is something that is opaque at too many organizations, I think.
And often, I mean, I remember one of the worst experiences I had,
but also I understood my manager wasn't her fault, but I was not getting promoted.
She said, this company is kind of like a family.
I'm like, oh, and I'm not in the family.
But you know, but I knew what she meant.
I mean, I think she was being honest with me about how it was.
And that's the tricky thing about being a manager in a situation like this,
where it's not clear to anyone.
And now you have to explain to your employee this,
like, nebulous, kind of slightly unfair promotion criteria.
Yeah. And it's actually kind of ironic because this person is saying,
I'm really good at sharing big picture advice, sort of,
yeah, nebulous stuff, but actually how to get you ready for promotion.
Yeah. That might be a different kind of, of, of vague.
All right. So let's see what's going on.
So this person describes themselves, I'm a fairly easygoing person,
bit of a people pleaser.
I always look for the best in people, which means I tend to accept someone's personality
for what it is and not ask the right questions to help push them harder.
Is that some like flavors of ruinous empathy on that?
Potentially.
I'm just maybe, I don't know.
I'm not projecting, just putting myself into this, but I,
but I think one should accept another person's personality for what it is.
I mean, I think that's the right, you don't want to give people feedback
about their personality, right?
You want to, you want to let them know specifically what they can do
to get the promotion if they want.
Well, it's very interesting because we go from accepting someone's personality,
not asking the right questions to help push them harder.
I realize this makes creating deliverables harder and can sometimes create extra work for others.
So, there's a hint to hear that I want to come back to.
Yeah, I, I think there's, there's a difference between letting someone shine
and accepting sort of work habits or behaviors that actually make them
and other people around them less productive, even though they might be good in other ways.
Well said.
When talking with leadership about why folks might not be ready for promotion,
I've heard them say things as vague as we're not sure what he does all day
or she makes things harder to complete than it needs to be,
but those aren't super tangible and could be hard to provide actionable feedback on.
I have to say that when I read the words, we're not sure what he does all day.
It was like fingernails chalkboard.
Like, of course, like is that this person's fault or is that your, your, your fault?
Yeah.
Often there's, there's, and she makes it harder to complete work than it needs to be.
Like also, that, both of these statements strike me as like super highways for bias.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, that sounds like quite an interesting rock album.
Okay.
I, so I tried to explain he was working with team members one on one
or reviewing documents before they were finalized
or cross referencing complicated regulations against each other
or training other people up, but some of that stuff isn't quite as sexy as, quote,
completed a deliverable.
Maybe there's a better way to frame what they're doing.
So when my husband Andy first moved to Silicon Valley,
he had a friend who said to him, "In Silicon Valley,
management is neither taught nor rewarded."
And unfortunately, it seems to me like that's part of what's going on is that this person
is a manager and this person is a colleague who's, who's helping others get their,
get their work done, which is what a manager should do.
And this person is not claiming credit for other people's work
and now is being penalized for it.
So I'm feeling the pain here.
That's, I mean, that's my assumption of what's going on.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Go back into the letter.
The culture I'm working within favors multi-taskers, quick problem solvers.
So the folks who are more thoughtful thinkers and doing the behind the scenes,
soft skills stuff aren't always seen as the leaders.
It's hard to explain to them what they're doing wrong
because they might be taking all the right steps
but maybe just not moving as quickly as someone else would,
possibly for good reason, though if the work is super detail oriented.
So I am a tremendous expert in consulting, having worked in a consulting firm
for 12 whole weeks between my two years of business goal.
And one of the things that I noticed when I was there
is that postulatory boldness is rewarded,
perhaps more than it ought to be.
And by postulatory boldness, what I really mean is bloviating bullshit.
Is that like somebody saying I'm an expert in consulting,
having worked there for two weeks?
Exactly. I learned.
So you did.
You are.
I, yes, I learned how to be how to be a bloviating bullsh*tter.
I'm not proud of it, but I can do it.
I want to make sure that we come back to that idea, but keep going.
Okay.
Sometimes it seems like the feedback you need to give ties more to how to alter the perception
you're giving off to others.
So it doesn't seem like dragging feet or excuse giving as opposed to
needing to give feedback on how to do the actual work.
This is the feedback that feels harder to give.
It doesn't feel super fair to give, but also it's hard to envision that person
acting at the next level when they can't seem to push things ahead in a way that feels meaningful.
And while the things the culture favors are a little bit of a bummer for folks
who are more thoughtful thinkers, it also feels like they need to work within that system
that's been created.
Sometimes even telling someone to take more ownership over deliverables or
here's a new phrase, develop an executive presence with clients
doesn't even feel super tangible.
Executive presence?
Yeah.
Or fingernails all the trouble.
Yeah, that just...
So we'll come back to that.
All right, I couldn't help but editorialize on that.
So taking more ownership over deliverables
or the proverbial quote executive presence doesn't even feel super tangible,
but also I even have the problem of identifying the actual problem enough to get that far.
I just assume that's the cost of working with this person.
Closing it out, do you have any tips for turning the quote,
"something's just not quite right or ready" into actionable feedback
to help people make it to the next level?
Jason, you want to start?
What do you think?
To have this conversation, I think we need to set aside an assumption which is...
or we need to accept an assumption.
And the assumption is that this person is performing that they're describing,
that they're trying to give feedback to is actually performing very well.
Because there are a couple of places in the note where they hint at the idea
that they may not actually be performing that well.
I mean some of their behavior might be slowing other people down or they may be inefficient.
So in addition to this sort of perception problem,
there are a couple of places that hint at their...
that there might actually be a performance problem here.
But I think that's not the sort of thrust of the note.
And so I want to call that out and then say like, let's set that aside.
Let's have this conversation in the context of,
there's a person who maybe operates a bit differently than the cultural expectations
that are set for most people who are quote-unquote leaders.
They perform well, meaning like the work that they produce and that their team produces
of high quality.
It's delivered in a timely fashion.
It's solving client problems.
And I think that there's a really interesting conversation that we can have about that.
So I want to put it out there that I was having this feeling and other people might have heard it
in the reading of it.
But I think we should set it aside and have a conversation about the sometimes disconnect
between a person sort of maybe free...
The things that a person may be more likely...
the behavior of a person may be more likely to have if they're sort of quote-unquote more introverted
or maybe more of a support.
The camera you were describing as opposed to the...
What was your word?
The post-ulatory boldness or...
The less-pastulatory leap-old.
Yeah, yeah.
So I think that...
So let's agree.
Let's start by sort of assuming that there is some feedback that we can give this person...
that will help this person succeed in this organization without becoming...
you know, giving them feedback about their personality.
And there's an interesting book that I...
that I blurbed.
I just read it.
It's called "Think Faster, Talks Martyr."
And the author of that book is Matt Abrahams, who's at Stanford.
And he really is very hopeful in terms of...
if you're not comfortable in these environments that sort of demand these quick, you know,
here's a way to develop that doesn't force you to become a bloving bullshitter.
That allows you to be sort of true to yourself and to dig deep when you need to,
but also allows you to be successful in a world that kind of rewards that kind of thinking faster,
talking smarter.
A cynic could say this is about how to be a bloving bullshitter,
but that is not what... that's not what this book is about.
It's a great book.
Because I think there's some very actionable advice in that book.
Was there anything Kim that left out at you or that you recall as if someone...
if that's not your specific style of how to build the muscle?
Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of it is sort of...
first of all, recognizing that remaining silent in the moment is not actually a gift to other people.
You know, you're...
but you have good thoughts. And even though you may not...
may not be 100% sure that you're right, like sharing your hypotheses is just as important as
sharing your conclusions.
And so I think that was... that was helpful.
And also, you know, he talks about, for example, what to do at events that feel like small talk,
because I think often, like a cocktail party or a dinner party sometimes feels like you're...
like, mired in this small talk, nonsense.
And sort of figuring out how to go a little deeper with people and actually have meaningful
conversations in those situations.
Kim, tell me if I'm misinterpreting, but what I'm...
since I have read the book, based on your description, what I'm getting from you is that
it might be valuable to help people build a stronger muscle to interface with the culture in
on the terms that it already values. So like, if...
thinking fast and speaking your mind clearly are valued in the organization,
some of the feedback might be, let's help you build a muscle so that you interact more effectively
in those situations.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Because I think that was one reaction that I was having is, I tend to be a more
thoughtful thinker. I tend to be a person who takes time to process.
But I've had some experiences working in environments that were not that.
That were very sort of like supercharged intellectual fast-moving.
And what I found was it took me time to become comfortable.
It's so interesting that this is the advice in the book, but one of the things that really helped me
was to distinguish between what I thought, like what I was hypothesizing and what I knew to be true.
Yeah.
And then that gave me a lot more... That split gave me a lot more confidence.
So it's really interesting to see that someone who's thought about this quite a lot
says like that is an actually useful tactic because it worked really well for me.
I just didn't have the book to guide me to that conclusion.
Yeah, I'll share an experience I had when I was working at this consulting firm.
So we were working at a steel mill.
And the CEO of the steel mill wanted to get into plastics.
And he named this one kind of plastic.
And I was supposed to have become an expert on all plastics in advance of this meeting.
And instead I had gone to spend the weekend with my boyfriend.
And I had not become an expert.
But you could have just watched the graduate.
Yeah.
Well, there's all these different kinds of plants.
You know, so I had the research.
And so he said what I'm really interested in is this one kind of plastic.
And I had glanced quickly at this particular at the different types.
And I knew enough to know that this particular kind of plastic you could put hot things into.
But all I had gotten to was that you could pour milk into this particular kind of plastic,
you know, which needs to be heated.
But I thought, you know, beer, I bet this guy likes he was like a motorcycle rider.
I was like, I bet this guy's more interested in beer than milk.
And I said, yeah, the really interesting thing about this plastic is you could have beer and plastic bottles.
Just making it up.
And as it turned out, I was exactly right.
And he was like, yes, you get it.
This is so fascinating.
I would never say something like, I mean, I figured at worst they would say I was wrong, you know?
And so like it wasn't pure bullshit.
I knew a little bit.
And I had an instinct about this person, this, the CEO and, and what he would be interested in.
And I remember the, the, my boss at the consulting firm like his eyes got big.
He's like, how did she know that?
Well, I can I just, can I just reflect on that, Kim?
Because you're bringing me back to business school when I was really quite shocked by the,
the folks that had been trained in consulting that would have a case and they would just say,
oh, yeah, well, there's about 300 million people and 80% of that and a growth rate of that.
And so it's, it's obvious this.
And I'm just sitting there like, they say it was such confidence.
Yes.
This must be so.
And again, I'm like, but I don't think this is necessarily so.
And so I'm curious like, would that, I did that from the book about the stating it as a hypothesis?
Had you, had you said to that CEO, you know, you might be able to use it for beer?
I don't know, but it's possible.
Yeah, that would have been a better way to say it.
Oh, but you actually think it would, see, I don't know.
Do you think how much of it was your confidence in that that?
So no, I mean, I think I had just lucked on to something.
And so I think actually stating it as a hypothesis rather than asserting it as a fact, which, which,
I mean, I got lucky, but I could have gotten unlucky and he would have been like,
then you read the study, that's impossible, you know?
So I think it's safer like I was taking a gamble and I won in this case.
The gamble, but, but I think being clear about, you know, what your, I mean, here's another example.
Well, I'm not going to go there.
Swallowing bleach. Why couldn't you know, you know, you know, got it, but he got that one wrong.
So I think the point is that postulatory boldness can be very dangerous,
unless you do what you suggested, Amy, which is saying, this is a hypothesis, not a fact.
And then all of a sudden, it's a great gift because it can allow, you know,
a whole point of getting to the truth is to say, here's what could be.
Let's figure out if I'm right or if I'm wrong and to be equally happy if you're right or if you're wrong.
And I think learning how to do that, I think often people go the opposite fraction.
So they hear me like making stuff up. And I mean, in the case of that consulting firm,
they were impressed, but as if you had been there, Amy, or if my sister had been there,
she would have been like, Kim, you're making shit, shit up again.
Yeah. Now we're drinking beer from plastic. And also who wants to drink beer from a plastic bottle?
But that's another, I was, as you're all, as you're all saying this, I think there's a way to
state a hypothesis with sort of like excitement and positivity that would have a similar impact.
So I think you could say, you know, as I was reading this study, one thought that I had is like,
what if we could put beer in this, yeah, in this plastic way, better way.
And, and now all of a sudden, you haven't put yourself on, on the out so far on a limb,
you're saying like, this was an idea that occurred to me. And you might still get the same excited
reaction from the motorcycle driving CEO. Yeah. But Amy, I wonder, I mean, business school sort of like this
environment that this listener is writing about was sort of similar. But business school was
another environment that really rewarded postulatory boldness, shall we say. So, so what are some other
ways other than just like, because if you feel like the game is silly, then or even flawed,
then it's hard to tell someone to play a game. But if you like, take a step back and say, what is,
what is good about this game? Like what, what, what, there's a reason why people pay these consultants
as much as they do to come in and talk, because they, they get some stuff right, they, you know,
or they expand thinking in some way. So, and I think as we were reading, we were picking up on the
the listener clearly has some of these questions about like executive presents like that, you know,
that, so there's something unfair about this kind of situation that rewards postulatory boldness.
But there also is something good about it. So, if you look for what's good about it,
assuming that you want to stay there, then, then you might have a better, a better experience.
Kim, what you said got me thinking, what is good about boldly sharing your ideas? And I think
to your point, part of the job of being a consultant is to change thinking, so to provoke
new thinking. And one helpful way to provoke thinking is to boldly share your idea,
confidently and boldly share your idea, because to your, you're exactly right that it is risky,
that people may, for good reason, disagree with you, but you just by eliciting that disagreement,
you have like done the client a favor, right? By saying, here's this idea and someone says,
no, you're wrong, you can't do that and here's why knowledge has been created in that process.
Like, something has been learned as a result of that. So, there's, there's value in that. I also
was thinking about the sort of cognitive biases that we have and how that affects our perception
of the work that other people do. And I do think that in some ways we're fighting
expo- like an exposure or a recency bias, like for a person who's doing that frequently,
you have been exposed to the times when it goes right, even if they make mistakes, like they-
you've been exposed to the times that it goes right. So you at least have these data points,
where you're like, oh, this person has these interesting ideas. But if the person is quietly
working behind the scenes and not sharing those interesting ideas, they may actually be doing the
client and the other people on the team into service because people may not be learning from the
things that they- they are learning, right? They may not have those moments of like encountering the
thought or idea that this other manager, the quiet sort of bottle thinker manager is having.
And therefore may not be advancing the sort of thinking on the team as quickly as they could.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I also will say, like part of the reason why I didn't do
all the research that I was tasked with doing on plastics is that as I looked at fundamentally,
I believed my hypothesis was that it was a bad idea to go into play. I mean, this was a steel mill.
Why would I go in? And I think that by being willing to engage with what excited him about the
plastics, he was more open to hearing my fundamental suggestion, which is that he didn't have any
particular advantage in going into plastics. And what he needed to do was continue, he was kind of
boy, it's like steel is boring. But like he was running a steel mill, what he needed to do was run the
steel mill. And I think that if I had if I had started with that hypothesis instead of engaging on
the conversation about plastics, we wouldn't have had as good a conversation.
So Jason, you brought up a really important distinction around the role of someone working
and consulting is to actually challenge ideas. And so part of that is what is valued in an organization
in a culture? Kim, we've been talking about how do we actually communicate, quote,
soft-skill accomplishments in an organization that might not value them? Or how do we measure
activities across the board? And in radical candor, you wrote that Google quote tends to reward people
who do the most visible projects rather than those who make important breakthroughs behind the
scenes. And you also wrote measuring activities and visualizing workflows will push you and your
team to make sure you really understand how what you all do drives success or doesn't. Measuring
activities, displaying them publicly also tends to lead to ratings and promotions that more consistently
reward the top performers and are less prone to the biases that be devil, us all. And quote,
and I just wanted to acknowledge just even on our team call today, Jason, you were talking about
how you might want to build a dashboard that could actually visually show us more about the
sales pipeline and acknowledging the contributions of the team. So Jason, maybe I'll have you start
about from your own experience, the value of visualizing these kinds of workflows and accomplishments.
Well, it is certainly helpful for other people, like for people to be able to know what your team is
working on. So if you have some sort of tool or process by which you take the things that are
implicit that are going on inside people's heads and you make them explicit, you write them down or
display them visually or do some make it possible for other people to benefit from them.
You do help with all the things that Kim said and you also help with organizational learning,
right? Because when I write down, here's what I was working on. Here's the problem I ran into and
here's how I solved it. That knowledge is not only useful to me and to my prospects for promotion.
It is also useful to anybody else who runs into a similar problem and might be looking for a way
to solve it, right? They might be stumped and be looking for a way to solve it. So I found that is,
it is helpful for your own prospects. It's helpful for other people's learning. But it is also helpful
for your own development. The act of externalizing what you are doing helps you to understand,
where am I spending my time? Am I, do I feel good about the balance of time that I'm spending on
this set of tasks versus that set of tasks? I remember iconic at me. We had this thing called
the big board. And the big board was essentially a con-bond board. Even though we were like a tech company,
we built this board out of felt. So there's like this big board like on rolling whiteboards with
these felt stickers that you got to put up. And essentially what we asked each person to do is every
week they would pick a red yellow green. The projects would be written across the top. And then
every week you would pick a red yellow green and you get to put your felt sticker on there like how
how is the project doing? And that was paired with a quick 30 to 90 second update that we would do in
a standing meeting. And what we encourage people to do is like share something that either went
well or something that you're challenged with. And the goal of doing that was explicitly to like
increase awareness in the organization about people are doing, but also give people the opportunity
to ask for help to say like, hey, I'm stuck on something. Here's a place where I could use help.
And so like we had to have you work like a little bit. Jason, can I just like jump in on this because
I don't know if this is where you're going, but and maybe it's even the word felt. I don't know. But
the very act of something being in like felt, which actually I'm aware like I haven't experienced a lot of
felt lately. Like it makes it fuzzier and like, oh, the red, the felt red thing doesn't feel like, you know,
yeah, yeah, just like, yeah, feel sort of like, oh, there's like a stuffed animal telling me it's okay.
I need some help. Yeah. Yeah. And and we were we were a partially remote team. So like we actually,
we had to take pictures of the board. Now we didn't change the state of the board very often.
The board didn't contain a ton of other information. But we encouraged people to do was we had like
little short links that describe the project. And you would actually if you wanted to go learn more,
it was a quick way to go see what that team was working on. You could follow the little link that was
written written under the name of their project. But what I remember about it, like being so powerful.
In addition to the tactile nature of it was that it forced people me included to stop and think
about what they were doing. And this was an incredibly valuable activity for all the reasons that I
that I've just said. And and so even if this person's goal was not to help with promotion, but instead
to like increase the productivity of their team, I think a process like the one where you're describing
would be helpful. So it has so many has multiple layers of benefits of taking the time to make what is
implicit explicit to write down the things that are in your head and make it clear to other people what
you and the team that you're working on are doing. Yeah. I think that's exactly right. I mean, one of the most
useful things I ever did when I became a manager was to create a pie chart of how I was spending my time
every week. And I coded things and like that was when I learned I was spending like two hours a day
in the email and realized I needed to change the way I dealt with that because that was not a good
step. But I would never have realized that if I hadn't taken the time. Part of what I was saying when
I was talking about what what we did at Google, I mean part of the problem was that I was leading
online sales and operations teams teams. And that was often called self serve, which implied that
the customers were serving themselves. We were doing nothing. And we were doing a lot of work, you know.
And and responsible for two thirds of Google's revenue, but but often there was this assumption that
it was all had auto magically happening. And it wasn't it wasn't there were a lot of people. It was
almost like we were the in the Wizard of Oz. There's the some person actually behind the screen.
And you think it's magic. So anyway, I think that is is one thing to consider. It's like making sure
that that your deliverables are recognized that people know what what the activities of your
team are. But in this case, I think part of what's happening is that the organization is not valuing
management. They're valuing doing the work as opposed to managing people who are doing the work.
And that's tricky. So I think part of what needs to happen is that this person who wrote in
needs to go talk to their leaders and say, look, management is management takes time.
Management's a real thing. We can measure what managers do. And you know, here's what managers do.
They're spending time one on one with each of their team members. And it's tricky in this case
because you want managers to do this work and to give their teams credit for the work.
And like I had a had an experience where I went out on maternity leave. And I had I was very
proud of myself. Like I had set my team. I'd spent a lot of time like setting my what I thought was
setting my team up for success. And when they succeeded, somebody told me, see, you're not necessary
Kim because you weren't even here. And I was like, wait a minute. You know, I did the right thing. And
now you're telling me because I did the right thing, I'm not necessary. So I think that that is a
hard, that is a hard thing to solve. That's why I started with part of the part of the problem
that I'm reading in this is that this may be an organization where management is neither taught
or valued. And I think it's really important to change that culture. Well, I have a couple questions.
One is the conversations that we might recommend this person have. So one of them you're saying is
actually this person talking to their manager. So I do want to get to that. But before we do Jason,
I was curious about what might you have this person say to their direct report around the making
things visual. I just want to make sure that we're really clear on that. Like what whether it's the
pie chart or whether it's the big board, like what how would you actually kind of roll that out with
that team member so that you felt like it was as effective as it could be? Well, I don't know if
that actual that specific thing would work in this particular organization. But I think in the note,
the person hints at this and I think they need to have a very direct conversation, which is I understand
that you want to get promoted in this organization in order to get promoted. People need to understand
the value that you are bringing to the company and to our clients. And so our job is going to be
to figure out how we can help other people understand the value we bring to the company and our clients.
And one way we could do that is by making the work that you're doing more visible to other people. And
here's Jason's example from the podcast of like a thing they did at Khan Academy as a way to get the
sort of the ball rolling. But I think that's the conversation that you owe to the person is to say,
this is one of the criteria that is going to be critical to your success if your goal is
promotion is to make sure that other people understand your work. And I think one way to do that would be
to advise this person to share very publicly the accomplishments of the people who work for them.
Yep. So to send an email out and descend it upwards, to send it to your boss's boss.
I'm so proud of so and so on my team who did this. Yep. And that's not something that the person
who did the work is likely to do. So I think one of your jobs as a manager is to get visibility
for the people who are working for you. And usually in an organization that has a hierarchy when
you're sending those messages out, bragging about the things your people are doing and giving your
people credit, some of that credit comes back to you as that person's manager. So I think it's both
a good thing to do for the people who work for them and it's also good for you. So that's one way to
get more visibility into accomplishments. I love how simple and straightforward that is. And I would
also echo something that I hear all the time from clients, which is that one of the challenges
that managers have is their job in some respect is to make it look like everything's going smoothly.
And so they're like, it's the sort of like the duck problem that we referred to before, which is
like on the surface of the water, the duck computers to be gliding, but underneath the water,
they're kicking furiously in order to like make motion happen. And you forget that it's actually
important for people to understand the work you're doing to make the motion happen. I think that
your tip is so great. And it is also creating a model for your team members to do with you.
Which is also really helpful as a manager because you don't always see all the work that your
team members are doing in order to make them successful. So if you think of the, you know, this person
sort of a director and they're talking to a manager who's managing individual people, if those folks
want to become managers someday, you're creating a model that will help them demonstrate the kind of work
that they are doing that is helping the team be more successful and communicate that upwards and
outwards. And I think that that kind of sort of upwards communication, like letting the sort of your
bosses boss know what the people who work for you are. So now you're bringing information that's
three levels down up. And sometimes that feels like, "Oh, do they really need to know that?" But usually
that person is happy to know this good thing has happened. And all they have to do is hit reply and
say, you know, "This is really impressive so and so." And so it gives them an opportunity to reach
down into the organization, which is usually a welcome opportunity. So I think it's, I think also the
person who wrote in could do this for the person, could say, you know, because wherever you are, you can,
you can sort of, you have standing to send an email a couple of levels up in the, there's no,
I hate the words up down the sideways. I don't know how else to talk about a hierarchy though.
But you have an opportunity to send an email that the person working for you doesn't. And so bragging
about the accomplishments of the people who are working for you, I think is part of your job as a
manager. And it's also part of how you make sure that people know what you and your team are doing.
That's great. And Kim, it kind of brings us back to where you were going before, which is that
you were showing that, you know, this person might be working in an organization where management
isn't taught or valued. And so one of the things that this person can do is actually to sort of model
the kind of behavior that they want to show by those kinds of upwards bragging, specific and sincere
praise, etc. Any other specific tips like what, what, what else can you do as a, as a manager in the
middle of an organization if you feel like that skill of management isn't valued? Yeah. Before we move on,
I want to offer another rationale for doing this email, this upwards email, which is that if this
person who wants to get promoted is worried that, you know, is not likely to brag about themselves,
which often people are not certain personalities or like, I have no problem bragging about myself
because I learn this lesson of postulatory boldness. But I find that when I've worked with managers who
are sort of more thoughtful, less apt to be the bloviating BSR, they are very eager to offer credit
to other people, to offer praise to other people. And so this becomes a much easier way
of sort of making your work visible than making your work visible. You're making the work of the
people who work for you visible. And that feels more altruistic and therefore more comfortable to a
lot of people. I'm really curious just to follow up on that because I've been in some situations where
it's always much easier for me to praise someone else than myself. And I sort of advocate or to really
go forward, cheerlead. And so I have had assumptions where my manager in a very hierarchical organization
was was sharing that my accomplishments. I had kind of an assumption because I wasn't doing that.
There were other people that were sort of more tooting their own, their own horn. And I was, I learned
that that actually was not happening. And so I'm curious like, how would you then communicate
back besides the email, like just being very intentional to this person, like hold me accountable to
sing your praises or whatnot? Like I just, how do you close that loop to make sure that the person
it doesn't have this assumption that you're going to bat for them? And then they find out they're
there. Well, you're not that. There was no bat. Yeah. Well, I think that, I think that another way to
make sure that you're owning the communication about your work to the people who are going to decide
about your promotion is is public praise, like praising the people who you work with say, I've been
working on this project and so and so really helped me do that. Now all of a sudden your, I mean,
and you have to mean it. You don't want this to feel this could feel manipulatively insincere.
But part of your goal is really to has to be genuinely to praise that other person. But a nice benefit
of praising that other person is it gives you an opportunity to share a little bit about what
you're working on as well when you're working with people. So I think that that can be really helpful.
Another thing that I will say in terms of communicating this sort of stuff upwards. One of the,
one of the things that I did when I was at Google is I developed this class called email haiku,
which was about how to write a really short email. And which is especially important if you're
going to send a note to your boss or to your boss's boss or to your boss's boss. Like the more, the more
seniority a person has in an organization often the less time and the less patients they have. And
and usually my, my daughter's school is is always like we want to hire, we want to hire, we want to
teach leaders. We want to teach women to be leaders. And I'm like, well, you should be admitting
every child who has ADHD in the Bay Area because those are going to be the leaders.
Leaders really have a short attention span is what I'm saying. And so I think that you, you need to adapt
your communication style to that. So if you're going to send these emails out, you want to make the
email, you need to make sure that it can fit in the body of a, of an iPhone with someone who's using
big text, right? And that's all they're going to read. So you have like at most, you know, two sentences.
And then you can attach other stuff. And so making sure that you're sort of using formatting and,
and, you know, sending sending emails out that are no longer than a tweet is really important for,
and I'm going to still call it a tweet is really important for, for, for communication upwards.
And for making that, you know, punchy kind of communication style that's going to be effective
in an organization where, where people, it sounds like, you know, people are constantly being interrupted.
I think the idea of, of the email, the, like the tip on the content, keeping the content really
brief, I feel strongly that there's like a classic problem that we're running into here, which is we,
in, and it probably happens in consulting as much or more than another organizations where we don't
focus on the good stuff. Like to keep things simple, like, there's this like, it's like focus on the good
stuff. Like what's, what's good that is happening that this person is doing? I, I want to, I have like,
I have another idea that I wanted to share, which might be helpful to this person, which I found
really useful, especially when it got came time to actually putting together a promotion packet
for somebody to actually say, to advocate on somebody's behalf that they should be promoted.
And that was to think about the story that you're telling. And from my perspective,
to help people who were behind the scenes folks become managers or, or like, to get promoted,
the story that I often told had a shape somewhat similar to, we were trying to do this thing
we were doing at Peace Meal. This person came and made order from chaos and all of a sudden we
have a result that we could never have gotten if we, if this person was not in a position they are in,
leading this project. And that is the true story that I told of great behind the scenes leaders
who wound up delivering outsized results with small, and I like, I would often emphasize like,
this person didn't have a huge team. They did this with limited resources. They produced far more
value than the resources that they gave that we gave them. This person is a value-generating machine
for this company. And they should be recognized for promotion. Because I think the value that the
low-viating BSR has is more obvious, right? They're talking about it more. And so the story may be
sort of more available to more of the people who are in that committee. But if people are raising
these types of questions, I think you do have to give them a narrative. This isn't for the email.
This is for like when you actually get the right to promotion. You have to tell a good story about
how that person is delivering value. And I think if you do that, and you can do that honestly,
like you can do that authentically for this person, that is also going to be incredibly valuable
praise and feedback to give to them directly. It's going to help them in their development. So it's
again, two birds once done, like it serves multiple purposes to work on that story.
These are such great tips. And I feel like we could go in a few different directions. But can you
just indulge me for a moment and get your take on the phrase executive presence? Him?
Yeah.
Usually when I've been told, I need to work on my executive presence. What people are really saying is
can't you turn into a man? So I'm just going to say that. And if I were black, I would probably
assume that I'm being told, can't you be white? And or if I were not white, I would be, you know,
so I think that it is really important to remember that executive presence is a super highway
for bias. And it's important to impress people who are a couple of levels above you if you want to
get promoted. And that is why I like the book, think faster talks smarter is that it really kind of,
it doesn't talk about executive presence. It talks about things in a very specific way.
Here's what's going on. Here's what you can do to make your ideas. If you try to think about
your goal is not, quote unquote, executive presence, but your goal is to help get information to people who
are extremely busy and very distracted quickly so that they can make better use of it.
Then it feels less like bloating BS and more like an efficiency play. And for me, at least,
that's way more palatable than executive presence. I have a question though, Jason.
Have you been told to work on your executive presence ever?
Yes. Okay. So see, there, I had this bias that you wouldn't have since you're a man,
a white man, and you have. So I think it would be cool to hear about your story and what
it was like for you to be told that. This happened to me as I made the transition from
management to executive leadership when I was no longer just a manager of managers. I also had
an executive function and an organization. And I had the, had the practice, all the practices that
we're talking about, like talking about my accomplishments as my team and making sure that I was
deferring to them and sharing all of the credit and all this other stuff. But what I didn't realize is
that as an executive, you have a different kind of player coach role, like you're on an executive team.
You're a team mate on an executive team. And what was happening was I was like, well, my team thinks
this, my team thinks that and my teammates were like, well, what do you think? Yeah. And that was
really the crux of the problem I had that was caused that caused the, that triggered the feedback.
You need to work on your executive presence because this team of executives is expecting something from
you. And that is to be a member of this team, not just a representative of the organization that
works for you. Yeah, that's really an important point. I think when you at a certain point in time,
your team are your, are your peers, not the people working for you. I mean, and the people working for
you. Of course, yeah, it was both, but people felt like I was inhabiting, I was failing to embody my
executive role and I was living as sort of my, in my functional role. Yes. Yeah. And I got, I got that
feedback as well. And it was, that was actually not a super high way to bias. That was true. That was true.
I was making that mistake. Well, that's interesting that you both got like maybe we need to spend some
time on that if that is a pretty common mistake for folks. It's a really interesting conversation.
Like what happens? What changes when you transition from like a director role to an executive role?
Like what are the, what are, what are, what are, because we often talk about the difference between
an individual contributor, manager and a manager and director before we get to our tips.
Anything that we haven't said, Kim, I feel like there's probably a story rolling around your head.
Well, I wanted to say one thing about the super high way to bias, which is I was given the feedback
you need to work on your executive presence and it was actually feedback about a real thing. So
so the advantage of being a white man in this case was that I was being judged on a standard that
was more likely to match my, my, maybe my behavior I was already pre-incline to show. Yeah. And I was
given the same feedback and it was also real feedback and I was also told another time you need to work
on your executive presence. Don't wear a pink sweater wear a blues literally. Oh my god.
Yeah, this is the world we live in. And I think this is actually another interesting point about that,
which is that sometimes when you get this kind of non feedback, this, this kind of bias masquerading
as feedback can make you shut down to all feedback. And that's dangerous. Like I needed to hear
the feedback that I was, that I was treating my director of ports as my team and not my peers as my
team. Like that was bad. That was a mistake I was making. And that is part of the executive.
Terms like executive presence have become so abstract that they're meaningless. So I think it's,
it's about being specific, really specific, really clear about what behaviors you're talking about,
not something that's too abstract. I think that the important thing is to, to try not to be too
cynical about sort of the executive function stuff. I think focus on bragging about this person's
accomplishments, getting them to brag about the accomplishments of their people. And to sort of
not think about having to show, think faster talks smarter, don't think about it in terms of
BS, but think about it in terms of saving other people time. Yep. And you'll be happier focusing
on the good stuff, talking about the accomplishments that the, the folks that work for you are having.
I guarantee you you will end the day feeling better about all the work that your team is doing also.
I have one other last thought for this person, which is if you tell the person who's trying to get
promoted, to, if you ask this person to send them to send you an email every week, bragging about
a couple of things that people on their team have done. And then you offered a forward that
up the chain that will help them a lot. Now it's time for our radical candor checklists. These are
tips you can use to start putting radical candor into practice. Tip number one, you don't have to be
certain about your conclusions in order to share your hypothesis. Sometimes just sharing what if is
really helpful. Tip number two, if you're not comfortable bragging about yourself as a manager,
go ahead, brag about your team's accomplishments and give specific and sincere praise to peers who
have helped you. Tip number three, be as clear as possible about what it will take for your
director board to get promoted. Even if you're not 100% sold on a criteria for promotion,
share them as clearly as you can. Tip number four, email high coup. Make sure that you are as
brief as possible when sharing important information to your boss or your boss's boss.
Think one iPhone screen with a really big font. Tip number five, think about the story you're telling
when trying to support your team for promotion. Show specifically how they're creating value for
the company and clients beyond what would be possible without their management. Tip number six,
buy, think faster talks smarter. It's filled with practical, tactical advice, this book is
indispensable. Kim Scott, bestselling author of radical candidates. Yes. There you are.
Or to buy yours truly. Lurbed by yours truly. Well, for more tips, go ahead to radicalkander.com/resources.
Download our free learning guides. Sign up for radicalkander on masterclass. Get our lit
video book, register for a workplace comedy series, the feedback loop, and so much more. Show notes
for this episode radicalkander.com/podcast. Do we have a favorite thing for today? Or do you think I
think the book is our favorite thing? Apparently. I have a favorite thing. Hang on one second.
Let me keep rolling. I'm in a roll. I'm going to vamp by reminding you to praise in public and
private and criticize in private. If you like what you hear, please do rate and review us on Apple
Podcasts. Of course, if you have criticism for us, we welcome it. Radical candid criticism, of course,
and that's at podcast@radicalkander.com. Should we talk about our favorite things?
And now for a few of our favorite things. In my continuing effort to eliminate plastic
from my daily life, I'm going to share with you my deodorant. The irony after this whole episode
was about your, your selling plastic to a steel man. Yes, sure. Well, not selling plastic to a steel man.
I convinced him to keep making steel and stop eluding our planet. Did you know, I think I've said this
before, but we use as much oil and gas in plastic as we do in our cars. Okay, so that is part of why
I'm determined to get rid of my little plastics. And this is my new deodorant, native deodorant
and 100% plastic free cardboard. And Kim, you're on video. So do you want to actually like give a
play by play of what you're doing? So show, don't tell. Yeah, show don't tell. So I'm just opening up my
deodorant, which is a nice gray color. I chose charcoal, but there's all kinds of flavors of native
deodorant. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. All right.
Should we get Andy on to see what he actually thinks of it? He uses it too. Oh, all right. So
we both use it. And as does, as does my son, I haven't persuaded my daughter, even though she
complains all the time that we've left her a mess on the planet. I can't get her using this deodorant,
but I will. Well, on that note, thank you all for joining us. Thank you for sharing your
plug for native deodorant. Thank you for writing in thanks to everyone who shares their challenges.
We learn just as much if not more from you. And we so appreciate your commitment to practicing
radical candor. Bye for now. Bye. The radical candor podcast is based on the book radical candor.
The A Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott. Episodes are written and produced
by Brandy Neal with script editing by me, Amy Sandler. The show features radical candor co-founders
Kim Scott and Jason Roseoff and is hosted by me. Still Amy Sandler. Nick Curisamy is our audio engineer.
The radical candor podcast theme music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Follow us on LinkedIn,
radical candor the company and visit us at radicalcandor.com.