[MUSIC]
Hello everybody and welcome to the Radical Candor podcast.
I'm Kim Scott, co-founder of Radical Candor,
an author of Radical Candor and Just Work.
>> I'm Amy Sandler, your host for the Radical Candor podcast.
Jason is not joining us today.
We miss you Jason and in your absence,
we're going to talk about a topic that I confess,
I don't know a ton about Kim,
so I am excited to learn more.
For those of you like me who don't know
a whole lot about performance improvement plans,
or have tried to put your head in the sand
about performance improvement plans,
this is a podcast for you,
otherwise known as Pips.
As someone who has been told she pops her piece on
podcast, the use of the word Pips might present possibly some.
Presenting problems, but we will do our best.
>> Thank you, producer.
>> That was very good.
>> That was very good Amy.
We're going to have no PIP problems today.
>> I will not be placed on a PIP for my piece.
>> No, you will not be placed on a PIP for your piece.
>> Maybe for something else.
All right, we received- >> Or for anything else.
>> Thank you.
Thank you.
We received an email from someone who wanted to let us know that a friend of theirs
was put on a performance improvement plan.
After only working for their manager for four weeks,
and this person's boss told them they were practicing radical candor.
Kim, in radical candor, you said quote,
or some version of a quote on extrapolate.
Everyone can be exceptional somewhere,
and it's a boss's job to help them find that role.
It's also a boss's job to strive to have
100% of the team doing exceptional work.
In that context, four weeks seems pretty quick to place someone on a PIP and call it radical
candor.
Do you agree with that?
We should probably get into defining what a PIP is and what would make it a radically
candid practice or not.
Do you want us to start with the definition or do you want to have just a blink reaction
on four weeks for a PIP?
>> I think a couple of things.
Before all of those are important questions, but something else is coming to mind.
Some other more fundamental issue is coming to mind for me,
which is that radical candor, when we talk about these basic two-minute and prom two,
radical candor conversations, we're really talking about development conversations,
where you're helping someone improve.
We're not talking about performance management.
Once you get to a performance improvement plan, you're talking about performance management.
I think that very often, that seems like a nuanced thing, but it's really important and
fundamental.
Mostly, when you're having these impromptu two-minute radical candor conversations, you're
not judging the person.
There's no impact on their pay, their bonus, whether they're going to get fired.
You're playing a role of coach.
This is the player and I'm trying to help this player get better.
I think that it's really important to remember that.
Having said that, that doesn't mean that performance management is unimportant.
How do performance management and these development conversations go together?
If you're having a lot of impromptu two-minute radical candor talks, it makes performance
management go much more easily.
By performance management, what in addition to a pick, what is included in performance management?
What is included there is a 360 degree process where you're getting feedback from your manager,
but also your peers and your employees, obviously from people up down in sideways.
What is included in that are our bonus plans, ratings if your company has them and then
ultimately a performance improvement plan.
In my mind anyway, a performance improvement plan usually happens after much longer than
four weeks, four weeks seems fast.
In this case, in the case that this person was writing it about, it was way too fast.
It was a big problem.
It was not radical candor.
It was total bullshit.
That's a technical term.
There's my blink reaction.
What do you think about that, Amy?
Then I'll answer your other questions.
I think it's great because we do get versions of this question and potential conflation
between performance management and development conversations.
I'm curious, Kim, if somebody is having one of these one or two-minute conversations and
you say, Amy, in the podcast, I've
noticed that you take a lot of time when you're asking these questions and I think it would
be more helpful if you could be more succinct and get more quickly to the point.
Is that not related to my performance on how I could do better?
Yes, but it's about developing your performance.
It's not about managing you out.
It's not about, if I said, Amy, your bonus this quarter is going to be dependent if we
had bonuses, quarterly bonuses, but your bonus.
I wish you had a bonus.
This is great.
Announcing on the podcast.
She said it here, folks, on the podcast, we're moving into quarterly bonuses.
Who's the reason?
Well, Jason's not here.
Jason, this is my question.
I am a kicker.
Jason, this is my question, man.
I'm giving quarterly bonuses.
Anyway, if I said, your quarterly bonus is going to be dependent on whether or not you
can ask questions more quickly, then that would be performance management, not a development
conversation.
Anytime there's sort of an extrinsic situation going on, like a rating or a bonus or getting
promoted or getting fired, now we're talking about performance management.
What I'm talking about these in-promptu conversations is just developing the person, giving
the person advice.
Whatever words you want to use, there's some stuff that has to do with,
sort of, extrinsic pay hiring, firing, promoting, and then there's stuff that has to do with
intrinsic.
I want to get better at my job.
And so that I want to get better at my job stuff is what I call performance development
or just development and performance management is how I tend to refer to all of that extrinsic
money promotion, hiring, firing, stuff.
Does that make sense as a distinction?
It does.
I think what's on my mind, especially by the time somebody might get to a performance improvement
plan, first of all just to define what it is.
So from the society for human resource management or SHIRM, quote, "a performance improvement
plan" PIP, also known as a performance action plan is a tool used to give an employee with
performance deficiencies the opportunity to succeed.
It is used to address failures to meet specific job goals or behavior related concerns.
End quote.
So I guess before I move on for my question, kind of follow up question, do you agree with
that definition?
Do you want to flesh that out further, Kim?
Yeah, that is what it ought to be.
That is what a performance improvement plan ought to be.
And the problem, I think when people hear the term performance improvement plan, how they
are often used as opposed to how they ought to be used or two different things.
How a performance improvement plan is often used, and this is what that definition from the
SHIRM is trying to prevent.
But how they are often used is let's say there is a manager who has not given feedback to
their employee.
And in fact, they have even given their employee's excellent ratings.
And then all of a sudden they decide they want to fire that employee, having not given
the feedback, having not given the ratings, having not given an official performance review.
And so they write this performance improvement plan in such a way that it is impossible to
fulfill.
And so the person, they write it in such a way that incentivizes the person to just quit,
rather it's a way of managing someone out as opposed to helping them improve.
It's supposed to help them improve.
It's supposed to make sure that the manager has been clear with the person about what the
problem is.
And so in an ideal world, which this is not, the way a performance improvement plan should
be used is let's say I have someone working for me and they're late all the time.
And I've given them feedback, I've given them feedback, sort of regular, a bunch of two-minute
and prompt to conversations, the situation is not improving, improving, I give them a performance
review and a low rating and I say the problem is.
So now we've moved from development to that feedback that you are giving them about there being
late in these one or two-minute conversations.
Like that really is.
That's development.
Like it for the first time, nobody's, well, hopefully nobody's going to get fired for
being late one or two time.
We're all late, especially me.
And so I think that, you know, if you notice that the lateness is a trend and that it's
getting in the way of this person's success, then you want to address it and give the person
just an opportunity to fix the problem.
There's no consequences to the conversation.
Yep.
It's just, you know, here's something that I've noticed that you could fix.
And so that's the idea.
And then if it's not getting fixed, I would say the next step is probably if there's a performance
management system in place that you, you know, you would give the person a low rating.
So that they would know that you're not just talking when you say the being late is a problem,
but there's going to be, there are consequences.
And then if it still persists, then you put them on an improvement plan, usually.
That's how I would expect it to go.
Now of course, there are companies that only do a performance management, like performance
reviews once a year.
And maybe something is such a big problem that they can't wait to do the low rating and
official performance review first.
And so they'll do the performance improvement plan sooner.
But certainly the person should be getting a lot of feedback, just development feedback
before you shouldn't go straight to a pit.
That's a failure.
That's a feedback fail.
And a PIP should never be a surprise.
The person should be aware that if they don't improve on this thing, that they're going
to be put on a performance improvement plan.
And the performance improvement plan, I mean, people make a million mistakes with them.
But usually they're either like, it's impossible to meet the requirements set forth in the performance
improvement plan.
So it's like this weird catch 22 thing.
Before the performance improvement plan, sometimes managers make a mistake and they make it too
easy to, they're not clear enough.
They feel bad about saying this is what the expectation is.
And therefore the person passes the performance improvement plan, but they're still not doing
well enough.
The manager still wants to fight them.
So that's another problem.
They're either too hard or too easy.
So too hard, too easy.
And then there's also where this is the first time you're hearing about it is the performance
improvement plan.
This is a surprise.
And I'm curious, like do you have any times in your career where you've either yourself
experiences or you've heard stories where someone, maybe this is like the four weeks in,
where the first time someone is hearing about something is through the PIP.
And then the manager says, oh, but I've been telling them about this every week and they're
not hearing it.
Yeah, I mean, so there are certainly times when the manager truly has not told the person
and the PIP is legitimately a surprise.
There are other times when the manager has told the person a bunch of times, but they didn't,
it didn't sink in until they realized that they were going to be fired if they didn't fix
the problem.
And that happens.
Like sometimes you really tell a person a thing a bunch of times and they think it doesn't
matter until they realize they're going to get fired if they don't fix it.
And that is kind of why there's performance improvement plans because sometimes you need
to put stuff in writing to get through to the person.
So you talked about either impossible to meet or it's too easy.
Have you written performance improvement plans?
Have you created performance improvement plans?
What in your experience, like what is that process to get to, if not a perfect PIP, an
actually helpful and effective PIP?
You know, it's interesting.
There was one CEO who I was coaching and I recommended to this CEO that they have HR really
do a better job helping managers write performance improvement plans because they're, it's not
common sense.
I mean, it's hard to do and it's hard to do well.
And if it's the first time you've ever done one, you need some help.
So if you are a manager, if you're listening to this and you're a manager and you have
to write one, ask someone who's done them before to help you, there's a few things you want
to make sure that you get help with.
One is to make sure that it is reasonable, to make sure that it's possible to pass the
performance improvement plan.
It's not okay if you're a manager and you haven't been giving, what, I mean, this is what
happens all the time.
The person has not been radically candid.
So the managers increasingly frustrated because they've been runnously empathetic.
It's like the pop story.
You know, they have not said the thing, they've not said the thing.
And by the time they finally say the thing, they're ready to fire this person.
But the person is like, this is the first time they've heard of it.
And then because the managers so fed up, they don't want to give the person an opportunity
to fix it.
But they just want them to go right away.
And so they write in a performance.
It's like a straight shot from ruinous empathy to obnoxious aggression.
Yeah.
So you want to make sure that you're not using the performance improvement plan to force
someone to quit before you have given them the feedback.
You know, it should really be written in a way that gives a person an opportunity to fix
the problem.
And the fact that you are already frustrated and ready to fire them now is, frankly, your
fault, not their fault.
So you need to own it.
If you're frustrated, HR people tell me this all the time.
They're like, I'm supporting this manager and this manager has not given this person
any feedback.
And they've given them several good ratings.
And now they're writing this sort of catch 22 performance improvement plan.
And the employee is really frustrated and fed up understandably so.
So you don't want to make that mistake.
That's the two hard mistake.
The two easy mistake is the manager who's not really been giving the feedback.
And they're kind of aware that their employee is not understanding what the expectations
are.
And so they're sort of finessing things.
They're like, well, I don't want to explain exactly what the
expectations are because now the person is going to be mad.
There's like the ruinously empathetic performance improvement plan, which is like, oh, you
know, if you can just show up 40% of the time, then you'll pass the plan.
But your expectation is actually 80% of the time.
So you need to make sure the performance improvement plan is very clear like about what
the person needs to do in order to succeed in this job.
Well, what's so interesting is you're sharing that I'm wondering, and this might be really
pushing the limit here.
If a manager is actually practicing radical candor, they are having these one on one conversations,
development conversations, it's clear what this person needs to do to achieve success in
their role.
They're resourcing them accordingly.
In an ideal world, if this was happening, would we then never need a PIP because it would
be clear this person either was resource to do what they needed to do.
They knew what the feedback was, and then it was clear that there wasn't a fit or there
was, but the lack of clarity, the lack of practicing radical candor is what maybe even
led to the PIP.
Is that pushing it too far?
Yes, in theory, you're right, but the reality is even though I say, you know, radical candor
gets measured at the listeners here, not at the speaker's mouth, sometimes the speaker
needs to write a performance improvement plan to make it clear.
Sometimes, there are, I mean, there are people who just don't hear what you have to say
until they understand that there are consequences.
And sometimes the only way to make those consequences clear is to put them on a performance improvement
plan.
That has happened to me, where I have said the thing, I've written the thing, I feel like
I've sung and danced the thing and the person still is rushing me off.
And then I write the performance improvement plan.
They're like, oh, you mean I could get fired if I don't fix this?
I'm like, yeah.
And then they fix it.
You know, it's kind of frustrating, but that you're looking at, like you're doing this.
I am really enjoying, I mean, enjoying Stathorite Word.
The flip side of it, which goes back to this sort of development versus performance
conversations is that we will hear from folks, oh, do I need to write up what happened in
this conversation?
So I might have had a radically candid conversation with you in the spirit of development and
growth and this isn't being used to manage me.
But are there times when then you actually do need to sort of write up what happened in
the conversation and make a clear record of that?
Or does that go against the, this is not being part of your management profile of these
conversations?
Yeah, I think that if you are working with someone and you feel like you wonder when you
finish the conversation if communication happened, yeah, we're being the same conversation.
Yeah.
Like did I get through to this person?
Did this person understand what I said?
Even though I was as clear as I thought I possibly could be, I still have some lingering doubts
about whether, whether I was heard.
That's a good time to write it down.
Before I get to the point of following up with an email, as we said in our conversation,
bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, like things are not going well if you're having to write
it.
Yeah, there's a lack of, but often things don't go well and so that's what you can do.
I think before I try to document conversations, I will ask the other person to document.
So I'll say at the end, so just to make sure that we're on the same page, can you send me
an email about what we talked about?
Sometimes, and it depends on the person, but sometimes the other person would rather
own that documentation.
They'll feel less like they're moving towards a performance improvement plan if they're
writing it up than if I write it out.
Other times the person will be more annoyed by me asking them to do the work, so I'll just
do the work.
That's so interesting.
I know that that person might be annoyed, quote, unquote, for having to do the work.
Have they actually told you that or was that?
It's usually just a gut feeling and maybe I'm wrong, but there are some people who I've
worked with who, if I send them after a conversation as we discussed in this, they'll go into kind
of a tailspin.
Like, now I'm in trouble.
I'm on a performance improvement plan.
So if I know that this person, like, sometimes if you're working with someone and they're
extremely deferential to authority, you might not to time when I would ask them to
write it, just to make sure we're on the same page.
Can you jot down what you're going to do next?
Send me an email after this.
Give us in a different direction and this is something that I've had a little experience
with it.
Sometimes you might be a manager and either you're a new manager who's coming into a team
from someone who maybe wasn't as effective a manager as they could be or you're inheriting
a team, maybe another part of the organization.
So how do you proceed so that people are in the right roles and can perform their jobs
effectively before and preempt the PIPs in terms of alignment?
I mean, it's really hard to inherit a team that has had no feedback, right?
So everybody, sometimes you'll inherit a team.
So I'll be precise about a couple of different ways in which the previous manager maybe wasn't
a great manager.
One way is that the previous manager never gave any feedback.
So nobody really knows how they're doing.
Or maybe the previous manager was one of those people who gave everybody great ratings
and told everybody they were great all the time.
Maybe there are a couple of people on that team who are actually not performing very well.
And now after they've been told by the previous manager for the previous three years, oh, you're
doing great.
Now all of a sudden there's a new manager in town and the new manager is like, actually,
you need to improve this and this.
And the person is understandably frustrated by that situation.
They thought everything was great.
Now this new manager thinks it's not so great.
And that is just hard.
But I think that the longer you wait to start giving that feedback, the worse it's going
to be.
You're going to, you know, there's already you're inheriting feedback debt and you've got
to start clearing that out.
Kim, can we do like a little roleplay of what you would say to me?
Sure.
I'm the inherited employee who's just doing my thing and you're the new sheriff in town.
Sure.
Do you know what I've been doing?
Do you have any proposal?
Yeah, but I'm not sure.
I'm just a new manager.
So let's assume for the purposes of this roleplay that we've had a lunch, we've gotten
to know each other a little bit.
I've solicited some feedback from you.
I've told you I really want you to tell me what I can do or start.
You know, so you're doing some radical candor.
So let's assume I've already gone to some of the order of operations.
I've already solicited feedback from you.
I've given you some praise.
I've gotten to know you a little bit.
So I'm not, this is not like the first time we're sitting down.
Okay.
All right.
So Amy, there's, there's something I've noticed about your work that I want to talk
to you about today.
Is that, is today a good day to have this conversation?
Well, it was a fine day, but now I'm really, I'm really nervous.
What, what have you noticed?
Yeah.
I don't want you to be nervous because the thing is, that makes it worse.
I'm sorry.
The things that I've noticed, you can fix.
100%, you can fix.
Woo.
Okay.
But I'm, the, the team is responsible for, for customer support.
But I've noticed that most, most people on the team have a net promoter score from the customers
who, whose questions I've answered, you know, really high.
And yours is a little bit lower.
So what I want to do is sit down with you and sort of maybe listen to some of the calls
that you're, that you're on so that I can give you some advice about how to improve
that net promoter score.
Well, why do you think you would know more about the customer, I've been working with
the customers for 10 years.
Well, why, why do you think your net promoter score is lower than anyone else's on the team?
I mean, to be honest, like those sort of numbers don't really, like, people are always so happy
when they talk to me and they're like, oh, I'm so glad you caught, like, there's, I really
build a rapport with them.
So I don't, like, this is the first I'm hearing that the net promoter score is like a meaningful
metric for us.
So that's, I thought I was doing something really the right way the whole time.
And now I feel like there's this whole new system.
Yeah, well, I mean, the whole organization uses net promoter score.
So I'm really sorry you should have been told all along.
But well, now I just feel like everything I've been doing is a waste.
Well, I think that if we spend some time understanding what's going on, you can improve going
forward.
I mean, there, there is a problem.
I'm sorry you didn't know about it before.
You should have known about it before.
But, but pretending that there's not a problem is not going to solve problems.
So let's, let's just sit down and look at it together.
I'm here with you.
I'm sure that you can fix it.
You've got great experience.
But, but we do need to move that net promoter score out.
I thought that was great, Kim.
You are very unruffled.
It's, it's easier in a role play than it is in real life.
Yeah.
Well, we've got Brandy and Nick here.
Any questions from the observers or reflections on any feedback on my feedback?
Yeah, feedback on feedback, Brandy.
I think that, yeah, Kim, you're very unflapable.
You don't get ruffled by the pushback.
I could tell that Amy was starting to get upset, but the way you responded, I think really
helped redirect the conversation or this is a problem we can solve.
And I'm going to help you succeed if less confrontational than it could have.
Yeah.
I thought I told, I think that's totally right, Brandy.
I felt, Kim, twice, you're saying, I know you can fix this.
And it felt like you actually believed that I could fix it.
And so the thing that was in my mind was like, what if this person can't fix it?
What, what if you don't actually, as the manager, have confidence that this person can
fix it?
Have you been in that situation where you didn't necessarily think the person could fix it?
Yeah.
If I'm in that situation, what have said something more along the lines of, I think you might
be in the wrong job.
And I'm here to help you find a job where you're better, but unless you can move your
nut motor score up, then you can't stay in this job.
You know, I would be more clear about my pessimism, but I think in this case, I probably,
it would be premature to be pessimistic.
I wouldn't be prematurely pessimistic.
I generally start out being optimistic.
And then I notice if a person is not able or willing to fix the problem, then I start talking
about, let's find something else where you, where you can do a good job.
And that goes back to the point you raised in the beginning where I said, nobody is a
big player.
You know, there's no such thing as someone who can't be great at their job, but, but, but
there's, it happens all the time that there are jobs that a person is not well suited for.
There's something even in just in the way you answer that question where I really do feel
like a non-judgmental willingness to find the right role for this person and to really,
like you really are invested in this person's success and whether customer service is your
thing or something else.
Like, there's not this like, well, you suck at customer service and now I got to find you
a new job.
I just, I think the reason why you're radically candid criticism lands so well for me in that
case is because I really do feel and you say, you know, we communicate cognitively, emotionally,
you know, I really feel the commitment to what is in my best interest.
Like, I really feel like you are invested in me.
Yeah, and I think that is probably one of the most important things about being a good
boss is you.
At a certain point, it's time to take the company hat off, take your own hat off and put the
hat of the other person on.
Like, my goal here is to help this person do great work.
And hopefully it's on my team, but maybe it's on somebody else's team or maybe it's in a
different, a whole different sort of department or a whole different company.
But like, being interested in each individual who works with you is the thing that may
be a big management, meaningful and if you don't care, it's going to just feel very tedious.
Because it's work.
Yeah, I really felt it.
And Nick, I know I had asked and I don't want to put you on the spot, but here I am putting
you on the spot.
Was there anything more from that role play that we haven't spoken about?
I don't think so.
There's a vacuum going on background, which so I'm not sure if this is the problem.
Yeah, so I want to, I want to apologize about my vacuum.
We had a fly.
Oh, no.
Oh, in your house.
Oh, there's also a vacuum.
We share this vacuum.
See, I love how they're so busy wanting to take the blame that you're owning next to the
vacuum.
Well, I have a vacuum too.
I had a flood and so there's some noises.
Where does having the house clean?
So nothing tragic.
I'm shocked at how nervous these role playing scenarios make me when I'm not involved
at all.
I'm just going to get fired.
So they're very effective and I'm always impressed at how like Brandy said, you're unflackable
with this and it's almost odd to me to have a manager or a boss put that much effort and
care into my career and I would absolutely love that.
The only question that I would say that I would have about this is how often is this actually
effective and have you ever been surprised by a person's effort or the outcome of the situation
because we mentioned whether or not you think somebody is actually going to be able to
achieve this and whether it's worth doing.
So how is that played out in your experience?
I have been sometimes pleasantly surprised about how someone wants you like write down what
they have to do in order to succeed and once they're aware of what the consequences are
of not succeeding, how they can rise to it.
Now it doesn't always work.
And sometimes once you write it down, the person's like, "Oh, I don't want this job,
make quit."
But that's also okay.
The important thing, what's the quote about the most common problem with communication
is the illusion that it has happened?
I think a good performance improvement plan can burst through that illusion and sometimes
that solves the problem one way or another.
Other times it feels like it just drags out the pain.
I think a lot of managers feel like once they have decided this person needs to go, they
want to be able just to fire them.
And I think that that's often not fair to the employee.
And that's why performance improvement plans exist because it's kind of like a check-in
balance on the manager's power.
So can I offer some criticism of what I did?
Or I don't know if it's criticism.
I think I did the right thing, but I imagine a lot of listeners who were listening to that
role play, when I told you, "I'm sorry that you didn't know this before."
But I think it's okay that I said that because I think I am sorry you didn't hear it before.
And I didn't want to say, "I'm sorry your previous manager didn't do their job and was a
shitty manager."
But I am sorry you didn't already know this.
You should have already known this.
And I'm not going to make any judgment about why you didn't know it.
That is so interesting.
I didn't have that reaction at all.
I felt very authentic without to your point kind of throwing the other person under the
bus, which might be some of the emotion underneath it of like, "Oh, I've inherited this
whole situation."
I was leading a workshop recently where there was, and the group did a lot of customer support.
And there was a woman who felt very strongly just to not say, "I'm sorry so often."
And I think some of it was sort of this response to women needing or feeling like women need
to apologize for things that weren't necessarily, quote, "their responsibility."
I didn't have that reaction, but I'm curious what led you to think to say, "I'm sorry for
saying I'm sorry."
I'm not, I think I should have said I'm sorry.
Okay.
But I imagine, because I've been told often, don't say, "I'm never saying I'm sorry."
Yeah, I got that with, and what came up in this session, I'm so curious about that.
And I think that it is true that as a woman, I probably apologize more often than the
man who I've worked with.
But I would say maybe men can apologize more often, not I should apologize less often.
I think, I mean, I am sorry that you hadn't heard.
And if you're sorry, there's no harm in saying it.
It's also like, "I'm wrong."
I think I'm sorry and I'm wrong, or two things that managers should say more often than
they do.
And very often, people are uncomfortable with that.
People think that's the wrong thing to do as a leader.
But I think those are important things to give voice to as a leader.
Yeah, I really appreciate that.
I want to get more specific and measurable.
One of the things that we talked about was, is four weeks too quickly, a time to determine
that a PIP needs to happen.
And so just some of the things again in this in this shirm piece, we can put in the show
notes that PIPs usually last 30, 60 or 90 days, depending on how long it would reasonably
take to improve.
So not too hard, not too easy.
And using whether it's smart goals, specific measurable objectives that are achievable, relevant
and time bound.
Do you, does that resonate with you, Kim, of what you think are the sort of meat and potatoes
of an effective PIP?
Yes, I think in an ideal world, before there's a PIP, a person would have gotten a performance
review that indicated that there's a performance problem.
And then a person would move to a PIP.
Now all of those things, a lot of my career was in startups.
And all of those things could happen over the course of a month at a startup, whereas in
a bigger company, things usually don't happen quite so fast.
So I don't want to say four weeks is absolutely ridiculous as a hard and fast rule.
But in the case, I went back and forth with this listener.
And indeed, it was a ridiculous situation.
But the key thing is, you need to talk to the person before you put them on a performance.
You want to get on the same page, sort of at a basic human level before you move to a formalized
performance improvement plan.
Did you ever have the emotional part of the person being on the PIP?
How might that have impacted your relationship with this person, both sort of before, during
and after the PIP?
Once you've moved to a PIP, the relationship usually becomes much more awkward.
And yes, it's not a comfortable thing.
But just because it's not comfortable doesn't mean it's wrong.
It's better than not putting the person on a PIP and just firing them willy-nilly.
This kind of communication is really hard and it's really uncomfortable.
And I've said it before, but I'll say it again.
I do not have emotional Novakain offer.
But what I do have is a promise that it's worth the pain to go through this and to go through
it correctly because firing someone, you really disrupt their life.
And it's the worst part of being a manager.
And if you do it well and reasonably and fairly, then you might even have a person later
come and thank you.
And you really help me get to a better place.
And if you do it badly, you can have someone coming up to you later saying that you left
them with emotional scars and trauma and you screwed up their life.
And if you become a manager, you want to do more helping and less trauma.
I don't think that's too high of our.
I couldn't agree more.
Jason, we often will say, first you know harm.
Yes.
And certainly do know trauma.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Kim, last question for you on this.
I want us to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who is suddenly surprised by a pip.
It seems to come out of the blue.
There was no performance review highlighting the issues.
This does feel to you like it's the first time you're hearing it.
What should you say to your boss?
So I think before you say anything to your boss, you should locate the exit nearest you.
And what I mean by that is figure out what other jobs are available to you.
Or do you have enough savings to be able to live for six months if you don't have a job?
Or is there someone's couch?
Like, what are you going to do if you get fired?
Because I think that once you know what your exit options are, it's much easier to communicate
more clearly with your boss.
So if you know, it is trivially easy for you to go get another job.
And you really feel like your boss was unreasonable in this performance improvement plan.
By all means, go tell your boss that you think it's unreasonable and why.
And very clear terms.
But I think before you charge in and say to your boss, hey, you're being unreasonable here,
you want to like take a step back and say what happened?
There's been a massive miscommunication here.
I thought everything was fine and clearly it's not fine.
And really do just a little bit of soul searching and try to figure out, could I have seen this
coming?
Did I do something wrong?
And if you really feel like you didn't do anything wrong, then go in and say that by all means.
If you do think that you could have done some stuff better, like go in and own that.
But, you know, so take a beat and ask yourself some questions like yourself in the mirror.
And then if you're okay winding up getting fired, then I would be very radically candid.
But you recommend, again, each situation has its own nuances in context.
For this one where someone is really caught off guard, it's the first they're hearing about
it.
Would you recommend that person if there is an HR team to prior to going to the boss, reach
out to the HR team or someone else in the organization for support?
I think it's always good to build solidarity, to look for someone to talk to.
I think that HR is often part of the solution here, but sometimes in some organizations, HR
is part of the problem.
So make sure that you have some understanding of whether you can trust the HR team where
you're working.
I would not assume you can or cannot.
I think you want to really understand.
And it also depends on your relationship with your boss.
If you had or thought you had a reasonable relationship with this person and can communicate
with them, I think it's always better to go directly rather than to get someone else
involved.
There are maybe times when your boss is unreasonable or just not very good at their job and you do
need to involve HR.
Well on that note, shall we move on to our tips?
Let's do it.
Now it's time for our radical-canter checklist.
Tips you can use to start putting radical-canter into practice.
Tip number one, balance the intrinsic desire to improve and grow and the extrinsic desire
for awards like bonuses, equity, promotion.
Bad balance, not only that balance, but also the difference between development and performance
management is one of the most challenging things about being a manager.
Performance management is different than development conversations and yet they are very often
conflated.
If a company is actively committed to performance development or just to development conversations,
there shouldn't be any surprises when performance review time rolls around or a PIP happens.
A PIP should never be the first time anyone gets feedback about their underperformance.
Tip number two, if you're a manager and it's your first time writing a PIP, get some help.
Ask someone whether it's from HR, the people team or someone who has written one before to
help you.
This is a different form of communication and it's important to make sure that the metrics
for success you're using, we're not in that Goldilocks, neither too easy nor un-attainable.
The PIP should be written in a way that gives this person an opportunity to fix the problem
in a time bound and specific way.
Tip number three, your job as a manager is to help people do great work.
The problem might be that the person is in the wrong job and their skills could be better
used in a different role.
This means being interested in each individual who works for you as a human being.
This relationship is the true gift of being a manager.
Well, before we close, I would be remiss if I did not reflect a little bit on the phrase
PIP because in our feedback loop comedy series, we had one of the employees in that series
was put on a PIP.
If you want to listen to Gladys Knight in the PIPs, I think we're going to have to put
a song in the show notes, but in the meantime, additional radical candor resources, that's
radicalcandor.com/resources.
Brandy, can you say that again?
What was the line about PIPs in the feedback loop?
The person who was put on the PIPs, the two managers were talking about him and they said,
"He's had more PIPs than Gladys Knight."
Thank you for bringing us back to some of the comedy.
In one last thought that just occurred to me, my least favorite acronym for a PIP is called
a PEP.
That is just obnoxious.
That is obnoxious manipulative insincereity.
It's not PIP to get a PIP.
It's hard.
What is the East and for?
Excellence or some bullshit, I don't know.
So please, do not call it a PEP.
It's a PEP.
On that note, bye for now.
Stay PIPPY.
PIPPY long stocking.
As for joining us, our podcast features RadicalCander co-founders Kim Scott and Jason
Roseoff is produced by our director of Content Brandy Neal and hosted by me, Amy Sandler.
Music is by Cliff Goldmacher.
Go ahead and follow us on Twitter at candor and find us online at RadicalCander.com.
(upbeat music)