Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: The Science of Smiling & The Power of Radical Candor

Episode Date: December 11, 2021

If I asked you, could you tell me where your main water shutoff valve is for your home? Do you leave your garage door opener in your car? These are just a couple of important questions you should ask yourself. This episode begins by answering those and other questions and answers you really need to know. https://www.familyhandyman.com/smart-homeowner/things-every-homeowner-must-know/ As sincere as you think you are, most of the smiles you make throughout the day are fake ones. That’s just one of the fascinating things about smiling I discuss with Marianne LaFrance, professor of psychology at Yale University and author of the book Why Smile? The Science Behind Facial Expressions (https://amzn.to/31n2v8X). Listen as she explains why we smile, what smiling can do for you and what your smile communicates to other people. More people put up artificial Christmas trees than real ones. Artificial trees look a lot more realistic than they used to but are they a better choice? Actually there are pros and cons to both. Listen and decide which you should choose this year. https://www.realsimple.com/holidays-entertaining/holidays/real-christmas-tree-vs-artificial-christmas-tree Of course, you have heard the expression: “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” However, that wisdom is flawed according to Kim Scott, CEO of Candor Inc and author of the book Radical Candor (https://amzn.to/2rcq6XI). This is particularly true in the workplace where we need to be honest and direct. Listen as Kim reveals how important it is to say what needs to be said and how to do it without sounding like a jerk. PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! We really like The Jordan Harbinger Show! Check out https://jordanharbinger.com/start OR search for it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen!  Discover matches all the cash back you’ve earned at the end of your first year! Learn more at https://discover.com/match Find out how Justworks can help your business by going to https://justworks.com Visit https://ferguson.com for the best in all of your plumping supply needs! https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! Download Best Fiends FREE today on the App Store or Google Play.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com. Today on Something You Should Know, important questions about your home that you may not know the answers to, but should. Then, the fascinating science of smiling and why it's almost always better to smile than not. There is just enormous number of research reports that show that smiling is better than non-smiling for

generating trust, for relieving a tense situation, for conveying a sense of one's competence. Plus, will you be getting a real or artificial Christmas tree this year? I'll discuss the pros and cons of both. And how to say what needs to be said to someone and not sweep it under the rug. Since we learned to speak, we've been told some version of, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. That is a disaster at work because we're so worried about not hurting someone's feelings that we fail to tell them something they need to know. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi. You know, one of the main reasons that I started this podcast and the radio show before it that had the same name is that I always like finding those little nuggets of information that I didn't know before that could be very useful. And I figured other people would like that too, and so that should be a show. And it's worked out pretty well. And I still like stumbling onto those little tips.

And recently I came across an article on a website called thefamilyhandyman.com that applies not only to people who are new homeowners, but really anybody that lives in a home. I had some great tips that everybody should be aware of. One of them is know where your main water shutoff valve is. When an emergency happens, that's not the time to start looking for it. So find out where it is now. In warm climates, the main water shutoff is typically outside, attached to a wall.

And in colder climates, it's usually in the basement. Synthetic soap makes less scum. Synthetic soaps make cleaning your shower or bath a lot easier because they don't contain the ingredients that create that tough soap scum that's hard to get off. Any liquid or gel soap is synthetic, but most bar soap is standard soap. There are a few exceptions. Zest and ivory soap are synthetic. It's good to keep in mind that burglaries happen mostly during the day. Most burglaries occur between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.,

and in many cases the crooks get in through unlocked doors or windows. Don't automatically trust the labels on your electric breaker panels. You could get zapped. While those labels are a reasonably good guide, they're not completely reliable because you don't know who labeled them in the first place and when they labeled them. And in older homes especially, they may have remodeled the house and those labels may be obsolete. You don't want to find out the hard way. And don't leave your car remote in the car.

A thief who breaks into your car can grab the remote for easy access to your garage. And it's easy to find your garage because the registration in your glove box gives the crook your address. And that is something you should know. Pretty much from the time you were born, you've been smiling. Probably a day doesn't go by you don't smile. Everyone smiles. It's a form of communication. But what's so interesting is, it's so much more than that. Most people believe a smile reflects an inner feeling of happiness.

But I bet you've smiled, or faked a smile, when you weren't happy at all. A smile not only reflects happiness, it can also create happiness. Smiles are fascinating, and there's a whole science to it. Marianne LaFrance is a professor of psychology at Yale University, and she's what you would call a smile expert. She, in fact, was brought in as a consultant to Pepperidge Farm when they were trying to get that smile just right on the goldfish cracker. And Marianne is the author of the book, Why Smile? The Science Behind Facial Expressions. Hi, Marianne is the author of the book, Why Smile? The Science Behind Facial Expressions. Hi, Marianne. Hello, Mike. I think people are surprised to hear that there's a

science to smiling. Smiling seems to be pretty simple. What could the science be? So what could the science be? For over 100 years, actually, now dating back to the 1870s when Darwin and others at the time decided that smiling was something actually fairly complicated. And so science was brought in to bear on trying to decipher what a smile is, what it means, what effects it has, and why it's so important in many people's lives that others, as well as themselves, smile. Does everyone smile? It seems that, you know, even young babies smile. It seems to be, it is a natural thing we do, yes? It is definitely a natural thing we do.

In fact, research has shown that even in the womb, most babies show smiles. In short, smiles are natural, they are human, they may be actually necessary for human interaction. Yeah, are they primarily a means of communication? Is that their purpose, or what is their purpose? The answer is partly in the way you phrased the question, which is, is there a function or use or purpose in smiling? And I think most psychologists would say absolutely. In fact, the core argument would be that smiles are functional, purposeful in order to engage other people, in order to send a variety of positive signals.

More often, though, researchers have been interested less on the purpose end than on the meaning end. That is, what do smiles, in fact, as Darwin suggested, reflect happy, joyful, positive feelings? So it's less about the effect they have than about what is the nature of them, what are the meanings associated with them. Am I able to tell, even though I don't know how I'm able to tell, am I able to tell a genuine smile from a sarcastic smile, from an angry smile, from just some dishonest smile? I think I'm good at that, but is that just something

humans can naturally do? Again, the question is a terrifically interesting one. One, since you're male, or I'm assuming you're male, you are less likely to interpret the difference, to see the difference between a genuine and a non-genuine smile than women are. Women are just better at deciphering facial expressions. It is also the case that most of us know how to tell the difference, but are usually not motivated to tell the difference. That is, we tend to skim over lightly other people's expressions, other people's communications. So if we are attentive and are paying really close view of another person's face, we can tell the difference, but often we're preoccupied with other things. We are not paying that close attention, so we may miss the distinction, but it's there to be seen if we're attentive. There is a belief, I think, that, and perhaps this is more men than women, that, you know, smiling, you don't want to smile because it shows you're not serious, that that's, that smiling is being anti-serious, and that if you want to be taken seriously, you don't smile.

Well, I think there's certainly the feeling that there are people who smile too much, but there is just an enormous number of research reports that show that smiling is better than non-smiling for generating positive impressions from other people who see the smile, for generating trust, for relieving intense situations, for conveying a sense of one's competence. So the default would be better smile in a lot of circumstances than not, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we take all smiles as genuine or legitimate or signs that it is an authentic expression of what people are feeling. Well, it's an interesting subject in the sense that people don't talk about smiling a lot. We do it a lot, but we don't talk about it very much. And one of the most interesting things, I think, about your story is how you were called into Pepperidge Farm to help them figure out the smile to put on the goldfish

cracker. Absolutely. The initial movement was, let's put a smile on the goldfish and see if we can increase purchases, basically. And the reason why that impetus was that it turned out that a significant proportion of people buying the goldfish crackers were moms of kids under the age of seven or five. So kids are very drawn to smiling objects. And so if Pepperidge Farm could figure out how to put a smile on a goldfish cracker,

then it's more likely that kids would be attracted to them, which means that moms would buy them, which means that sales would go up and so on. The science of it was interesting, though, because when they first asked me to be involved in this project, the question was how to put a line, a small crease on a cracker that was already small that would appear to be genuine, as if fish or cheddar fish actually smiled. So it was an engineering feat, not just a marketing interest. It wasn't easy to come up with that smile. No, because if it was too big, the crackers cracked, broke up. That wasn't a good thing. If it was too small, then it wouldn't have been discerned as a smile. If it was too straight, as opposed to having some curve in it, it might even

suggest the opposite of the smiling goldfish. So learning a lot about what real smiles actually look like went into trying to determine how, in terms of the actual production, to produce something that looked right, looked good. One of the reasons, I guess the big reason that people smile is when they're happy, but isn't there also some research that would smile is when they're happy. But isn't there also some research that would indicate that if you're not so happy, that smiling will help make you happy? Right. The psychologists call the process a facial feedback.

And the core idea there is, it used to be thought that all facial expressions were manifestations, were expressions of what was going inside people. So an angry scowl actually conveyed a feeling of anger. A smile indicated a feeling of feeling positive and good. And the data seemed to show, with limits, more of that in a second, that smiling can create good feeling as well as express good feeling. The caveat is that if you're feeling really miserable and really angry and really upset, then putting on a smile is not likely to override the negative feeling entirely. But there are a lot of studies that show that adopting a smile can actually reduce stress, can produce a more sanguine state of mind, can override some negative emotions. But there are limits to how much that can happen.

Marianne LaFrance is my guest. She's a professor of psychology at Yale and author of the book Why Smile? The Science Behind Facial Expressions. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no.

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Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit FlyPorter.com and actually enjoy economy. So Marianne, I can imagine people listening to this thinking, well, come on. I mean, a smile's a smile. Let's not dig too deep here. Let's not research this to death. It's just a smile. I think I just came back from a trip out of the country,

and I was telling someone about the work, and her first response was, why have you taken something so simple and straightforward and really nice and made it complicated? So I think some reaction is, oh, please, this is one of the nice things in the world. Do we need to have layers and complexities and lots of caveats about it? I think that's one thing that I've heard a number of times. I think another that people are interested in is that a smile can both communicate and cover feelings. So, again, it would appear that smiling more often than not is taken as a positive gesture, a positive expression. But it turns out that most of the smiling we do is actually false. False not in the sense that it's a complete lie,

but false in the sense that we do a lot of smiling as a social lubricant. It's not because we feel good or happy or delighted or joyful. It's that we want to keep our social environment cooking along nicely. And so we smile often quickly in meeting a neighbor on the street or at the store or something, not because we're delighted to see them, but because it's better to keep the climate on a positive note than not. So we do it almost automatically, and it goes under the notion of the benefit of weak ties.

That is, most of our social interactions on a day-to-day basis are, quote, weak in the sense that they're brief, they're nonconsequential, they don't have huge reverberations, but they also are really important for maintaining positive connections. So when you meet your neighbor at the store and smile, you're more or less acting delighted to see them. You're not necessarily delighted to see them, but you're just continuing the momentum of the relationship by smiling and saying, see, we're all just so happy to see each other.

Exactly. So if you meet that neighbor at the store and you don't smile when you've caught the other person's eyes so that there's some recognition that you know each other, the lack of a smile is likely to be interpreted as something untoward, something undesirable. Well, that's an interesting point. It's like smiling has become so expected that by not smiling, you're sending a message because the smile is conspicuous by its absence when you don't smile.

In fact, there's a phrase, if I could articulate it in this way, called the resting bitch face. It's a description given about women and why it takes that particular form is that women not only smile more than men, girls smile more than boys, but it is the case that they are expected to smile. And we don't think well of women who don't smile. So there is not a woman that I've met who reaches a certain age who hasn't had some man, usually a stranger, say, oh, come on, smile. Give me a smile. Show me a smile. I'd like to see your smile. We expect it. So if we don't see it, we think not good about that or her for not smiling. What a bitch.

Precisely. Look it up. Google that. You'll find some interesting people to whom it's been attributed. What about cross-culturally? Is smiling different across cultures, or is it pretty universal? It is one of the interesting things that smiling is universal in the sense that there is not a culture that has not been found to smile,

but it's also true that there's a lot of interpretation that varies cross-culturally. So people in southern climes tend to smile more than in northern climates. People in, say, northern Europe, the Scandinavian countries, smile much less in general than people in the southern part of the U.S. Some cultures regard the smiling American as suspicious because how could anyone smile as much as Americans smile? Germans feel that. The French feel that way. So there are huge differences regionally even within countries about is it a good thing to smile?

Is it appropriate always to smile? Do you take a smile on face value or do you regard it as a put-on, a phony gesture in some regard? And so interpreting a smile cross-culturally can sometimes get you into some hot water, as it were, because smiling in some places is so rare and is so much associated with heterosexual connections that one may, a may, a woman may inadvertently signal her openness to interaction when she regards her action as simply being friendly, not anything more than that. So often today we're called upon, we're asked to smile, you know, everyone has a camera in their cell phone and so we're taking a lot of pictures and smile.

Everybody smile. Is there a good way to fake a genuine smile, or will it always be a fake smile? Often, I mean, good photographers will often create a context that is jokey or, you know, prompt a smile by saying something funny or change the command to smile to look pretty, and people will smile in response to it not being the usual thing that people say. Some people smile naturally, genuinely, that if they know how to look genuine, which sounds like a paradox, and it may in fact be a paradox. And other people show too many teeth, show grimacing around the eyes, show clear indications that they're doing it as a prompt, not as something that is felt.

But it's interesting, quick aside, the reason why people are told to smile when photographs are being taken is that we often want to remember, by virtue of looking at the photographs after the fact, that the occasion was a positive one. So we want to see a smile because it suggests that that anniversary, that birthday, that Thanksgiving was altogether a delight when it might have been anything but. Well, it's interesting because that way, even if it was a lousy event, if you can make the photograph of record show everybody smiling, then we'll all remember this as a happy occasion.

Well, this is such a great topic because everyone smiles. We smile a lot, and we don't really talk about it or necessarily understand the science of it, but I think we understand the power of it because anybody who has seen someone smile at them when they really needed one realizes the power of a smile. And anytime you've smiled at someone and you've seen the reaction that that's exactly what they needed understands the power of a smile. Marianne LaFrance has been my guest. She is a professor of psychology at Yale University, and she's author of the book, Why Smile? The Science Behind Facial

Expressions. And there is a link to that book in the show notes for this episode. Thank you, Marianne. You're welcome. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years.

She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show.

There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more.

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about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. In life, and particularly at work, we have a tendency to be less than candid. We don't want to hurt people's feelings. We don't want to say what we really think. So we don't. It seems that niceness is more important than honesty because, well, why rock the boat?

On the other end of the scale are people who couldn't care less what other people think and just say whatever they want, regardless of whether it accomplishes anything or hurts someone's feelings. And we call that person a jerk. There is a middle ground, something we're calling radical candor. Kim Scott is the CEO of a firm called Candor Inc., and she is author of the book Radical Candor. Hi Kim. Thank you, it's great to be here. So explain what's going on here and explain what Radical Candor is and why it's so effective. So I think an awful lot of workplaces are frustrating because instead of caring personally and challenging directly, which we

all sort of know we should do in human communication, we fail on one dimension or another. So when you care and challenge at the same time, that's radical candor. But sometimes you do challenge someone, you do express disagreement when you see a problem, but you forget to show them that you care. And that's obnoxious aggression. And then very often, unfortunately, when we realize we've been obnoxiously aggressive, rather than moving the right direction on the care personally dimension of radical candor, we go the wrong way on challenge directly.

And we say something we don't mean, or we utter a false apology, and we wind up in the worst place of all, manipulative insincerity. And that's where backstabbing behavior, political behavior, all the kinds of behaviors that sort of make work passive aggressive and unpleasant. It's really fun to tell stories about obnoxious aggression and manipulative insincerity. But the fact of the matter is the vast majority of mistakes happen when we do show that we care personally. And we're so worried about not hurting someone's feelings that we fail to tell them something they need to know in the long run. And that is what I call ruinous empathy. So if you sort of contrast

radical candor and ruinous empathy, and if you feel like radical candor sounds too radical, you can call it compassionate candor. But if you can compare and contrast those two things, you realize that work is a lot more fun when we care about one another and push each other to do better work. Well, it is interesting how we tend to see it as either or. You're either a jerk or you're a pushover. You're either too nice or too nasty, and neither one of those is particularly helpful. In many ways, this is a dichotomy we all have in our minds. I certainly had it for a long time in my career, but I think it's really a false dichotomy. And I became aware of this when I started this company and I got an article sent to me by a bunch of different people who I worked with. And it was an article about how people would rather work with someone who is sort of a total jerk than with someone who's really nice but totally incompetent.

And I thought, surely those are not our two choices. There's a lot of room, not just in the middle, but to go way up on care personally and way over on challenge directly so that you are radically candid, so you're in the best of both worlds. Well, there is a school of thought that work is work and that we don't need to concern ourselves with everybody's feelings. We need to get the work done. Sure. So I think one of the things that we often fail to remember at work is that part of our job is to remember that we're working with human beings, to care about the people who we work with, not just as colleagues, but as real people who we enjoy and who we care about.

You don't have to like them. I'm not talking about friendship necessarily. I'm talking about common human decency. And when you're really lucky, actually, you do love your colleagues, you do love the people who you work with, not in the HR disaster, marriage destroying sense of the word that we read so much about today, but in the real fundamental collegiality sense of the word. And this is for a lot of people, what gives work meaning, actually actually are the relationships that we form at work. And in fact, there's a lot of research that shows that people are happiest at work and do the best at work when they have some relationships that really matter to them at work. So that's sort of the care personally dimension. And I'm not talking about getting creepily personal or being unprofessional. But I think sort of one of the

things that moves a lot of us down on the care personally dimension of radical candor is when we sort of get our first job, let's say you're 18, 19, 20 years old, you're right at that moment in your life when your ego is maximally fragile and and your somebody comes along to you your persona is beginning to solidify to protect your fragile ego and someone comes along and says be professional and for an awful lot of people that gets translated to mean leave your emotions leave your real identity leave humanity, leave everything that's best about you at home and show up at work like some kind of robot. And you can't possibly care personally about others if you're showing up at work like some kind of robot. than just seeing a person in the moment, seeing what they're experiencing it, seeing what they're experiencing in that moment and responding to it. Often I tell a story about a man on the street

who said to me when my dog was out of control, I can see you really love that dog. That was all he had to do to move up on the care personally dimension. And then he proceeded to challenge me directly. So let's, let's move on to the challenge directly dimension. So, so challenge directly. I think many of us have been told since we are, since we learned to speak, the real problem here starts not when we're 18 years old, but when we're 18 months old, we've been told some version of, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. And that is a disaster at work because a big part of what we do at work is help each other improve our work. And so in the case of the man on the street who said, I can see you really love that dog. The next thing he said to me is, but you're going to kill that dog if you don't teach her to sit.

And then he pointed at the ground and he said sit that was his direct challenge and and the dog sat I had no idea the dog even knew what that meant and as a result I was I was able to sort of understand how to take better care of my dog and I kind of looked at this guy in amazement how How did he get the dog to sit? And he sort of laughed and he said, it's not mean, it's clear. And then he, the light changed and he walked off, leaving me with words to live by. And you can see how that translates to things that happen at work. You know, I can see that you really care about this project and I want to help you succeed, but's a there's a bunch of typos and in your presentation so is it a tactic is it a here's something nice now let me tell you the truth I can see you like this but here's what you did wrong no because if you if you think about caring personally as something

that you have to do to earn the right to challenge directly, you're not really caring personally, and it's not going to come off as very specific and very sincere. So the idea here is that when we pause in the moment to see one another as human beings, who at the very least we owe common human decency to, then when we say whatever it is that needs to be said, it tends to be said with kindness, as well as with clarity. So in the case of criticism, you should really focus on being both kind and clear, right? Good criticism is kind and clear. So kindness is sort of showing you care personally.

And clarity can be how you think about, you need to be direct enough until the person hears what you have to say. And it's not like one is in service of the other. You want to be kind because you're a kind person. You want to show you care because you really do care about the person or at the very least see them as another fellow human being. And you want to challenge directly because you want to help fix a problem, not because you want to show that you're bigger, better, stronger than the other person. But is this always very transactional? In other words, every time I'm going to criticize

you, I must first show I care. Or can it be more like we have a relationship where you know I care, I don't have to tell you that every time. I just need to tell you how to fix whatever you screwed up or make better whatever you did wrong. You know, I think you always want to criticize in a way that shows you care. It doesn't. And again, I'm not talking about a five hour monologue or even a 10 minute monologue. Often you can do that in two seconds. I can see you really love that dog. I can see you really care about this project. You want to keep that caring front of mind. Caring is not something you do yesterday, but not today. Caring is not something you do when you've gotten enough sleep and had a good breakfast, but not, you know, you need to constantly keep that top of mind. But it doesn't, again, it's more of an emotional discipline thing than it is a tons and tons of time thing. What I think people often have trouble with, though, is how do you word the criticism? You don't want to come off as too harsh.

You don't want to, you know, you don't want people to get angry with you. But you also want to be clear. You can't say, well, this really sucks. I mean, clearly you didn't do a very good job here. This is subpar work. Well, that's going to get you off on the wrong foot. I think that's where the fourth step in the order of operations comes in, gauging what the other person says. Because radical candor, there aren't any magic words. If I could just tell you how to say things in a way that would never cause offense, believe me, I would give you those

words. But there aren't any such words in any language. The key thing about communication is that it's a give and a take. And the key thing for radical candor is that you've got to make sure that you're paying attention to how the other person is responding and adjust accordingly. So, so for example, you don't want the person, you definitely don't want the other person to start to cry or yell at you. You don't want these kinds of extreme negative responses, but sometimes you will get them. Sometimes you're going to get those extreme emotional responses and you have to be prepared to, to deal with it when it happens. And I think one of the things that for me has been the most helpful, I often coach people,

and they're sort of preparing for a conversation that they know is going to be difficult. And then they'll call me up afterwards, and they'll say, Oh, I failed, the person got upset. And the fact that the other person got upset, is not necessarily your failure. And in fact that the other person got upset is not necessarily your failure. And in fact, if you try to, if you believe you can control someone else's emotional response, you're just, you're kidding yourself. You can't. The fact that the other person got upset may, may be a reflection of the fact that you said it badly, or you said it too harshly, but it also just may be a reflection of the fact that now they realize they've screwed up and we spend more time at work than in any other part of our lives. And of course, that feels like a gut punch when we realize that

we've screwed up. So I think the key thing is not to try to avoid other people's emotions, but try to have compassionate response to other people's emotions. So, but I would imagine, too, it makes a difference who you're talking to. I mean, I know people that I can deal with. I can be very blunt and say, and be very, you know, I don't have to beat around the bush. And other people need, you know, a little more loving touch before you deliver the blow. Yes, absolutely. That's such an important point. Radical candor gets measured not at your mouth, but at the other person's ear. And that's why gauging the response is so important because

and that's why I can't give you a script for radical candor, because what would be radically candid for one person is crushing for another and and not clear enough for yet another person. So you need to make sure that you're able to to gauge that response, to remember that radical candor doesn't get measured at your mouth, that there's no objective measure for what is the radically candid way to say something. But you need to adjust it. So, for example, I had a boss. When I worked at Google, I worked for Sheryl Sandberg. And she once told me after a big presentation that she said, you said um a lot in there. Were you aware of it?

You said um? Oh, in your presentation, you said um a lot in there. Were you aware of it? You said um? Oh, in your presentation, you said um. And I sort of made this brush off gesture with my hand because I figured if that was all I had done wrong in this big presentation, who really cared? I sort of said something like, yeah, I know it's a verbal tick. It's no big deal, really. And then she said, I know this great speech coach, and I'm sure Google would pay for it. Would you like an introduction? And once again, I made this brush off gesture with my hand and I said, no, I'm busy. Didn't you hear about this business? It's growing so fast. I don't have time for a speech coach. And so here, here she is. She's giving me these not so subtle hints. I'm not

taking the hints. So I am not hearing her. So she started in a neutral place. You said a lot in there. Were you aware of it? And then when I sort of brushed that off, she went a little further out on challenge directly. I know a great speech coach, hint, hint. Google would pay for it, hint, hint. Once again, I didn't take the hint. So now she has to go even further out on the challenge directly dimension. And she was comfortable going. And she said to me, I can see when you make that gesture with your hand that I'm going to have to be a lot more direct with you. When you say every third word, it makes you sound stupid. Now, of course, if she had started there, that that could have been crushing. But and she wouldn't have started there because most people wouldn't have needed to hear that.

But she could tell from my response, I was brushing her feedback off, that she needed to go further out on the challenge directly dimension. And so that's what I mean by gauging your response. Sometimes the person will get emotional and they'll either get angry or they'll get sad. And that's what we fear. But the more common case is that you'll say something and you'll say it so gently that the other person hasn't heard you at all. And this was like, this was such a revelation for me as I was leading, when I worked at Google, a 700 person team. And very often someone who worked for me would be having a problem with one of their colleagues. And I would say, well, did you talk to the colleague directly? And they would say, oh, yeah, I told them I was so clear about it. And then I would bump into

the colleague and I would ask about their issue, the issue at hand, and they would have no idea what I was talking about. And it wasn't that the other person hadn't told their colleague about the issue. They had, but the colleague just hadn't heard them. And so they had to be more clear. They had to challenge even more directly. And this is really hard, especially when we're focused on not hurting someone's feelings. Sometimes in order to be clear, you have to say something in a way that feels uncomfortable. And yet I guess you have to be okay with it. There is this tendency I think a lot of people have where they don't want to feel that and

they don't want to make the other person feel that. And so what gets lost and what loses in that whole transaction is that the message never gets there. That happens far more often than someone acting like a jerk intentionally. I mean, it does. Certainly, we've all experienced jerks at work, people who are obnoxious and intentionally obnoxious. But that's actually less common than someone failing to communicate in the name of being quote unquote nice. And this, this happened to me, this came so clear to me pretty early in my career where I was, I was working with this guy who I really, really liked. And because I liked him so much,

I was not clear with him about the mistakes he was making. And he eventually got fired because he was making those mistakes. Not so nice after all, right? wrote the book. It's so it's such a fundamental part of who I want to be as a human being to be kind. And, and one of the things that really helped me was seeing that radical candor is kind, it's not actually so nice in the long run, not to tell someone about something that's going to hurt them in their career, that's not being a great colleague at work. And so if you can, if you can realize, if you can harness that very good and positive desire to be a kind person, and you can use it in, in, in the goal of helping someone improve at work, then, then all of a sudden you get the best of all worlds. Well, this is great because there isn't anyone listening who hasn't been in the situation of wanting to say something to someone that was somewhat critical and just said, well, you know,

I don't want to rock the boat. I don't want to cause trouble. I don't want to hurt their feelings. So it just gets swept under the rug. And now there's, here's a blueprint on how to go ahead and say it without sweeping it under the rug and not being a jerk but but saying what needs to be said kim scott has been my guest she is the ceo of a company called candor inc and she is author of the book radical candor you'll find a link to that book at amazon in the show notes thanks for being here, Kim. All right. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed the conversation. We're getting closer to the day where you have to decide about a Christmas tree. And our family, for the first time, is considering an artificial tree.

We've never had one before, but like many people, we're considering it because the cost of live trees is so high. And artificial trees look pretty realistic. It may surprise you to know that about two-thirds of people who put up a tree put up an artificial tree, and the reason most often given is that it's better for the environment. But that's not necessarily true. Real trees you'd put in your home are grown specifically to be Christmas decorations. They aren't really contributing to deforestation like you might think. Christmas tree farms usually grow one to three new trees to replace each one they cut down,

keeping the number of trees balanced and generating more oxygen. There are other considerations, like the mess of pine needles, the constant need to water a live tree, and the fire danger of a real tree. Plastic trees can also burn, but they're usually sprayed with a fire retardant. Real trees can be recycled, whereas fake trees are made from plastic that won't be accepted by a lot of recycling centers, so the tree ends up in a landfill when it does come time to toss it out. So, there are arguments for both sides, and that is something you should know. If you enjoy this podcast and would like to support us, well, that's

easy. Just share it with a friend and help us grow our audience. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group.

Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network.

At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.