The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 223: Kim Malone Scott - Using Radical Candor To Be A Great Boss

Starting point is 00:00:00 I had recently started a job at Google, and I was working for Cheryl Samburg, and she had me give a presentation to Google's founders and the CEO about the AdSense business, the online AdSense business that I was leading. And I walked into the room, and there was Larry in his, or Sergei, rather, in his toe shoes on an elliptical trainer in the corner of the room. And there was Eric Schmidt, the CEO at the time. It was like his brain had been plugged into his computer. He was so deep in his email. And like any normal person in this situation, I felt a little nervous. How in the world was I going to get their attention. Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leader Show.

Starting point is 00:00:50 I am Ryan Hawk. Thanks so much for being here. It is mindful Monday. Go to LearningLeader.com. Enter your email address. receive the latest trends, topics, conversation pieces every Monday morning, 9 o'clock Eastern. Join thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world to further the dialogue. Would love to have you.

Starting point is 00:01:10 Learning Leader.com. Now, on to tonight's featured leader. It's with best-selling author Kim Scott. Her most recent book is titled Radical Cander. Prior to that, Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Twitter, and several other Silicon Valley companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and developed a course titled Managing at Apple. She also worked at Google directly with Cheryl Sandberg.

Starting point is 00:01:37 A few of the topics we got into as a leader, why you need to care personally and challenge directly. Then how to create a culture of trust both at work and at home. And then fantastic advice on how to have a means. meaningful career and specifically the conversations you need to have and how you have them and who they should be with. Ladies and gentlemen, you're going to love this one with Kim Scott. Kim, um, um, such a highly requested guest for many of my listeners on the learning leader show. So welcome. Well, thank you, Ryan.

Starting point is 00:02:21 I'm honored, uh, and excited to chat with you. As I told you, it's great when someone who I have a, uh, a huge interest in, someone who I love their work, it marries with the fans and listeners emailing me at the same time and now we're able to make it happen. So I was really excited and looking forward to this one. I have a ton of notes and thoughts on your great work and I'm looking forward to getting started. So I have to say, so you talk a lot about and written a lot about being a great boss. And as I told you, one of the number one emails I receive from people is about the fact that they don't have a great boss.

Starting point is 00:03:01 But I'm curious, though, to get this one kicked off, from all the people you've been around, you've had CEO coaches for you, you've been a CEO coach for some really successful companies. You spent time around a number of people who have sustained excellence, a number of leaders, a number of bosses who have done that. What are some of the common themes

Starting point is 00:03:22 of the greatest bosses you've been around? The greatest bosses that I have been around, know how to do two things for their employees. They know how to care about them, not just as employees, but as human beings, at a very deep and personal level. At the same time, they're not so worried about hurting the person's feelings that they won't tell them when they've screwed up. And they're not so worried about being seen. They're not worried about being liked. They care personally, but they don't worry about being liked. They're willing to piss people off. willing to challenge them very directly. And it sounds so sort of almost banal to say that,

Starting point is 00:04:06 because, like, who starts out their career thinking, I don't care about people at all, so I'm going to be a great boss? You know, that's not what moves people down on the care personally dimension. And who starts out their career thinking, you know, I'm not going to tell somebody when they've screwed up. I'm just going to let them make the same mistake over and over and over again and then fire them for it. Like, that's not the intention that. That's not the intention that managers have when they become managers. And yet it happens. Both those things happen all too often.

Starting point is 00:04:37 Yeah. Interestingly, I have found great bosses in my career, Kim, who I deeply respected, who were not afraid to let me know when I had messed up and tried to help me and coach and also cared about me personally. And so I, in effect, I love them and realize that they were willing to. to challenge me. So can you be both highly respected and highly liked? And should you care as a boss? You can be. And when you're really lucky, you are. When you're really lucky, not only are you liked by your team, you love your team and they love you. But if you set that as your goal, by the way, when I say love,

Starting point is 00:05:22 I mean it in the appropriate sense of the word. I'm talking about things that destroy marriages. But we do spend more time at work than in any other part of our life. So we may as well have relationships that have real meaning for us at work. And in fact, I would say at the very heart of being a good boss is a good relationship with each employee. The problem comes when you start to seek popularity as a leader, as a boss, rather than doing the right thing for your people. There's a big difference. This is true, by the way, in any relationship, not just in the boss employee relationship. When you put how the other person is going to feel about you ahead of your obligation to tell them when their work isn't good enough and that they need to improve it, then all of a sudden you're not

Starting point is 00:06:19 worried about the other person. You're not caring about the other person. You're carrying about your own reputation. And that's what's so dangerous. Johnny Ive tells a really good story about this. He said that Johnny Ive, who's the chief design officer at Apple, said that one time he was doing a design review with Steve Jobs, and the team had not prepared adequately. The work wasn't good enough. And Steve said so in no uncertain terms. And after the meeting, Johnny said, why did you have to be so harsh on the team? And Steve said, well, why didn't you? Did you think the work was good enough? And Johnny said, no. And he said, why didn't you tell them? You are just vain. You wanted to be liked. And Johnny kind of shook his head when he told the story and said, I was terribly crossed because I

Starting point is 00:07:17 realized that Steve was right. And this happens to all of us. I mean, we do, it's a fundamental human desire to be liked, but sometimes that desire gets in your way of doing what's best for the other person long term. There's sort of a short term, long term problem here. And the short term, you may say something to somebody that stings a little bit or even really upsets them. But it's important for them to know. You share a story in the book about something I've personally, went through where particularly when I was a newer manager boss of people I wanted to to be respected and liked I just brought it up already and sometimes you skew and if you're newer I think this might be more common I guess but you skew on the side of not wanting to make them

Starting point is 00:08:09 upset with you as Johnny I believe some people do others just want to come in there and turn the place upside down which which is another part and so I love learned quickly that, and I had to learn this from others who helped me, who've been there before me, that feedback truly is a gift that you need to be giving on a regular basis. And sometimes it's critical feedback. And that is what they deserve. And as the boss, you need to give that. And I actually still messed this up from time to time. I know because you feel like I want to be a good dude. I want to be liked. But in reality, they need that tough feedback to help them improve.

Starting point is 00:08:51 Can you share the story about when you made this mistake earlier in your career as a new CEO? Sure, absolutely. So I had just hired this guy, we'll call him Bob. And I really liked Bob. He was funny. He was charming. He would do stuff like one time we were at a manager offsite and we were playing one of those ridiculous get-to-know-you games that takes forever. Everybody hates it, but nobody wants to be the journey.

Starting point is 00:09:17 who says, this is an utter waste of time. And so Bob said, you know, I've got a great idea and it'll be way faster. Why don't we just go around the room and tell what candy our parents used when potty training us. Weird but fast. So we all did it. And then for the next 10 months, every time there was a tense moment in a meeting, Bob would whip out just the right piece of candy for the right person at the right moment. So anyway, we found Bob charming and funny.

Starting point is 00:09:49 We liked working with Bob. One problem, Bob was doing terrible work, absolutely terrible work. I couldn't understand it because he had this amazing resume. He had all these great accomplishments under his belt. But when he would hand something into me, there would be shame in his eyes. He knew it wasn't good enough. I learned later, actually, the problem was that Bob was smoking pot in the bathroom a couple of times a day, which maybe explained all that candy. But anyway, I didn't know any of that

Starting point is 00:10:19 at the time. All I knew was that Bob would hand something into me with shame in his eyes and just trying to be nice, just trying to buck Bob up. I would say, Bob, you know, you're so awesome. The whole team loves working with you. You're so smart. This is a great start, but maybe you could make it a little better. And of course he never did. And eventually the inevitable happened. and I realized that if I didn't fire Bob, I was going to lose half my team because they were all having to correct his work and fix his mistakes and really redo a lot of what he should have been doing. And so I sat down to tell Bob how things stood, to have this conversation that I should have

Starting point is 00:11:03 begun 10 months previously. And when I had finished, Bob pushed his chair back from the table. He looked at me right in the eye and he said, why didn't you tell you? Tell me. And as that question was going around in my head with no good answer, he looked at me again and he said, why didn't anyone tell me? I thought you all cared about me. And that to me was the worst moment of my career because I realized that I had failed Bob

Starting point is 00:11:34 in a bunch of different ways. I had failed to solicit feedback from him. Maybe I was doing something that was driving him so crazy. he was forced to toke up in the bathroom, but I didn't know about it because I never asked him. I never asked him to criticize me, and I never asked him to praise what was going well. So I had no idea what was going on in Bob's mind.

Starting point is 00:11:56 I also failed to tell, I failed to give him praise that would really let him know what was genuinely good. The kind of praise I gave him was really just a head fake or some kind of emotional salve. And I failed to tell him when his work wasn't nearly good enough. And probably worst of all, I had failed to create the kind of environment in which everyone would tell Bob what was truly good,

Starting point is 00:12:21 but also tell Bob when he was going off the rails. And because I had made these mistakes, I'm now firing Bob. And that's the worst thing about being a manager is that nobody really teaches you what to do. And so you learn your biggest mistakes on the backs of other people. And that's really what prompted me to come up with this radical. candor framework to help people avoid making the mistake that I made. So let me describe, can I take a couple of minutes and describe the framework so that other people can avoid doing what I did to Bob? Please. So the framework is this. And this goes for all communication at work,

Starting point is 00:12:59 by the way, whether you're talking to your boss, your peer, or your employee. It works up, down, and sideways. But just think about it like this. When you're developing a relationship at work, you want to be radically candid. You want to both care and challenge at the same time. But that's hard. That's really hard. Let's think about what to make it a little bit easier. Let's think about what happens when you fail on one dimension or another. So when you are so worried about somebody's feelings as I was in this Bob case that you fail to challenge them directly, you fail to tell them what's truly good and what's truly bad and what they're doing. I call that ruinous empathy. And that's the most common mistake that we make at work, both as employees and as

Starting point is 00:13:47 managers. We do it to everybody. And when you fail on both dimensions at the same time, when you neither care nor challenge, and this was part of what happened with Bob, too. Part of the reason why I was so careful not to upset Bob was that I was afraid if Bob sort of started to cry or something in the office, everybody would think I was a terrible person. Everybody would think I was some kind of, you know, the bitchy boss or whatever. And I didn't want to be that. And so that was also part of the reason why I didn't challenge Bob, not because I cared so much about him, but because I was worried about my own reputation.

Starting point is 00:14:28 And that mistake, which we all make from time to time, it's perfectly human to do it. You just have to try to avoid it. That mistake I call manipulative insincerity. I was not being sincere when I told Bob how I felt about his work, what I thought about his work. And then, of course, the other mistake that we make, we all make from time to time, is when we challenge, but we fail to show we care. And that I call obnoxious aggression. And so when you're thinking about radical candor, it's really important to understand, not to judge people. Don't use these terms to judge people, but use these terms to understand where conversations are headed,

Starting point is 00:15:08 Are you moving towards radical candor or are you pulling your punches and moving towards ruinous empathy or even manipulative and sincerity? Are you punching so hard that you're moving towards obnoxious aggression? And do you need to stop and attend to the other person's emotional reaction? Those are the questions I want to help people ask themselves. You also talk about, it's not about hierarchy or status or title. You need to have this go up and down, left and right. How do you go about, I'm thinking, Kim, one of the things I love about this show is that people often learn directly from our guests and they're able to implement and execute right away. They don't just have happy talk or happy listening in their car on their way to work.

Starting point is 00:15:53 They can implement something and it could change their life, change their job. So I know this is a big one, but how do you create that culture of trust to where, you empower everyone to show radical candor up, down, left, right, everywhere you look without people coming off as jerks or getting or some people have told me before, stay in your lane, that type of talk. How do you create a culture of that? So creating a culture of radical candor, the good news is it can be, you can do it top down.

Starting point is 00:16:29 You can also do it bottoms up, right? So if you're sort of a new employee in an organization and you have a boss who you think is not being radically candid, you have some power in this situation to change it. And so whether you are the boss or the employee or a peer, the steps that you want to think through are basically the same. You want to start by asking for feedback. Don't dish it out until you prove you can take it. Lead by example, whether you're the leader or whether you're the employee. And so the simplest way to think about asking for feedback is to take the following four steps. First of all, come up with a go-to question.

Starting point is 00:17:19 If you say to somebody, do you have any feedback for me? I can already tell you what the answer is. Oh, no, everything's fine. Yeah, you're good. Yeah, good. Yeah, people hate giving feedback. I knew that when I started this book. And after I've written it, I've learned even more how much people hate given feedback.

Starting point is 00:17:37 So you've got to really come up with a question that's going to make it hard for them to say, no, everything's fine. One question that I like to ask is, is there anything I could do or stop doing that would make it easier to work for me? or with me. Now, not everybody can ask that question. I worked with the CEO of OpenTable, and she said, I could never ask that question. The question I like to ask is, tell me why I'm smoking crack, right? So there's different ways to ask the question. Or is there a way to make it an open end to question to say, what could I be doing to make it better or easier to work with me as opposed to a yes or no? Absolutely. Absolutely. That's a great, that's a great suggestion.

Starting point is 00:18:23 What could I do or stop doing? That would make it easier to work with me. A lot of good companies, too. And sometimes I've employed an HR partner to help with this where you can do start, stop, continue exercises with the boss, not in the room. And it'd be awesome if you can do it with the boss in the room and people are honest enough to do it. I think that would be great. I'd like to think I could have done that.

Starting point is 00:18:44 But I've had it where I'm not in the room. And you ask for whether you do it, they have these 360 reviews. I really enjoy the start, stop, continue question, because what should we start doing? What should I stop doing? And what should what do you really like so that we should continue doing? I think that that's a kind of a three-prong question that can elicit a lot of feedback if you've created the right culture of trust.

Starting point is 00:19:08 Yeah, I totally agree. I think it's so, I call this in the book, I call this create a speak truth to power process. Yeah. So if you are a leader in your organization, that's something that you can do. You can either use HR or some sort of consultant to have these start, stop, continue conversations where you gather information from a person's team. I think it's even better if you get the person's manager to have these conversations with a person's team. And you can do it pretty quickly. I describe in the book a quick and scalable process where you as a leader will talk to the employees of the people who work for you.

Starting point is 00:19:50 It doesn't have to be like all the time. You can actually get a lot if you do this once or twice a year for each of the teams. You talk to the whole team at once. So I think that's so important to begin asking the question. But that's only the first step. Asking the question is only the first step. The next thing you need to do is figure out how to embrace the discomfort. I think we often make the mistake of thinking that if we just build trust, that then people will

Starting point is 00:20:20 tell us the truth. But part of building trust is pulling what they really think out of people. And they're reluctant to tell you. And so everybody's reluctant to do this. So a simple way to embrace the discomfort is just to shut your mouth and count to six. See, I only made it to two and a half there. And when you count to six, it's got to be like one Mississippi, two Mississippi. It's not, it's not one, two, three, four, five, six. Almost nobody can endure that much silence. They will tell you something if you can keep your mouth shut for six seconds. So I really recommend that as sort of the second step.

Starting point is 00:21:01 Now that you've dragged this information out of somebody, though, the third step is to listen with the intent to understand not to reply. And so that might just mean repeating back what was said to you, just to make sure I understand. What I heard from you is that you really hate the title of my book, Radical Cander. You hate the word radical and you hate the word candor. So I disagree with that. I love radical candor, but I would just state it back to you. Can I interrupt real quick, Kim? Sure. I know you mentioned it because I think some of these stuff is so on point. One of the issues I've seen at some point in the past of my career is where people make statements that they want to have these speak true.

Starting point is 00:21:47 truth to power moments where you can share your feedback and the person who's in charge says they're listening and they want to implement. And so then everyone kind of gets it out on the table. And people actually do. They share some tough feedback with the boss or bosses. And the boss kind of nods and they're there and they're doing their thing. And then you look six months later and absolutely nothing has been done about what people had said, even if they brought solutions to the table,

Starting point is 00:22:16 in addition to their complaints. And so this is where I think you, as a leader or a boss, you think you're creating this culture of trust or this speak truth to power environment. Yet, if you never follow up or follow through on the feedback you get, it's worthless. It's almost worse. It is definitely worse.

Starting point is 00:22:37 To do it that way. And I've seen this personally happen. And at that point, then, you just get a demoralized culture because people have those moments. They air their frustrations. They hear frustrations of other people that they work with, and then they see nothing happens after all the head nods and they say, oh, yeah, we'll take this back and all of that type of talk.

Starting point is 00:22:59 And it becomes a really frustrating place. And that's when you start seeing attrition and things like that happen. Such an important point. And that's why the fourth step, once you've solicited feedback, is to reward the candor. Sometimes people think that they're doing a good job listening because they don't punish the candor. And that's not nearly good enough. You've got to actually reward it. So if you agree with the feedback, it's relatively straightforward. What you need to do is you need to fix the problem and you need to be very verbal about the fact that the reason why you're fixing the problem

Starting point is 00:23:33 is that so-and-so brought it to your attention. And when more people bring problems to your attention, you're going to help fix them. So that's pretty straightforward. Of course, it's more complicated because sometimes you get feedback that you disagree with. And you don't want to come across as defensive or punishing the feedback, but nor do you want to pretend to agree when you disagree. That is not radical candor. Nor is it good listening. It's just, it's manipulative and sincerity is what it is. And so when you disagree with feedback that you've gotten, it's hard. And so the thing that I recommend that you do is you identify what's the five or 10 percent of what was said that you can agree with and focus on that. And then say, but there's some other stuff that you said that I really want to think about, but I'm not sure that I agree with you.

Starting point is 00:24:25 Can I go away and think and then come back to you? And the reason to go away and think is because you do, A, you do want to think about it. Maybe you're just having a defensive reaction. And B, you're going to have probably a better conversation if you wait. a day or two, but don't fail to come back. Sometimes the best, the best reward of the candor is a fuller and, uh, and more open description of why you disagree. Does that make sense? Yeah. Um, but to bounce around a little bit based on your background, Kim, if that's cool. So I, um, you've worked at Google, uh, worked at Apple. You've started your own companies. You've coached CEOs. You've also been

Starting point is 00:25:08 coach. And this is an important point I wanted to bring up. So you are quite accomplished. You've sustained excellence. And yet you've also had CEO coaches or a coach for yourself. And I remember, or I read when something happened from an emotional standpoint, you said, am I just some sort of emotional babysitter? And your coach told you, Leslie, I believe, her name is, told you, no, it's called management and it's your job. And the reason I wanted to bring this up is I remember when I became a new manager for the first time. I was pretty young and inexperienced. And there was a member of my team, someone I was managing who was older than me, came in and told me that their spouse had cheated on them and they were going to get a divorce and they didn't know what to do and how could I help? I'm in

Starting point is 00:25:54 my 20s, not married at the time and I'm thinking, what? And whenever someone says, what's the most surprising thing about being a manager, I always bring up that story and I've had other ones unfortunately like that, to where you do, in some cases, almost as much of that type of discussion with your people, because you do, as you said, you've got to care personally, and you should, if you're a good person. But that's a part of being a boss, being a manager. Yes, I think it's so important. Also, all too often, people feel like the part of the job of management that is so central to it, which is listening to people, which is getting to know them at a personal level well enough that you can figure out what are the right opportunities for them

Starting point is 00:26:41 right now? What are the wrong opportunities for them right now? Where do they want ahead in the future? All of that takes time and it takes getting to know the person at a human level. And I think very often people, even people who are really good managers, feel they enjoy that part of the job, but they don't view it as part of the job. They view it as almost like an extra curricular. And then when things get really busy or hectic or stressful, they resent having to do that part of the job. They resent the emotional labor of the job. But that is part of the work. That is part of what you do as a manager. And I think it becomes much easier to do it and to feel good about doing it. If you remember that it's part of your job, it's not something you're doing just because you're a good

Starting point is 00:27:31 person, you're doing it because it's actually part of your job description. Yeah, and the importance I think of having a coach, too, I don't want to shortchange that aspect. Some people, as I've said multiple times, I love the talk I with JJ Redick when he said you've never arrived. You're always becoming. And so even if you've accomplished some great things that you still felt it important to have someone to help you and to coach you in your leadership role. Yes, the role of a coach is vital. I always say, people often ask me, what, like, what do you talk to these people about? What is your job as CEO coach? And there are things, being a leader is a very lonely job. And that's true, you don't have to be CEO to experience that loneliness. Being a middle manager can also be a very lonely job. And there are always things that as a boss, there are,

Starting point is 00:28:30 There's all this human dynamic on a team. And there are things that are happening that you don't want to talk to your boss about. You don't want to talk to your board about if you're the CEO because there's maybe performance problems or team dynamic problems. And you don't want somebody else to make the decision. You want to make the decision. So you don't really want to talk to your boss about these problems sometimes or your board. board. And your spouse is sick of hearing about these problems. They really don't want to hear about the fight between, you know, two people on your team one more time. And so it's very helpful to have

Starting point is 00:29:14 somebody who is paid to be on your side in these conflicts and to help you think through them and to hold up a mirror. Sometimes maybe you're considering whether or not you should fire somebody. And that's a hard decision. That's a really, it's one of the most brutally hard decisions that you have to make as a manager. And it's really helpful to have a sounding board for those things. Sometimes you want to promote somebody and then you want to think through, is this the right thing for that person? Is it the right thing for the team?

Starting point is 00:29:48 What are the unexpected consequences of doing this? Really helpful to have somebody to talk through those decisions with. So are you actively working with many CEOs right now, or what's your day-to-day like? My day-to-day right now is I'm writing a new book, and I am spending some time helping companies implement radical candor at scale. So I'm not doing very much CEO coaching because I find it doesn't scale. One of the things that that bothered me about being a CEO coach is that I felt I could only do it effectively for four or five people. And what I really wanted to do is help these ideas of radical candor get out into the world in a much bigger way. So I know we're getting outside of the book a little bit, but I'm curious from your perspective as a life-changing moment.

Starting point is 00:30:43 How has this book changed your life? It's so interesting. I mean, this book has taken me in all kinds of different directions that I'm delighted to go in. Some of them expected and others unexpected. The main way that this book has changed my life is to really make me think at a more fundamental level about ways we can scale the idea of radical candor. It's something that a lot of people have found helpful to think about, but very hard to put into practice.

Starting point is 00:31:18 And I thought at first that technology would be an enormous help. And it turns out that at least technologically. as I had, the technology as I had envisioned it was not that helpful to people. What was much more helpful to people was just telling stories, reading stories in the book, sharing stories when we do talks and workshops, and sharing stories with each other. So one of the things that's been most interesting to me to learn about is the power of storytelling in terms of changing behavior. And that's been fun.

Starting point is 00:31:54 I noticed one of your recent talks that I was watching, as you called me, was you started with a story. And there's something about that that I had trouble looking away. I think we're so attracted to personal stories, especially people who are good at telling them that I think that that can be useful when you're coaching other people, sharing maybe some mistakes that you've made or you've you've you've you've went through that could potentially help others avoid making those mistakes how do you use stories when you're coaching giving speeches sharing this message well why don't we why don't i answer that question with a story and

Starting point is 00:32:41 i was hoping you would do that so so for me one of the best examples of radical candor and this is something all your listeners can do right now think about that much moment in your career where somebody gave you some feedback that was hard to hear, but really helpful for the rest of your career. So here's my moment. I had recently started a job at Google, and I was working for Cheryl Samberg, and she had me give a presentation to Google's founders and the CEO about the AdSense business, the online AdSense business that I was leading. and I walked into the room and there was Larry in his, or Sergei, rather, in his toe shoes on an elliptical trainer in the corner of the room. And there was Eric Schmidt, the CEO at the time.

Starting point is 00:33:34 It was like his brain had been plugged into his computer. He was so deep in his email. And like any normal person in this situation, I felt a little nervous. How in the world was I going to get their attention? Luckily, the business that I was leading was on fire. And when I said how many new AdSense customers we had added over the last couple of months, Eric's head jerks up out of his computer to the extent that you can come to a screeching halt on an elliptical trainer. Sergei came to a screeching halt.

Starting point is 00:34:04 And they said, what do you need? Do you need more engineering resources? Do you need more marketing budget? So, you know, I'm feeling like the meeting went pretty well. In fact, I'm feeling like a genius. And as I was walking out of the room, I passed Cheryl. And I was expecting kind of a high five or a good job or a pet on the back. And instead, Cheryl said to me, why don't you walk back to my office with me?

Starting point is 00:34:32 And I thought, oh boy, I screwed something up. I have no idea what it is, but I'm sure I'm about to hear about it. And Cheryl started by telling me the good things that had happened, not. in a feedback sandwich kind of way, but she seemed to genuinely mean it. And she was also telling me some things that I didn't know. But of course, that was all very interesting. But what I really wanted to know was what had I screwed up. And eventually Cheryl said to me, you said, um, a lot in there. Were you aware of it? And I breathed a huge sigh of relief. If that was all I had done wrong, it didn't really matter. I was fine. I kind of made a brush off gesture with my hand.

Starting point is 00:35:13 And I said, yeah, I know it's a verbal tick. It's no big deal, really. And then Cheryl said, I know really good speech coach, Marine Taylor at S&P Communications. Would you like an introduction? And again, I made this brush off gesture with my hand. And I said, no, I'm busy. Didn't you hear about all those new customers? And Cheryl stopped.

Starting point is 00:35:33 She looked at me right in the eye. And she said, when you say every third word, it makes you sound stupid. now she has my full attention. And some people would say that it was mean of Cheryl to say that I sounded stupid, but it was the kindest thing she could possibly have done for me at that moment in my career. And by the way, she wouldn't have said it that way to anybody else on her team because everybody else on her team were better listeners than I was. They weren't quite as bullheaded.

Starting point is 00:36:05 But she knew those were the words she had to say to get through to me in order to get me to go see the S&P communications. And when I did, and I watched a video of myself presenting, one of life's more painful experiences, I learned something important. Cheryl wasn't exaggerating. I really did say, um, every third word. And this was news to me, and it was news because I had been giving presentations my entire career. I had raised $35 million giving presentations.

Starting point is 00:36:39 I thought I was pretty good at it. And this got me to thinking, why had nobody else told me? It was as though I'd been walking through my whole career with my flydown and nobody had had the common courtesy to tell me. So why had nobody told me and what made it so seemingly easy for Cheryl to tell me? And that was when I realized that there were these two aspects to being a good boss. One is caring personally. I knew Cheryl cared about me as a...

Starting point is 00:37:11 human being. When I moved to from New York to California and didn't know anybody, she, knowing that I loved to read and invited me to join her book group. When I had a family member who was sick, she said make sure that you go home right now.

Starting point is 00:37:27 I'm going to come up with a plan to cover you while you're out and don't count it as vacation. Just take the time you need to be with your family. That's the most important thing right now. And it wasn't the sort of thing she did just for me. She did that sort of thing for everyone, all of her direct reports, everyone who worked directly with her. So we all knew that she

Starting point is 00:37:46 had our, more than had our back. She really had our growth in mind. But because she had our growth in mind, she wasn't, she wasn't going to pull her punches when we screwed up. She was going to let us know very clearly. She was going to challenge us very directly. And that, to me, is sort of the essence of radical candor and of good management. Wow, what a great boss. Yes. I was very, very She seems to have done okay for herself. Yes, yes, she has. Thinking about the hiring process, my dad told me early in my career. He's my number one mentor in life, and he's the best.

Starting point is 00:38:28 And he told me you'll become rich and famous within this company, within whatever company you work for, if you get it right. and the most important decision you'll make is who you decide to bring into the business, who you decide to hire. Yes. And understand the qualities you're looking for, understand why, most importantly, why you're looking for, and then figure out a way to find that out through whatever interview process you create. And some of the things that you talk about are personality and drive and the characteristics

Starting point is 00:39:02 you're looking for, motivations, career aspirations, and not necessarily about education or titles or experience on paper. And also, it doesn't necessarily mean that you won't be a good manager if you haven't had direct reports in the past because it's not always an indicator whether or not someone is or isn't or couldn't be a great boss. Can you expand on that aspect of hiring, promoting, just the importance of that aspect of being a boss? Yes.

Starting point is 00:39:33 one of the most important decisions that you make is who you hire, because these are the people who are either going to make you successful or contribute to your failure. And as another piece of wisdom from my CEO coach, Leslie Koch, was if you're not dying to hire that person, don't hire them. It's so tempting when you have quote unquote a hole on your team, when you have this body of work that needs doing, you need to hire somebody to do the work. It's so tempting to hire somebody who you're not dying to hire because you're dying to get this work done. But in the immortal words of Steve Jobs, it's better to have a hole than an asshole. So you want to hire great, great people, people who you're dying to hire because really, if you're not dying to hire

Starting point is 00:40:28 that person, if you have reservations or sort of you're not so sure about this or that, it's not going to get better. The next day is going to be worse than the first day and the third day. You know, it's going to go in the wrong direction. And the same is true, by the way, of choosing a boss when you're choosing a job. If you're not dying to work for that person, don't take the job. So I think that's really important. But I think another mistake that managers make is they think the only thing they have

Starting point is 00:40:58 to do is hire great people and then they get and then just get out of their way. And I was, I was once talking to Dick Costello about this phenomenon and he burst out laughing and he said, yeah, that would be kind of like my saying to my wife, you're doing a great job managing, raising those children. I don't want to, I don't want to micromanage. I'm just going to not come home for dinner for the next 20 years. That wouldn't work, work out so well. Like it's saying all I have to do is hire the right people and then never spend another minute with them. It's sort of like saying, all I have to do is marry the right person and then never spend another minute with them. That's not how you build a relationship. So you've got to hire the right people, but you also have to

Starting point is 00:41:42 invest the time becoming a thought partner to each of those people who you hire. You can't just ignore them. Yeah, you hear that so much of people saying, hire the right people and just kind of let them, let them do their thing. The one thing, though, that Steve Jobs and Apple said is we hire people who tell us what to do, not the other way around. Yes, yes. You don't want to micromanage them. You want to listen to them. The way I think that you achieve results, the best results on a team, is you do it collaboratively. And that means that you don't tell people what to do. Telling people what to do doesn't work. You listen to them. You work with them to help them clarify their I think in the case of James DeMore, he did not have a boss who helped him clarify his thinking.

Starting point is 00:42:33 And it got him into a lot of trouble and got Google into a lot of trouble, frankly. It's a sad failure of radical candor. So you want to listen to them. You want to help them clarify their thinking. Once people, another word of wisdom from Johnny Ive is that new ideas are fragile. Part of your job as a boss is to create a private space where people can come to you with new ideas and flesh them out, clarify them. So you want to listen to the thinking, you want to clarify it.

Starting point is 00:43:03 Then you want to open it up to debate. You want to get the ideas of the whole team on these, the thoughts of the whole team on these, new ideas, on these suggestions, on these changes that people are recommending. And then only after you've gone through that listen, clarify, debate process, is it safe to make a decision. And your job as the boss is very often not to be the decider. Your job as the boss is to make it clear who the decider is, to push decisions into the facts, to help the people who work for you build that decision-making muscle. And having made a decision, now you've got to make sure that you're bringing everybody along, that the rest of the team is persuaded. And then you've got to

Starting point is 00:43:51 make sure that you get to execute. So often managers think they have to just, they have to just zoom right past all those steps to execution. But you got to take the time to go through those steps, but you also need to make sure they don't take so long that people don't have time to execute. And then, of course, most painful of all, you've got to learn when you're right and when you're wrong. Sometimes you will have made the wrong decision or you will have executed poorly. And you've got to have the self-honesty to recognize that. And then you've got to start listening all over again. So it can feel sometimes slow and frustrating as a boss. But it's really important to make sure that you remember that your job is not to be the decider. Your job is not to tell people what to do.

Starting point is 00:44:39 Your job is to create the conditions where people can achieve results collaboratively. Kim, one of the, I think, problems currently going on today that I've seen and heard is people with these jammed up schedules of back to back to back to back to back meetings with no time to sit and think and reflect and learn from both success and failure. And I pulled a great quote from a phenomenal book in addition to yours that I'm reading about the Wright brothers. And this is people who are witnessing and watching how the Wright brothers worked down. They're from here in Dayton, Ohio, where I'm from, but they worked down and also North Carolina. And they said, we couldn't help thinking they were just a pair of poor nuts. They'd stand on the beach for hours at a time, just looking at the birds, flying, soaring, dipping. We thought they were crazy, but we just had to admire the way they could move their arms this way and that and bend their elbows and wrist bones up and down, just like the birds.

Starting point is 00:45:41 And Orville said, learning the secret of flight from a bird was a good deal like learning the secret of magic from a magician. The fact that they took time, they sat back to analyze, to think, to not just be back to back to back on building the plane, but trying to understand maybe a better way to build the plane. And I thought this relates so well to leaders who are jammed up and never take time to think. and I'm curious from your perspective, from radical candor, from being a great boss of how you build in this time to reflect, to learn, to think so that you can improve. Yeah, a couple of really important suggestions here, because it is, especially now, we just do not give ourselves enough time, quiet time to think. We don't, we've always got stuff coming at us. one of the things that I really admire that Dick Costello did is he put two hours of think time in his calendar, an hour in the morning, an hour in the afternoon, every day. And he really didn't let that time get interrupted,

Starting point is 00:46:48 no matter what kind of crises were burning. And believe me, there was always a crisis burning at Twitter. So I think having the discipline to create space in your big chunks of time, like an hour, Sometimes when I'm writing a book, I need three, two-hour chunks every day. Like that's six hours a day. That's pretty hard to get that much think time. And so I think that's really important. When I was coming up with the Radical Cander Framework, I spent several months just debating which words for each of the axes and which words for radical candor.

Starting point is 00:47:30 At first, Radical Cander was just tough love. which doesn't sound nearly so good. And I felt crazy about it at the time, but it was not wasted time. So sort of like feeling that having a conversation with someone who works for you about their divorce or their sick kid or whatever, that's not wasted time. So I think just giving that the time and space that it deserves to think is really important. And then there's also just creating a little bit of slack in your schedule. I think when I have talked to leaders at every level of organizations and so many industries and people in different countries, the reason the best feedback is always happens in these two-minute and prompto conversations.

Starting point is 00:48:19 And the most common reason why those conversations don't happen is that you see something happen in a meeting. You want to talk to the person, but you're late for your next meeting. you're hungry and you have to pee. And now you've got this fourth thing to do, right? All in the non-two minutes, you're late for your next meeting, right? You don't have, not have two minutes, you need 10 and you've got negative three. And so figuring out how either to create the mental space, to be willing to be late to the next meeting, to be willing to hold it for a few more minutes before you go to the bathroom,

Starting point is 00:48:57 and to prioritize that conversation is one approach. And that was the approach I took. It was really sort of a psychological creating the mental space for it, being willing to be late, being willing to delay eating or going to the bathroom because this conversation was so important. Another thing that I really admire that a lot of leaders have tried is to create slack time in the schedule. So 30-minute meetings, all are 25-minute meetings.

Starting point is 00:49:27 and hour-long meetings are all 50-minute meetings. And that can be very helpful in terms of just creating a little bit of space and slack in your schedule to think or talk because it's hard and it's important. Yeah. Kim, I'm sure you get this a lot now. So I want to ask it still. But when somebody who's at any point in their career, I don't want to just say people earlier in their career, but they're looking to progress, they want to anyone, anyone, define this differently, but they want to put together a great career and without going into semantics as to defining that. And they say, what advice you've, you've been able to do this on a number

Starting point is 00:50:07 of different ways, worked at great companies, worked for yourself, started companies, you've really done a lot. And they come to you and I get these types of emails, too. So I'm curious to hear what you'd say. What are the top pieces of career advice you'd give to someone as they're looking to build and grow and create a great career? I think one of the most important things you can do is quiet all the advice that you're going to get about building a great resume. You don't want to build a great resume. You want to build a great life.

Starting point is 00:50:43 Yeah. And so take some time, find somebody who you can have the following career conversations with. In an ideal world, your boss would do this for you. but if your boss is unwilling, find a mentor or a friend or a colleague or a parent. Find someone who will have these conversations with you. This is my co-founder, Russ Leroy, developed a great career conversation methodology. And the first conversation you want to have is just, even if the person knows you well,

Starting point is 00:51:15 just taking 45 minutes, maybe an hour, to sort of recount your life story to the person. And in an ideal world, if you find a good conversation partner with on this life, life story conversation, the person will sort of ask you about pivots, but you can do this for yourself as well. Zero in on those changes that you made in your life and try to understand from those changes what really motivates you about work. what is it that you value at work? Is it, and if you start, if you start by just asking yourself, what are your values, you're not going to, it's too abstract of a question and you're not going to get the same texture. Whereas I'll give you an example that I share in the book. There was a woman I was talking to and she told a story about a time when she went to New Orleans with her family.

Starting point is 00:52:17 and her father, who had maybe had a couple of milk punches into the afternoon, noticed that she was, she was about 12. She was kind of glancing into a strip club. And there's a woman on the pole. And her father turns her face towards the strip club. And he says, do you see that woman in there? She makes more money every night than your mother makes in a year. her mother was a teacher. And the woman at this moment looked at her father and said, I am going to make more money than you, dad.

Starting point is 00:52:56 So if she had said financial independence or making a lot of money was a core value, you kind of wouldn't have felt that sympathetic with her. But when she told that story, like now you understood her drive to do very well financially. And so I think by sharing your life story, you get the texture of what really matters to you and why. So that's conversation number one. Conversation number two is think about your dreams. Like, imagine your life at a moment when you've got everything you ever thought you wanted. And imagine several different scenarios. Almost nobody knows what they wanted be when they grow up.

Starting point is 00:53:38 And those who do, those who have those kinds of vocations, they can. fuse the heck out of the rest of us. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, different, different, different dreams that we all have. So give yourself the space and the freedom to, to, to, to kind of put some color on those dreams. And then make sure, take a moment to make sure that the dreams and the values are in alignment. If one of the things that really motivates you is creating something from nothing, like make sure one of your dreams is, it's, like, it's, it's, like, make sure, entrepreneurial. And then take some time to come up with a plan. Imagine what are the skills

Starting point is 00:54:20 that you need to develop to achieve each dream and think about where you are in the development process of those skills. And how can you begin to develop those skills? Can you change your current role a little bit so that you learn something that's taking you a step in the direction of your dreams. One of my favorite stories that Russ Leroa tells is he was managing a woman who was selling

Starting point is 00:54:48 double-click ad servers. And one of her dreams was to own and operate a spirulina farm. So, like, you can't imagine that her job selling double-click ad servers was going to have anything

Starting point is 00:55:01 to do with owning and operating a spirulina farm. But it turned out that one of the important skills she needed to develop to achieve that dream was to learn how to be a better manager. And in fact, she had Russ, one of the best managers at Google, teaching her how to be a good manager. She was also in Cheryl Sandberg's organization.

Starting point is 00:55:23 So all of a sudden, this job, which had seemed sort of meaningless to her, was very meaningful. It was taking her a step in the direction of her dreams. So figure out, like, how can you adjust your role so that you're learning things that are taking you a step in the direction of your dreams? Who are the people you can meet and talk to who are going to help you take a step in the direction of your dreams? What are the things you can learn, the books you can read, the classes you can attend that are going to help build those skills? And I think thinking more broadly about your career in avoiding the kind of narrow promotion obsession, resume obsession is the best thing you can do to build a career that's going to really

Starting point is 00:56:06 get you where you want to go in life. Yeah, you don't have to go about checking boxes. No. Or if you're going to check them, create them for a good meaningful reason. And when you oftentimes have heard someone say, well, I took that job, because I thought I would look really good on my resume. I don't, some of their priorities are backwards. And maybe they're listening now.

Starting point is 00:56:25 They've done that. And maybe I'm sure people have. And I get it. We've all made those mistakes. Yeah, we've all made it. And so it's just time to take a step back and think and maybe watch the birds a little bit as Wilburne Orville did. So Kim, I love this talk. We're going to have to do it again because I have tons more notes, but this was really, I just appreciate the energy and intellect you bring to

Starting point is 00:56:48 the conversation. And I want to thank you for putting this book out, making us aware of radical candor. I think this could, it already has changed many people's lives all over the world. And I want to acknowledge that. And I appreciate you doing that. One more question. know, when you saw somebody with a podcast with the title of Learning Leader in the email, what was the first thought that came to mind when you saw that phrase, learning leader? It is so important for leaders to be learners and not knowers. So I think it says a lot. The Learning Leader is the leader who listens, who doesn't try to tell people what to do.

Starting point is 00:57:27 So I love the title, Learning Leader. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm a firm believer in that aspect of you've never arrived or always becoming. And I think that's a big aspect of being a learning leader. And I appreciate you sharing. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? Online, you can go to radical candor.com or you can listen to the radical candor podcast, which is about how not to hate the boss you have or be the boss you hate. I love it. Well, Kim, thanks so much. Again, I meant it when I say I want to continue our dialogue as we both progressed because I love what you're doing and I want to continue us talking. I really look forward to it. It's a fun conversation. Awesome. Thanks, Kim. Okay, thank you. Bye-bye. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to

Starting point is 00:58:33 Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show. This episode is brought to you by my friends at Callaway Golf. Calloway's business and marketing approach has turned heads over the last several years, helping the company make a dramatic turnaround from losing millions of dollars per year to being a leader in the industry. Products like the GB Epic Driver, Steelhead XR irons, and Calloway's Chrome Soft Golfball are aimed at avid golfers looking for premium performance. And the coolest part about this partnership is we're doing a giveaway. Yes, we're giving away the number one selling driver of 2017, the GB Epic Driver. All you have to do is put your favorite leadership

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Starting point is 01:00:10 Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing all of your great responses on Twitter and Instagram at Ryanhawk 12. And thank you to my friends at Callaway Golf. Are you still there? Yep. Okay. Thank you so much.

Starting point is 01:00:27 That was so good. of you just being able to dive deep, tell great stories. As I mentioned before, I think the story aspect is huge when it comes to speeches, to keynotes. And I noticed that you never use um or fillers. So that speaking coach must have seriously had a big impact on you. S&P communications had a really big impact. I do.

Starting point is 01:00:51 What do they do? What do they do? What's a quick thing they did? I should have put this in the episode. But what is a quick thing they did? You know, the key thing that they taught me was that the reason why I say, Um, is that I'm uncomfortable with silence. Ah, okay.

Starting point is 01:01:05 Or you're not prepared. Some coaches have told me that. Like, if you're not fully prepared, you might say like or, um, or you know, and I do all those things, unfortunately. But that's what people have, have shared with me. What do you think? I think that can happen. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:01:21 But I don't think that usually, even if you're, even if you are prepared, you'll often say, um, at least I did. Yeah. Even if I was incredibly well prepared, I would say. And the reason was that sometimes there is a natural silence, even when you're prepared, sometimes you need to just gather your thoughts. Or sometimes you need to wait for a reaction. And if you're not comfortable with silence, you don't give yourself the space to either collect your thoughts or wait for an audience's reaction. sort of like it's a form of not listening to the audience as you're talking if you say,

Starting point is 01:02:05 yeah, it makes sense. Well, you do it really well and tell the story. And obviously, it probably is a combination of all the reps you get speaking and podcasting and everything like that and the interviews you do. But I appreciate it. Really do. I'll be sure. Is there anything that we missed or anything that we did that you didn't like or what did you think? No, I felt really good about the conversation. I felt like I rambled a little. bit a couple of times. It was good. That's why podcasts are great, because you can go deep on topics. And I love this. So I would be honest with you. I promise. You're the one person. I can't lie to. I can't lie to anybody. But I can't be too nice. I have to be candid with you. But no, I'll be sure when we get this one put together, slap on an intro and outro.

Starting point is 01:02:50 I'll be sure to let you and your team know and send you a note when it goes live. Right. We'll give it some social media love. And if you, If you can put a link to the book on Amazon, that would be awesome. Oh, yeah, I have show notes at learningleader.com. So I'll make sure that all the show notes are there as well as within Apple Podcast, Stitcher, all that stuff, that it is right in there a link to get to book. And I've already been recommending it. It's been a book of my mindful Monday emails I send out to my community. So I'm a big fan, Kim.

Starting point is 01:03:23 So it was cool for me to be able to have this one with you. Well, thanks so much. Really, really enjoyed the conversation. Awesome. All right. Thanks, Kim. Okay, take care. Okay. Bye. Bye-bye.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 223: Kim Malone Scott - Using Radical Candor To Be A Great Boss

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