Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 393: How to Give Feedback Without Ruining Everything | Kim Scott

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

One of the hardest things to do in any relationship is give feedback. It’s always dicey. You don’t want to be too aggressive. You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But you also do...n’t want to be too indirect. That’s where radical candor comes in. This term comes from Kim Scott, who is the bestselling author of Radical Candor and Just Work. She has coached executives at Dropbox and Twitter, and has led teams at Google. In this conversation she’ll not only talk about how to speak with radical candor, but also how to avoid its evil cousins: ruinous empathy, manipulative insincerity, and obnoxious aggression. She’ll also talk about how to push for more equitable workplaces at all levels of an organization, how to speak up about diversity issues without ruining your career, and what to do if you’re the person who has created harm. Kim will also talk about the difficult wake-up call that led her from her first book to her second.This episode is part of the Work Life series we are running here on the show. In conjunction with this series on the podcast, we’re launching a Work Life challenge over on the Ten Percent Happier app. We’ll be dealing with issues such as feedback, imposter syndrome, jerks at work, burnout, productivity shame, and more. You can download the app here, or wherever you get your apps to join the challenge for free. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kim-scott-393See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is the 10% half year podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey, everybody. As I'm sure you know, one of the hardest things to do in any relationship is to give feedback. Whether you're a boss, talking to an employee or an employee, talking to a boss, it's also of course true as a spouse, a parent, a friend. It's always dicey. You don't want to be too aggressive.
Starting point is 00:00:28 You don't want to hurt somebody's feelings, but you also don't want to be indirect. You don't want them to miss the point and keep making the same mistake. This, by the way, is a mistake. I have made a bunch. I sometimes hold back because I don't have the guts to tell the truth or I'm afraid of hurting
Starting point is 00:00:42 somebody's feelings. And then eventually I lose it and piss everybody off. That is where radical candor comes in. That term comes from my guest today, Kim Scott, who is the author of a book called Radical Candor, and also a follow on book called Just Work, which is in part about how to speak clearly and effectively about the issues related to the supremely sensitive issue of diversity. Kim joins us today as part of our ongoing work life series.
Starting point is 00:01:10 We're running on the show. In fact, this is the second of five consecutive brand-new episodes we'll be dropping on how to do your work life better. And we're using the word work in the broadest, most capacious way. Work could be an office job or working inside the home with children or volunteer work, whatever. In conjunction with this series here on the podcast, we're launching a work life challenge over on the 10% happier app. We'll be dealing
Starting point is 00:01:38 with lots of thorny issues, including feedback and posture syndrome, jerks at work, burnout, productivity shame, and much more. The challenge features two incredible teachers, Matthew Hepburn and Don Mauricio. Every day for seven days, you'll get a short video with me in conversation with either Matthew or Don, and then a guided meditation. The video does the teaching and the meditation pounds the lessons into your neurons. The challenge will kick off this coming Monday, November 8th, over on the 10th percent happier app.
Starting point is 00:02:10 You can download the app now wherever you get your apps and join the challenge for free. All right, back to today's episode. As I mentioned, Kim Scott is the best-selling author of Radical Cander, and then the follow-up book, which is called Just Work. She has coached executives at Dropbox and Twitter. She's led teams at Google and this conversation. She's gonna talk about not just how to speak with radical candor, but also how to avoid its evil cousins,
Starting point is 00:02:36 which include ruinous empathy, manipulative, insincereity, and obnoxious aggression. These are all her terms, which are great. She's also gonna talk about how to push for more equitable workplaces at all levels of an organization, how to speak up about diversity issues without ruining your career, and what to do if you're the person
Starting point is 00:02:55 who has created the harm. Kim's also gonna talk about the rather difficult wakeup call that led her from her first book, Radical Candor, to her second, just work. We'll get started with Kim Scott right after this. Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn
Starting point is 00:03:29 how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the great meditation teacher Alexis Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm all one word spelled out Okay on with the show Hey y'all is your girl Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress singer and entrepreneur on my new podcast The baby is a ski key Palmer. I'm asking friends family and experts the questions that are in my head
Starting point is 00:04:02 Like it's only fans only bad. Where did memes come from? And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Kim Scott, welcome to the show. Thank you, I love your show and I'm thrilled to be here. Wow, well, from you I can trust that you're being candid. So, I'll take that as a genuine compliment.
Starting point is 00:04:25 People from my team sent me emails, oh my gosh, I love this podcast. I wish I were recording on it today. So thank you. My pleasure, thanks for coming on. Your book has been influential and 10% happier on the management level. It's been something that gets talked about a lot
Starting point is 00:04:42 and how to communicate clearly, but kindly. I love that. And I have great confidence that you all are not making the mistake that a lot of people make, which they assume that radical candor is an excuse to be a jerk. So I'm glad, I'm glad to know it's in good hands with you all. Well, I mean, I think we're jerks all the time. I'll speak for myself. I'm a jerk all the time, but I don't blame it on radical candor. I mean, I think we're jerks all the time. I'll speak for myself. I'm a jerk all the time, but I don't blame it on radical candor. That's good.
Starting point is 00:05:06 That's good. And I doubt you're a jerk. You should read my 360 sometimes. Let's just define some terms here. What is radical candor? Radical candor is caring personally at the same time that you're challenging directly. And I really believe if you truly care about someone, you will challenge them directly. And if you're gonna challenge them directly,
Starting point is 00:05:28 you better do it in the spirit of caring personally. So it's when you can do those two things at the same time, that's radical candor. But it's probably also interesting to define what radical candor is not. So if you think about caring and challenging, sometimes we challenge, but we forget to show that we care.
Starting point is 00:05:48 And that I call obnoxious aggression. In an earlier version of the book, I called that sort of the **** quadrant in a radical candor 2x2. And I stopped doing that for a very important reason. I found that when I did that, people would start using this radical candor framework to write names and boxes. And I beg of you, don't use radical candor that way. These are not labels to judge people with. This is not another Myers-Briggs personality test. So I hope as I define what radical candor isn't that people can use a radical candor framework like a
Starting point is 00:06:22 compass to guide specific conversations with specific people to a better place. Now, there's a lot of problems with obnoxious aggression. It causes a lot of harm for the person you're talking to. One of the other problems with obnoxious aggression is that it often, when I realize, have acted like a jerk, rather than moving in the right direction on the care personally dimension of radical candor, I'll go the wrong way on challenge directly. And then I wind up in the worst place of all manipulative insincerity.
Starting point is 00:06:52 And this is where passive aggressive behavior, political behavior, backstabbing, obnoxious aggression is front-stabbing, manipulative insincerity is backstabbing. And that's where that behavior tends to come in, the false apology. And this is both obnoxious aggression and manipulative insincereity are sort of where the drama in the workplace emerges. And so when we talk about stuff going wrong at work,
Starting point is 00:07:19 we tend to be talking about those two behaviors. But in my experience, at least the vast majority of people make the vast majority of their mistakes. When they do remember to show that they care personally, despite everything you see on social media, most people are actually pretty nice. So they do remember to show that they care personally. But they're so concerned about not hurting someone's feelings that they fail to challenge him directly. And that's what I call ruinous empathy.
Starting point is 00:07:47 So radical candor is when you do both at the same time and there's three ways to screw it up. So you reference this briefly, but you have a quadrant, a two by two of... Yeah, I'll paint it for you. Please. And the vertical axis is care personally. The horizontal line is challenged directly. And then when you put those two lines together,
Starting point is 00:08:07 you get a plus with four boxes. Radical candor is in the top right. Top left is ruinous empathy. Bottom left is manipulative insincereity and bottom right is obnoxious aggression. So those are the three ways to screw it up. Yes. Which leads to the obvious question,
Starting point is 00:08:24 which is how do we not screw this up? Easier said than done. I think one of the things that is important is to understand why we're prone to screw it up. And so I think on the care personally dimension, pausing to think about what moves us down on the care personally dimension. And I'm not talking about all of us, not the psychopaths, but the vast majority of us. And I think the problem here, I mean, sometimes you're stressed and you're busy and therefore you fail to show that you care personally.
Starting point is 00:08:55 But I think the fundamental problem there begins when we're 18, 19, 20 years old. We're right at that moment when our egos are maximally fragile, at least mine was, and our personas are beginning to solidify. And right at that crucial moment of development, someone comes along and says, be professional. And I think an awful lot of us translate that without even realizing what we're doing to mean, leave your emotions, leave who you really are, leave your humanity,
Starting point is 00:09:28 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 if you're showing up at work like some kind of robot. So I think that's part of the problem. I think the other part of the problem begins not when we're 18 years old, but when we're 18 months old. And raise your hand if you had a parent or someone who told you if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Now all of a sudden, congratulations,
Starting point is 00:10:00 it's your job to say it. And it's really hard. It's hard to undo training that's been sort of pounded into our heads since we were 18 years old and even harder to undo training that's been pounded into our heads since we were 18 months old. And so part of this is sort of offering ourselves some grace and forgiveness.
Starting point is 00:10:18 Of course, it seems like it ought to be easy. Like who doesn't care, who doesn't challenge, who won't tell someone something that they need to know, and yet understanding and forgiving ourselves for why it's hard, I think is a good place to start. I think the next thing, at least it made it much easier for me, is to think about stories. Stories from my life when I got it wrong, so that the consequences would be more clear to me. I think very often I wind up in ruinous empathy because it feels nicer. The reason why I call it ruinous empathy is that sometimes I think empathy can be paralyzing. And so moving from ruinous empathy to radical candor, for me, it's storytelling is the best
Starting point is 00:11:07 way for me to remember to do that. I'll tell you a story if you want me to. Yes, I do. All right. So here's my ruinous empathy story. I had just hired this guy, we'll call him Bob. And I liked Bob a lot. He was smart.
Starting point is 00:11:23 He was charming. He was smart, he was charming, he was funny, he would do stuff like we were at a manager off site, and we were playing one of those endless get-to-know-you games. And this was a startup, and we were at a stressful time in the company's history, and everybody kind of wished we could just get back to work. And Bob was the guy who had the courage to raise his hand and to say, you know what, I can tell everyone is a little bit stressed out. And I've got an idea. It'll help us get
Starting point is 00:11:49 to know each other and it'll be really fast. Whatever his idea was, if it was fast, we were down with it. And so Bob says, let's just go around the table and confess to one another what candy our parents used when potty training us. And then for the next 10 months, every time there's 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 we all liked Bob. He brought a little levity to the office.
Starting point is 00:12:21 One problem with Bob, he was doing terrible work. He would hand stuff into me and there was shame in his eyes. He knew his work wasn't nearly good enough. And yet I was so puzzled. So anyway, I would say something to Bob, a longer lines of, oh Bob, you're so smart, you're so awesome. We all love working with you. This is a great start. Maybe you could make it just a little bit better. Which of course he never did. This goes on for 10 months and eventually the inevitable happens.
Starting point is 00:12:56 I realized that if I don't fire Bob, I'm going to lose all the people on my team who are doing great work. They're having to redo Bob's work. Their deliverables are late because his deliverables are late. And so I sat down and I have a conversation with Bob that I should have frankly begun 10 months previously. And when I finished explaining to him where things stood, he kind of pushed his chair back
Starting point is 00:13:18 from the table and he looked me right in the eye. And he said, why didn't you tell me? And does that question was going around in my head with no good answer? He said, why didn't anyone tell me? I thought you all cared about me. And now I realized that by not talking to Bob, I was just trying to be nice.
Starting point is 00:13:44 I'm having to fire him because I hadn't told him. Not so nice, not so kind after all. But it was too late to say Bob, even Bob at that moment decided he should go because his reputation was just shot on the team. It was going to be easier for him to start over somewhere else. And all I could do in the moment was make myself a very solemn promise that I would never make
Starting point is 00:14:08 that mistake again. And that I would do everything in my power to help other people avoid making that mistake. And that's really why I wrote Radical Candor and I came up with this Radical Candor, two by two, that hopefully makes it a little easier in the moment to remember to move towards radical candor. I like that story a lot. I'm sure Bob doesn't like it, but it's it's
Starting point is 00:14:32 Bob's okay by the way you got another job so everything's good. It's illustrative in a very useful way and so it has me thirsting a little bit for a similarly illustrative and useful story about doing it right because I am regularly hopscotching among the three non-radical candor quadrants of the two by two. And so it will be helpful for me and heartening for me to hear some examples, or maybe even just one of how to get yourself out of those very easy to fall in pitfalls. Yes, the positive target identification stories are just as important, or even more important
Starting point is 00:15:17 than the cautionary tales. So one moment when this crystallized for me happened shortly after I had moved all the way across the country and taken a new job at Google. And I had to give a presentation to the CEO and the founders about how the AdSense business was doing. And I walked into the room and there was Sergei Brenn, one of the founders on an elliptical trainer and a bright blue spandex unitarred wearing toast, who's not really what I was expecting to see. And there in the other corner of the room was Eric Schmidt, who was CEO at the time,
Starting point is 00:15:54 doing his email and he was so intent on the machine, it was like his brain had been plugged into his computer. So probably like you in such a situation, I felt a little bit nervous. How in the world was I supposed to get these people's attention? Luckily for me, the ad sense business was on fire. And when I said how many new customers we had added over the last couple of months, Eric almost fell off his chair. And he said, what do you need?
Starting point is 00:16:20 Do you need more marketing dollars? Do you need more engineering resources? So I'm feeling like the meeting's going all right. In fact, I now believe I'm a genius. And I walked out of the room after the meeting, feeling triumphed. I walk past my boss and I'm expecting a high five or a pad on the back. And instead, she says to me, why don't you walk back to my office with me? And I thought, oh, wow, I screwed something up. And I'm sure I'm about to hear about it.
Starting point is 00:16:46 And she began the conversation with me not by telling me what I had done wrong, but by telling me what I had done right. But actually seeming to me in what she said. And being very specific and sincere, but of course, all I wanted to do was to hear about what I had done wrong. And eventually she said to me, you said, I'm a lot in there. Of course, all I wanted to do was to hear about what I had done wrong. Eventually she said to me, you said, I'm a lot in there. Were you aware of it?
Starting point is 00:17:10 And with this, I breathed a huge sigh of relief because if that was all I had done wrong, who really cared. And I sort of made this brush off gesture with my hand. And I said, yeah, I know. It's a verbal tick, really. It's no big deal. And then she said, I know a great speech coach I bet Google would pay for it, would you like an introduction? And I'm not getting the hint. So once again,
Starting point is 00:17:32 I make this brush off gesture with my hand. I said, no, I'm busy. Didn't you hear about all those new customers? I don't have time for a speech coach. And then she stopped. She looked me right in the eye and she said, I can tell when you're doing that thing with your hand that I'm gonna have to be a lot more direct with you. When you say every third word it makes you sound stupid. Now she's got my full attention. And some people might say it was mean of her to say,
Starting point is 00:18:01 I sounded stupid, but in fact, it was the kind of thing she could have done for me at that moment in my career, because if she hadn't used just those words with me, and crucially, she would not have used those words with other people on her team who were perhaps a better listener than I was. But with me, if she hadn't used just those words, I never would have gone to see the speech coach, and I wouldn't have learned that she was not exaggerating. I literally said every third word.
Starting point is 00:18:30 This was news to me because I had raised money for three different startups, giving presentations. I thought I was pretty good at it. It was almost like I had been marching through my whole career with a giant hunk of spinach between my teeth, and no one had had the common courtesy to tell me that it was there. So that to me was an example of radical candor. And let's think about how I knew that she cared. And also, it's pretty clear what she did to challenge me
Starting point is 00:18:59 directly. She, in no uncertain terms, showed everyone who worked closely with her that she cared about them, not just as an employee, but as a human being. So for example, shortly after I joined the company, my father was diagnosed with cancer, and I was devastated. And she said, look, you go to the airport, get a flight home. I'm going to write your coverage plan
Starting point is 00:19:25 and your team has your back. That's what good teams do for one another. She couldn't do that kind of thing, of course, for all 5,000 people in her organization. Relationships don't scale, but that was the way that she behaved with everyone who worked directly with her. And when a leader cares personally,
Starting point is 00:19:43 it creates a culture of caring. It's much more likely that their people are then going to treat their direct reports in the same way. So that was the care personally, but also she was not going to mince words when I wasn't hearing what she was trying to tell me. Here's what I'm struggling with a little bit, which is the mustering of the courage that it took for the boss to use the word stupid with you. I have a sense it's probably the courage comes out of the caring, but a lot of us struggle. It's an uncomfortable thing to do. And so I hear you saying it's the right thing to do.
Starting point is 00:20:25 It seems obviously true that it's the right thing to do. And yet, I don't want to do it because I don't want to hurt somebody's feelings. People talk about this all the time, like the courage to say this. And I think courage is a dangerous word in this context because I don't want to do this because I'm courageous. I want to do this because I care about this other person. And so if I think in terms of compassion rather than courage, it's more inspiring for me anyway. But I don't want to pretend like it was easy or that it was
Starting point is 00:20:59 comfortable. If it were easy for her to have said that, then she would have landed in a macho suggestion, right? And I think this is something that's really important. Radical candor gets measured, not at the speaker's mouth, but at the listener's ear. And so if you go into these conversations, being prepared to be very attuned to how your words are landing for the other person, then it's much more likely that you're going to choose
Starting point is 00:21:25 the words that are easiest for them to hear. And I think the difference between my boss and a lot of other managers I had had is that she knew was her job to be clear. Now, there are other times, like if I were a different person, perhaps a better listener, then she might have had to attend more to the care personally dimension.
Starting point is 00:21:45 So if she said, you said I'm a lot in there, where you're aware of it, and I had teared up, for example, then she would have had to attend to the emotion in the moment, and not to dismiss it as being unprofessional or something like that, but to say, you know, my goal here is not to upset you. This is going to be okay. I want to help you solve the problem. Then the trick is to realize that you're doing that in service to the other person. You're not being mean. And the trick when someone gets upset or maybe they get angry. Sometimes I'll give someone feedback and they'll start yelling. But if I've gotten mad, then it's her job to get curious to understand why I'm getting angry. Sometimes I'll give someone feedback and they'll start yelling. But if I've gotten mad, then it's her job to get curious to understand why I'm getting angry, get curious, not
Starting point is 00:22:31 furious. So knowing which vector to choose, when to move up on care personally, and when to move over on challenge directly, is all a matter of trying to understand the impact that your words are having on that other person. Much more of my conversation with Kim Scott right after this. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wunderys new podcast, This and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud. From the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions.
Starting point is 00:23:08 What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support. It angered some fans. A lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Britney. Follow Dysentel wherever you get your podcast.
Starting point is 00:23:45 You can listen ad free on Amazon Music or the Wondering app. I don't have the problem with courage that you do. I mean, I understand that compassion for some may be more inspiring and I think they're equally inspiring, but compassion produces courage on the regular. Yes. You know, firefighters running into burning buildings, et cetera, et cetera. And this really is a form of risk taking because, as you said, radical candor gets measured
Starting point is 00:24:13 at the ear of the listener. As much care as you're taking to deliver your message, skillfully, you don't know how it's going to go down. You don't know what landmine you might be stepping on. And so you might be sitting in front of an incensed person. You could be accused of some sort of ism or some sort of prejudice. Yes.
Starting point is 00:24:32 A lot of people in the workplace are worried about that these days. So it does take courage, I think, to do what you're describing. Yeah, I just think that if you say, I've got to be courageous. I don't know. For me, that can lead people either
Starting point is 00:24:45 to say it in the cruelest possible way and to think they're being courageous. Also, I think mostly we do, we imp out of doing this. The reason why I wrote the book is that it's easy for me to say, be radically candid, but I'll confess that it's hard for me to do it too. And I don't think it's because I'm lacking in courage. I think it's more because, as you say, you do take a risk and you want to be in an environment where you believe you'll be rewarded for taking the risk. I think also once we're getting into concerns about impact on me, not impact on the other person who I'm talking to. Then I'm in manipulative insincereity territory. If we go back to that Bob's story, I tell it as a ruin of sympathy story.
Starting point is 00:25:34 But if I'm honest with myself, part of the reason why I said to Bob, oh, you're so smart, maybe you can just make it a little bit better, Part of the reason why I didn't talk to him clearly was not only because I liked him and I cared about him and I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but also because Bob was a sensitive guy and everybody loved Bob. And so there was part of me that was afraid that if I told Bob in no uncertain terms
Starting point is 00:26:00 that his work wasn't nearly good enough that everyone would feel like I was a big, you know what? And so I think realizing that the part of me that's worried about my own reputation as a leader, that's the manipulative and sincerity part. And to me, getting over that is not so much a matter of courage as it is a matter of realizing that my goal is in service of this other person. I view it more as a selfless act rather than a courageous act. It strikes me though that you could get over your reputation management impulse and still
Starting point is 00:26:40 have it go poorly. Yes. Yes. and still have it go poorly. Yes, yes. And that's where I think you need the skills to practice learning how to know how to move up on the care personally dimension if the person is sad or mad or how to keep moving out on the challenge directly dimension if the person is just brushing you off. And I think it's a skill. It's not like a character attribute that we have or we don't have. I think it's a skill that we all need to build. That's why I recommend practicing with people. A lot of radical candor is about overcoming our social impulses,
Starting point is 00:27:19 which are often characterized by a really strong negativity bias. So I think in general when we learn things, we pay more attention to our mistakes than what we get right, but especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships, we do that. And my experience anyway is that when you try radical candor, nine times out of 10, it's going to go well. It's going to go better than you expect. But one time out of 10, as you say, you'll have kind of some form of a radical kind of train wreck. The person will be furious, the personal burst into tears, or the person just won't hear you. And so practicing what to do in those moments is important. But also trying to realize that nine times out of 10,
Starting point is 00:28:01 this is going to go better than you think. And so you may as well optimize for the thing that usually works instead of the mistake that happens one time out of 10. I've had to do many years of coaching to get better at this. But I found that being very explicit about the caring in my message to somebody, hey, I'm telling you this because this is an important
Starting point is 00:28:25 relationship to me has been extremely useful in terms of avoiding the one and 10 radical candor train wreck scenarios. Yes. And I think everybody has to express that differently, but expressing your intention to be helpful because you care about that person one way or another is hugely important. If you really feel that way, if you don't feel that way, then maybe you have some deeper work to do. But the vast majority of people actually, I find, do care about their colleagues. They do want to improve the relationship. And I think we don't spend enough time giving voice to that.
Starting point is 00:29:07 So I think that's a really important point is stating your intention to be helpful because you care about the person. Can I jump in on that? Because it's reminding me of a, and I've invoked to this person's name and her insight many times on the show, Alison Gopnik, child psychiatrist, has said
Starting point is 00:29:26 that we don't care for people because we love them. We love because we care. In other words, the labor of love, the caring generates the love. And I would imagine, because I've had times in listening in our brief friendship here of listening to you where I thought, wait, maybe I just don't care. You know, maybe that's the problem.
Starting point is 00:29:53 I'm just a monster. And yeah, I mean, maybe that part of that is true. But I have found that the going through the process of telling somebody something that I don't want to tell them, but actually it's very important for them to know and for me to have them know. And to state, I'm doing this because I care about the relationship, that labor actually creates some love, some care.
Starting point is 00:30:16 Yes, absolutely. I mean, when we work on something, we begin to love it. And when we work with someone, we usually begin to love them, especially if we're communicating well, we usually begin to love them, especially if we're communicating well and taking the time to remember that caring is going to help the work go better and also the relationship go better that doing that work. I also think
Starting point is 00:30:36 though, sometimes it's a catch 22, people feel like they need to wait until they've built a relationship with someone before they can either challenge directly, or should they care. So they kind of hang out and ruin a sympathy. And that's not where you actually build a good relationship. In fact, for me, the origin story of radical candor happened in the space of time. It took a light to change on the street of man,
Starting point is 00:30:59 having with a perfect stranger. I had just gotten this puppy, a golden retriever puppy, and I belved her. And I loved belved here so much that I had never said a crossword to her. And as a result, she was totally out of control. So I'm taking her for a walk and she jumps in in front of a speeding cab and I pull her out of the way just in the nick of time. And I'm standing on the street corner with my heart and my throat and this man, a perfect stranger, looks at me and he says, I can tell you really love that dog. And then he says, but you're going to kill that dog if you don't teach her to sit.
Starting point is 00:31:32 And then he points at the ground with this kind of harsh gesture and he says, sit, the dog sat. I had no idea she even knew it that meant. And I kind of looked up at him and amazement and he said to me, it's not mean, it's clear. And then the light changed and he walked off leaving me with words to live by. So I think that it's really important to remember that the seeds of troster actually zone.
Starting point is 00:31:58 And if you imagine you're having lunch with someone for the very first time and they have finished in their teeth, you know you're supposed to tell them. Even if you don't know them very well and it's a little bit more awkward than it would be if this person were a close friend. Okay, so skills, because I think most people I would imagine listening to the conversation thus far will be sold, but not whipping out to use your term is seems very important here. So how do we practice these skills?
Starting point is 00:32:26 There's a definite order of operations, serratical candor, and it all begins with soliciting feedback, not giving it. Don't dish it out before you prove you can take it. And often in our relationships, we have feedback debt. And when you have feedback debt in a relationship, in other words, someone else has been doing something that's been bothering you for a long time,
Starting point is 00:32:46 but you haven't taken the time to tell them. Pretty soon, that's all you can notice about this other person is this flaw. And so it's really important to take a step back to ask what you could do or stop doing that might make it easier to work with you. You're probably you're doing something annoying too. It's also important, I think one of the things that moves us very quickly into the obnoxious
Starting point is 00:33:11 aggression quadrant is the fundamental attribution error, where you assume the whole problem is some attribute of that other person. If you're asking for feedback, you're likely to begin to notice the situation from the other person's perspective. And then you're also able to reward the radical candor when you get it. And so ask for it. And then you want to give it, and you want to remember that radical candor is not just about criticism.
Starting point is 00:33:40 You want to focus on the good stuff. You want to take a moment, as we were talking about before, to give voice to the things you appreciate about the other person. This is also going to move you past that fundamental attribution error. And then, when you offer some criticism, you want to start gently. You want to start in kind of a neutral place. And then notice how the other person is responding. So you want to gauge how your feedback is landing,
Starting point is 00:34:05 and then you want to adjust how you're talking. And if the person is sad or mad, that's your cue to move up on the care. Personally, dimension, if the person is not hearing you, that's your cue to move out further than you're comfortable going on the challenge directly to mention. And I think those are kind of the sort of guardrails
Starting point is 00:34:26 of getting this right. And you want to remember that these conversations are conversations that should be happening on a weekly basis. This is not, you're not saving this up for a 101. And you're definitely not saving it up for a performance review. But you should be soliciting feedback every week.
Starting point is 00:34:43 You should be giving praise, you know, three or four or five or seven times a week. And you should be offering a little bit of criticism. And these are in front due to minute conversations. This is fast. And it's free. The only problem is it takes enormous emotional discipline to do it. And so that's why I recommend this order of operations. If you bake into your one-on-one meetings, a little bit of time to solicit feedback, and then you bake into your schedule,
Starting point is 00:35:14 a little bit of slack time in between meetings. So you have time to talk to people, whether you're in person or on Zoom, you wanna make sure you have a little bit of time in between your meetings, so that there is a moment to pull the person aside and chat with him. Question came to mind when you're talking about feedback debt. There are times where I have colleagues who I actually like, but a kind of feedback debt arises. It might be a colleague,
Starting point is 00:35:39 it might be a friend, a family member, but there's just something about their personal style that is annoying, that doesn't seem like a thing they can fix. So I do kind of let it go because what's the point in saying anything? This is a tricky one. I think in general, trying to let the little things go is really important. An important rule for any relationship is to leave three unimportant things on said every day. And so like I had a boss once who didn't like the fact that I didn't wear baggy Levi's.
Starting point is 00:36:13 And he thought it was legitimate feedback to tell me to buy tighter jeans. I did not feel that that was legitimate feedback. He had a gold chain. I didn't feel like it was legitimate. I didn't like his gold chain, but I didn't feel like it was legitimate. I didn't like his gold chain, but I didn't feel like it was legitimate feedback for me to tell him to stop wearing his gold chain, right? And so I think knowing when those things are not really your business and not important,
Starting point is 00:36:38 being able to let them go is important. And an intimate relationship. It's almost like a utilitarian view in my opinion. Is it going to be easier for you to get over it or is it going to be easier for the other person to change this thing if it's a small thing? And if it's really bugging you for whatever reason, even if it's irrational, just own your own feelings about the thing. But say, look, I can't help it. This bugs me. In a relationship, you can kind of ask someone else to move around your own neuroses. I think it'll work. You got to manage your own neuroses.
Starting point is 00:37:12 It's all hard. It's all hard. None of it is easy, but it's not that hard. It is hard, yes. But when you start putting this stuff into practice, you'll find that it's not as hard as you think because you'll get rewarded in your relationships and in your work. Much more of my conversation with Kim Scott right after this.
Starting point is 00:37:36 I'd like to get you to tell another story here because as I understand it, you've got some clear feedback after having published Radical Candor that led to you writing a whole new book. Can you tell that story, please? Yeah, absolutely. I had just given a Radical Candor workshop at a tech company in San Francisco. And the CEO of that company had been a colleague of mine for the better part of the decade, a woman who I really like and respect enormously, and one of two few black women in tech. And when I finished the presentation, she pulled me aside and she said, you know, Kim, I'm really excited to roll out radical candor on the team.
Starting point is 00:38:20 I think it's going to help me build the kind of culture that I want. But she said, I got gotta tell you, Kim, it's much harder for me to roll it out than it is for you. And she explained to me that as soon as she would offer even the most gentle, compassionate criticism, she would get signed with the angry black woman stereotype. And I knew this was true. As soon as she said it, I knew it was true.
Starting point is 00:38:42 And I had sort of three revelations at the same time. The first was that I had not been the kind of colleague, the kind of upstander, as I call it, in just work, that I wanted to be. I had failed to even notice the extent to which she had always for the better part of a decade showed up at every meeting I had ever been in with her unfailingly pleasant and cheerful and happy, and believe me, in that period of time, she had what to be ticked off about at work as we all do,
Starting point is 00:39:12 but she could never let it show. And so I had failed to be the kind of upstander for her that I wanted to be. The second thing I realized was that I had failed to recognize second thing I realized was that I had failed to recognize the kinds of things that had happened to me and also the kinds of things that I had done as a white woman in the workplace to either be harmed or cause harm. Tired for the author of Radical Candor to admit it, but I had been in denial about a huge part of my career. And last but not least, her words helped me understand that I had failed to be the kind of leader, also, often that I wanted to be, in which I could prevent nonsense
Starting point is 00:39:54 from making it impossible for people on my team to just work, to do their best work, and to be treated fairly. And it was that moment. I mean, it was probably my whole life that prompted me to write just work, but it was that moment where everything really crystallized for me. So what are some ways to either if you're in a leadership position, create an environment where people can feel safe to be radically candid, or if you're not in leadership, but you aren't in a position where you feel comfortable being radically candid, what do you do in either of those situations? I'll let you take whatever perspective you want first. It really good story comes from Alan Eustis, who was a engineering leader at Google and jumped out of a plane at some world record-breaking altitudes. Anyway, so he would stand up, Alan would stand up in front of his
Starting point is 00:40:49 team, a couple thousand people, and he would say, if you are underrepresented and you've experienced some form of workplace injustice, some form of bias, prejudice, bullying, and the last week, raise your hand, not ever in your career, but in the last week. 100% of the underrepresented people raised their hand. And then he would say, okay, everybody put your hand down. Now, if you have been unjust to someone, if you have been biased or prejudiced or if you bullied someone you work with
Starting point is 00:41:19 in the last week, raise your hand. Nobody raised their hand. And he said, there is the problem. We can't fix problems. We refuse to notice. So one of the things I tried to do in just work is to make it clear, what are the things we can do when we're the leader? What are the things that we can do when we are the person harmed? And as I told you in that story, I never wanted to think of myself as a victim. So it's hard, I think, for a lot of people to realize that they're being harmed, to even admit to themselves, so I don't know the others that they're being harmed.
Starting point is 00:41:51 But even less than wanting to think of myself as a victim, that I ever want to think of myself as a perpetrator. And yet, we all cause harm in the workplace. So it's really important to know what to do if you're the person who caused harm. And last but certainly not least, one of the most important reasons why I wrote just work is to honor the upstanders, the people who notice the injustice that's happening around them and who intervene in some way or other. So let's start with what can we do as leaders about sort of workplace injustice?
Starting point is 00:42:26 How could I, in particular, have created a better working environment than I did as a leader? So I think the first thing is to begin to break the problem down into its component parts. Right now when I say workplace injustice, probably a lot of people feel like, I don't even want to keep listening, it feels like such a big monolithic problem it's impossible to solve. And when you're facing a problem like that, it's always best to break it down into its component parts. Even though, of course, it's a little bit artificial, but bear with me. So bias, prejudice, and bullying are, I think, the root causes of these problems.
Starting point is 00:43:02 And I think it's really important to distinguish between the three, because I think too often we can flate them, and it's important to respond to each one differently. So bias, I'll define as not meaning, it's usually an unconscious stereotype, that we reject when we become aware of, but prejudice, sometimes people really do have beliefs, prejudice beliefs. And it's important to recognize that that happens sometimes too, and we have to respond differently. And other times, people have no beliefs at all. They're just bullying. They're just sort of meaning harm. And we have to respond very differently as leaders to all three.
Starting point is 00:43:41 So in the case of bias, one of the things that I recommend is to roll out bias disruptors on your team. So there are three parts to a bias disruptor. The first is to come up with a shared vocabulary. People often ask me what word should I use? And the answer is you should use the words that your team will actually say. So talk to your team and say,
Starting point is 00:44:03 what do you all want to say? We have to agree, but what do you want to say when you notice bias in a meeting? So my co-founder, Treeer Bryant, and I like to wave a purple flag. It's not a red flag, it's a friendly purple flag. So we say purple flag if we don't happen to have it. Other teams we've worked with have said things like come again. So if somebody says come again, that means they just notice something biased being said. One team that we work with that has kind of a cat theme, they meality each other. Okay, so it's got a quirky, but it works for them. So the important thing is that it works for your team.
Starting point is 00:44:39 So shared vocabulary. The next thing that is really important is to have a shared norm about how to respond when it's your bias who's been pointed out. So how can we respond when it's our bias? It's been pointed out. I feel like I think I'm not alone here. A lot of people feel ashamed when their bias is pointed out. And I mean, I can tell you physically in my body where I feel it. It's like, it's a tingling in the back of my knees. It's the same sensation if I'm standing too close to a precipice. And I think it's really important to begin to learn how to recognize that shame because
Starting point is 00:45:17 your lizard brain is in charge when you feel ashamed. You're a kind of in fight or flight or freeze response. So you almost know when response very well when they're ashamed. That's why the shared norm is really important to tell people how to move through that shame. So you get one of two responses when someone points out your bias. One is thank you for pointing it out.
Starting point is 00:45:39 I get it. I'm working on it. The other is thank you for pointing it out, but I don't get it. Can you explain it to me after the meeting? And that second one is even more difficult because, at least for me, when I realize that I've sad or done something that's biased, but I don't quite know what exactly I did wrong. Now not only do I feel ashamed because I've harmed someone, I feel ashamed at my own ignorance.
Starting point is 00:46:04 And so letting people know that we're all in these situations from time to time, and here's what you can say to move through that shame is really important. And then the third part of the bias disruptors is a shared commitment, because I promise you that in every meeting, in every company, every day, at least one or two or three bias things get said. And so if you get to the end of the meeting and you haven't flagged any bias, then that means either nobody noticed
Starting point is 00:46:32 or nobody had, as you say, the courage, nobody knew how to speak up. And so that's why that shared commitment is important. So that's one simple tactical thing that any leader can roll out today on their team. You don't have to wait till tomorrow. Sit down, talk to them, and then encourage this to, don't just encourage, but insist that this continue to happen. So that's biased, but what do you do about prejudice? What do you do when someone says or does something that harms others on your team,
Starting point is 00:47:03 but that reflects a conscious belief. I think here you need to write a code of conduct for your team that explains to everyone where the line is between one person's freedom to believe whatever they want, but they are forbidden from saying or doing whatever they want. They cannot impose that freedom, that belief,
Starting point is 00:47:25 on others on the team. And there's no absolute definition of, I mean, I have strong opinions about where that line is for teams that I work with, but you wanna make it explicit and clear to people. And then that helps people to respond to prejudice when they notice it with something like it is an HR violation to say or do that.
Starting point is 00:47:48 It is illegal to say or do that. And, unless but not least, bullying. It's so important that leaders create consequences for bullying because the thing about bullying is that it works for the bully. And it harms the whole team. It harms the team's ability to collaborate. And so you really want to make sure that you're creating conversational consequences for bullying.
Starting point is 00:48:13 You're learning how to shut it down in the moment. You're also creating compensation consequences for bullying, too often people who achieve results by harming others get good performance reviews and therefore good bonuses. And you want to make sure that there are really strong career consequences for bullying. The last thing you want to do is promote someone who indulges in bullying to manager or something like that. And at Lassian does a really good job, the software company does a really good job of this where they explicitly don't promote the quote, unquote, brilliant jerk. And so you want to as a leader optimize for collaboration over coercion. And that means shutting down
Starting point is 00:48:58 bullying. So those are some things that leaders can do to address the root causes of workplace injustice. So those are the leaders. That's one perspective. Another perspective would be from, and we're all, many of us are many of these have many of these perspectives. Yes, sometimes all at the same time. Yes. Confusingly. Another perspective would be the person who does something, you know, who calls those harm. Yeah, who does something unskiltful.
Starting point is 00:49:29 What's your advice for those people? I don't want to say those people like they're somebody other than me. Yeah, like for us when we are the ones who cause harm, because I certainly have been a person who calls harm, more times than I ever intended to be. I think the key thing there is to listen and address, listen and address. And a big part of that is being able to move through shame. And also, if you're the person who is harmed, it's very useful to try to assume good intent. But if you're getting some feedback that you caused harm, don't jump up and down in
Starting point is 00:50:05 yellow and scream. I didn't mean to. That's not. It's like imagine that you're stepping accidentally, stepping on someone's foot. If they told you, hey, you're stepping on my foot, you would just say, I'm sorry, and you would get off their foot. You wouldn't say, I didn't mean to step on your foot, meanwhile, continuing to jump up and down harder on it.
Starting point is 00:50:22 But I think very often when people get some feedback that they've caused harm, they do the sort of equivalent of continuing to step on the foot and a start that they didn't mean to. And so I think it's really important to learn how to apologize, to listen and then to address, to make it right. So that's the people who are causing harm.
Starting point is 00:50:43 Now what about upstanders and also people who are harmed? How can we respond when we're in that role to bias prejudice and bullying? For me, if it is bias, an eye statement is really helpful. An eye statement invites someone in to understand the situation from your perspective. So for example, a friend of mine, Alene Lee, who started Cowboy VC, told me a story about a time
Starting point is 00:51:10 when she went into a meeting with two colleagues, both of whom were men, and they were trying to win a deal. And Alene had the skills that were gonna win her team the deal. And the other side filed in, and the first person sat across from the guy to Alene's left, the next person the first person sat across from the guy to Aline's left, the next person filed in and sat across from the guy to his left, and then they filed on down the table, leaving Aline dangling by herself.
Starting point is 00:51:34 Often just the way we sit reflects sort of unconscious bias. And Aline started talking, and somebody from the other side had a question, but they directed it at her to male colleagues. Somebody else had another question, again, addressing it to the men on her team. And then the third time it happened, one of the guys, Aline, was with, stood up and he said, I think Aline and I should switch seats.
Starting point is 00:51:59 That was all he had to do to totally change the dynamic in the room. And there's three important things here. One is that it was much easier for him to use that eye statement than it was for Alene. It's just more efficient for an upstander to do it. Somehow it was easier for those other guys to hear it from him than it would have been to hear it from her. Two, he did it because he cared about Alene and he didn't like seeing her being treated
Starting point is 00:52:23 unfairly. He didn't like to see her expertise being dismissed. And then three, he just wanted to win the deal. And he knew that if he couldn't get the other side to listen to alien's expertise, then they weren't going to win the deal. So there's sort of a practical side, an efficiency side, a gain side, and also a justice side to his decision to use that eye statement. And it is, you know, it's hard to know what I call this part of the book, but what to
Starting point is 00:52:51 say when you don't know what to say, because it's really hard to know. So I would encourage people to just say the word I and then see what comes out of your mouth next as my great-grandmother said, say something, you can always take it back. So just start. Sometimes it's about momentum, it's about just overcoming the inertia. Now, if it's prejudice, then you need an it statement, not an eye statement, because if it's prejudice inviting the other person to see things from your perspective is just going to result in an argument. And there's a time and a place for those arguments, but usually you want to move more quickly than that.
Starting point is 00:53:30 You don't want to argue with someone's prejudice. So for example, Chair Bryant, who co-founded, just to work with me, tells a story about being in a hiring meeting. And the best candidate, by far the most qualified candidate, everyone agreed was a black woman who'd worn her hair out naturally. And when they got to the hiring meeting, the hiring manager said, well, we can't extend her an offer. And for years, why can't we extend an offer to the person everyone agrees is most qualified
Starting point is 00:54:02 for the job. And the hiring manager said, well, we can't put that hair in front of the business. So here at this point, what would an it statement look like? It is illegal, which it is in 11 states, including the one where they were working, not to hire someone because of their hair, the Crown Act, or it is an HR violation, which it was, that company, not to hire the most qualified candidate because of their hair, the Crown Act, or it is an HR violation, which it was at that company, not
Starting point is 00:54:26 to hire the most qualified candidate because of their hair. Or finally, if you don't have the law or HR on your side, it is ridiculous not to hire the most qualified candidate because of their hair, sort of common human sense. And so that is an it statement. That's what to do when you're encountering prejudice. So if you don't know what to say and you think it's prejudiced, say the word it and see what comes out of your mouth next.
Starting point is 00:54:52 Now what do you do when there's no belief conscious or unconscious at all going on? When the person's just acting like a jerk, this is where a you statement is really useful. So you can't talk to me like that, or if that feels like it might escalate things too much, what's going on for you here, or even just change the subject? Where'd you get that shirt?
Starting point is 00:55:14 The point is you're now asking the person to answer your question, so you're not in a defensive pose. You're sort of in a stronger stance. I learned this actually from my daughter. She was in third grade, and she was getting bullied in school. And I was advising her as adults often do to kids to use an eye statement.
Starting point is 00:55:31 Tell this kid, I feel sad when you blubber, and she banged her fist on the table. She said, mom, they're trying to make me sad. Why would I tell them they succeeded? And I thought, you know, that's a really good point. And so you don't want to invite someone who's bullying you closer, I mean, unless you're boxing with them, I think, but you're not. You want to push them away is what you want to do.
Starting point is 00:55:56 Those strategies all sound really smart and actionable, but I want to go back to the moment where somebody points out that you've done something that fits in one of these categories. Yeah. You use the word shame. I think that will be immediately recognizable by the vast majority of listeners. And you said it's important to move through the shame, but that is easier said than done in my experience having experienced plenty of shame. Yes. It is much easier said than done. Brunei Brown has a great podcast on this about how to move through shame, especially if
Starting point is 00:56:37 it's unconscious bias. You want to learn just to say thank you for pointing it out. And then if you're not sure what you did wrong, you want to buy yourself a little bit of time, say can you explain it to me after the meeting? Don't put all the educational burden on the person who pointed out, especially if that person is the one who you just harmed.
Starting point is 00:57:00 I'm gonna go look it up. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna try to, I don't understand it, but I'm gonna educate myself. And then I'm gonna to go look it up. I'm going to go, I'm going to try to, I don't understand it, but I'm going to educate myself and then I'm going to fix this problem. Then you got to go educate yourself. If you're lucky and you have someone in your life who's a bias buster, you can call that person up and they'll explain to you what you did wrong. If you don't have a bias buster in your life, most things you can Google and you'll figure it out pretty pretty quickly.
Starting point is 00:57:25 So, I'll give you a specific example. The other day, I was recording a podcast and I said something about something being grandfathered in. And the person waved a purple flag and dropped a link into the chat explaining that the phrase to grandfather something in comes from Jim Crow laws. So that's not a phrase I'm going to use again, although I may use it again. Sometimes changing these habits is hard.
Starting point is 00:57:55 And the next time I use it, I'm going to be even more deeply ashamed because she already pointed it out. And so I think it's really important to learn how to be sort of patient with ourselves, but also persistent, to keep flagging this until we've changed habits. These are patterns. These are unconscious patterns. And we're not the helpless victims. We can change those patterns, but it takes patients
Starting point is 00:58:22 and persistence. Now, if it is prejudice, it's a little bit harder, just because someone points out prejudice to me. I may actually have a deep-seated belief. So figuring out how to remain open-minded, how to routinely question your own beliefs is really important. I think very often we act on things that we learned in some fifth grade class that we haven't even we're
Starting point is 00:58:53 not even aware that we have these beliefs. So becoming more aware of your deep-seated beliefs and assumptions, it will definitely make you 10 percent. It'll make you 100 percent more uncomfortable in the short term, but it'll make you 10%, it'll make you 100% more uncomfortable in the short term, but it'll make you 10% happier in the long run because denial is really a great source of unhappiness. And when you become more aware of who you are, at least it's my belief that you do become happier and more yourself. I agree. The other perspective that we should talk about here is your suggested strategies
Starting point is 00:59:27 for somebody who's the aggrieved party and how do you communicate what's happening without ruining your career because when you trigger shame for people, they don't like it. Yes, it's risky. It's very, very risky. Most of the time, it's less risky than we think it is, however. So one of the things that I recommend people who are harmed by some form of workplace injustice is to choose your response. I don't want to rob people of silence, but I do want to change the default to silence. There are times when it is really in your best interest to remain silent. However, in the course of my career,
Starting point is 01:00:09 I think I defaulted to silence far too often. And as a result, over time, I was beginning to feel a loss of agency. And so one of the things that I recommend to people is that they try to become as aware of the costs of silence as the benefits of silence. And also try to become as aware of the benefits of speaking up as they are of the benefits of silence.
Starting point is 01:00:37 And more often than not, there are times where it feels risky to speak up, but when you really think about it, the risk is not as great as you think and the reward is enormous. So that's sort of my abstract advice. Now how you put that into practice in day-to-day situations is another matter. Any thoughts about that matter? One of the things that happens to me very often is that someone will say something to me. And I have no idea is it bias, is it prejudice, is it bullying? And so I don't know what to say.
Starting point is 01:01:17 And one of the things I've tried to do is to say I'm gonna make my best guess and then I'm gonna change. So for, depending on how the other person responds. So for example, I was just about to walk on stage to give a talk. I was at a venture capital conference, mostly men, like 90% men at this conference. And this, one of the venture capital companies, LPs, comes charging up to me. And he says, where can I get a safety pin?
Starting point is 01:01:46 Is he lost a button on his shirt? And he clearly thinks I am one of the people who are staffing the conference. And I didn't know like was this unconscious bias? Had he just made an unconscious assumption? So maybe I'll say to him, I'm actually just about to go on stage and give a talk. I can't find you a safety.
Starting point is 01:02:08 The people who are staffing are wearing these yellow t-shirts and they're also 30 years younger than I am. But anyway, so I could have said that and he might have responded with, oh, I'm sorry, or he might have responded with, oh, you're the radical candor lady. I don't believe in that soft feminine leadership BS. He could have had an actual conscious prejudice, or he might have just been acting like a jerk and he could have said, ah, don't get your panties in a wad, behave like a bully. Unlikely that the second two things would happen, but believe me, those kinds of things have happened to me more than once. So it's certainly not impossible. And if the second two things happen,
Starting point is 01:02:49 then I'm going to go on stage boiling mad. And it's going to trip me up. And so I say nothing. But now all of a sudden, I am not walking the radical candor walk when I say nothing. And so then I feel bad about myself. And I'm also in this situation, I'm not only a person who is harmed, I'm also a leader, I'm a speaker. And by just kind of brushing him off, I'm not being fair to the people who are staffing the conference,
Starting point is 01:03:17 because now he's gonna go ding there, didn't get very good service. And so I felt bad that I didn't respond. So I wish I had responded and taken the risk. I could have afforded to, like, if I messed up the talk who cares really. So I felt bad about it. You know, and I kept bugging me. I write about this in the book. So that's an example of, again, stories, it's all about stories. Tell yourself the stories about the times you didn't speak up that you could have that you wish you had.
Starting point is 01:03:48 The sounds like if you're the person who's been harmed, you need to do a pretty complex calculus to decide when and if and how you speak up. Yeah, and that's why I offer these short definitions. Do I think it's bias or prejudice or bullying? If I think it's prejudice, I'm gonna say it and then see what comes out of my mouth next. If I think it's biased, I'm going to say I and see what comes out of my mouth next.
Starting point is 01:04:13 If I think it's bullying, I'm going to say you and see what comes out of my mouth next. And then I'm going to notice how the other person responds. I've talked to a bunch of people. One friend of mine said, this is really helpful. I always default to responding as though it's bullying. And I escalate too quickly, because very often it's unconscious bias. I always respond, well, not always,
Starting point is 01:04:36 but it's my default to respond as though it's bias. And I think it's important to acknowledge that's probably a matter of privilege. Nobody could possibly have any negative beliefs, you know. And so sometimes I don't notice when someone's just actually acting like a jerk. I just assume they couldn't possibly intend to behave that way. And that has hurt me as well. So being able to respond with a way that seems most comfortable to you,
Starting point is 01:05:06 but then be aware about how the other person is responding to your response and adjust accordingly. You don't have to get it right. Like taking the pressure off to have the perfect response is huge. I like that a lot. I'm going to ask two questions and closing here that I like to ask at the day new month of an episode. One is, is there something I should have asked but didn't? What happens after bias prejudice and bullying?
Starting point is 01:05:34 So I will answer it. Now I will answer it. You don't need me. When you layer power on top of bias prejudice and bullying, things get much worse. You get discrimination, you get harassment, and you get physical violations. And there's a lot to be said about each of those three things, and also the dynamic. Sometimes that can lead all the way from bias to violence in a heartbeat. But I think the shortest possible, and the most important possible response to those things is,
Starting point is 01:06:09 you need checks and balances. Just like we need checks and balances in our government, we need checks and balances in our organizational structures, and then our governments. Second question is, can you please plug the crap out of everything you're putting out into the world, your books, courses, whatever? Thank you for that question. Yes, just work together.com is our website at just workbook is our Twitter handle. I'm at Kimball Scott. and RadicalCander is RadicalCander.com or at Candor on Twitter. We're happy to come do talks and workshops for your teams. Or, you know, if you want to just do a book club,
Starting point is 01:06:54 happy to do a Q&A. So thrilled for more readers, thrilled to help people put these ideas in a practice. Kim, thank you very much. Thank you. Before we head out, let me just again mention the free work life challenge, which will teach you how to navigate your life at work without losing your mind, or at least without losing your mind. So frequently, the challenge starts Monday, November 8th,
Starting point is 01:07:16 over on the 10% happier app, download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps to join for free right now. Thanks again to Kim Scott. It's great to talk to her. This show is made by Samuel Johns, Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Cashmere, Justine Davy, Kim Baikamma, Maria Wartell, and Jen Poyant with audio engineering from Ultraviolet Audio. We'll see you all on Friday for a special episode.
Starting point is 01:07:40 We're not doing a bonus guided meditation this Friday. We're actually doing a full episode with the great Laurie Santos, Dr. Laurie Santos, Professor from Yale, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. She's got all of these research-backed tips and tricks for navigating your work life more happily and successfully. Laurie's great, so I look forward to chatting with her on Friday. Lorie's great, so I look forward to chatting with her on Friday. Hey, hey Prime members, you can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with
Starting point is 01:08:20 Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.

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