Solving the Challenges we face – Exploring Radical Candour
What to do if you struggle giving feedback in your team – how do you deliver tough messages, whilst also wanting to be kind.
Ever thought of employing Radical Candor – showing someone that you Care Personally whilst being able to Challenge Directly? Without being aggressive or insincere.
The way we communicate at work has changed. What employees of all seniorities expect now has evolved rapidly in the last 20 years.
Radical Candor really just means saying what you think while also giving a damn about the person you’re saying it to. Authored by Kim Scott in 2017, her theory has caught on. Scott divides the way we approach people into 4 quartiles:
Obnoxious aggression: You are direct, but you don’t care about the person. It’s a waste of your breath, the receiver of your obnoxious aggression automatically goes into fight or flight mode, shutting off the person’s ability to listen to the information. You are literally wasting both your time.
Manipulative Incenserity: You do not care about the person, or challenge directly. If Obnoxious aggression is front stabbing, Manipulative Incenserity is backstabbing. It is a passive aggressive style and considered the most toxic type of behavior a workplace can experience.
Ruinous Empathy: Failing to tell someone something that will eventually ruin them in order to avoid hurting their feelings. Though it may not sound as bad as the others, it can be just as harmful to the receiver. Imagine if you let someone give a keynote speech with their flies undone or skirt tucked into their pants, but were too embarrassed or scared to tell them. It is far worse. That’s ruinous empathy.
Radical Candor: Challenge people with whom you agree with, makes it easier to care. Complement in addition to offering comments on a person’s work or performance. Solicit feedback. Finally, gauge how your feedback is landing. Radical Candour is measured not in the speaker’s mouth, but in the listener’s ear. However well you think you deliver your feedback, if it is not received well, you might need to change your methods.
‘Unchallenged beliefs become prejudices’
