A Framework for Communicating Hard News (That Actually Works) 7 | 31

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save up to 40% your first year visit lifelock.com slash podcast for 40% off terms apply Hello, I am Amy Sandler. I am so excited to welcome you all to today's live conversation. with Farah Mitra. Farah is an executive coach, a radical candor coach, and creator of the Communicating Change Framework, which we're going to be diving into today.

how to communicate hard news in a way that's honest, that's human, and actually helpful. Whether it's layoffs and restructuring, whether it's performance conversations, big strategic shifts. Farah's work is all about making sure that we don't cause additional harm when change is inevitable. Specializing in leadership, communications, and people strategy, Farah brings over 15 years of experience as a Bain strategy consultant, also a people and culture.

executive at Hyper Growth Tech Companies and has clients that span the C-suite at Fortune 50 companies to small startups and nonprofits across a variety of industries. I think most important, Farah totally gets it. She's been a leader, an HR leader in hyper-growth change environments.

And I think one of the things that I love most is that she is laser focused on balancing results with pragmatism. But I say this as someone who's gotten to know Farah well these past few years because Farah is one of our radical candor coaches. She's a communication expert. She's led over 200 Radical Candor workshops. Most of all, she's someone I consider a friend and a friend with a lot of wisdom that I know that you're going to really enjoy this conversation. Welcome, Farah.

thank you so much amy thank you so much Yes. Well, I'm so excited, not only just to spend time with you, I always enjoy it, but you have developed a framework that I think is so helpful and actionable for people, something that they really struggle with, which is how do you... Communicate Change. So please tell us, where did this come from? Where did the idea for the Communicating Change Framework begin? Yeah. So Amy, you would think I would give you a big corporate story, but honestly...

This stems from two moments in my life. The first one was when we had our daughter. So in California, when you are over a certain age and having a baby, they do ask you to get some genetic testing to make sure everything's okay.

and so we're going into the appointment we are actually quite anxious about the whole thing we sit down amy i can remember the room i remember the chairs we were sitting in i remember the view out the window and the genetic counselor is like ready to deliver her news and she says to me, you have a one in 290 chance of your daughter having a very severe birth defect.

which is totally normal for your age and a 0.3% probability of happening. I could not tell you, Amy, like my husbands and I, like our hearts fell through the floor. Like I can feel that feeling of anxiety and that news that felt so terrible. But if she had just switched that around, like this is totally normal for your age. This is a 0.3% probability that happens to be a one in 290 chance. Everything would have been different. So in my mind.

Not only was that a bad communication, but it's one that has stuck with me for years. On the flip side, my husband, Monty, he had a surprise open heart surgery. And it was a day before our wedding contract, before we signed the wedding contract. And Stanford Hospital called us in and they gave us the news. And you would think that it was so stressful. You would think like, you're about to get married, you're very young, you're having this open heart surgery. And it wasn't.

delivered this with so much care amy they knew we had a wedding they recognized we had a wedding like talk about care personally in the language of radical candor they knew that they empathize that this might be hard for us and they were

crystal clear there was no wishy-washy maybe you do maybe you don't there's no anxiety there was no uncertainty they were clear on the why the context of what we had to do So it's really interesting to me that while that should have been incredibly stressful, it wasn't because they did a really good job. And I think the difference for me between these two examples.

It's exactly why I care about communicating these big, hard things. I've been in hyper change and hyper growth environments and high performance environments. And if you're trying to be in a high performance environment, often.

Even in tech where you're trying to create something that's never been created before, things are going to change on the weekly basis. I think that combined with these experiences I've had at work with a lot of change has just made communicating change so darn important to me. Yeah. First of all, thank you so much for sharing about those really vulnerable and impactful moments. I think we can all relate from our own sort of whatever our examples of change. So if you were to say, you know.

What would it have looked like for that practitioner to have embodied? both radical candor care personally and challenged directly and communicating change, what would you have wanted them to do? I think I would have wanted them to keep the care personally short because I don't like I'm waiting on the news. I think they would say.

Hey, I know this can be anxiety producing for people. And I just want you to know like your tests are normal, right? There is a 0.3% probability that your daughter could have this birth defect. It's actually very normal for your age.

And they could have said or not said the one in 290, right? Because I think what matters is that it was exceptionally small. So I think it's like flipping the script. And I think a lot of times in corporate stuff as well, people are always like, I can't do this thing or I'm so sorry we're doing this versus like, here's what I can do. Here's what it will look like.

The message can be the same, but like you said, how you emphasize or your framing of something, it's not changing the message. It's just making the message land differently in a person's body. Well, I just heard you say like how it lands in the body. And obviously both of those were really, you know, you can still feel, I can hear and see that you can actually still feel what it was like to sit in both of those waiting rooms, actually the physical differences.

your body. We're going to get into your communicating change framework in a moment. So before we dig into it, first of all, what is it? Can you explain just at a high level and then we'll get into more details? Yeah. So the framework has, the communicating change framework has a few goals. The first one, which I think people don't talk about a lot, is I really want to give leaders more comfort and confidence. Because I think what you typically get is just a bunch of facts.

then you get to go out and communicate that. So having that comfort and confidence, especially when you care deeply about your people is super important. Second, I want companies to have forward momentum. There is a reason why you're making a change. You're trying to get to somewhere new.

so that change is important it is thought through it is made and i want to help companies gain that form momentum and then amy i'm not i know you won't be surprised but the thing that's very near and dear to my heart is how to give employees an exceptional or a more positive experience. It might be tricky, but how can we get them the most positive experience possible?

right so you know through some layoffs you'll see people complaining on linkedin but this company treated me with so much integrity and so much respect and i wish them well right and so i can't change the hard But my hope through this is to change the experience of the heart.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and I mean, so aligned with radical candor, you know, in the, obviously in the book, Kim Scott talks about how, when she had to fire someone, how they actually stayed connected and, you know, it ended up being a really trust. building experience between those people. And it feels very aligned with what you're talking about. You mentioned about comfort and confidence, and you might be given facts, but not much else.

Why do you think this is something that we are just, why is this not a skill that we have been, you know, practiced in? Like, why are we all coming from such a deficit with this, do you think? I think a couple things. One. We're just always focused on the business, right? I think radical candor is bringing humanity to business and personal, right? There are these other things you can do, but this is my sense. My sense is...

A lot of this is in empathy and a lot of this is in clarity, right? When you have a big major business decision and you need to get it right, it can be hard to put empathy in there. It can be hard to put the skill in there because...

at the end of the day you don't want to screw it up so if you stick to the objective and not the subjective you have maybe a higher chance of getting it right in people's head right like if i stay right to that technical message and there's nothing i add to it then i can land it

But as soon as I add in this objective, my sense is it feels riskier or leaders don't know how to put it in. They don't know what they can say, what they can't say. So they leave it out. But Amy, the reality is like this is a skill. just like radical candor this is a skill so for example you can't say i'm sorry we're letting you go right that makes it sound like a mistake that's probably not a good business practice but i think you can say something like

I know this is hard for you. I know this is a hard experience. That's empathy. That's not going to mess with what you're trying to accomplish. In fact, I think it's going to help people to process that decision and move on and be supporters going forward. I think it is a skill. I think we get scared of how to put that human element into business. And I think people's focus might be elsewhere. I think we're just laser focused on.

getting to the next thing. I'm curious what you think about that. Yeah, I really see that. I also, you know, I was leading a radical candor workshop a couple of weeks ago and someone said, when they were introducing me, how it's actually in the practicing of radical candor that we get more confidence doing it. Very often we think like, oh, let me just get a little more confidence. And then once I get enough confidence and enough courage, then I'll start doing it.

And in fact, it's sort of the other way around. And it's actually through the practice. This is very similar. The other thing that you're naming is that I have found when people... You know, we have this antipathy towards uncertainty and change. We're wired that way, of course, right, as human beings. So we have to outcreate that. And one of the things that I think you've done so well from your background as a process expert.

is you've created a process that gives kind of a scaffolding to support the more emotional, empathy-based conversation. And I think it's having a structure that people can kind of hang on to gives them maybe. some of that comfort and confidence that they might not have. Yeah. I mean, plus 1,000, right? At the end of the day, in my coaching or in this style of coaching, the goal is to systematically know how to do something, right?

and the nice thing is we have a system and we have empathy and we have clarity baked into the system right and i think the goal is how do you help people have that process and we do that through the coaching but then frankly they get to walk away with something that they know how to replicate for themselves that they feel more comfortable doing that they've seen in the wild doing right and the coaching helps them get there

Great. So you do this as a coaching process, but walk us through, let's say I'm just starting with you. You're my coach leading me through a difficult change process. Like what would the process look like? Yeah. So there's two pieces to it. First, I'll give you. the four pieces of the framework, and then we can get into how you execute it. So in the framework, there are four steps. So the nice thing is it's always four steps and there is a client template that will help you think this through.

So step one is you got to get the facts right. Step two is to check in with yourself and check in with your mindset. Because Amy...

Your people are smart and however you feel is going to show through. Your emotions will always speak louder than your words in a situation like this. So if you are frustrated, you are dreading it, you feel guilty, people will know. So you've got to check in with your mindset. We've got to make that shift.

And then step three, you've checked in with yourself. You've got to think about the other person. You've got to check in and think about what's going on for that person. And I'll give you a tip in a little while around thinking about what do you want them to feel and say afterwards. And then the last step is you've got to have a plan. You have to have a plan that doesn't just hit that one moment. You're not done, right? You've got to support people in that moment, the moment after that.

in the moment after that so that's often short changed but it's get the facts right check in with your mindset get in the right headspace check in with how other people might be feeling what they need and then make a plan those are the four steps in the process. And you kind of have them go through these steps themselves in a template before they do the coaching. Is that the sort of order of operations? I'd say leaders spend, it's going to sound kind of shocking, but leaders spend.

10 to 15 minutes in the template and ask them some good questions we go into a coaching session together so they're prepared i can be leveraged i can read that in advance

We go into a coaching session together, and I will tell you, Amy, we spend the majority, and we can dig into this more, but we spend the majority of their time on their mindset, again, because if they're frustrated.

They're going to come across as frustrated. If they feel guilty, it's going to be guilt and wishy washy. So we spend a lot of time coaching on the mindset. We go through the four steps, but that's probably where we spend the majority of our time. Once we've unlocked the mindset, we're really.

together coming up with phrasing like effective phrasing that not just will work but frankly like feels authentic to them and feels comfortable to them right the companies that do this are high performers so you have really smart people They're like, okay, got it. I'm not frustrated anymore. I want to be supportive. And they're generally off to the races. So as wild as it sounds, it's usually like 10 to 15 minutes of pre-work.

30 minutes together and then they go off and make it happen. I've been surprised that it's usually a one-shot conversation that's 30 minutes. Well, I think people will be very happy to hear that because, you know, we're all so busy. And I think very often when people think about things, especially around

sort of emotions and communication and mindset. We think this is, you know, a 20 year therapy project, which I'm also a fan of, of course, but like we gotta, we gotta keep moving. And so you talked about, you know, that step to checking in with your own mindset. whether it's guilt or dread, I'd love to hear some examples and maybe some folks that you've worked with where there was a shift. And from your own perspective, like what was it that enabled that shift in mindset? Yeah. So.

remember step one, get the facts, but step two goes right to you and your mindset. So in step two, the idea is no matter how good an actor or actress you are, it's going to come through how you feel. So the goal is to figure that out with that person. So I'll give you an example and then we can talk about how you could get to a coaching session. So in this example, I worked with somebody who lost a significant portion of their team.

felt terrible because they realized they could no longer service other functions like they didn't have enough people or bandwidth to do that anymore and the conversation was how do I go tell this other leader who's my peer that I'm kind of not going to be able to help as much anymore.

And so when I asked them about their mindset, Amy was like terrible. I feel like my, like my entire credibility will be lost. My funk, like my whole function will be seen as like a little bit worthless, like pretty doom and gloom. And the communication they wrote out was doom and gloom. The phrases were, I'm so sorry. I lost all my people. I can't help. And remember, these are exceptionally smart people.

that's how the person felt so that's how they were going into it right and then we did the coaching we're like well let's let's think about more what mindset you want to be in which like well what i want to be is a more strategic partner to this person and i'm realizing like one

this is a business decision. Two, this is actually quite temporary. They realize like this is temporary, like things are going to go back to a different status quo. And three, I can still help. I have people that can still be helpful, right? and so when we created that communication together amy it was much more positive it was more partner oriented that question was or that discussion sorry went a little bit more like hey as you know we've all lost people

I still want to be a strategic partner to you. Let's sit down and let's talk about your priorities and figure out what we can get you. And for the things we can't, let's figure out a plan for those things.

that's a much more partnership oriented door is open, not closed. There's a place to go. Actually, when we came out of that conversation, she was like, this person, this person was like, wow, actually.

I am not worthless I'm actually a pretty strategic leader I'm actually being quite helpful here in a hard situation to come forward quite positively so like I said one of the really amazing things is you see people come out feeling confident you see them feeling like oh i get it like i get how to do this and there's some mindset matters and like you get to have an impact on the person on the other end we just talked about more of a corporate function

But there's also examples with performance review ratings and cop decisions and other hard things where you really get to have an impact on the person as well. At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care about your success, like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve.

You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program. Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. As you describe that coaching conversation and the sort of light bulb there, My experience is that very often these mindset shifts are because of...

a kind of embedded identity that we have. So I'm imagining this person that he identified as someone, I'm a leader, I take care of my team. If I've lost people, I've failed and that there's a larger identity issue. So it's sort of about my own identity.

my own kind of needing to process that, right? And so part of what I hear is happening in the self-reflection through the kind of question process you have them go through. And then the coaching is... i first need to actually acknowledge like there's there's this piece that happened and in the communication

Let me now anchor more towards where I want to go. So I need to kind of acknowledge that this happened for myself, but as I'm communicating, I can communicate from almost a different level of identity. A hundred percent. And Amy, I will tell you when it. Actually, this happens in all different situations. Sometimes someone will start this call with just a cry. They just have to get out how hard it is. And so one of the things that I think they appreciate is that this is an external.

like safe space to do that it's not i have to cry with my hr person like there's nothing wrong with that but sometimes you can like hold back or feel bad if it's someone internally so there's a safer space but to your point sometimes people cry like they just need a space like you said to mourn or to grieve and they just need some good questions to help them see it differently right so for me it's like the question i ask is

first I just ask what's the worst thing about this whole thing for you like what just like you said like mourn it, grieve it, get it out and then I make it more tangible which is what's the mindset you're in? Like, give me the phrase backstabber. Like I'm the one who hired this person. Now I'm a backstabber. I feel terrible. I feel frustrated. And then the magic question is,

Well, how do you think that's going to land for someone if you come from frustrated? Or how do you think it's going to land for someone? Usually it's like sad or guilty or terrible. Oh gosh, I'm going to be wishy-washy. And to your point. I say, well, where do you want to come from? Like, oh, I want to be, I just talked to someone the other day, they said, I want to be supportive, caring, and fair. Okay, if you came from supporting, caring, and fair, what could you say?

That's authentic. And it's like if you think about the radical candor language that we use all the time, what I'm really trying to do is not just shift the mindset, but I'm helping them go from nice to kind. Because we can't change the situation. I cannot change if you're getting a performance review rating that you don't like or lay off or that can't change. But we can change that experience for that person.

Again, I'm being a broken record by helping it land, right? And that's the like going from nice can be confusing or nice can be hard and kind. Like, oh, I can come out and say, well, that sucked, but thank you. Like, you're right. I get it. You don't have to like it, but you can feel good about how that landed in your life. Yeah. And with that, how that lands, you know, even when people share stories of when they receive radical candor.

It's not going to necessarily feel great in that moment, right? It's sort of, yeah, this sucks. We agree with that. And yet, you know, that is an act of compassion that they were as clear as they could have been. I wanted to go back when you talked about the four steps and the first one was around the facts. And sometimes it can be actually hard to get them. And so I can imagine there are certain communications that need to happen where it's not.

crystal clear? Are we virtual? What's happening there? You know, all of these different changes, tariffs are up and down. And so how have you found when actually the facts are not crystal clear for folks? How do you kind of adapt or flex your framework with that? Yeah. So one, the good news is the template kind of makes you think it through. So the template will ask you the who, what, when, where, and I. Two.

I think part of it, when you say adapt to me, it's like more coaching. So I'll give you an example. I had someone who had to terminate someone's employment and in their get the facts right box and the template. They said both that the role was being eliminated and that the person wasn't performing. You've got to know which one you're communicating, right?

performing gives someone a certain message knows that they didn't do well that gives them maybe a place to grow and learn from ending the employment because you're eliminating the role is very different like okay well that's they're different And what this person was doing was actually putting both in the communication. And that was wildly confusing. We have to really get to like, we got to pick a lane. We got to be really clear on which one it is. So I think.

the role again in the coaching can be to help clarify or to help point that out because if they wrote it in the template they didn't actually choose a lane right they actually had both so What were you going to say? Part of that to me. Oh, no. What was sparking for me was my previous roles were in communication. I ran communications, executive communications at UCLA years ago and just had other roles. And what I have found in being a communications leader. is that...

you often have to winnow through a variety of different perspectives and messages from different parts of the organization. Because finally, you're the one that actually has to put it out there. And so when something is not clear, it becomes clear as the communications person that it's not. Yeah. It also becomes, if you don't get that clarity and it goes out into the world, that is just a hot mess and that's traumatizing. And then, but that's trust breaking. Yeah.

Because then you're starting to pick a lane and figure out what it is and isn't. And you have to clarify versus like, this is the piece that we need to communicate. Yeah. I mean, really, this is all about trust in many ways. And what I love, you're sort of operationalizing it. You know, you're putting it into practice.

What coaching tips have you found to help people pick their lane? Like, how do they know it's about the role being eliminated versus the poor performance? Yeah. Are you asking? How can they suss that out for themselves? Are there certain lines of inquiry that you found especially helpful to kind of coach someone to get more clear? Yeah. I mean, I think one is...

What are the implications of each of those things? Because I start to see how different those implications are. What are the implications for that person or that audience or that group? Right. What does that mean for how you have to handle the situation? I think often what you're doing is it's not, again, that the person isn't smart because that's not the case at all. It's just more.

You're being a thought partner. Like you said, you're asking the questions to just get clear. And then this person will say, well, maybe we are eliminating the role. But at the end of the day, the person needs to know they're not performing. right like getting through what is that thing that is the most important thing when there is confusion what is the thing that's at the forefront and actually the other question is if you communicated both what would happen

And the person's like, oh gosh, that would be wildly, I get it now, that would be confusing. And that lends maybe a little bit well to step three, which is understanding their needs and what they most need in the moment as well. Yeah, let's talk about step three. So we've worked on our own mindset. We've clarified the facts as best we could. Give me an example of step three. Maybe we talked about a strategic decision or letting go of resources, but give me another example.

Yeah. So, I mean, first of all, gold stars for like knowing the steps. Good job. So step three is it is just like I love step two and step three, because step two, you're figuring yourself out. Step three, you're figuring out the other person. And together there is magic. So a person who had to deliver a performance review rating was going to be a bit of a surprise. It was going to be not what the person was hoping for. And this person was.

dreading this conversation. They were worried the person was going to be very defensive. By the way, I think there's a lot of I can relate plus ones. This is a hot topic. Yeah. The question that I like to ask, you've been asking about inquiry and good questions. The question that I like to ask in step three is because we're checking with the other person and what they need.

is what do you want the person to say and feel after the communication? So in this performance review rating where they thought they would be defensive and it wasn't going to be a pleasant thing and everybody's dreading it. When I asked that, the manager said, I want them to say, this sucks, you're right, and maybe a thank you. Because this manager is not dreaming that we're just gonna, yeah, it does suck. Like we have to be grounded in reality. So they wanted them to.

say this sucks because that's true like it is sucky it's real but they also want to be acceptance of the performance review because they wanted the person to stay there and keep doing their thing and so what you're able to do is when you know you want the person to say this sucks and

I get it. Thank you for kind of having my back and giving me this feedback. Then you know two things have to happen if you're going to reverse engineer. One, you want to be really high on empathy. So the empathy phrasing could be, I know this is really hard, and then maybe it's not what you wanted.

That's being really high enough that you're going to hear a lot of like radical candor tie-ins here. And then with the feedback around the performance rating, you have to be very clear. You have to be clear. you know in the words of radical candor we take personality out of it it is not personalized it is very objective it is very like you're optimizing for that feedback to land and for them to see it so

A lot of times what we'll do is say, what do you want the person to say and feel afterwards? Now, if you wanted them to say that, how would you reverse engineer this conversation versus. Let me reverse engineer this. This is the outcome I want. This is the event. This is the mindset I'm going to come from. So if somebody wants to be fair, supportive, and caring, and they want the person to say this sucks, but you are right. Thank you.

then you have like actually a really high probability of starting to phrase in conversations. Yeah. I love, you know, being an English major who also went to film school, but wished as I was better at process. I love this. And I'm wondering, you know, one of the things we do our Radical Candor workshops, Farrah, as you know, we have so many great frameworks, but we don't get into too much scripting, even though people want us to give them the word, just give me the words, but obviously.

It's going to be more different because it's a one-on-one conversation. What I'm hearing in your one-on-one coaching, which is a different sort of animal here, is that you are able to actually work with your coachee on... some possible phrases that might get that person to, it sucks and you're right, or I accept it. Am I hearing that right? Yes. And I forgot to give you the punchline of that story, which is the next day the manager did email and they did say,

wow, this person said this sucks, but I get it. Oh my God. I read the email. I'm like, Nailed it. Were they wearing it on their shirts? Really nailed it. But tell me your question again. Yeah. I'm just wondering whether that example or another one, you know, for folks who are listening, who are like, Ooh, give me some of the, okay. Yeah. I have a hard performance review and obviously.

We're not saying use this exact phrase, but I would love to know some specific wording or phrases, especially with a tough performance review so that it is crystal clear. What have you found works best? Yes. So I guess a couple of things. One, stepping back, you asked if I... I get people crazy. I do because this is hard and I've done it for 20 years. I have that pattern. Some coaches will only do inquiry based. I am kind of the rebel coach. I will help you figure it out for yourself.

I do have some expertise and experience that I feel comfortable and confident in that will help people. We don't have a ton of time, people that are busy. So I do give people phrasing. And then I ask.

How do you put that into your own like one? How does that resonate for you? Do you like it? Like what do you like? What would you tweak and then how would you put it into your own words? So we're not giving them the answer, but giving them a place to start and then make it their own. Because at the end of the day, you can't use my words that will not feel authentic. And this is a process about feeling comfortable and comfortable is about authenticity. Phrases that help.

I know this is hard. I think that is a beautiful because you are not saying, I'm sorry you got this rating because it's the rating, right? The rating is the rating. I know this is hard for you. I want to partner. in your success and your development because it says i'm here by your side i want to be helpful to you the word partner is one of my absolute favorite words in the world because it really shows that you're in it with someone versus them being alone in something

But I don't think you have to have a lot of phrases because when you have a lot of phrases, you kind of start meandering all over the place. But I think one thing that is also helpful that I think is really something I learned in Radical Candor too is... After you've said your couple things, you also just leave space. What's on your mind? Like, how is this landing for you? Listen to understand, not to respond, right? There's a lot of themes that are similar.

I don't know that we need a ton of phrases behind like the empathy and the recognition and the partnership. But what we do need is to then give some air and some space as well. Yeah. And what about in terms of the clarity? Because for some people, the empathy will come more naturally. I will put myself in that category. But for me, where coaching I think could be helpful is in getting very clear on what I'm doing.

my saying of, in the last year, you've seen a decline by 20% of incoming leads or whatever the issue is. So I'm just curious, how do you partner with the person to help them clarify their thinking and get to... the actual delivery in a way that they can feel like okay i don't need to keep throwing more stuff onto it just to be as clear as possible yes two things i think are true one with the empathy it is easier for some people but sometimes they're nice instead of kind

I think that's a great distinction. I just want to be clear, we can have empathy, but sometimes we will say... oh i'm like i'm so sorry that doesn't help it's like let's talk about it's hard for them right so i do think sometimes we can be nice instead of kind so i agree with you on the empathy but sometimes i think we can confuse people and get wrong there on the clarity piece i think a lot of the things i teach people are two things one is amy it's gonna sound funny but

Most people have it. Like when they start telling me the thing, I just start writing down what they say because they've got it. They're like, hey, I really care about this person and they have done well. And there are places that they need to improve and here are the three places. I'm like.

There it is. And so they just start telling me all the things and they say it. They've already said the thing. And then when I play it back, they're like, oh, I do know the thing. Now, if they don't know the thing.

i think some of the things i like to share this is again tied into giving feedback is like you should use and like there are things you do well and there are things that can be improved like the word but can be really triggering so we'll capture some of those things or someone who wants to get promoted i hear you want to get promoted and i want to partner with you in that

success or that development like the way that i want to most help feel be most helpful to you is i want to come back to you with the expectations for the role what's working and where you still have left it improve and see where that lands and what the next steps would be most people think that conversation is you have to be like yeah let's get you promoted or i'm so sorry but you don't have to do that in that conversation the conversation is

Hey, I hear that you want to get promoted. I hear it's really important to you. So here's some really thoughtful next steps that we should go through. And when you have a structure like that, here's the expectations. Here's where you're doing well. Here's what you have left to improve on. That paints the picture in and of itself. Right. And so I think people often in these coaching sessions.

they're coming in with dread because they think it's all about the bad news and letting someone down but if someone came out of a promotion conversation with me With that, I would go back to my friends and say, wow, that person's incredibly thoughtful. Like they have my back. They're actually going to do an assessment of where I am. Like that sounds fair. That sounds thoughtful. That sounds caring. A helper or a pleaser.

kind of will take us to jump versus to take a step back and think about how we can thoughtfully engage in these conversations in a way that doesn't feel like a letdown. It actually feels like a fair. thoughtful, supportive conversation. How does that land for you? Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it's really all about kind of a reframe and a reset of, first of all, what do we really want to accomplish with this conversation? And what does success

look like. And I think that almost redefined, oh, success is them saying to their friend, I'm so bummed. It really sucks. And I'm so grateful that Farrah shared this with me in that way. Like I really did feel it sucked and I felt really supported. Yeah. Or step three, actually my manager's right. I'm not ready to be promoted yet. And we're going. Yeah. around because we have three things left to do.

I see this all the time in our radical candor stories, that sense of like, I've got your back, we're in this together. The languaging, rather than sort of you versus we, like we are in this together. That is my favorite word. worked with clients across a variety of different industries. And I'm just curious, like more on a shifting back from a personal level to a more company-wide level where the framework actually across the board made a difference.

Yeah. So a couple of things. I use this a lot in my executive coaching. So it will hit every industry from a nonprofit to a big company to a small company, because at the end of the day, I mean, this is humanity. Thinking about humanity. or i will have clients want to use this for their entire company so i have worked with a company now for about two years and what is going on with them is they know that change is constant and so they keep me on.

And I am a consistent resource to their HR team, to all of their leadership team, any people leader, and actually any IC as well, to be able to come to me in that safe space. And what happens is, Amy, you'll see.

it'll be comp season and i'll get a whole bunch of pings and it'll be performance review season and i'll get pings or an hrvp will go to an off site and realize there's a strategic pivot coming and they'll tell that person they can reach out to me and so what's nice is that You can do this in executive coaching in a one-off way, or you can create a resource for the leaders in your company to come when they need.

it's all confidential i don't have to tell them who did like you know we keep it a safe space but it is what i love about this one company is they are giving their leaders a systematic way to do this because they're like

this is the best thing ever. I'm going to use this every time I have a hard conversation or like, I know exactly how I want to do this in the future. Or, you know, it becomes a part of their culture to know that one, their companies care enough to give them this resource and two. to teach them how to do it.

sprinklings of clients, or you can do this with a company and then there'll be a workshop and things like that to bring it even more systematically at scale. Yeah. And I think what's really important, what you're highlighting is that, you know, we practice radical candor and

ongoing feedback and sort of relationship building. And that's going to, you know, ebb and flow in terms of maybe most of the time it will be slight adjustments or tweaks there, but then we will have some real change that needs to be addressed. And I think what I love.

about what you talked about with the company is that there will always be changes to discuss, you know, there will always be these sort of bigger ticket items where we need to feel like we are resourced for those as well. And so I love that.

you know, it's like, let's plan ahead. Let's know that there's always going to be change. There's always going to be uncertainty. How can we support ourselves so that in that moment we're ready and resources? They're grateful to the company. They're like, this is so amazing that I have a place to go.

that i can get this coaching and support because amy this ties back to your first comment which is this is a skill set this is a skill that we can learn and we can get comfortable with and we can get there over time to know how to do this But I do love that there's a structure and a process to get people there.

Yeah, I love it too. Before we close, I did just want to go back to empathy because, you know, you had talked about your husband's open heart surgery and we talked a little bit about empathy and sort of that distinction between nice and kind, but.

Why still do you think empathy is so underrated in business? I just think it's high stakes. You've got to land that message. We have to make sure people know what's happening. Can't put anything subjective in there. Can't risk the message going wrong.

It's such a counterintuitive thing, right? We think the very thing that's going to make, you know, and it's measure twice, cut once or something. We sometimes think that if we don't do it, it will be more effective. And then we end up having to clean up. And we know there is emotional fallout. We see it.

because I think every single one of us has a horror story about how something was communicated personally or professionally and how it took a lot of emotion and time and stress and anxiety and uncertainty. to get past that thing and so if we can add some humanity to what we're doing then actually everybody wins because again

The leader gets to be more authentic. The company gets what it needs to move forward. It's treated people with humanity. They can process, they can move on. And the person gets to have a better, non-damaging, non-harmful. human experience of hard things because hard change is just very very hard it's hard and we cannot change the hard this is just a way to change the experience of the hard but there are wins for all that come out of it

Well, Farah, I love this. Thank you so much for bringing so much clarity and humanity to hard changes. Before we head out, how can people follow up with you or learn more about your communicating change framework? Yes, I will love to geek out. out anytime about this and support anyone who has this on their mind, but you can get me on LinkedIn. I'm super active on LinkedIn at Farah Vitra or my email is farahatgreenreadgroup.com.

And Radical Fikander has written a beautiful article on the communicating change framework that I think we can share as well out to everybody. So please do contact me. I really genuinely feel passionate about this and would love to be supportive. anyone who could use it well farah i love the conversation we'll drop that blog post into the show notes

Heartfelt thanks for joining us and for sharing your wisdom and hard-earned expertise. I love also just all the ways that you have helped both individuals and organizations. I think it all started on the back of a napkin. mistaken. You have created a process out of really effective, helpful conversations. conversation resonated with you as a listener, please do share it with a colleague or a leader. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks, Farah.

The Radical Candor podcast is based on the book Radical Candor, Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott. Episodes are written and produced by Brandy Neal with script editing by me, Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co-founders Kim Scott and Jason Rozoff and is hosted by me, still Amy Sandler. Nick Karisimi is our audio engineer.

The Radical Candor podcasting music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Follow us on LinkedIn, Radical Candor, the company, and visit us at radicalcandor.com.