Holiday communication with your family can be rife with stress. But you can survive it by practicing Radical Candor with your nearest and dearest. this holiday season to avoid defaulting to Obnoxious Aggression, Manipulative Insincerity or Ruinous Empathy. Get all of the show notes and resources at RadicalCandor.com/podcast
The team explores a year-end management dilemma — how to fairly evaluate a hot potato employee who's been bounced from team to team and manager to manager. They also reveal why everyone needs an "I love me" folder. Get the complete show notes at RadicalCandor.com/podcast
Learn how to identify the elephant in the room when a direct report's performance isn't meeting expectations. Kim and Jason roleplay how to be kind and clear when delivering feedback to someone who'd rather not hear it. While it can be tempting to default to Ruinous Empathy, the team explains why it's important to double down on the challenge directly axis of Radical Candor instead. Read the show notes at RadicalCandor.com/podcast...
Can a “nice” workplace culture be as toxic as an abusive one? This past summer, our content intern Katie Bartlett (hi Katie!) wrote a piece about the workplace culture trend toward “niceness” investigating whether or not prioritizing “nice” feedback that’s full of vague platitudes over specific and sincere feedback that could make people uncomfortable is harmful. Is toxic positivity Ruinous Empathy or Manipulative Insincerity? Perhaps it's both. Read the show notes RadicalCandor.com/podcast...
Management expert and former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo joins Kim for Managerial Musings. Kim and Dick answer listener questions, read between the lines and offer advice for your trickiest workplace problems. Get the show notes at RadicalCandor.com/podcast
Should you become a manager? For folks who thrive on building a team and guiding others to achieve results, becoming a manager may be a dream come true. On the other hand, management could be a nightmare for high-performing individual contributors who are experts in their fields but have a low frustration tolerance for herding cats. How do you know if management is right for you? Kim and Jason discuss their paths to management. Get the show notes at RadicalCandor.com/podcast
The group talks about the making of MasterClass, strategies for managing cross-functional teams and how to get everyone home in time for dinner. Kim, Jason and Amy welcome two very special guests, Ezra Rose and Davis Carter. Ezra and Davis were integral in the production of the Radical Candor Sessions by MasterClass. Get the show notes at RadicalCandpr.com/podcast
Feedback vs. feedforward — both of these words are well-intentioned euphemisms that tend toward either Ruinous Empathy or Manipulative Insincerity. On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy discuss the trend of prioritizing future-focused feedforward over backward-looking feedback. Kim has strong opinions on the words "feedforward" and "feedback." Tune in to find out why one word makes Kim want to put her hands over her ears and the other makes her want to throw up in her...
In times of trauma, it’s all about care personally. This is not the moment to challenge directly. Or to make policy pronouncements, especially if that’s not your job. On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy discuss leading with compassion amid the chaos and catastrophe in Israel and Gaza. See the show notes at radicalcandor.com/podcast
Peloton and TODAY show contributor Ally LoveI is here! If you're the boss, it all starts with you. For better or worse, a boss establishes the tone and sets the standard for everything that follows. On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Ally Love shares how Radical Candor can help you boss up and increase your confidence at work, the best #RadyCandy she got from her husband, a few of her favorite things and so much more! You're def gonna want to download and favorite this one. Get all t...
October is National Bullying Prevention Month! On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, we're dropping a bonus episode from Kim's Just Work podcast featuring a conversation about mobbing, a form of group bullying. Mobbing involves a group of people working together directly or indirectly to remove the targeted individual. Mobbing is rooted in groupthink and group aggression with underlying elements of fear, competition, and envy. Unlike bullying, mobbing is not hierarchical. The target is ...
Amy and Kim talk about performance improvement plans (PIPs). When used correctly, performance improvement plans can be valuable if there is a commitment to help the employee improve. However, they are often weaponized by frustrated managers who want to get rid of an employee who is struggling. Listen to find out how to tell the difference. Get all the show notes and resources at radicalcandor.com/podcast
Amy and Jason answer a listener's question about how to give feedback about nervous laughter. As you may have noticed, we like to laugh on this podcast when we think something is funny. But, did you know that a lot of laughter doesn’t have anything to do with hilarity? In fact, in the absence of an underlying medical condition, laughing is often a stress response — a way for people to regulate their emotions and avoid being overcome with anxiety. Find all the resources and show notes for this ep...
Kim and Amy welcome Amy C. Edmondson, the Novartis professor of leadership and management at the Harvard Business School and author of several books, including The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth and Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well — available now! From managers seeking to inspire their reports to parents wanting to model a healthy failure mindset for their kids, this book will revolutionize how we think ...
Kim, Amy and Brandi discuss coming out at work and Amy and Brandi share their stories. In response to an unprecedented spike in discriminatory legislation, The Human Rights Campaign recently declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. Visibility matters — we want folks who might be struggling to know that we see you. That you deserve to be here. And to thrive! Read all of the show notes and episode resources at RadicalCandor.com/podcast
Kim, Amy and Jason discuss Praise, Recognition, Appreciation and Gratitude. Kim also takes on the role of Don Draper to act out a scene from Mad Men's beloved episode "The Suitcase." Listen to learn why — in most cases — "that's what the money is for" is not sufficient recognition or appreciation. (A deep dive into Peggy and Don's complicated relationship is a whole other glass of whiskey not covered in this episode — but if you haven't watched "The Suitcase," it's a must-see. Listen to our bonu...
Bullying at work is real. We're dropping a bonus episode from Kim's Just Work podcast featuring a conversation about bullying at work, in Hollywood and within our greater society with co-host Wesley Faulkner and guest Eric Deggans. When someone is bullying you, the person’s goal is to harm you. Telling the person you are being harmed is just going to result in more bad behavior. Ignoring bullies doesn’t work, either. The only way to stop bullying is to create negative consequences for the people...
Kim, Amy and Jason discuss feedback sandwiches. These are not the tasty sandwiches beloved by Joey Tribbiani on Friends. While these sandwiches look delicious on the outside, inside they’re stuffed with something you can’t quite identify. But, the sandwich maker hopes the two pieces of artisan bread that hold the mystery meat together will make you accept what’s inside without too many questions. This false promise of emotional novocaine is better known as the feedback sandwich. Here's why you s...
Do you trust your employees? Kim and Jason reach into the Radical Candor digital mailbag to answer a question about what to do when an employee starts calling in sick on the regular. Kim and Jason roleplay the situation to get to the bottom of why someone might be pulling a disappearing act. Read the show notes >>
Kim, Jason and Amy discuss the difference between feedback and nitpicking. Kim says, "There is one rule of thumb that applies to criticism in general but is especially good advice when you’re really busy and nerves are frayed. It’s best summed up by advice a friend’s godfather gave her at her wedding. 'If it’s brown flush it down. If it’s yellow let it mellow.' She got married on an island with a poor septic system, and this was a sign by all the toilets. But as her godfather said, 'These are wo...
What's the most important leadership skill? Kim and Amy welcome C-suite advisor and executive coach Muriel Wilkins to the first Radically Candid Conversation episode of 2023. Kim and Muriel discuss how keeping it real at work can go wrong, what employees want from their leaders today, and the difference between performance and behavior. Muriel Wilkins is a C-suite advisor and executive coach with a nearly 20-year track record of helping senior leaders and teams take their effectiveness to the ne...
The team delves into a mash-up of Ruinous Empathy and Manipulative Insincerity. Ruinous Empathy—being “nice” but ultimately unhelpful and unkind—is rampant among new managers, including this new manager who wrote to us asking for advice about how to break out of a Ruinous Empathy rut. This new boss also veers into Manipulative Insincerity when they become too tired to care or argue anymore. This person dreamed of being a boss and now realizes it’s nothing like they imagined. Kim and Jason role-p...
Clean escalation dictates managers not allow people to talk about one another to them behind each other’s backs and not engage in office gossip. Kim, Amy and Jason discuss how to make work less like junior high by implementing something Fred Kofman's clean escalation. The opposite of clean escalation is Manipulative Insincerity — talking about people instead of talking to them. When you triangulate, you end up creating politics. Each side becomes suspicious that you’re talking behind their back ...
Kim, Jason and Amy discuss another upsetting trend in the workplace — the “oops, just kidding!” job offer. The team emphasizes the importance of remembering that the people you are hiring are real human beings with loved ones, bills and responsibilities. You’re not trying them on like a pair of shoes you can discard later if they’re not the right fit. It’s important to get hiring right and Radical Candor has a 5-step strategy to set you up for success. Go to the show notes >>...
Kim, Jason and Amy discuss how the fundamental attribution error makes us more likely to use personality attributes to explain someone else’s behavior rather than considering our own behavior or situational factors that were probably the real cause of the behavior. This is where the "not about personality" part of Radical Candor comes into play. Plus, Jason introduces us to the little evil translator inside his head that makes him hear feedback as: "You're terrible. You're completely incompetent...
If you’re the boss, you’re kind of an emotional shock absorber for your team. You’ve got to be able to deal with other people’s emotions. When we communicate, we communicate on an emotional plane and a rational plane at the same time. If you as the boss dismiss all emotional signals as unprofessional you’re not going to communicate very well. Showing compassion is real work, and, like all real work, it is rewarding and also taxing. In general, we undervalue the emotional labor of being the boss....
Kim, Jason and Amy dig into the virtual career advice mailbag and answer questions from Radical Candor listeners and readers. What happens when people think you're too young to lead? How can you stop paying the a**hole tax? How can you be more present at work when everything is stressful all of the time? Listen to find out! Go to the show notes >>
Quiet Hiring, Turnover Contagion and Layoff Survivor Guilt can lead to a culture of fear. Kim, Jason, Amy and Brandi discuss how when people are working out of fear, they start to avoid taking risks. They learn less, they grow less, they innovate less, and they become less than they could be. The way you treat people when times are tough determines whether you’ll get their best effort, a perfunctory effort, or an effort to sabotage you. When you treat people like cogs in a machine, you’ll get no...
Have you experienced a layoff? Jason hosts this episode of the Radical Candor podcast and interviews Amy, Kim and Brandi about layoffs. The team discusses layoffs from a few different perspectives — the most important one is the impact on people who are being laid off. The emotional and financial toll of being laid off is real. Amy says, "Looking back on it, it was a huge transformational time that set my life up in a way that I really wanted. But it felt like absolute sh*t in the process." See ...
Kim, Jason and Amy discuss absentee management and quiet firing. While these two things can feel the same to the person experiencing them, the thing that makes them different is the intention behind the behavior. Quiet firing happens when managers allow employees to have toxic experiences at work as a way to get them to quit. On the other hand, a more pervasive problem is well-intentioned bosses who practice absentee management. They’re that ghost boss who is rarely seen or heard from by their d...
