A classic example of a micromanaging helicopter boss is Bill from the 1999 movie Office Space , the bad boss who spawned thousands of memes. He roams around the cubicle farm monitoring everyone’s activity and stops by to scold workers for minor mistakes like forgetting to put the cover sheet on their TPS reports. On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast , Kim, Jason and Amy discuss how to tell if the "helpful" guidance you're giving your team is actually veering off into micromanaging. If y...
Jan 25, 2023•38 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to season 5 of the Radical Candor podcast! On this episode, we have a montage of Radical Candor, Manipulative Insincerity and Obnoxious Aggression stories from our coaches and core team. Chances are you can relate to one or more of these stories. If you have a story to share, send it to us at podcast@radicalcandor.com.
Jan 10, 2023•27 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Ready for some roleplaying? On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy address how to respond to some specific scenarios with Radically Candid feedback that’s kind, clear, specific and sincere. If you truly want to get different results, you’re going to have to change your behavior. We know it’s hard, so we’re going to talk you through it.
Nov 30, 2022•37 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast Does anyone actually want to be a manager of managers? And if so, what do these people actually do? On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast Kim, Jason and Amy discuss strategies for being an effective manager of managers. If you're managing people who manage other people, then you're managing managers. Whereas if you're managing individual contributors, you're managing a team. The most significant difference when you become a manager of managers is that now you have to become a thought par...
Nov 01, 2022•57 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast What do bosses do anyways? On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, we're starting a new series to answer that question! Is it a manager’s job to go to meetings? Send emails? Tell people what to do? Are they supposed to work alongside their teams and carry part of the workload, or dream up strategies and expect other people to implement them? At the end of the day, a boss’s job is to guide a team to achieve results. However, depending on the size of your team, that process could look very ...
Oct 12, 2022•48 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast Kim, Jason and Amy discuss the clear message quiet quitting is loudly sending to bad bosses and managers of managers. We know that relationships don’t scale, but culture does. This means that while you can’t have a close relationship with every person who reports to the people who report to you, practicing Radical Candor with the people you manage can impact how they interact with the people they manage and so on. On the other hand, if toxic stew is flowing from the top and being passed down fro...
Sep 21, 2022•50 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast Once your idea has been implemented, you probably think you're done with this whole Get Sh*t Done Wheel thing — but there’s one more step, Learn. On this episode of the Radical Candor Podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy talk about how creating a culture of learning can make it safe for people to fail, help mitigate future mistakes and ensure everyone knows how to repeat success. Sounds simple, right? Not so fast. There are two things that can get in the way of learning. Listen to find out what they are!
Sep 07, 2022•54 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Once everyone is on board with your great idea, it’s time for action, which brings us to step 6 of the Get Shit Done Wheel. On this episode of the Radical Candor Podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy discuss the good, the bad and the ugly as it relates to the implementation of that decision you’ve just persuaded everyone to get behind. Listen to learn how to toggle between leading and implementing personally. You can't abandon the first for the second. You have to integrate the two.
Aug 24, 2022•52 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Once a decision is made, you’ve got to get people on board, which brings us to step 5 of the Get Sh*t Done Wheel — Persuade. While getting others to accept your idea might feel like a foregone conclusion, persuasion isn’t easy, and it’s important to get it right. What’s more, persuasion at this stage of the GSD Wheel can feel unnecessary and make the decider resentful of people on the team who aren’t fully in agreement. Kim, Jason and Amy discuss why expecting others to implement a decision with...
Aug 03, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Kim, Jason and Amy discuss how to make a decision after you've listened, clarified and debated your idea. Step 4 of the Get Shit Done Wheel, decide, is all about pushing the decisions into the facts. The Radical Candor Podcast team outlines 4 steps to follow when making decisions once you have shoved all ego — especially your own — out of the way. They also talk about the pitfalls of unconscious bias, the perils of skipping steps 1-3 and how to avoid garbage can decision-making.
Jul 13, 2022•47 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Amy and Jason discuss managers who have low, almost non-existent involvement in their team’s work, aka absentee managers; those with extremely (maybe excruciatingly) close involvement, aka micromanagers; and thought partners — the ones who empower, enable and encourage their teams to do the best work of their lives. While a lot of us have tendencies to act in absentee or micromanager mode, it’s hard for us to want to look at ourselves that way. Listen to this episode if you want to understand ho...
Jun 30, 2022•38 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast We discuss the steps to follow for a successful debating process. If you skip the debate phase, you’ll make worse decisions, you’ll be unable to persuade everyone who needs to implement, and you’ll ultimately slow down or grind to a halt. Kim, Jason, Amy and producer Brandi discuss a time when a debate went awry and what they should have done instead.
Jun 16, 2022•52 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast We're welcoming back to the podcast Russ Laraway, author of the book When They Win, You Win: Being a Great Manager is Simpler Than You Think, coming out on June 7, 2022. You can pre-order it now! You likely know Russ best as the OG co-host with Kim of season one of the Radical Candor Podcast.
May 19, 2022•49 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast It's time for part two of how to clarify your thinking for yourself and others as part of the Get Sh*t Done Wheel (listen to part one). On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy discuss how to use staff meetings and think time as ways to clarify your ideas. Radical Candor Podcast Episode At a Glance An effective staff meeting has three goals: it reviews how things have gone the previous week, allows people to share important updates, and forces the team to clarify the mos...
May 05, 2022•20 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Once you have created a culture of listening, the next step in the Radical Candor Get Sh*t Done Wheel is to push yourself and your direct reports to understand and convey thoughts and ideas more clearly. Trying to solve a problem that hasn’t been clearly defined is not likely to result in a good solution; debating a half-baked idea is likely to discourage it. On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy discuss the two most important things to do when clarifying an idea.
Apr 22, 2022•37 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Communication and career tips abound in this series! Our next several episodes of the Radical Candor podcast are going to be shorter explorations of the nuts-and-bolts details about each step of the Get Shit Done Wheel. First up is listening. Kim, Jason and Amy discuss how to create a culture of listening because if you can get your team members to listen to one another, they’ll fix things that you as the boss didn’t even know were broken.
Apr 07, 2022•42 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast Kim, Jason and Amy discuss one of the most perplexing management dilemmas you might experience: when a person who ought to be taking on more and more responsibility and performing better every day is instead doing the opposite. This person is doing excellent work on a steep growth trajectory — maybe they even want to be your boss someday — and you’ve put in charge of the most important work or assigned them to solve your most difficult problems because they’re just that good. So why are they fla...
Mar 16, 2022•46 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast As we continue into 2022, or more accurately what feels like the third year of 2020, the mere idea of trying to get stuff done at work likely feels overwhelming. We've got you. On this episode of the Radical Candor Podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy talk about the Get Sh*t Done Wheel, a step-by-step process that can help make getting things accomplished much easier. The GSD Wheel has 7 steps: Listen, Clarify, Debate, Decide, Persuade, Execute and Learn. When run effectively, the GSD Wheel will enable y...
Feb 25, 2022•46 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Radical Candor happens at the intersection Care Personally and Challenge Directly. On this mini-episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Kim tells the "Um Story," which outlines exactly what we mean when we say Care Personally and Challenge Directly. Kim explains why the feedback she received from her boss was so effective and led to even more success.
Feb 10, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Building a team is hard. But as we’re seeing now during the Great Resignation, failure to spend time building and investing in a team can have disastrous consequences. In order to be successful, this means developing people on both steep and gradual growth trajectories, or as we like to say at Radical Candor, people in both rockstar mode and superstar mode. On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy discuss how to balance growth and stability by developing people who are i...
Jan 28, 2022•42 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Ruinous Empathy is what happens when you want to spare someone’s short-term feelings, so you don’t tell them something they need to know. You Care Personally, but fail to Challenge Directly. It’s praise that isn’t specific enough to help the person understand what was good, or criticism that is sugar-coated and unclear. Or simply silence. Ruinous Empathy may feel nice or safe, but is ultimately unhelpful and even damaging. This is a feedback fail. In this Radical Candor podcast mini-episode, Kim...
Jan 10, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you're in the market for a new job and you are lucky enough to have multiple offers, or you’re in a position where you can afford to wait for the right opportunity, you don’t have to pay the asshole tax. On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy talk about how to suss out whether your potential new boss is going to help you move toward the direction of your dreams or get in your way. Listen now to learn how to find a Radically Candid boss.
Dec 14, 2021•47 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast There is an order of operations to practicing the principles of Radical Candor. The first thing to do is to ask for criticism, especially if you’re the boss. But how can you do this in a way that's not awkward? On the latest mini-episode of the Radical Candor Podcast, Kim explains how to solicit feedback with a simple four-step process.
Nov 29, 2021•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast You’ve likely heard about the Great Resignation — perhaps you’re even one of the millions of people who’ve bid their jobs farewell over the past few months. On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy talk about how bad bosses, lack of transparency and poor communication are leading to a mass exodus of mid-level workers. How can you retain your team? Listen to find out how a series of small adjustments can help!
Nov 15, 2021•38 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast There are a few things we suggest for folks looking to give Radically Candid Feedback, our HIP and CORE framework. Kim breaks it down on our latest mini-episode of the Radical Candor podcast. Here’s a way to think about how to be more kind and clear with criticism and more specific and sincere with praise. Radical Candor is HIP: Humble, Helpful, Immediate, In person (or on video), Private criticism / Public praise and Not about Personality. Radically Candid praise and criticism both include cari...
Nov 01, 2021•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s a lot easier to lead by example than it is to change other people’s behavior. If you want to encourage feedback between the people on your team or at your organization, you’re going to have to create an environment where people feel safe and encouraged to give real feedback. On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Kim, Jason and Amy talk about how to encourage feedback between others so you can keep this whole Radical Candor thing going after you've read the book, listened to a keyno...
Oct 18, 2021•30 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast When giving feedback, you should expect emotion. Even when you don’t personalize, it’s personal. That’s why you should eliminate the phrase, “Don’t take it personally” from your vocabulary. In this Radical Candor podcast mini-episode, Kim explains why It’s futile to say in response to emotion, “Don’t take it personally!” Part of your job as a boss (and as a human being) is to deal with emotional responses, not to dismiss them or pretend they’re not there or avoid them. View the show notes >&g...
Sep 23, 2021•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast We get a lot of questions about how folks can practice Radical Candor with their bosses as many people are reluctant to give feedback to their managers. It's true that it can be really daunting, and a little risky, to practice Radical Candor with your boss, but it’s such an important skill. If you can share feedback with your boss, you’ll have a much stronger working relationship, enjoy your work more, and be able to do better work together. So, how do you do it? On this episode of the Radical C...
Sep 08, 2021•46 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of the Radical Candor podcast, Amy and Jason discuss what Kim refers to in Radical Candor as “the problem with passion.” You’ve likely heard some form of the phrase, “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” But, should your job and your passion be the same thing? What’s more, is it a manager’s responsibility to ensure each person who reports to them is passionate about their position? Listen to find out! Read the show notes >>
Aug 09, 2021•35 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Most everyone has had a boss who failed at performance development—helping people on their team grow and move forward in their careers. The way you think about developing the skills of the people in your organization and how you think about performance management must be aligned. It is a manager’s job to both help each person on their team develop and grow in their career, and also to transparently assessing the performance of each person, commonly called performance management. On this episode...
Jul 08, 2021•35 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast 
