Guest: Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and Radical Respect: How To Work Together Better
After her first management book Radical Candor became a worldwide bestseller, Kim Scott found herself giving talks to all kinds of companies about how they could apply her advice and build a stronger, kinder culture. But then, after one such talk, the CEO — a longtime friend and former coworker — came up to Kim with an asterisk. As a Black woman, she explained, “as soon as I offer anyone even the most compassionate, gentle criticism, I get assigned the ‘angry Black woman’ stereotype.” Kim realized in that moment that her book needed a prequel of sorts, explaining what you need to have before you can create radical candor: “You're not going to care about people who you don't respect,” she says.
In this episode, Kim and Joubin discuss regret minimization, Juice Software, Sheryl Sandberg, saying “um,” moments of connection, Dick Costolo, negative truths, James March, snobbery, Charles Ferguson, Shona Brown, Fred Kofman, Christa Quarles, Jason Rosoff, Andy Grove, founders as outliers, Jack Dorsey, Steve Jobs, glows and grows, the Post Ranch Inn, failing your colleagues, sexual harassment, DEI, and intellectual honesty.
In this episode, we cover:
- (01:04) - Loud voices
- (03:59) - Writing a bestseller
- (07:48) - Why Kim wrote Radical Candor
- (14:21) - How to show you care
- (18:04) - Coaching tech CEOs
- (21:24) - Ruinous empathy and obnoxious aggression
- (25:40) - Leaving things unsaid
- (30:30) - Not an academic
- (35:21) - Learning from failed startups
- (38:55) - Performance reviews
- (42:30) - Why feedback feels risky
- (49:21) - How to reject feedback
- (53:11) - Creating space for feedback at home
- (56:08) - Running and sleeping
- (59:45) - Radical Respect and Kim’s other books
- (01:04:27) - The hardest story to share
- (01:06:44) - Optimism about the future
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