The Art of Radical Candor with Kim Scott

May 31, 2023

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Kim Scott is an author, speaker, and the Co-founder of Radical Candor, an enterprise dedicated to creating productive organizations where respect and collaboration combine. Before co-founding Radical Candor, Kim served as a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other tech companies, as well as a faculty member at Apple University. She also led AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google. She is the author of Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and Just Work: How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Build a Kick-Ass Culture of Inclusivity. Kim holds a Bachelor’s degree in Slavic Literature from Princeton University.

Kim joins us today to discuss the art of radical candor and giving, soliciting, and receiving feedback without losing your humanity. She reveals how she came up with the idea of Radical Candor and how she got out of the conundrum between being kind and giving people direct feedback. She explains why the phrase “Don’t take it personally” should be eliminated from your vocabulary. She describes the “Asshole Quadrant” and explains how radical candor differs from “obnoxious aggression.” Kim also elaborates on creating a healthy culture and environment of feedback and offers her best practices for giving and soliciting feedback with radical candor.

“Ensure that your praise is specific and sincere and that your criticisms are kind and clear.” - Kim Scott

This week on Mastering Overwhelm:

Kim’s background and the struggles she faced when she first became a leader
Teaching a dog to sit and Kim’s shift to learning about empathy, care, and radical candor
The “Asshole Quadrant” and how radical candor is different from obnoxious aggression
What ruinous empathy means
The CEO’s challenge with giving and receiving feedback
Making a safe space for feedback and incentivizing it
The importance of timing when giving radical candor
Praise as radical candor and how it can challenge people to be their best
Kim’s recipe for staying grounded and centered
How knowing yourself helps build radical candor

Connect with Kim Scott:

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