Radical Candor: Communication at Work

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 without being persuaded that it’s the right thing to do is a recipe for terrible results and why it's vital to persuade people (like your friend's Uncle Scrammy) that you've done your homework. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 how to be a true thought partner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 GlanceAn 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 most important decisions and debates for the coming week.That’s it. It shouldn’t be the place to have debates or make decisions. Your job is to establish a consistent agenda, insist that people stick to it, and corral people who go on for too long or who go off on tangents.Here’s the agenda that Kim has found to be most effective:Learn: review key metrics (20 minutes)Listen: put updates in a shared document (15 minutes)Clarify: identify key decisions & debates (30 minutes) In Radical Candor, Kim writes: “In addition to all your regularly planned meetings, people want to talk to you about this or that; urgent matters will arise that you must deal with. When are you supposed to find time to clarify your own thinking, or to help the people who work for you clarify theirs?”“My advice is that you schedule in some ‘Think Time’ [on your calendar], and hold that think time sacred. Let people know that they cannot ever schedule over it. Get really, seriously angry if they try. Encourage everyone on your team to do the same.”Radical Candor Podcast Checklist Avoid the fundamental attribution error by focusing on specifics, not attributes. Instead of saying (or thinking) “What an idiot,” be very clear about what went wrong. Try the CORE model — Context, Observation, Result, nExt stEps. Focus on helping the person fix the problem by providing specifics they can act on, rather than criticizing personality traits that they can’t alter. A well-run meeting can save you time by alerting you to problems, sharing updates efficiently, and getting you all on the same page about what the week’s shared priorities are. Remember, timeboxing is your friend. Take 20 minutes to learn, 15 minutes to listen and 30 minutes to clarify. Schedule Think Time away from your desk. Think Time is a mix of focused thinking and mind-wandering that allows for the kind of problem-solving, creativity and innovative mindset needed to tackle those difficult problems. Try taking a walk and removing distractions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 flailing instead of flying? We’ve seen this happen for five different reasons. Plus, organizations we're supporting for humanitarian relief in Ukraine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 your team to achieve more collectively than anyone could ever dream of achieving individually. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices