Radical Candor: Fully Revised & Updated Edition: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

Another essential thing I stress with my clients: it’s vital to remember that very important lesson from the “um” story—don’t personalize. The names of each quadrant refer to guidance, not to personality traits. They are a way to gauge praise and criticism, and to help people remember to do a better job offering both. They are not to be used to lab

The axes of this framework are past performance and future growth trajectories. The assessment of past performance on the horizontal axis of this framework does go from “bad” to “good,” but not the vertical axis. It’s just as good to be in the bottom-right quadrant as in the upper-right. Rock stars are just as important to a team’s performance as s

The most important thing you can do for your team collectively is to understand what growth trajectory each person wants to be on at a given time and whether that matches the needs and opportunities of the team. To do that, you are going to have to get to know each of your direct reports at a personal level. It’s also going to require you to have s

Compassionate Candor engages the heart (care personally) and the mind (challenge directly). Unfortunately, the term “Radical Candor” doesn’t communicate that to everyone.

In his book A Primer on Decision Making, James March explains why it’s a bad thing when the most “senior” people in a hierarchy are always the deciders.

“Relationships are core to your job. If you think that you can [fulfill your responsibilities as a manager] without strong relationships, you are kidding yourself. I’m not saying that unchecked power, control, or authority can’t work. They work especially well in a baboon troop or a totalitarian regime. But if you’re reading this book, that’s not w

BOTH DIMENSIONS OF Radical Candor are sensitive to context. They get measured at the listener’s ear, not at the speaker’s mouth. Radical Candor is not a personality type or a talent or a cultural judgment. Radical Candor works only if the other person understands that your efforts at caring personally and challenging directly are delivered in good

Ultimately, though, bosses are responsible for results. They achieve these results not by doing all the work themselves but by guiding the people on their teams. Bosses guide a team to achieve results.

The key insight behind Radical Candor is that command and control can hinder innovation and harm a team’s ability to improve the efficiency of routine work. Bosses and companies get better results when they voluntarily lay down unilateral power and encourage their teams and peers to hold them accountable, when they quit trying to control employees

A good rule of thumb for any relationship is to leave three unimportant things unsaid each day.