A manager’s main job is dealing with the personal and professional problems of the people that report to you. While this may feel irrelevant to your work, it’s important to realise that relationship maintenance is a manager’s work. Relationship maintenance should be a top priority when you move into a leadership position.
Book title: Radical Candor Author: Kim Scott
Rating: ***** Category: Well-rounded read
What’s it about?
Radical Candor is a roadmap for managers looking to establish the best possible relationship with their people. Its insightful approach to management shows how to create a working environment where great ideas emerge, individuals reach their full potential and employees are proud to follow their manager.
The detail
To cultivate strong relationships, you need to build trust with your colleagues. To do this, you need to care personally about the people who work with you. You also need to be candid with colleagues about what you really think – which often means challenging directly.
These two dimensions – “care personally” and “challenge directly” are at the heart of Radical Candor.
Listening to someone share what’s really going on for them, or even sharing some of your own vulnerabilities is one of the best things you can do if you want to establish an environment where people feel safe and cared for. By listening and giving your time, you show them that their feelings matter. If you create an environment where people feel they can be vulnerable, they will feel safe – and this will build trust.
However, it’s important not to let your empathy prevent you from telling people things they need to know to be successful – this is where Challenge Directly comes in.
If you notice room for improvement in a team member, challenge them. Be kind, be encouraging, be compassionate and be direct. When employees discover that you truly want to help them to grow, and that you’re willing to challenge them in service of that growth, they’ll trust you more than they would if you’d held back.
Summary
Radical Candor is a straightforward, deeply human way of managing the people who work for you and supporting them through personal and professional problems. There are two vital components to Radical Candor: “caring personally” and “challenging directly.”
Who would benefit from reading this book?
Managers, leaders, coaches, entrepreneurs and self-employed people.
What we liked about the book
The two guiding principles of “caring personally” and “challenging directly” are simple concepts but the book gives a comprehensive overview of putting the theory into practice, with lots of examples, do’s, don’ts and tips.
What we didn’t like
The book could be shorter – there’s a fair amount of repetition where the same concept is viewed from many different angles.
More about the author, Kim Scott
Kim Scott is co-founder of Radical Candor, a company that helps people put the ideas in her books into practice.
Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter and other tech companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led AdSense YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google.
In addition, Kim’s skills as a CEO Coach have earned her a spot on the Coach Foundation, one of the biggest names in the coaching industry.
She’s also managed a paediatric clinic in Kosovo and started a diamond-cutting factory in Moscow. She lives with her family in Silicon Valley.
Other books by this author
Just Work
Build Healthy Workplaces for Success (Kim Scott & Ernest Adams)
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