Book review: Radical Candor

During the winter break I read the book Radical Candor. The reason I picked up the book was that I had heard DHH mention it in a podcast episode. He had brought up the book in the context of how to give feedback to employees.

The main thesis in Radical Candor is that there are four forms of giving feedback to colleagues:

Manipulative insincerity:

"People give praise and criticism that is manipulatively insincere when they are too focused on being liked or think they can gain some sort of political advantage by being fake—or when they are just too tired to care or argue any more.When you are overly worried about how people will perceive you, you’re less willing to say what needs to be said."

Obnoxious aggression:

"Obnoxious Aggression sometimes gets great results short-term but leaves a trail of dead bodies in its wake in the long run."

Ruinous empathy:

"There’s a Russian anecdote about a guy who has to amputate his dog’s tail but loves him so much that he cuts it off an inch each day, rather than all at once. His desire to spare the dog pain and suffering only leads to more pain and suffering. Don’t allow yourself to become that kind of manager!"

"Managers rarely intend to ruin an employee’s chance of success or to handicap the entire team by letting poor performance slide. And yet, that is often the net result of Ruinous Empathy. Similarly, praise that’s ruinously empathetic is not effective because its primary goal is to make the person feel better rather than to point out really great work and push for more of it.

Ruinous Empathy can also prevent a manager from asking for criticism. Typically, when a manager asks an employee for criticism, the employee feels awkward at best, afraid at worst. Instead of pushing through the discomfort to get an employee to challenge them, managers who are being ruinously empathetic may be so eager to ease the awkwardness that they simply let the matter drop.

Managers often make the mistake of thinking that if they hang out in the Ruinous Empathy quadrant, they can build a relationship with their direct reports and then move over to Radical Candor. They’re pleasant to work with, but as time goes by, their employees start to realize that the only feedback they’ve received is “good job” and other vaguely positive comments. They know they’ve done some things wrong, but they’re not sure what, exactly. Their direct reports never know where they stand, and they aren’t being given an opportunity to learn or grow; they often stall or get fired. Not such a great way to build a relationship.”

Radical candor:

“Candid feedback is offered humbly. Implicit with candor is that you’re simply offering your view of what’s going on and that you expect people to offer theirs. If it turns out that in fact you’re the one who got it wrong, you want to know. You are giving the other person insight into your internal story about them and offering them a chance to change it.

It turns out that when people trust you and believe you care about them, they are much more likely to:

1. Accept and act on your praise and criticism
2. Tell you what they really think about what you are doing well and, more importantly, not doing so well
3. Engage in this same behavior with one another
4. Embrace their role on the team
5. Focus on getting results

The most surprising thing about Radical Candor may be that its results are often the opposite of what you fear. You fear people will become angry or vindictive; instead they are usually grateful for the chance to talk it through. And even when you do get that initial anger, resentment, or sullenness, those emotions prove to be fleeting when the person knows you really care.”

I liked the premise of the book. Although, it doesn't feel very Swedish at least, with the radical candor behavior that the author promotes. I am more used to seeing the ruinous empathy. However, I think it made sense and it was thought provoking.

What I didn't like with the book though, was that the thesis was mainly built on stories from the author's career at Google and Apple. It would have been nice with some more evidence, either empirical evidence from a larger sample size, or to read about published research results. The book made sense to me, but I cannot help but feel a little bit skeptical as well due to this.

Another thing I didn't like was that the book felt a bit too long. The chapters towards the end of the book about what meetings to have and when, etc, didn't feel very useful. Overall the book felt a bit wordy for the message it wanted to tell. I prefer books that are more respectful about the reader's time.

I don't know if I can recommend the book. But please read a summary of it.