Kim Scott: uncertainty

Transcript context

…Six seconds is a really long time. Almost nobody can endure six full seconds of silence. So they'll probably tell you something. So now you've dragged this poor soul out on a conversational limb that they never wanted to go on. They're probably going to say something. The third step is to make sure that you listen with the intent to understand not to respond, because you're probably going to feel defensive and that's okay. It doesn't mean you're a lesser mortal or that you're shut down the feedback. All it means is that you're human. And that's all part of this. You want to figure out how to manage your natural defensive reaction to critical feedback, which you're probably going to have. The simplest tactic I can offer folks there is to think of some follow-up questions. So at breakfast, my daughter not too long ago said to me, "Mom, I wish you weren't the Radical Candor lady." And immediately this wave of parental guilt washed over me and I thought, ah, I'm spending too much time at work. She wants more of my time. I shouldn't be traveling so much. But then I thought, well, I should ask her, make sure I understood. I'm jumping to conclusions here. I'm not listening with the intent to understand. So I asked a follow-up question. I said, "Well, who do you wish I were?" And she said, "I wish you were the lady who minded her own business," so I could go spend a little more time at work as far as she was concerned. So you want to make sure you really understand what a person is telling you. And once you feel certain that you really do understand and that you've been open to it, the last and most important step is to reward the candor. A person takes a huge risk, especially if this person is your employee. A person takes a huge risk to give you critical feedback. And if you do not reward that risk richly, you're never going to get any feedback again. So if you agree with the feedback, fix the problem and make your listening tangible, be loud. So-and-so told me that the tea in the break room is terrible, and now we have thirty-five different kinds of tea. Thank you for telling me. And that can demonstrate to people that they're not wasting their breath to come to you. That if you become aware of a problem, you'll fix it. And you also want to, by the way, you want to ask for feedback after you fixed it. Did I over-correct or did I under-correct? My boss at Google, the same boss from the um story also told me when she gave me some feedback that I tended to move too fast. And she said, "Kim, until people and giving you feedback that you're going too slow. You won't have corrected this problem." So you kind of want to shoot to over-correct if you get some critical feedback. I also want to though pause on what to do when you get some critical feedback that you disagree with because it can be easy to feel wedged here. And if all you do is say thank you for the feedback, the other person is going to hear something much less polite than a brush off or worse. u disagree with because it can be easy to feel wedged here. And if all you do is say thank you for the feedback, the other person is going to hear something much less polite than a brush off or worse. And so what you want to do is you want to look for that five or 10% of whatever the person said that you can agree with, and you want to give voice to that. And then what you want to do is you want to say, "As for the rest of it, I want to think about it and get back to you." And then you've got to get back to them. You got to offer a respectful explanation of why you disagree. And it's tempting to feel like a disagreement poses a risk to our relationships, but it's not disagreement that poses a risk to our relationships. It's unspoken disagreement. Many, I don't know about you Lenny, but a lot of my best professional relationships began with a good respectful disagreement. Interesting. That reminds me of just watching Squid Games, the reality show on Netflix. Yeah. Have you seen this at all?…

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