Kim Scott: evaluation

Transcript context

…It's acceptable, fully acceptable. Not in the shit sandwich since the word, but really seeming to mean what she said. But of course, all I wanted to do was hear about what I had done wrong. And eventually she said to me, "You said um a lot in there, were you aware of it?" And with this, I braved a huge sigh of relief if that was all I had done wrong who really cared. And I kind of made this brush off gesture with my hand. I said, "Yeah, I know, it's a verbal tech. It's no big deal, really." And then she said to me, "I know this great speech coach. I bet Google would pay for it. Would you like an introduction?" And once again, I made this brush off gesture with my hand. I said, "Oh, I'm busy. I don't have time for a speech coach. Didn't you hear about all these new customers?" And then she said to me, "I can tell when you do that thing with your hand, then I'm going to have to be a lot more direct with you. When you say um every third word, it makes you sound stupid. " Now she's got my full attention. And some people might say it was mean of her to say I sounded stupid, but in fact, it was the kindest thing that she could have done for me at that moment in my career because she knew me well enough to know that if she didn't use just those words with me, and by the way, this is a really important point, she never would've used those words with other people on her team who were perhaps a better listener than I was. But she knew me well enough. She cared personally enough to know that if she didn't use those words with me, I never would've gone to visit the speech coach and I wouldn't have learned that she was not exaggerating. And this was news to me because I had raised millions of dollars for two different startups giving presentations. I thought I was pretty good at it. And it really got me to thinking sort of why had no one told me. It was almost like I suddenly realized I'd been marching through my whole career with a giant hunk of spinach in between my teeth and nobody had had the common courtesy to tell me it was there. So why had no one else told me. But what was it about her leadership style that made it so seemingly easy for her to tell me? And as I thought about that, I realized it really came down to those two things. She cared personally and she challenged directly. She cared about me not just as an employee but as a human being. For example, when my father was diagnosed with late stage cancer, I was devastated and she could tell that I was devastated. And she said, "Kim, look, you go to the airport, fly home to Memphis, you need to be with your family. Your team and I will sit down and write your coverage plan." That's what great teams do for one another. And those were the kinds of things, that was the kind of thing that she did. She couldn't do, of course, for all 5,000 people in her organization, no matter how talented you are, relationships don't scale. But she did do those things for her direct reports and the people who she worked most closely with, all of us. 00 people in her organization, no matter how talented you are, relationships don't scale. But she did do those things for her direct reports and the people who she worked most closely with, all of us. And when a leader treats their team, the people who they interact with on a day-to-day basis with that kind of real care, then it's much more likely that their direct reports in turn are going to treat their teams with real care. And that creates a culture of caring. And even though relationships don't scale, culture does scale. So that was part of it. But of course there's also this challenge directly part which is equally as important. And I learned very quickly beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I screwed up, she was going to tell me and she was going to keep telling me until it penetrated my sometimes thick skull.…

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