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Lenny's Podcast / episode intelligence

Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott

10 Dec 2023 24 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Kim ScottLenny Rachitsky

Claim mix

belief 9evaluation 5recommendation 4uncertainty 3prediction 2commitment 1

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Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

24 published records

01 / recommendation

Recommends Radical Respect. Recommends The Deptford Trilogy.

“Yes, I've mentioned a couple. Please do buy Radical Respect, I believe that the more novels people read, the better. People often ask me, what can I do to move up on the care personally dimension of Radical Candor and read more novels? This is the best way I know of to build compassion for other people, to understand the emotional signals that might be coming at you. I mean, some of my favorite novels are Middlemarch. I try to reread that all the time. Anything that Toni Morrison wrote, the Bluest Eye is one of my favorite, but also Song of Solomon. It just such a brilliant writer and will help you enter into the lives of people that you haven't entered into. I think that Orlando by Virginia Woolf is another one of my favorites. And Robertson Davies, the Deptford Trilogy is an incredible set of novels to read. I'm cheating now and giving you three.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

06 / belief

There are chapters in the book about how to be a great upstander, how to be a better colleague, and there are chapters in the book about how to become part of the solution, not part of the problem when you're the culprit. And I think we all find ourselves in all four of those roles at different moments in time, and I don't think there's any one group who can solve this problem.

“There are chapters in the book about how to be a great upstander, how to be a better colleague, and there are chapters in the book about how to become part of the solution, not part of the problem when you're the culprit. And I think we all find ourselves in all four of those roles at different moments in time, and I don't think there's any one group who can solve this problem.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

09 / belief

I think probably what I would do, and I would love to hear what you would've said to Bob too, I certainly don't have all the answers, but probably what I would've said is let's go back to the first time Bob handed work into me with shame in his eyes.

“I think probably what I would do, and I would love to hear what you would've said to Bob too, I certainly don't have all the answers, but probably what I would've said is let's go back to the first time Bob handed work into me with shame in his eyes.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

11 / commitment

Wow, that is high praise. Yes, I will read that. And so I guess for people that aren't familiar, like Bridgewater, they encourage, they have a system called Dots where they tell people, you must give hard critical feedback after every meeting, publicly.

“Wow, that is high praise. Yes, I will read that. And so I guess for people that aren't familiar, like Bridgewater, they encourage, they have a system called Dots where they tell people, you must give hard critical feedback after every meeting, publicly.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

12 / uncertainty

Along the same lines, there's someone that you worked with that suggested I ask you about investing in your authentic leadership style, Melissa Tan. I don't know if you remember her.

“Along the same lines, there's someone that you worked with that suggested I ask you about investing in your authentic leadership style, Melissa Tan. I don't know if you remember her.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / evaluation

I love that this also gives an example of the impact of getting better at this point of you'll lose not just the people that are not necessarily great, but also other high performers on the team because they're seeing people slip through the cracks that aren't amazing.

“I love that this also gives an example of the impact of getting better at this point of you'll lose not just the people that are not necessarily great, but also other high performers on the team because they're seeing people slip through the cracks that aren't amazing.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

16 / evaluation

I think that also as a woman, I think there was something extra, as my teenage children would say, there was something extra for me because the sort of likability- competence bias that a lot of women face pushed me, especially early in my career, in the wrong direction on challenge directly.

“I think that also as a woman, I think there was something extra, as my teenage children would say, there was something extra for me because the sort of likability- competence bias that a lot of women face pushed me, especially early in my career, in the wrong direction on challenge directly.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

17 / prediction

You're going to lose your top performers. And I think very often people are afraid to tell someone on their team when their work isn't good enough because they're afraid of losing them.

“You're going to lose your top performers. And I think very often people are afraid to tell someone on their team when their work isn't good enough because they're afraid of losing them.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

18 / recommendation

It's much harder to admit the manipulative insincerity part. And that is really why I'm here talking to you because I want all of your listeners to avoid making that mistake because it's the most painful and the most common mistake that I think leaders and not just leaders, I mean all of us make this mistake in all of our relationships.

“It's much harder to admit the manipulative insincerity part. And that is really why I'm here talking to you because I want all of your listeners to avoid making that mistake because it's the most painful and the most common mistake that I think leaders and not just leaders, I mean all of us make this mistake in all of our relationships.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

19 / recommendation

People often ask me, what can I do to move up on the care personally dimension of Radical Candor and read more novels? This is the best way I know of to build compassion for other people, to understand the emotional signals that might be coming at you.

“People often ask me, what can I do to move up on the care personally dimension of Radical Candor and read more novels? This is the best way I know of to build compassion for other people, to understand the emotional signals that might be coming at you.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

20 / evaluation

I like Walter Isaacson's work a lot, but he falls prey to this in his biography of Elon Musk, which is there's this notion that we have to choose between being a total jerk but really competent or really nice but incompetent.

“I like Walter Isaacson's work a lot, but he falls prey to this in his biography of Elon Musk, which is there's this notion that we have to choose between being a total jerk but really competent or really nice but incompetent.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

21 / evaluation

There's a lot of evidence coming out of University of Chicago and probably other places, but that's the article I've read that there's more noise than signal in facial expressions and body language, especially if somebody is just a little square on a computer screen. But it also may be true in real life, like the phone actually may be one of our best communication innovations of all time because when you're talking to someone on the phone, you're listening to the words that they are saying to you, and that is really what you want to do in this moment.

“There's a lot of evidence coming out of University of Chicago and probably other places, but that's the article I've read that there's more noise than signal in facial expressions and body language, especially if somebody is just a little square on a computer screen. But it also may be true in real life, like the phone actually may be one of our best communication innovations of all time because when you're talking to someone on the phone, you're listening to the words that they are saying to you, and that is really what you want to do in this moment.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

22 / evaluation

" 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.

“" 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.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

23 / prediction

If you watch The Office or any show about problems at work or problems in any kind of relationship really, you're going to see a lot of episodes about obnoxious aggression and manipulative insincerity. But I think the real rub comes and the fact that these, even though this is what we like to talk about, these two problems are what we like to talk about, these are not the most common problem.

“If you watch The Office or any show about problems at work or problems in any kind of relationship really, you're going to see a lot of episodes about obnoxious aggression and manipulative insincerity. But I think the real rub comes and the fact that these, even though this is what we like to talk about, these two problems are what we like to talk about, these are not the most common problem.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

24 / recommendation

It should always start with soliciting feedback and it should include more praise and criticism, but anyway, way without offering up shit sandwiches. So anyway, I think that the important thing for these conversations, these sort of two-minute impromptu moments of management, is to go into the conversation being humble.

“It should always start with soliciting feedback and it should include more praise and criticism, but anyway, way without offering up shit sandwiches. So anyway, I think that the important thing for these conversations, these sort of two-minute impromptu moments of management, is to go into the conversation being humble.”
Speaker
Kim Scott
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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