This book is about developing a team that shares the same radical principles and working with people who are incredibly committed, personal, and honest. If used properly, this strategy guarantees continued success and team members who have skin in the game.
What Motivates Us: Rockstars and Superstars
You need both rock stars and superstars to keep a team cohesive.
The rock stars enjoy what they do. They’ve found their groove. They are not interested in the next job if it will take them away from their craft.
Superstars must be constantly challenged and given new opportunities to grow.
Obnoxious aggression
Your criticism will come off as obnoxiously aggressive to the recipient if you don’t even take two seconds to show you care before you criticize them.
Being obnoxiously aggressive is the second-best option if you can’t be radically candid.
At least then, your team will be able to work efficiently because everyone will know your viewpoints and where you stand.
This explains why assholes seem to have an advantage in the world!
Ruinous empathy
People use “Ruinous Empathy” when they simply don’t want to upset or agitate anyone at work.
Because its primary objective is to make the recipient feel better rather than to highlight really excellent work and encourage more of it, praise that is overly sympathetic is ineffective.
Ruinously empathetic praise: “Just trying to say something nice”
Stick to the basics
There is a ton of advice out there, but what is profoundly wise for one person may be complete nonsense for another.
Whatever suits you, do it.
Simple hygiene practices include getting eight hours of sleep, exercising for 45 minutes, and eating breakfast and dinner with your family.
Work-life balance is a zero-sum game
Bring your best and most complete self to work every day, and take it home with you as well.
Instead of thinking of it as a zero-sum game where anything you put into your work steals from your life and vice versa, think of it as a balance between your work and personal life. Consider it as work-life integration instead.
Kinds Of Growth: Steep Growth
Rapid change—learning new skills or deepening existing ones—is typically associated with steep growth. It’s not about becoming a manager—many individual contributors continue to grow at a rapid pace throughout their careers, while many managers grow at a slower pace.
Criticizing better
Public criticism tends to elicit a defensive reaction, making it much more difficult for a person to admit and learn from their mistakes.
- Criticism differs from corrections, factual observations, disagreements, and debates.
- Criticizing someone should be done privately.
- Don’t personalize the issue.
- Don’t tell the person who is being criticized not to take it personally.
Kinds Of Growth: Gradual Growth
Gradual growth is characterized by stability. People who are progressing steadily and performing well have generally mastered their work and are making incremental rather than drastic improvements.
Radical Candor
When you combine “Care Personally” and “Challenge Directly,” you get “Radical Candor.”
The most unexpected aspect of radical candor may be that its outcomes frequently go against your expectations. You worry that people will become irate or vengeful, but they typically appreciate the opportunity to talk it out.
A result-oriented approach
Your role will be to encourage that process of listening, clarifying, debating, deciding, persuading, and executing to the point where your team works as a unit to complete projects and then learns from their outcomes.
The two dimensions of a manager
A good relationship is the key to being a good boss. This has two dimensions.
Care Personally: The first dimension is about being more than “just professional.” It’s about delving deeply and promoting that.
Challenge Directly: The second aspect entails letting people know when their work is adequate and when it isn’t. Being open and honest about everything.
Great relationships
Avoid attempting to prevent, manage, or control other people’s emotions in order to develop radically candid relationships. Do acknowledge them, and when you feel strongly about them, respond with compassion. And do make an effort to control how you respond to other people’s emotions.
Providing feedback
Radical Candor requires you to provide guidance as quickly and casually as possible.
- Say it in 2–3 minutes between meetings.
- Maintain slack time on your calendar or be prepared to be late; don’t “save” guidance for a 1:1 or a performance review.
- Guidance has a short half-life, so tell it like it is as soon as possible.
- Unspoken criticism is like a dirty bomb that explodes.
Creating a culture of listening
It’s difficult enough to listen to your team members and let them know you’re listening; getting them to listen to one another is even more difficult.
The keys are as follows:
- Create a simple system for employees to submit ideas and complaints.
- Make certain that at least some of the issues raised are addressed as soon as possible.
Blocking time to execute
Execution is a one-man job. We mostly use calendars for collaborative tasks like scheduling meetings. One of your jobs as a manager is to make sure that collaborative tasks don’t consume so much of your or your team’s time that there’s no time to execute whatever plan has been decided on and accepted.
Radical Candor: sweet and sour
Offering is a great way to get to know someone and establish trust.
- Honest, radical praise and criticism
- Honestly expressed admiration: “I like that about you”
- Radically Honest Criticism: Criticize your victories in order to keep winning.
- Do you think there is anything I could start doing or stop doing that would improve your lives?
- Balance positive and negative feedback: Focus more on the positive and less on the negative, but above all, be sincere.
Your hiring mentality
Here are some simple steps you can take to ensure you hire the right people:
- To reduce bias, define team fit as rigorously as you define skills.
- Formal interviews reveal less about team fit than informal interviews.
- Make interviews more productive by taking notes right away.
- In-person debriefing/decision: if you aren’t desperate to hire the person, don’t make an offer.
Consistency isn’t the best way
We are frequently told that changing our position constitutes “flip-flopping” or “lack of principles.”
The key, of course, is communication. Someone could reasonably complain, “You convinced me of X just two months ago, and now you’re telling me maybe not-X after all.”
You must be able to explain why things have changed in a clear and convincing manner.
Burnout
When we are overwhelmed by our work and personal lives, it is the most difficult to learn from our mistakes and begin the cycle all over again.
That is why, as a manager, you are at the very center of the wheel that propels you forward. First and foremost, you need to care for yourself. Of course, it’s easier said than done.
Being helpful
- Declaring your desire to be helpful may weaken defenses. when you assure someone that you are not attempting to undermine them but are genuinely trying to assist.
- Show, don’t tell.
- Finding assistance is preferable to providing it yourself.
- Guidance is a gift, not a stick or a carrot.
Passion is overrated
It is a basic axiom that people perform better at work when they find it meaningful. Bosses who interpret this to mean that it is their responsibility to provide a purpose often go too far. Insisting on people having a passion for their jobs can put both the boss and the employee under unnecessary stress.
Only about 5% of people have a true calling in life, and they confuse the hell out of the rest of us.
