Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

all teams need stability as well as growth to function properly; nothing works well if everyone is gunning for the next promotion.

Toyota’s leaders painted a big red square on the assembly line floor. New employees had to stand in it at the end of their first week, and they were not allowed to leave until they had criticized at least three things on the line. The continual improvement this practice spawned was part of Toyota’s success. I asked my team what they thought: did we

Bosses 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.

“I really admire that you are a Little League coach,” I said, offhandedly. I had been meaning to tell him this for a while, and it just popped into my head in the moment. He said, “Thank you.” Usually, that would’ve been that. But I realized later that my compliment had not been specific—I hadn’t told Russ why I admired that he was a coach. I menti

the question that led me to study Russian literature—why some people live productively and joyfully while others feel, as Marx put it, alienated from their labor—was central to a boss’s job. In fact, part of my job was to figure out how to create more joy and less misery. My humanity was an attribute, not a liability, to being effective.

Notice that Jobs catches himself. He’s careful not to personalize the criticism—not to say “when they’re not good enough.” Instead, he says “when their work isn’t good enough.”

The key to soliciting criticism from the Dublin team was not to react defensively.

Ruinously empathetic praise “Just trying to say something nice”

when giving praise, investigate until you really understand who did what and why it was so great. Be as specific and thorough with praise as with criticism. Go deep into the details.