‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.’ 

Just about every parent

I’ve been reading a book as part of a book club by Kim Scott called Radical Candor: Be a Kick Ass Boss without Losing Your Humanity and admittedly, I’m really struggling to get through this book.

https://twitter.com/ActivateLearn/status/1483747593943662592

I’ve read about 70 pages or so but each time I pick it up and read paragraphs based on Silicon Valley examples, my reaction is that I switch off. Alternatively, I read the paragraph and then find it’s completely washed over me.

I know that it’s not a lack of focus issue because I’m currently also reading Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls and if you’ve read this book, you’ll also know what I’m talking about when I say that even THAT book is one I prefer to read DESPITE it being written in a different style that Hemingway is usually known for.

So if I can read For Whom the Bell Tolls, there’s nothing wrong with my attention on Radical Candor!

Something about it is a bit off for me with Radical Candor because it name drops a lot and the examples ring a bit hollow, at times, self-centred, patronising and a bit ‘hit and miss’. it’s also repetitive.

I’m in a bit of a bind now thinking whether I should just plod along and continue reading this (be in ‘ruinous empathy’) or, in an act of radical candor, tell my book club buddies that I simply couldn’t finish the book because every time the author mentions some Apple, or Google or Facebook CEO telling her the right way of working with people and teams, I switch off.

Maybe I’ve reached the point where the American, in particular the Silicon Valley, productivity, career driven, succeed at all costs mentality and focus is doing my head in. I can’t take the “ra ra” anymore. Can we have examples without mentioning Sheryl Sandberg, Steve Jobs and others?

However, I searched online to get the short version – and do away with the book – and the framework isn’t bad per se although I do wonder how it sits culturally with say, a white Anglo middle aged man using radical candor on a young, woman from say, an indigenous background or different race of sorts. Or even in Europe or Asia? I doubt radical candor works even in these workplace settings.

Radical candor, to me, requires people to be self aware and truly understand what motivates people but the danger is that they’ll use it as a licence to just tell people off. Lots of people in my experience simply don’t know how to provide feedback.

Here’s the framework in a nutshell:

So as you can see, the framework is a definite help in being able to get the best out of people. The summary of the book is provided below.

I’ve decided to leave the book aside and instead, focus on the frameworks as well as seeing how it plays out between different types of people and situations in the workplace. I will not review this book on my YouTube channel simply because I couldn’t finish it.

As it’s a popular book, I’m in the minority here because I’m somewhat blinkered. I don’t like the idea of espousing the new gods of Silicon Valley as the ones to take lessons from.

Some References:

Where Radical Candor is Wrong for Feedback

The Radical Candor Framework by ModelThinkers