Radical Candor cover art

Radical Candor

How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean

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About this listen

Read by the author, Kim Scott

A practical guide to those bewildered or exhausted by management, written for bosses and those who manage bosses. Drawing on years of first-hand experience, Radical Candor shows you how to be successful while retaining your integrity and humanity. From Kim Scott, former manager at Google and Apple, and CEO coach to Silicon Valley.

'Reading Radical Candor will help you build, lead, and inspire teams to do the best work of their lives' – Sheryl Sandberg, former chief operating officer at Meta (Facebook) and author of Lean In

If you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all . . . right?

While this advice may work for home life, as Kim Scott has seen first hand, it is a disaster when adopted by managers in the work place.

Scott earned her stripes as a highly successful manager at Google before moving to Apple where she developed a class on optimal management. Radical Candor draws directly on her experiences at these cutting edge companies to reveal a new approach to effective management that delivers huge success by inspiring teams to work better together by embracing fierce conversations.

Radical Candor is the sweet spot between managers who are obnoxiously aggressive on the one side and ruinously empathetic on the other. It is about providing guidance, which involves a mix of praise as well as criticism – delivered to produce better results and help your employees develop their skills and increase success.

Great bosses have a strong relationship with their employees, and Scott has identified three simple principles for building better relationships with your employees:

  • Make it personal
  • Get stuff done
  • Understand why it matters


Radical Candor is the perfect handbook for those who are looking to find meaning in their job and create an environment where people love both their work and their colleagues, and are motivated to strive to ever greater success.

'If you manage people - whether it be 1 person or a 1,000 - you need Radical Candor. Now' – Daniel H. Pink, author of the New York Times bestseller Drive

 Career Success Leadership Management Management & Leadership Time Management & Productivity Workplace & Organisational Behavior Workplace Culture Business Career Boss Employment Success Inspiring Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

Reading Radical Candor will help you build, lead, and inspire teams to do the best work of their lives (Sheryl Sandberg, former chief operating officer at Meta (Facebook) author of Lean In)
Kim Scott has a well-earned reputation as a kickass boss and a voice that CEOs take seriously. In this remarkable book, she draws on her extensive experience to provide clear and honest guidance on the fundamentals of leading others: how to give (and receive) feedback, how to make smart decisions, how to keep moving forward, and much more. If you manage people - whether it be 1 person or a 1,000 - you need Radical Candor. Now. (Daniel H. Pink, author of the New York Times bestseller Drive)
I raced through Radical Candor - it's thrilling to learn a framework that shows how to be both a better boss and a better colleague. Radical Candor is packed with illuminating truths, insightful advice, and practical suggestions, all illustrated with engaging (and often funny) stories from Kim Scott's own experiences at places like Apple, Google, and various start-ups. Indispensable. (Gretchen Rubin, author of the New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project)
Recommend for all managers that are keen to get the best out of their teams. There is a lot of content but you will find something in each chapter that will resonate and make you reflect on your own managerial habits. It’s easy to follow with a lot of example stories coming from her personal experience at Google and Apple. Will re-listen some chapters and actually considering to buy the hard copy too so I can browse through it from time to time - very keen to start implementing some of her recommendations. This book got me more excited to be a manager and more confident I, too, am able to get the best out of my team.

Very helpful to reflect on own leadership and has actionable content too

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a top Google, apple, Twitter senior manager teachers how she became a great manager teaching others to be great managers

Tales from the top

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Very useful, well written and narrated. Thank you Kim for sharing your story and wisdom.

Outstanding

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I’d recommend this book to anyone exploring the subject of leadership and communication. The book was full of real examples which put theory into practice.
The only thing that I didn’t like about this audiobook was the narrator’s voice.

Interesting teachings about the importance of feedback

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l really derived benefit from the content and the delivery. Some great takeaways such as using terms like Rockstars and Superstars. All Managers with direct reports should read this, no matter their experience.

Wish I'd read this years ago!

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What a brilliant and immersive book. Full of things you may already know, but definitely need reminding of! I think I’ll be listening to this once a year. It’s helped me so much over the last two weeks.

Kim is brilliant

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Radical Candor has some really good strategies that can be implemented at work immediately to test out and see how it affects your team. I've found it really useful to understand better where the line is between say too much, not saying enough, and what you should be asking.

Really helpful and practical tips

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Wanting to combat the cultural taboos against criticising management, 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.

And an orange box as well.

Put an orange box in a high-traffic area of the office and tell people to drop criticisms and questions and pointed comments into it whenever they thought of something.

Then pull them out at the all-hands without previewing any of them and answer authentically off the cuff.

Embrace the discomfort and respond positively to whatever came up.

Although the narration has taken some flag, I enjoyed the book.

Plenty of tips and tricks.

p.s. It's surprising what you find in an idea's submission box - been there before.

#RadicalCondor #ReadingList #Books

We all need a red box.

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The author voice really turned me off the book. A voice actor would have been much. Sorry Kim

The logic steps in made sense and could be easily related too.

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A tangable guide to creating a great, honest and productive company culture that supports the people of the company.

Excellent

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