Honesty and Candor

Obnoxious Aggression™ is what happens when you challenge but don’t care. It’s praise that doesn’t feel sincere or criticism that isn’t delivered kindly.

Obnoxious Aggression has a positive nature to it in that someone is trying to help you get better. Unfortunately, you will end up hating yourself in the process and quickly start looking for another job.

Ruinous Empathy™ is what happens when you care but don’t challenge. It’s praise that isn’t specific enough to help the person understand what was good or criticism that is sugarcoated and unclear.

Ruinous Empathy is about caring for people and showing empathy and connection in all areas of their life. The problem is, the listening never turns into challenging the other to get better.

Manipulative Insincerity™ is what happens when you neither care nor challenge. It’s praise that is non-specific and insincere or criticism that is neither clear nor kind.

Manipulative insincerity is common among people looking out to get theirs with no real concern for the other. These people can sometimes put up a front for a short time but cannot maintain caring enough to challenge anyone but themselves.

Radical Candor™ is the ability to Challenge Directly and show you Care Personally at the same time. Radical Candor will help you and all the people you work with do the best work of your lives and build the best relationships of your career.

The first dimension (care personally) is about being more than "just professional." It's about caring for people, sharing more than just more than just your work self, and encouraging everyone who reports to you to do the same.

The second dimension (challenge directly) involves telling people when their work isn't good enough - and when it is.

• Everyone enters conversations with presuppositions, opinions, feelings, beliefs, theories, experiences and goals they seeking to accomplish about the topic at hand.
• No one is neutral, or purely playing the devils advocate.
• Our actions and responses (verbal and nonverbal) make people feel more or less comfortable.
• Don't ever start by analyzing someone else. Ask yourself how you can have changed the conversation more positively. People today really suck at this.
• Often times we are not clear enough. Ask a lot of questions and take the time to explain the deeper meanings of what you are intending to state.
• Develop mutual respect regardless of title or position (this is hard for those who have no problem saying what they think, such as myself)

Pixar has a process for overcoming mediocrity. The people of Pixar claim this process is a critical factor in their ability to produce massively successful box office hits. The process is called the braintrust and the process is simple: Put smart, passionate people in a room together, charge them with identifying and solving problems, and encourage them to be candid with one another.

For the creative process to take place, the critical ingredient is candor. From candor comes trust, and from trust comes creative collaboration.

To be honest, this is a going to be a generational sticking point for you as high schoolers. It is hard to hear that your effort is not perfect. It is hard to hear that your hours preparing were not enough. It is hard to hear that you can always improve. Combine this with the societal conditioning discouraging telling the truth to those perceived in higher positions and this gets real hard, real quick.

Pete Doctor led the development of the storyline for Monsters, Inc (a personal favorite of mine). At first, the human protagonist was a six-year-old named Mary. Then she was changed to a little boy. Then back to a six-year-old girl. Then she was seven, named Boo, and bossy - even domineering. Finally, Boo was turned into a fearless, preverbal toddler. The idea of Sulley's buddy character, wasn't added until more than a year after the first treatment was written. The process of developing the story took many turns, and most of them came through feedback from colleagues that did not feel comfortable with how the characters were being developed.

What did it take from Pete to handle this well and continue moving the story forward?

The answer is simple, candor is only valuable if the person on the receiving end is open to it and willing, if necessary, to let go of things that don't work.

What then does it take to establish a Braintrust meeting? Frank talk (honesty), spirited debate (respectful disagreement), laughter (joy), and love (care personally).

That is a lot to take in for the receiver at this point. How do we build deliver great comments that will be more likely to be heard?

• Don't make demands
• Don't focus on a specific fix
• Offer up one or many solutions as ideas that could be built on

The goal of the Pixar Braintrust is to (a) make you think smarter and (b) put lots of solutions on the table in a short amount of time.

What do employees (students) do when there is no place for their ideas other than the hallways?

Let's break this down through the biblical model Paul takes with the church of Colosse. While this is not a perfect breakdown of the sandwich model, you will see very clear principals at play here.

1. Begin with positive comments regarding the situation.
   • Versus 1:1-2 are a greeting, followed by Paul's great prayer of thanksgiving for the Church at Colosse (1:3-8).
2. Give praise for the persons strong points (or ideas).
   • Verse 2:12 is the focal point of Paul's message, that Christians are already 'been buried and raised with Christ.'
3. Give the criticism.
   • Verses 2:8-23 list a number of things Paul is concerned about. In summary, the Colossians are likely turning back to their prior religious practices a bit to much (Angel Worship, Jewish custom, and some forms of Greek worship)
4. Remind the person of their strong points.
   • Chapter 3 focuses on Christ again and the renewal he offers.
5. Offer support in the areas for improvement and leave on a positive note.
   • Finally, Paul tells the Colossians in Chapter 4 to "Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person."

Questions

• Give one example of how you have experienced each of these quadrants in your life. Reflect on how this made you respond.
• What can you do make it easier for people to provide you with radical candor?
• What factors drive fear? How does fear limit radical candor? This will take some thought.
• Think of a situation where you recently failed to deliver/receive radical candor. Explain to me how this could have been delivered better through the Sandwich Model.

Sources

• https://www.radicalcandor.com/about-radical-candor/
• Radical Candor by Kim Scott
• Creativity Inc by Ed Catmul
• Crucial Conversations by