S2E4 Corey-osity Unleashed with Dan Greene

Welcome to Curiosity Unleashed, where we turn bold ideas into action and help businesses and leaders step it up.

We're your hosts, Debra and Ken, obsessed with fresh takes, bold moves, and shaking up the way we lead and work.

Alongside our amazing guests, we'll dive into the good, the bad, and the and the actual what the hell of the workplace, served with a side of sarcasm and a splash of wisdom.

Oh, and fair warning, this is an adult podcast. Expect swearing, like Ken just did, brutal honesty, and the occasional dramatic reenactment of some of the most epic workplace fails we've ever seen.

Or done. So grab your drink, get comfy, and let's unleash some curiosity.

So today we are excited to have as our guest Dan Green. Welcome, Dan. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks, Deb. It's nice to be here. Thank you.

Great. Before we jump into questions, I'm going to do the embarrassing part, which is talking about you and sharing all the amazing things that you've done so far in your career. So you are a seasoned business leader, and you started your career— I love this— as a Navy fighter pilot. I absolutely love it, and I'm really curious to hear the synergies between the two. Um, after leaving the Navy, you earned an MBA from UCLA and transitioned into the tech industry, driving growth and leading large organizations such as Google and Twitter and Impossible Foods. I love Impossible Foods. So the ones who make that, like, the best veggie burger in the world? Yes?

I think so.

Really, really good. And you also got involved with a couple other startups. Now what you do is you're the Chief Revenue Officer at Radical Candor, where Dan spearheads the go-to-market strategy and operations and empowers leadership teams around the world through workshops and coaching. And we were so excited when you said yes to this because anytime Ken and I do a workshop, we, we name-drop Radical Candor. At least 2, 3, 4 times around the world. So, and every single time we do it, people jot it down. So we, we are on a mission like you to be able to bring this to more people because it's absolutely brilliant.

So just for the record, Dan, she's not aiming for kickbacks here. I promise.

No, no, no. I didn't mean that. I didn't mean that. Even though he is the chief revenue officer.

We definitely appreciate the support. And that's, I mean, it's word of mouth and is a key way that people find out about us. So appreciate you bringing this up.

Absolutely. So speaking of that, we're going to kick things off because there's so many topics that I know that you and the team focus on. But the thing that we want to get curious about first is the area of feedback. And we do that because I'm sure the same with you, every single time we do a talk or a workshop and we ask people, who feels comfortable with feedback, nobody raises their hand. So I know it's a really important focus for what you guys do, and I know you talk a lot about something about the feedback crisis in corporate culture. So why don't we just dive in and throw a couple questions your way, if that's all right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Perfect. Okay. So my first question is a basic one. What do you mean by a feedback crisis? What are the signs? What does it mean? What are the impacts of it?

Well, I mean, I would say that like generally speaking, people don't share feedback in most environments. And I wouldn't even say it's limited to corporate environments. I mean, we get calls from even the military in the US and abroad. So it's not just in corporate environments, it's non-commercial environments, government, colleges, universities, you name it. People just generally shy away from feedback. And what's interesting to me is that so many organizations recognize that they're not giving and getting feedback on a regular basis. They see the problem. They realize they've got this problem and they don't really know how to solve it. And I think the reason is that people generally think that if they give somebody feedback, they're being mean to that person, right? That they're not being nice to that person. And the reality is just the opposite, right? Like by not giving feedback, you're not helping each other. So if you can find a way to understand that basic concept and understand how to give feedback in a way that is very much kind and clear, then it actually isn't, it's not about hurting somebody else. It's about helping them, helping them improve.

Absolutely.

By all means. Now, I do have a question on that, though. In my last organization, when people heard the word feedback, they were thinking strictly of negative feedback.

That's right.

You know, you turn this in, if the quality's low, it's too late. The feedback was, it was always thought to be negative. When we wrote our book, we, we talk about feedback, but separately we talk about appreciation. When you're saying feedback, are you talking about just the negative or both the negative and the positive aspects of it?

Yeah, that's a great point. Good question. I think one part of the sort of crisis where people are is that people shy away from giving each other critical feedback. And they do that because they don't want to hurt the other person's feelings. So that's one part of the crisis. Another part of the crisis is they're not soliciting feedback. That's another part of feedback, right? You have to, you can't just give critical feedback. You have to, you also have to be able and willing to request feedback and listen and absorb feedback because that's just helping, that's helping you get better. And then the third part of it, which is what I think you're getting at, Ken, is you also need to be giving praise on a regular basis and encouragement. And that people have an, it's easier for people to give each other praise. That's for sure. But I think part of what feeds the crisis is that they're not giving each other sincere praise, specific praise. They're not, and they're generally not doing it enough. You have, you know, praise, the interesting thing about praise is it not only makes people feel good, but highlights the things that they're good at, that they're doing well. And encourages them and others to do that kind of work. So it actually feeds a virtuous cycle. But you have to be giving praise more often, 3 or 4 or 5 times more often than you're giving critical feedback.

It's interesting because the only reason that we broke out appreciation from feedback, because I do believe that it's all part of feedback, is because when we did our survey of the types of bad bosses, the unappreciator was the most common with 81% of people saying that their boss, to your point, doesn't show appreciation to them. And that's the main reason why we separated it out just so that we could put the spotlight on it because it's frustrating. It's like, why aren't you doing it in a, as you say, a meaningful and effective way?

Right. Yeah, no, that's a, I mean, that's a good idea. And I think a lot of times when, even with our business and brand and content, people hear the term radical candor and they think of two things. One, they think of just critical feedback to your point, right? And two, what they think, some people, what they think it means is, oh, I'm just going to be direct with people and I can just fire away, right? That's what I just need to be radically candid with you right now. And that's not, I mean, being direct and clear is a part of giving good feedback or praise, but the point, what's the whole point of the word radical before Candor is that, oh, what we're actually going to do is develop strong, trusting, caring relationships. And that's going to help enable the right, the right connection so that we can give each other feedback. That's what's radically different.

Yeah, that trust is so important. I do, I do want to circle back though. My background is software. I work for an HR company with my wife, Deborah, now, but my background is software. So this might sound familiar to you. When I have been trying to get my managers to give their people praise, first off, I'm a huge believer in all the benefits that you've talked about. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a necessary part of building that trust with the employees. But when I would try to get them to give praise, I got a whole bunch of different objections. Things like, well, I used to work with them. I just feel icky. I would get some objections like, well, they get a paycheck. Why do they need to get to thank them? Why do I need to tell them they're doing a good job? Just shut up and deliver the software. You know what I mean? But that kind of thinking also applies to the negative feedback, to the critical feedback as well. Why do you think feedback and appreciation is so hard for people to give? And why is it so important?

I think that, I mean, when it comes to giving critical feedback, I think it's hard to give the majority of the time. I think it's because people do care about the other person. They actually do care. They just, they're afraid to hurt their feelings. I think that that's more often the case. I think with praise, it's probably like, I don't think people have a problem giving praise. I think it's, it's that they don't think about it. They don't realize how important it is. They don't. They don't understand how critical it is to relationships to be giving praise on a more regular basis. I think we just sort of all overlook it. And in many cases, managers get really busy and they've got a million things going on. Like, oh, now I need to give people praise all the time. Right? Like, it just, they don't see that as being absolutely necessary. And I think, I think the reason, I think the reason, like the, like the, The base fundamental reason, first principles reasons for that is most managers don't really understand their jobs. They really don't. They think their jobs are like, okay, take these people, accomplish that task. And they don't really understand the nuts and bolts of the whole thing, right? It's not as simple as, okay, just organize the activities of this group of people to accomplish that task. They, and they've never really been taught, you know, most managers don't receive any kind of management and leadership training, right? At all. And, um, they're simply promoted because they're strong individual contributor in one way or the other. And then they start to model the behavior of the people around them.

Right.

Um, and since most people have never been taught, they've never been coached. They've been trained to be, to be leaders and to be managers. Then most people around them are also sort of like doing the wrong things. And this is well studied and there's tons of data on it, but it's something like only like 18% of managers are actually good or great at what they do. So you end up with this like big negatively negative cycle where people are learning on the job, they're learning from the wrong examples, and they don't really understand that trust is the quintessential currency of management and leadership. If you want to take this group of people and accomplish that task, you've got to develop trust on the team and being able to give praise and give critical feedback and get feedback on a regular basis is a key, is one of the ways we build trust. But like, they have this fundamental lack of understanding of what it takes to truly organize and motivate and inspire a group of people to achieve a task.

I think that's so important. And often when we talk about feedback and appreciation, we talk about how if you don't give it, how do you said this earlier, how do people know when they're getting it right? When do they know when they're getting it wrong? It's like, it's like a training course. You know, you are, every time you give them feedback, it's like sending them on a training course to understand how to do their job better.

And not just the person that you're talking to, but the people around who are watching you give praise to whoever.

Yeah. When you, when praise, you like doing praise, giving, giving praise publicly is not, not only makes people feel good and helps them shine, which most people like, not all, not everybody, by the way. Some people don't like public praise, but when you do it publicly, you're also saying, hey, look, this is to the whole group, to the whole team, what have you. Like, this is the behavior we're looking for. This is the skill set we're looking for, whatever it might be. Like, it's a positive public signal on what good or great looks like.

Absolutely. Okay. So we know why it's important. We know a lot of people resist it. One of the reasons is because they don't feel comfortable with it. And that's what I absolutely love about the Radical Candor model. I think it's just something that it just is so sensible and so effective. So can you maybe explain it to people who don't know what it is? If you were doing the 3-minute TED Talk, how would you explain what Radical Candor is?

Yeah, so Radical Candor is fundamentally about doing 2 things. And that's if you look at our logo and the COVID of the book that Kim wrote, it's on there as well. But it's all about understanding that you need to care personally about the people that you work with to develop strong, trusting, authentic relationships, and also be willing to challenge people directly when necessary. That's the fundamental tenet, that it's about caring personally and challenging directly, and it's possible to do both of these things. Simultaneously. And so what we mean is most of the time in professional environments, whether they're corporate or commercial and non-commercial, most people are taught explicitly or implicitly that they need to sort of keep it professional, right? And they interpret that to mean I'm going to leave sort of the best me or the best parts of me at the door and just sort of be this like corporate robot when I'm at work and not really develop strong connection and not show people that I care and not get to know them. And the reality is just the opposite, right? Because when we do that, we don't develop bonds, we don't develop connection, we don't develop trust. Caring and building familiar relationships are two key tenets of building trust. And without trust, you're going to fail many things, but certainly feedback is going to be one of them, right? So you have to be able to go beyond keeping it just professional and show people that you care by treating each other with respect and developing real human relationships. I don't mean like HR violation level relationships. I mean connection. And if you do that, then you set everybody up for building, you enable trust in many ways, right? That alone's not enough, right? That caring and those close relationships won't be enough. You need I also need to couple that with challenging people directly when necessary. And when it comes to giving feedback, there are certain ways that work and there's certain ways that don't. So you might have a strong, close connection with somebody, but you deliver feedback in the wrong way and you get an allergic reaction. So that's, that's the fundamental premise of Radical Candor.

And the 4 quadrants, why are there 4 quadrants and what do they all mean?

So if you were to take these two concepts of caring personally and challenging directly and build a 2x2 with these two concepts, which will of course help you solve any problem, then you end up with challenging directly on the horizontal axis and caring personally on the vertical axis. And these are spectrums of behavior, right? So at the very top of caring personally, you are caring personally. Down near the bottom, you're not caring personally at all. And same thing with challenging directly. And so as you superimpose these two concepts in the upper right quadrant, you've got radical candor. You've got this set of behaviors where you are caring personally and challenging directly. And then in the other three quadrants, you end up— we call them mistake quadrants. And this isn't where we put— this is not like people. These aren't personality profiles. These are just moments in time, right? So, for instance, in the lower right quadrant where you're challenging directly, but you haven't taken the time to develop that relationship or in the moment you're not showing that you care personally, that's what we call being obnoxiously aggressive, right? And so the, and which is something I think we all sort of intuitively understand. It's where you feel like kind of attacked, right? And you don't know that this person's got your best interests in mind. In the upper left quadrant where you definitely care a lot about somebody and it shows, but you're not challenging them, we call that being ruinously empathetic. And that's where most of us find ourselves. If we're making a mistake in this concept, most of the time we find ourselves there, right? Most of us care about the people we work with and are, we, and are sort of care so much that we're afraid to hurt their feelings. So we're afraid to open things up with feedback-based relationships. And so most of the time we find ourselves being ruinously empathetic. And the final mistake quadrant's in the lower left. We call that being manipulatively insincere. And that's where you're not really caring about the other person and you're not challenging them directly. Oftentimes, this takes the form of just talking about them, sort of talking about them, talking about the problem, complaining about them and the problem, maybe in extreme cases, actively politicking or backstabbing. But that's actually, I think, a little bit more. Yeah.

And it's interesting because when you talk about the one with the caring too much, I've seen it happen two ways, either You don't want to hurt the other person's feelings or, and this has happened to me before, I'm just really uncomfortable or I'm embarrassed of the situation and I don't want to give it. So I'm caring too much about myself and my embarrassment in doing that as well. And, and I think you're right. I think that quadrant is where a lot of people get stuck. Unfortunately, it is.

We get like, as a business, we got 100, 120, sometimes 140 inquiries in a month. And, um, we don't talk to everybody, you know, we'll email back and forth, but we probably talk to 50, 60, maybe 70% of those folks who reach out and they're coming from all different organizations, every shape and size you can imagine. And inevitably when we do talk and they start to describe what they're looking for and why they describe being ruinously apathetic, like that's the, the nature of their problem tends to be that.

I have experienced both where they absolutely would not challenge. And in that company, I was there for a really long time and got no feedback the whole time I was there. Really frustrating. I was at a company where the person didn't establish a trust relationship and was all in your face. It was all about trying to get another 40 hours after you've already worked 60 hours in the week because we're all not working hard enough. And, you know, there was no trust. It was all about challenging and incredibly frustrating and pointless.

Yeah. I mean, both of those are significant issues, right? Like not getting any feedback at all. Not so great at all. And then the opposite is true as well. I, you know, and that, like, it's, you're, it sounds kind of, you're describing sort of managerial behavior and I sort of Revert back to my point earlier, most managers just don't. They just simply don't know what they're doing. They really don't.

Now, let's assume that we're not on the very edge of that graph. We're not the person who never gives feedback. We're not the person who is obnoxiously aggressive, almost to the point of fisticuffs. This is a person who really understands they need to give feedback or appreciation, but if they do, it comes off as inauthentic. What advice do you have to build the kind of natural feedback culture in an organization?

I mean, at the individual level, I would say like there's an organizational answer and then there's like the individual level. I would say at the individual level, one thing that can be really helpful as an individual when you sort of think about, you think about this concept and you read the book or you listen to a podcast or you listen to this podcast and you're like, I really think I want to do that as you described, Ken. I think with that person's connections and relationships, they should start with context. Like, hey, like, this is what I just learned and I want to do this. And I think this is really incredibly useful. I want feedback and I want to be able to give you feedback and I want to be able to give you praise. And I think if this virtuous cycle, like, kind of can be created in our connections and relationships, that we're all going to get better at what we do and frankly be happy. And so providing context about what you're doing and why you're doing it, I think is the can really be helpful. And then the first most important step is that you, you understand how to get feedback and you actively begin to solicit feedback and give praise before you get to critical feedback. So getting feedback is the best way to start this whole thing and, and getting feedback, the best way to get feedback is, is to have a really good go-to question that's open-ended and specific and time-bound. So as opposed to saying, hey, Ken, any feedback for me? Your answer is likely going to be no. Everything's great. Thanks. Maybe if we have a good close connection and we do have trust, you'd open up at that point. But if I were to say something like, hey, look, I'd love two things I could do better when doing a podcast like we just did and love, you know, what suggestions do you have for me? Something very specific.

It's open-ended.

It's not a yes or no. You kind of have to think about what the answer is and give me something, right? That kind of go-to question can really help. And starting with getting feedback can also really help. And then moving into giving praise. And I think the way to make praise feel authentic and sincere is to make it specific, just like critical feedback. Instead of saying, hey, great work, It's, look, I think your questions were actually really good, uh, in that during the podcast, those are really well thought out, well prepared questions. And they got, they got me, you know, uh, giving you some pretty good answers. So great work. Right. So like very, very specific as opposed to, hey, that was good.

Now you, you've touched on this a little bit earlier. Sorry, Deb, I will let you talk in just a minute. I wanted just to get this one little bit.

Um, yeah, I've been meaning to give you feedback on that, Ken.

I'll eagerly anticipate that later. Um, but, uh, uh, uh, yeah, you had made a comment earlier about, uh, giving feedback and the right ways and the wrong ways. But I mean, there are ways that are distinctly wrong to give feedback or appreciation, but there are ways that work for one person and not for another. Our people are all different. They want to hear things in different ways. So, do you agree if I just put a little caveat in here saying that what works for person A in your team may not work exactly for person B, you may need to tweak it a little bit and change it a bit?

Yeah, absolutely. It's a great point. Totally agree. Everyone is different. We've probably all done one thing or the other, like True Colors or AGI, SGI, you name it. We all have different personalities, ways of communicating and processing information. It is absolutely important. To sort of understand those concepts and be able to sort of be attuned to that. You won't necessarily, you know, know immediately that one person wants it one way and the other, the other way. But like, I agree that people need, everybody needs an individual approach and we're all sort of slightly different in the way in which we want to hear and process information. I think that reminded me of something else and now it's escaping me. Ah, it'll come back.

But yes, I totally agree.

It's interesting.

I was going to say, it's interesting you say that because if I think about some of the biggest mistakes I've made as a leader is I learned how to be a leader in the US. Wasn't sent on training classes, as you said, but I learned from watching others. And then I moved to the UK and this was 20 years ago. So the cultures have gotten closer together, but I just gave feedback the way that we did it in the US, which did not necessarily work really well over in the UK, where it was a completely different approach. So I think there's definitely personality differences. There's also cultural differences. So, you know, it really isn't— I think it's definitely an art. And that's what I love about your model is I think it helps you understand the art and science of giving feedback effectively.

Yeah, it is. You're right. It is an art. And different cultures approach it differently. Genders approach it differently. Ship differences. I remember giving feedback to my, my daughter about, uh, something. It was, she's been a competitive volleyball player for years and I've watched her play for thousands of hours over the years. And, and I can remember probably like early-ish on in the process, giving her feedback and coaching on, on things and thought, thinking I was doing it right, thinking I was like, hey, like we've got a good relationship and she, like, she knows I'm coming from a good place and trying to help her. And like, it was hard at first because her reaction was very defensive. And, uh, and at times like there were, there were, you know, she said something like, it was essentially like, you don't think I'm a good volleyball player. And even though I had said exactly the opposite, she was reacting, you know, allergically to the feedback. And I thought I was doing it right, but that's not really the relevant point. And this kind of goes back to what you were saying, Ken, like you measure the effectiveness of feedback at the point of reception, not transmission, right? Like you measure at that person's ear, not your mouth.. And if the way in which you're giving that feedback isn't working for them, you got to find another way to communicate.

Even, even timing. I've learned the hard way that you need to, there might not always, it might not always be the right moment. I don't know about you, but I learned a lot by watching Ted Lasso. And I think he must have done it in an episode once about, you know, like not giving the feedback in the heat of the moment or something like that. Cause he always gets it right.

Yeah, that's, that's true. Timing's important. And you're right. Sometimes in the heat of the moment, it's not the right time. Absolutely. There was this, I mean, look, on the flip side, you don't want to let 2 months go by either, right? Because behavior, right? Behavior doesn't change. Person doesn't get better. They don't understand what the issue is. And the memories fade. Memories can be very different 2 months, 4 months, 6 months later. Their memory might be fundamentally different than yours. So yeah, finding the right balance is important for sure.

Well, we could talk about feedback forever and ever, but I guess for the people listening, first of all, read the book. You can get a lot more on that or contact Dan and the team and you can be one of the 120 people who you guys come back with and help.

Yes, we love that.

So, let's move on to leadership for the last time we have together, which I know is something that you guys focus a lot on as well. So, what do you think great leadership is? How would you define great leadership and how do you think it's changed over time?

Well, I would define great leadership as the ability to develop the kind of connection and trust necessary to motivate and inspire and challenge a team to achieve great objectives or its objectives. So there's some keywords in there. As I was saying earlier, it's not simply about organizing the activities of a group to achieve something. It's not simply about developing trust and connection and relationships. It's not simply about inspiring and motivating people. It's about pulling all that together to, in order to achieve a set of objectives. And I don't, I mean, you can certainly, there's plenty of leaders who achieve great things in business and government and elsewhere who are able to achieve sort of great things. And I don't think would hit the bar as being great leaders in my book because they do it out of fear or they do it out of force of will and out of positional authority, and they're not motivating and inspiring and helping people. Achieve those objectives. And that's a fundamental difference, I think.

Yeah, I love that. It goes back to what you said before about understanding what your role is as a leader, because being in HR, you know, I always challenge people at what cost. So yes, you might be successful, but at what cost to your people are you successful? So yes, your company might be making lots of money, but your people are burned out. There's no trust. None of them are motivated. So you might be, you know, doing a great job on one side, but you're like leaving all of the damage on the other side when it comes to your people.

Yeah. And I think that's right. And I think that like the problem we have is we see people in positions of leadership all the time, um, who are clearly not the kind of managers and leaders that I'm describing achieve great results, but I don't think that they achieve, I don't think they do it in a sustainable way. And even if they're able to do it over a period of time, like, I also don't think that, like, I don't know, maybe this is, maybe this is idealistic, but they're, even if they're able to achieve great results for 20 years, they're still leaving destruction in their wake. They're, they're right, hundreds or thousands of people that are burned out and tired and angry and upset and treated poorly and unhappy. And I, I don't think that's what life's all about.

Absolutely. We had a statistic that something like only 30% of people are engaged when they go to work, something like that in that ballpark anyway. One of the people that we recently spoke with, Gary Ridge, the CEO of WD-40, he's CEO.

Yep.

Former CEO, he's the chairman of the board now. But his engagement scores in WD-40 were something like 93%. And the difference that those two percentages can make to an organization are deep, profound, and incredibly financially significant. Absolutely. Yeah, this isn't just, this isn't happy clappy soft fluffy stuff. This is hardcore business ROI.

Absolutely is. And there's, you know, in the example I was giving before where there are people that are successful by driving their teams hard and being, you know, essentially being jerks. Imagine what would happen if they incorporated some of these principles. Imagine if they flipped it around. Like, they're able to achieve that. Like, imagine what you could achieve if you do it in the right way, do it in the positive way. A friend of mine that actually, so there's a guy named Russ Laraway who worked with Kim and I at Google and Twitter and actually co-founded the original incarnation of this business, Radical Candor. And he, originally this business was going to be about software. They were going to build a software program to help managers do their jobs, but that didn't work out. So they folded that up and restarted it as a consulting and training organization. And so Russ went on, he went on to be head of people at Qualtrics and he wrote a book called When They Win, You Win. And he used a lot of data to prove exactly what you're just talking about, Ken, that essentially the more engaged people are, the more engaged the team is, the more engaged the team is, the better that team performs, period. And there's all this data that proves all this. And so then the fundamental question is, okay, great. Well, how do you get an engaged team? How do you get engaged people and engaged team? Well, turns out managers need to do these 3 key things, which essentially amounts to developing strong relationships and managing, helping people with feedback and coaching and also helping them develop in their careers. If you do those things, you get really engaged teams.

That sounds great to me. We're a bit crueler, Ken, aren't we? Because our model has 14 building blocks, which is a lot harder to remember than 3.

Right there.

Yeah.

Take notes. There will be a quiz later, Dan.

But I do, I do love that. I just, as a matter of fact, I just wrote down the name of the book. I definitely have to, have to read that book.

Yeah, it's good.

Absolutely. So the next question I have is, what's a leadership myth that you think needs to be retired?

Good question. I would say the leadership, it's, so it's, it, there's two, two things actually that come to mind and it's sort of, they all, they're, they're connected. One, that you need to have all the answers, that your job is essentially to have all the answers, or I should say, gather information, have all the answers, and tell people what to do. And I think that that's a myth. I think that what great leaders do is gather as much information as possible and when necessary, and debate and discuss. As much as possible to work with your teams to come up with the right answers and the right direction. I don't think it's a manager's job to always have those answers and always point people in the direction. I think it's a far more collaborative process than that. And related to that concept is a lot of managers think, okay, I'm in charge. And so that makes me the authority. And I think that in order for managers to really develop the kind of culture on a team where people are going to truly innovate and truly collaborate, they need to lay their power down, right? You can't use your position of authority to sort of dictate what happens on a team. You need to be so comfortable in your position and in who you are that you're going to knock down those barriers and lay your power down so that people truly communicate with with each other and with you. So you get all the right information, you're able to make all the right decisions together and move in the right direction.

That makes all the sense in the world. I was stuck at a level, a certain level of team lead, actually, until I was able to stand up in front of my team and the broader organization and admit to God and everybody, I don't know, what do you think? As soon as I could say that, a promotion followed, and then more responsibility followed, and then another promotion followed. I mean, within 2 years after that, I doubled my salary. But it was all down to being willing and able to admit, you know, I don't have all the answers. But when all the brains in my team are working together, we're 10 times as likely to come up with an answer as when I'm just relying on my one puny little brain.

Yeah, 100%. And I think that, I think that's probably the greatest, the That concept is probably the myth of leadership.

I love that one because I can remember when I was a new manager, new leader, and I tried to go out and talk to my employees and my colleagues and my peers. And I can remember like it was yesterday, my boss said to me, that's what we pay you for. You're the one who's supposed to have all the answers, have all the ideas. So for me, it took me a little while. I'm saying this because there might be other people who've had bosses like this before. And it took me a little while to feel comfortable because I can just picture him in my ear telling me that and feeling like a failure because I didn't have the answers. But luckily now I get it. You know what? 20-something years later, I finally get it.

But yeah. That's, you know, he was in that 82%, right? Like this idea that only 18% of managers really are good or great at what they do, which should be understanding all these concepts. And it's not because he or anybody else wants to be a bat. Nobody wakes up like, I think I'm going to be a bad manager today. You know, like most people don't wake up that way. They just, you know, like you, we all learn, we learn on the job. Like, in fact, the concept that I'm talking about, that we're talking about right now, all three of us learned it on the job. Nobody ever taught that to us. I was kind of taught the opposite, to be honest. In the military, there's a lot of good tenets of leadership in the military, but one of the things you're taught in the military is you got to lead from the front. Always, 100%. Lead from the front. And, and like, lead from the front makes a lot of sense to me, like set the example and model the behavior. Yes. But that doesn't always mean like, let's go, this is where we're going, move out. You know, like that's not always what lead from the front means. And, and I just, I don't know. I wish, I wish more organizations took the time to understand what leadership's all about. Train their, their managers for them.

And it's interesting cuz I, you know, I made a joke of how we have 14 building blocks and, um, one of them is empowerment, which some people include under other things. It's same reason why we did appreciation, just because, you know, it is, it is a job that you need to learn all the moving parts.

Yeah, there's a lot to it. There is, you're right.

There, there is to it.

Yeah.

I'm gonna go back to the military. So can you think of a leadership lesson? From the military that you still use to this day.

Can I jump in here, Deb?

I'm so sorry.

Yeah. One quick question. Dan, have you read a book called Turn the Ship Around by David Marquette?

No, but I think I've heard of that.

Oh, I love that book.

Yeah, I've heard of that.

Yeah, he's got a 10 or 15-minute video on YouTube you can watch if you don't want to do the book. But it does talk about devolving the leadership from the leader of a submarine down to the, the, the bits that can be divulged down to where the information is in the, in the, in the crew member's hands and how they, they turned, they, they took the worst sub in the Navy and turned it around to be the most successful sub that year. Yeah.

I mean, it, the, um, I, I, I have heard that story and, or just that, that exact same thing. I didn't read the book though. There's, um, you, you know, um, Stephen Ambrose. Uh, he wrote, um, a bunch of history books. Um, and he's great. And he wrote a book called D-Day, all about, uh, D-Day and the war in Europe. And, um, he makes this interesting point in that book about why the United States won World War II with our allies, including Great Britain. Um, the, uh, the basic point was, yeah, resources helped a lot, but another part, another key element here was the way in which we essentially the way in which the Army was organized and managed. And this surprises a lot of people, but the decision-making process was pushed as far down as possible to the corporal and the sergeant level, and that people were empowered to make decisions as far down as possible. And that's critical on the battlefield, and that ultimately empowering the lowest levels possible to make decisions in aggregate over millions of incidents and moments is part of what helped us win the war.

I know, it's fantastic. Deb, I'm so sorry for jumping in.

No, no, that's okay. I'm going to jump in now because based off of what the two of you were talking about, there's this great model. I don't know if you've heard of this before called the iceberg of ignorance, which talks about how 90% of the problems are known by the people in the front. So it completely aligns with what you just said, Dan. Yeah. It wasn't created until 1972. So maybe he learned it, somebody from Japan actually, um, maybe he learned it by, you know, studying D-Day.

I think that's spot on. One of the litmus tests for, for me, First off, I believe deeply that it kind of goes back to another point we're just talking about, that like, as a leader, you don't have all the answers, right? You need to get as much information as possible to help make decisions, but you certainly don't have all the answers. And so one of the ways of getting as much information as possible is that people feel comfortable sharing ideas and information with you. And if they don't trust you and you don't have a good connection, they're not going to want to do that. But, you know, one of the litmus tests for whether you're developing the right culture, I think, on a team is whether people are comfortable actively disagreeing with you as a manager, right? Because you want their opinions and you want their ideas and you want them to express them freely and openly without fear of retribution, without fear of getting their head bit off or whatever else, right? So, because some of the best ideas and certainly plenty of data and information are going to come from the most junior levels within any organization, if not all levels within an organization, right? And you need that information in order to make good decisions.

Absolutely. Encourage dissent. So, I'm going to go back, and that's unfortunately going to be the last question because I do want to know if there's any type of leadership lesson going back to the military sort of as a final tip or idea to inspire people.

The concept that I took away from the military more than— I took a lot. Look, I mean, my, I cut my teeth as a leader. I would say it started in my junior high school and high school years. Like, that's literally where I, the spark was lit when it came to managing and leading because I realized that you could take a group of people and you could figure out how to achieve something together. And I thought that was just, that was fun. That was rewarding. That was fulfilling. And I, you know, experimented, I think not even like active, like, I don't think I was actively experimenting, but as it turns out, experimenting with lots of different things in lots of different ways. And I think over the course of my childhood, I learned that building connection and trust was much better than telling people what to do. And so that, that concept, I think, continued to be hammered into me over the course of my military career. The thing that I took out from my military experience into my corporate life roles initially was taking care of your people, which is essentially what I'm talking about, like building connection and trust and laying down, laying down, like getting, eliminating the barriers and the walls and building real connection and trust and getting to know your people. That concept, like when I first went to Google, didn't, it didn't exist, not pervasively. And, and so, in my first job at Google, this was about 2 years out of the military. I got out of the military. I was in the reserves for a little bit, going to business school, then essentially got a job at Google. I was given a team of about 30 people and the way in which I managed, I didn't know anything about business and I certainly didn't know anything about ad sales and I didn't know anything about the tech industry, but I did understand how to manage and lead people. To a certain degree, right? Like, I spent plenty of time doing that. And the way in which I did it was very much the way in which I did it in the military, was to build strong connections and relationships. I never used my office. I always sat with the teams and got to know everybody, got to know what they were all about, and let them get to know me. And that was very different than the way in which people managed and led around me. And that was the one thing that I think helped differentiate me and helped get me noticed.

It's a lovely full circle to Radical Candor, which is your approach is caring for people and challenging directly and supporting them.

So, yeah. Yeah. That concept actually, as it turns out, was also part of what I brought into that team. I came up in the military debriefing everything constantly. We would constantly debrief and exchange feedback with with each other. And nobody ever did that either. And so we created that process on the team from the—

So you're the reason Google's successful. Okay. There you go.

Yeah, exactly.

There you go. It's all down to you.

So that's how Google—

exactly.

That's how Google became so successful. Brilliant. Well done.

You did a good job there. Now, unfortunately, we always hit this point and I always hate saying it, but—

That's why I make you say it and not me.

Thanks. I noticed you changed that. We're, we've got a list of the questions up here, and she changes things always, always at the end. But before we wrap up, Dan, how can people reach out to you? How can they connect with you? How do they become another one of those people who are reaching out to your organization?

They can go to our website, RadicalCandor.com. There's plenty of prompts to contact us if you want. You can also email me directly. At dan@radicalcandor.com or reach out to me on LinkedIn. Those are probably all pretty good ways.

You've got a great newsletter. I'm subscribed to it. So subscribe to your newsletter. See, I'm telling you, I'm just out there advocating for you guys all the time. You are.

I think we might as well start paying you all royalties. Yeah, we've got a great newsletter. We publish a blog on a weekly, biweekly basis, and we actually have a pretty good podcast going with Kim and our our co-founder, CEO Jason Rosoff.

Well, thanks once again for being on. We are devotees. We are complete fans of the approach that Radical Candor give out. We advertise you guys over here in the UK all the time. I'm always surprised when I get blank stares mentioning Radical Candor. It's such a simple, clear concept, but it has such huge impact. So let's hope that we can change the world one bad manager at a time.

Yes, I agree. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thanks, Sam.

Bye. Thank you both.

And that's a wrap on this episode of Curiosity Unleashed. Huge thanks to our amazing guests and of course to you for tuning in.

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