In this short dialogue, Speaker A recounts a pivotal moment at Uber when a manager challenged the overly formal tone of an email, prompting A to adopt a more authentic, upfront communication style. A explains that Radical Candor—being honest, direct, and caring—means giving clear feedback on both good and bad performance, explaining the reasons behind outcomes, and maintaining transparency to avoid skepticism. By consistently leading with candor, A argues managers can navigate hard conversations more easily while still caring for individuals, making both positive and negative feedback more effective.
Why are you communicating like that? Was a good reminder to say, just be upfront, honest, and just call a spade a spade.
If performance is good, tell it. Let's finish on that. Those two words which you talked about radical candor. Tell me more. What does radical candor mean to you? You talked about calling a spade a spade, but how? What I'd really like to understand, how do you keep caring for the individual? And how does Radical Candor actually enable that?
Yeah, it's a good question. Just to preface this, I have not read the Kim Scott book. And I actually never had before I came across the term. I came across the term Radical Candor as feedback from a manager. When I was at Uber, I wrote, I think it must have been a wrap email or something, But the language, it wasn't how we're speaking. It was very formal, very, maybe overly formal, maybe using too long words and trying to sound too much a certain way. And my manager at the time challenged me and said, hey, who wrote this? That wasn't you. Why are you— who wrote your email for you? So, challenging the authenticity. And it was a bit wishy-washy, didn't quite get to the point. So, his feedback of saying, That's not you. Why are you communicating like that? Was a good reminder to say, just be upfront, honest, and just call a spade a spade. If performance is good, tell it. Why is it good? If it's bad, why is it bad? And I think as an IC and as a manager, if you proactively communicate why things are going to be good or why things are going to be bad, you can have any hard conversation in a much easier way. And controllable way. I think if people are not upfront and are not transparent, it can lead to, can lead to maybe skepticism on agendas or skepticism on, is what they've said correct? So, I think as a, specifically as a manager, leading with candor and leading with honesty, good or bad, in a pretty concise and transparent way helps you have hard conversations. It also helps you with good conversations. So, yeah, candor is my default and has been for a long time.
