0:01

Ted Audio Collective Hi

0:07

everyone, we have something different for you

0:10

today. We're sharing an episode of How

0:12

to Be a Better Human, another podcast

0:14

in the Ted Audio Collective. Comedian Chris

0:17

Duffy interviews the world's greatest thinkers on

0:19

the big and small ways we can

0:21

all live a little better. Here's

0:23

an episode we thought you'd enjoy. If

0:26

you like it, check out the rest of How to

0:28

Be a Better Human wherever you're listening to this. You're

0:33

listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm

0:35

your host, Chris Duffy. Today's guest

0:38

is Kim Scott. Over the course

0:40

of her career, Kim has worked at all sorts of

0:42

big companies that you've heard of and had all these

0:44

very fancy titles. But all those

0:46

impressive accomplishments? While wonderful, none

0:49

of those were actually Kim's goal. My

0:51

whole business career was actually one

0:53

giant ploy to subsidize my novel

0:56

writing habit. So I

0:58

had written three novels, none of which

1:00

got published. The first novel

1:03

is actually set in Russia and

1:05

it's called The Measurement Problem. And

1:08

it's a lighthearted critique of

1:10

capitalism. It's about

1:13

a young woman who moves to Moscow

1:15

and falls in love with two people.

1:17

One is an American delivering humanitarian aid

1:19

and the other is a Russian entrepreneur. And

1:23

I was talking actually to

1:25

Andy Grove, who was the

1:27

CEO of Intel, about

1:29

sort of what I wanted to do

1:32

with my life. And he said, why

1:34

don't you write about management? A

1:36

lot of the drama that is in a novel

1:39

is in management. And

1:42

most people who are operating executives

1:45

don't like to write and most people who like

1:47

to write have never been an operating executive. And

1:49

you've done both. So do it. That

1:52

was a big piece of feedback for Kim. That changed

1:54

the course of her career. She ran

1:56

with that idea so far that she became an expert

1:58

in feedback herself. author

2:00

of the books Radical Candor and Just Work.

2:03

When it comes to giving and receiving feedback,

2:05

whether it's at work, in your personal life,

2:07

or on creative projects, no

2:09

one knows more than Kim. I really believe that. And

2:12

so today, on our show, we're going to get

2:14

very candid, some might even say radically candid, about

2:17

feedback, work, and how to communicate

2:19

honestly but also kindly with Kim.

2:21

We're going to do all of

2:23

that right after this. This

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soundrise. That's

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paycom.com/soundrise. Hey,

3:48

everyone. Before we kick off today's episode, I

3:50

wanted to give a shout out to one

3:52

of our favorite podcasts, Masters of Scale. Every

3:55

week on Masters of Scale, Reed Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, meets

3:57

with some of the women who have been working on this

3:59

project. world's most successful entrepreneurs to discuss

4:01

the strategies that got them to where

4:04

they are. You'll hear from

4:06

entrepreneurs like former Burberry CEO Angela

4:08

Arendt, Imagine Entertainment's Ron

4:10

Howard and Brian Grazer, Airbnb's

4:13

Brian Chesky, and many other

4:15

iconic founders. Be sure to

4:17

search for Masters of Scale wherever you get your

4:20

podcasts. Okay,

4:22

we are back. Today we're talking

4:24

feedback with Kim Scott. Hi, I'm

4:27

Kim Scott, and I am the

4:29

author of Radical Candor and Just

4:31

Work. Have you just always been the kind of

4:33

person who is willing to give feedback? No,

4:35

I hate giving feedback. That's why I wrote

4:37

the book. I would say, so in

4:40

Radical Candor, I talk about ruinous

4:43

empathy, and ruinous empathy is

4:45

me. I really hate

4:48

upsetting people. I hate saying

4:51

something that might hurt their feelings

4:53

in the short run, even if it's good for them

4:55

in the long run. I think

4:58

the way that I got

5:00

over that was by thinking

5:02

about stories, telling myself stories,

5:04

and then telling other people's

5:06

stories about times when

5:08

I failed to tell someone something they

5:10

would have been better off hearing in

5:13

the long run, and remembering that the

5:15

kinder thing to do in

5:17

the fullness of time is to tell the person

5:19

the thing. All of us know

5:21

we don't want to be in a relationship with

5:23

someone who is secretly seeping at us. We don't

5:25

want to work for a boss who says, good

5:27

job, even though they're throwing out our work and

5:29

having to redo it all. You want to trust

5:31

that the other person is telling you something, honestly.

5:34

And yet, there's paradoxically this

5:36

real fear of honesty

5:38

and of hearing the hard

5:41

truth. Yeah, there's a fear of hearing

5:43

it. I think there may be even a

5:45

greater fear of sharing it, but the fear

5:48

is on both sides of the equation. I'll

5:50

tell you the story, what I call the

5:52

Bob story. And I think everyone has a

5:55

Bob story. So Bob was this guy I

5:57

had hired, and I liked him a lot.

5:59

He was smart. He was charming. He was

6:01

funny. He would do stuff

6:03

like We were at

6:05

a manager off-site and we were at a

6:07

startup and everybody was stressed and somehow we

6:09

wound up playing some of those endless get-to-know-you

6:12

games. Stress balls and all that kind of

6:14

nonsense. Bob was the

6:16

guy who had the courage to raise his hand

6:18

and to say, look, I can tell everyone is

6:20

really stressed out and We'd

6:23

all rather get back to work. So why

6:25

don't we just, I've got an idea It'll be really

6:27

fast and it'll help us get to know each other

6:29

and then we can all go back to work And

6:32

so Bob says let's just go around the

6:34

table and confess what candy our

6:37

parents used when potty training us

6:39

Really weird, but really fast and

6:41

then even weirder yet We all remember and

6:44

then for the next 10 months every time

6:46

there was a tense moment in a meeting

6:49

Bob would whip out just the right piece of candy

6:51

for the right person at the right

6:53

moment. So Bob brought a little levity

6:55

to the office. He was funny. One

6:58

problem with Bob. He was

7:00

doing terrible work. Absolutely terrible

7:02

work. He would hand

7:04

stuff into me and there was shame in

7:06

his eyes. I was so puzzled because he

7:09

had this incredible resume, this great history of

7:11

accomplishments. I learned much later the

7:13

problem was that Bob was smoking pot in

7:15

the bathroom three times a day Which maybe

7:17

explained all that candy that he had at

7:19

all times But I didn't

7:21

know any of that at the time All

7:23

I knew is that Bob was handing in

7:26

terrible work and I would say something to

7:28

Bob along the lines up Oh Bob, this

7:30

is a great start. You are so awesome.

7:32

Everyone loves working with you Maybe you can make

7:34

it just a little bit better, which of course he

7:36

never did And so

7:38

let's pause for a moment and sort

7:40

of double-click on why I said

7:42

something so banal to Bob I think

7:44

part of the problem was

7:46

what I just mentioned ruinous empathy

7:49

I really did care about

7:51

Bob and so I really

7:53

didn't want to tell him something that

7:56

was gonna upset him But if

7:58

I'm honest with myself, there was a also

8:00

something a little bit more nefarious

8:02

going on because Bob

8:05

was, as I mentioned, he was popular. Everybody

8:07

loved working with him. And he also was

8:09

very sensitive. And there was part of me

8:11

that was afraid that if I told Bob

8:14

in no uncertain terms that his work wasn't

8:16

nearly good enough, that he

8:18

would get upset. He might even start to cry.

8:20

And then everyone would think I was a big,

8:22

you know what? So this goes on for 10

8:25

months. And eventually the

8:27

inevitable happens. And I

8:29

realized that I was going to

8:31

lose all my top performers if I

8:33

didn't fire Bob, because they were frustrated.

8:36

Their deliverables were late because Bob's deliverables

8:38

were late. They were unable to do

8:40

their very best work because they had

8:42

to spend a bunch of time redoing

8:44

Bob's work. And so I sat down

8:46

to have a conversation with Bob that

8:49

I should have started frankly, 10 months

8:51

previously. And when I

8:53

finished explaining him where things stood, he sort

8:55

of pushed the chair

8:58

back from the table. And he looked me right in the

9:00

eye and he said, why didn't you tell me? And as

9:02

that question is going around in my head with

9:04

no good answer, he looked at me again and

9:07

he said, why didn't anyone tell me? I thought

9:09

you all cared about me. And

9:11

that was the moment that I

9:13

realized that by just being nice

9:15

to him and not telling him, I wound

9:17

up having to fire him as a result, not so

9:20

nice after all. For me, one of the pieces that

9:22

it really brings up is I think

9:24

sometimes we hesitate to give

9:27

feedback to our Bobs in

9:29

our lives because we have

9:32

this skewed idea about people's

9:34

potential to grow and change. Like we think

9:36

that they're fixed when in reality people aren't

9:39

fixed. And like if Bob

9:41

was always going to just be horrible, right, then it

9:43

isn't very kind, but that's not how humans work. Bob

9:45

can become better, but only if you let him become

9:47

better. Yeah, in order for

9:50

radical candor to work, you have

9:52

to have a certain optimistic growth

9:54

mindset. If you think that someone

9:56

truly sucks and will never improve,

9:58

then there's no point. you're wasting

10:00

your breath. But that, in my experience, is

10:02

never the case. People don't only

10:05

suck. They can always get better. I

10:07

love the don't only. Sometimes they definitely

10:10

do. Sometimes they do. Like sometimes I

10:12

suck sometimes. We all do. We

10:14

all make mistakes, which is also part of the

10:17

reason why radical candor is so important. So

10:19

I know with with radical candor, you have

10:22

some real clear guidelines to help people because

10:24

there's real common mistakes that people make when

10:26

they do radical candor. One is

10:28

radical candor isn't brutal honesty. And I think

10:30

that seems like the most common. People all

10:32

of a sudden go to the other side

10:34

and they're like, Bob, you're a fool and

10:36

you're an idiot. And here's everything you've ever

10:38

done wrong. And like, that doesn't work well

10:40

either. So talk to me about that. So

10:42

radical candor is about caring and

10:45

challenging at the same time. And

10:48

sometimes we challenge, but we forget to

10:50

show that we care. And that's what

10:52

I call obnoxious aggression. When

10:55

you neither care nor challenge, that's

10:57

manipulative and sincerity. And there's a

11:00

there's a well-worn path from obnoxious

11:02

aggression to manipulative and sincerity.

11:04

So, you know, there's a bunch of

11:07

problems with obnoxious aggression. The biggest one,

11:09

obviously, is that it hurts other people.

11:11

But the second problem is that it's

11:13

inefficient. If you act like a

11:16

jerk to someone, they go into fight or

11:18

flight mode and they literally cannot hear you.

11:20

So you're wasting your breath. And

11:23

the third, I think, kind of more subtle problem

11:25

is that almost no one wants to be a

11:27

jerk. And so most of us, I don't know

11:29

about you, but at least for me, when I

11:31

realize I've acted like a jerk, it's

11:33

not actually my instinct to go the right

11:35

way on care personally, which is what I

11:38

ought to do. Instead, it's my instinct to

11:40

backpedal and go the wrong way on challenge

11:42

directly. Oh, it's no big deal. It doesn't

11:44

matter. Don't worry. But like, it is a

11:47

big deal. It does matter. That's why I

11:49

just said it. And then

11:51

you wind up in that manipulative

11:53

and sincerity quadrant. So if obnoxious

11:55

aggression is front stabbing, manipulative and

11:58

sincerity is backstabbing. By the way, some

12:00

feedback not to use such violent language and

12:02

I just failed to act on that feedback.

12:04

But hopefully it makes it clear. Yeah. Another

12:06

piece that you talk about with radical candor

12:09

is making sure that you can take it

12:11

before you dish it. Don't

12:14

dish it out before you prove you can

12:16

take it. And it's not just about dishing

12:18

it out and taking it. Another

12:20

reason why you want to start with soliciting

12:22

feedback is you want to understand what

12:25

you might be doing that

12:28

is contributing to a situation.

12:31

Very often people talk about the fundamental

12:33

attribution error and that's

12:35

where people assume that all the

12:38

problem is because of this other

12:40

person's personality as opposed to the

12:42

context and what one may

12:45

be doing that contributes to the

12:47

context. So I think

12:49

it's really important to start by

12:51

soliciting feedback. It's very

12:53

easy for me to get feedback and to

12:55

give feedback in some realms. So

12:58

professionally when I am

13:01

working with another comedian and we're

13:03

writing a script, it's so natural

13:05

and it feels helpful and it

13:07

feels kind to give them feedback.

13:10

And then in my personal life, I have

13:14

that exact thing that you were describing of I

13:16

so want people to like me and to not

13:18

be upset and I want to please

13:20

people. And so I mean literally in

13:23

my marriage, in order for me

13:25

to say the small things, we've

13:27

had to create a set time every week where

13:29

we do an actual check-in. We have to say

13:32

here's one thing that went really well this week

13:34

and here's one thing that maybe we could do

13:36

better. And at first when we started doing that,

13:38

I was like this is so deeply cringe worthy.

13:41

This is like I cannot believe we're doing a

13:43

weekly check-in in our marriage. But for

13:45

me, what it did really stop was it was

13:47

this pressure valve because before it used to be

13:50

that like for months, I would just be like

13:52

everything's good, everything's good. And then I'd

13:54

be like, you never set the timer

13:56

on the microwave back. And so it's

13:58

always at point zero. seconds instead of

14:00

the climb and I want it to be the time

14:02

and I'm so angry and she's like, why

14:05

didn't you just tell me? And I'm like, this has

14:07

been boiling for months. It's not just you. It's all

14:09

of us, I think. And one

14:11

of the nice things about work is

14:13

you know that that's

14:15

what you're supposed to do. Whereas

14:18

I think with friends

14:20

or with family, with

14:23

children, with spouses, with

14:25

cousins, with parents, the

14:28

idea is that it's supposed to

14:30

be fun and

14:32

peaceful and you're supposed to

14:34

get along. But part of

14:36

getting along is having disagreement.

14:40

I think we fear for some

14:43

reason that disagreement poses a challenge,

14:45

a risk to our relationships. But

14:47

it's not disagreement that

14:50

is risky for relationships. What's really risky for

14:52

relationships is that unspoken disagreement. Because I do

14:54

the same thing you do. I hold onto

14:56

it and I hold onto it and

14:59

I hold onto it and I don't say anything and I

15:01

think I'm being nice. And

15:03

then I get so angry about it that

15:06

I explode in some kind of weird way

15:08

that makes me look ridiculous.

15:11

And the other person's like, you've been holding on to that

15:13

for all this time? What is going on?

15:16

Well, I wonder if you're

15:18

the manager, as you were, if you're in a position

15:20

of power and you get

15:22

good at radical candor. All of

15:24

a sudden you have such clear benefits

15:27

for all the people under you because they're getting such

15:29

clear feedback from you. But

15:31

what about if it's the other way and

15:34

you are an employee

15:37

and you want more

15:39

clear feedback, you want to be better at this,

15:42

but the people who are giving you feedback aren't

15:44

really good. What can you do

15:46

in that situation where it's kind of like you can change

15:48

yourself, but it's hard to get it from the other end?

15:51

Yeah, soliciting feedback, I think, is

15:53

really important no matter what role

15:55

you play, but especially if you're

15:58

the manager. the manager,

16:00

you've got to lay that power

16:02

down. And one of the

16:04

best ways to lay your power down

16:06

is to solicit feedback. So here are

16:08

four steps for soliciting feedback. The first

16:10

step is to think about the words

16:12

you're going to use to ask for

16:14

feedback. Because if you say, do you

16:16

have any feedback for me? You're wasting

16:18

your breath. I can already tell you

16:20

the answer. Oh, no, everything's fine. So

16:23

you want to think about how you're going to ask.

16:25

The way that I like to ask is what could

16:28

I do or stop doing that would make it easier

16:30

to work with me. But don't ask my question

16:32

because if you sound like Kim Scott and not

16:34

like yourself, the other person is not going to

16:36

believe that you really want the answer. So you've

16:38

got to figure out how you're going to ask

16:40

in your own words. Another

16:42

tip on the go-to question, by the way, is

16:44

to make sure it can't be answered with a

16:46

yes or a no. You

16:48

want to say, what could I do? Not, is

16:51

there anything I could do? So step number one,

16:53

good question. Step number two,

16:56

embrace the discomfort. No matter how good your

16:58

question is, the other person is still going

17:00

to feel uncomfortable. And the

17:02

only way out of that discomfort is

17:04

through. Best thing I made a do? Close

17:07

your mouth, count to six. I

17:13

only made it to three just there. And I can tell you,

17:15

you're getting out of it. It's so long. It's so

17:17

painful every time. Oh, my God, it's so

17:19

hard. So almost

17:21

no one can endure six full seconds

17:24

of silence. So they'll probably

17:26

tell you something, which brings you to

17:28

step number three. You want to make

17:31

sure that you're listening with the intent

17:33

to understand, not to respond. Simplest

17:35

way to do that is to ask

17:37

some follow-up questions. And

17:40

then the fourth thing you've got to do is you've

17:42

got to reward the candor. And that's

17:44

pretty easy if you agree with the feedback.

17:46

You fix the problem and you ask the

17:48

person, you know, did I overcorrect? Did I

17:50

undercorrect? And by the way, a good tip

17:52

that one of my managers once gave me

17:55

is she said, if you get some feedback,

17:57

for example, the feedback to me was that

17:59

I was moving too fast. She said

18:01

you will not have fixed this problem

18:03

until people start telling you that you're

18:05

moving too slow. So you actually need

18:07

to kind of aim to overcorrect and

18:09

then maybe you'll get it right. But

18:12

there's going to be another thing that will happen. And that

18:15

is that you will disagree with the feedback that

18:17

you just solicited and now you feel

18:19

wedged. I think the thing

18:21

to do when you disagree with feedback

18:23

that you solicited or when you disagree

18:25

with unsolicited feedback is first

18:27

to demonstrate that you're not shut down

18:30

the feedback. So look for the 5 or

18:32

10 percent of what the other person said

18:34

that you can agree with and

18:36

give voice to that because you rarely disagree

18:38

with 100 percent of what someone

18:41

said. And that kind of makes

18:43

your listening tangible. It shows you're paying attention and

18:46

then say ask for the rest of it. Let

18:48

me think about it and then get back to

18:50

you and then get back to them and have

18:52

a respectful disagreement. I mean you can't argue endlessly.

18:55

At some point you've got to listen, challenge, commit.

18:57

But having that respectful

19:00

disagreement is what's going

19:02

to save your relationship. I'm curious what

19:04

are some of the most meaningful pieces of

19:06

feedback that you have received? All right. Here's

19:08

my favorite feedback story. So this happened

19:11

shortly after I joined Google and

19:14

I had to give a presentation to the

19:16

founders and the CEO about how the AdSense

19:18

business was doing. So probably just like you

19:20

in such a situation I felt a little

19:22

bit nervous. Luckily for me the AdSense business

19:24

was on fire and when I said how

19:27

many new customers we had added the CEO

19:29

on this fella this chair. What did you

19:31

say? This is incredible. Do you need more

19:33

marketing dollars? Do you need more engineering resources?

19:35

So I'm feeling like the meeting's going all

19:37

right. In fact I now believe

19:40

that I am a genius and I walked

19:42

out of the room. I walked past my

19:44

boss and I'm expecting a

19:46

high five, a pat on the back

19:48

and instead she says to me why

19:50

don't you walk back to my office

19:52

with me and

19:54

I thought oh wow I messed something up in

19:57

there and I'm sure I'm about to hear about

19:59

it and she began. not by telling me what

20:01

I had done wrong, but

20:04

what had gone well in the meeting. But of course, all

20:06

I wanted to hear about was what I had done wrong.

20:08

And eventually she said to me, you said I'm a lot

20:11

in there, were you aware of it? I

20:13

kind of breathed a huge sigh of relief and I made

20:16

this brush off gesture with my hand. I said, yeah, no,

20:18

it's a verbal tick. It's no big deal really. And

20:21

then she said, I know this great speech coach,

20:23

I bet Google would pay for it. Would you

20:25

like an introduction? And once again, I

20:27

made this brush off gesture with my hand. And

20:30

I said, no, I am busy. Didn't you hear

20:32

about all those new customers? I don't have time

20:34

for a speech coach. And

20:36

then she stopped. She looked me right in

20:38

the eye and she said, I

20:40

can tell when you do that thing with your

20:42

hand, I'm gonna have to be a lot more direct with

20:45

you. When you say

20:47

every third word, it makes you

20:49

sound stupid. Now she's

20:51

got my full attention. And

20:53

some people will say it was mean of

20:56

her to say that I sounded stupid. And

20:58

it's important to note that she never would

21:00

have used those words with other people on

21:02

her team. But she knew me well enough

21:05

to know that if she didn't use just

21:07

those words, she wasn't gonna get through to

21:09

me. And in fact, if she

21:11

hadn't used those words, I never would have gone to

21:14

visit the speech coach and I

21:17

wouldn't have learned that she was not exaggerating.

21:21

I literally said, I'm every third word. And

21:23

this was news to me because I had

21:25

been giving presentations my whole career. I

21:28

had raised money for three different startups giving

21:30

presentations. I thought I was pretty good at

21:32

it. And that was what really

21:34

got me to thinking, first of all,

21:36

why had no one told me? It was almost

21:38

like I had been marching through my whole career

21:40

with the giant hunger spinach in between my teeth.

21:43

And nobody had had the common courtesy to tell me it

21:45

was there. But what was

21:47

it about her and her management

21:49

style that made it so seemingly easy for

21:51

her to tell me? And that was kind of

21:53

where I came up with care personally and challenge

21:55

directly. So that was a big

21:57

feedback moment for me. quick

22:00

break and then we will be right back. This

22:07

show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Francis,

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25:04

We're talking about feedback with Kim Scott. There's

25:07

a clear thread between Kim's first book, Radical

25:09

Candor, and her second book, Just Work. It's

25:12

how do you get people to feel like it

25:14

is safe enough for them to share their full

25:16

selves? How do you get actual,

25:19

honest feedback from them? And

25:21

Kim's answer has been that you need to create

25:23

a space that roots out bias and prejudice. Here's

25:26

a clip from a TED Talk that Kim gave with

25:28

her colleague, Triair Bryant. We all

25:31

have our biases, the set of

25:33

assumptions that we make and the

25:35

things we don't notice about people's

25:37

race, gender, religion, sexual

25:39

orientation, appearance, and other traits. They

25:41

come from the part of our mind

25:43

that jumps to conclusions that we might not

25:45

even be aware that we have. I

25:47

really can't tell you the number of

25:50

times people assumed I was a receptionist

25:52

when I was an executive at the company. That

25:55

kind of bias gets in the

25:57

way of good collaboration, performance, and

25:59

decision. It creates an invisible tax

26:01

of resentment and frustration. The more frustrated we

26:03

are, the more silent we are likely to

26:05

be. And the more silent we are, the

26:08

less we may be able to do our

26:10

best work. The good news though is bias

26:12

is not inevitable. Okay, so

26:14

Kim, what is it that

26:17

we can do to make feedback inclusive? One

26:19

of the most valuable bits of

26:21

feedback I got after, after radical

26:23

candor came out, when

26:26

I was doing

26:28

a radical candor talk at a tech company

26:30

in San Francisco. And

26:33

the CEO of that company had been a colleague

26:35

of mine for the better part of a decade

26:37

and is a person who I like and respect

26:39

enormously and one of too few

26:42

black women CEOs in tech or frankly in

26:44

any other sector. And

26:46

when I finished giving the presentation, she pulled me

26:48

aside and she said, Kim, I'm excited to roll

26:50

out radical candor. I think it's going to really

26:52

help me build the culture that

26:55

I want, but I got to tell you that

26:57

it's much harder for me to roll it out than

27:00

it is for you. And she went on to explain

27:02

to me that as soon

27:04

as she would offer anyone even

27:06

the most gentle compassionate criticism, she

27:09

would get flamed with the angry black woman

27:11

stereotype. And I knew this was true. And

27:14

as soon as she said it to me, I thought, you

27:16

know, what is going on for her?

27:18

Is it bias? Is it prejudice? Or

27:21

is it bullying? And

27:24

how often do bias, prejudice

27:26

and bullying masquerade as feedback,

27:28

like all the damn time?

27:31

And I hadn't even covered that really

27:33

in radical candor. And that

27:36

kind of prompted me to have a bunch of different

27:39

realizations at the same time. The

27:41

first was that I had not

27:43

been the kind of colleague

27:46

who I imagined myself to be. I

27:49

had failed even to notice the extent to

27:51

which my colleague had to show

27:53

up unfailingly cheerful and pleasant at every meeting

27:56

we had ever been in together, even though

27:58

she had what to be ticked off. about,

28:00

as we all do at work. And I just,

28:02

I had failed to notice the toll that that

28:04

must take on her. So I kind of failed

28:06

to be an upstander. So that was number one.

28:08

Number two was that

28:11

I had been

28:13

in denial about the kinds of things

28:15

that were happening to me as a

28:17

white woman in the workplace.

28:20

Not only had I been in denial about

28:22

what was happening to her, but also what

28:24

was happening to me. And I think I

28:26

had been in denial and no small part

28:28

because I had never want to think of

28:30

myself as a victim. But even less than

28:32

wanting to think of myself as a victim,

28:34

that I ever want to think of myself

28:36

as a culprit. And my third realization was

28:38

that I was most deeply in denial about

28:41

the ways that I had caused harm to

28:43

other people, never intending to, but the

28:45

ways in which I myself had been biased, prejudiced

28:48

or had bullied others. And

28:50

then the last thing I realized was that

28:52

as a leader, you know, I thought of

28:54

myself as this person who created these great

28:56

BS free zones in which everybody could do

28:58

the best work of their lives and build

29:00

these wonderful relationships. And I'm

29:02

always, I had failed to address bias, prejudice

29:04

and bullying the way that a leader should

29:06

address them. So that was, that's, that was

29:09

really set me down the path of writing

29:11

just work. When I think about

29:13

this aspect of feedback, right? Of the feedback

29:15

around things that can be very charged, right?

29:17

So bias, bullying, prejudice.

29:20

I think that I want this feedback. I don't want

29:23

to be biased. I don't want to be prejudiced. But

29:25

I also feel a real sense of risk in

29:27

soliciting this kind of feedback because there's this fear of

29:29

like, Oh, but what if I ask for this? Are

29:31

they going to realize that it's actually way worse and

29:33

I'm going to get in like all sorts of trouble

29:35

and I should just like keep my mouth shut and

29:38

not think about these things. And I think obviously, you

29:40

know, when you do that, you just preserve the status

29:42

quo. You don't make anything better, but,

29:44

and there's a real privilege to being able to

29:46

do that and to say like, I'm not going

29:48

to do it, but it's scary to ask for

29:50

feedback around these things and to think like, Oh, is this going

29:52

to lead to like me getting in trouble or like all of

29:54

a sudden people realizing that I am, you know,

29:56

quote unquote bad, which obviously I think is an

30:00

realistic fear, right? That's not that's not what

30:02

happens in good feedback. Anyway, I

30:04

think even before you get to that

30:06

sort of conscious Questioning there's like there's

30:08

an amygdala response I don't know about

30:10

you But when when I get feedback

30:12

that I've said or done something that's

30:14

biased I feel ashamed and

30:17

I mean I can tell you where I

30:20

feel it in my body the backs of

30:22

my knees Start to tingle. It's the same

30:24

sensation. I get when my children

30:26

walk too close to the edge of a precipice

30:28

I mean, it's a real fear. It's a real

30:31

primal fear and We

30:33

rarely respond at our best or are

30:35

open to the feedback when we're in shame brain And

30:38

so figuring out how to move through

30:40

that shame so that one can be

30:42

open to the feedback How do you

30:45

modulate when you're giving types of feedback? And I feel

30:47

like shame may be a one of the main pieces

30:49

to think about here between whether it's better

30:51

to give it privately and Versus

30:54

publicly and when you decide between in the

30:56

moment and afterwards I

30:59

think if you're gonna offer someone

31:01

criticism, it's Almost

31:04

always better to do it in

31:07

private but there's a

31:09

difference between kind of an in the

31:11

moment correction and Criticism

31:15

so in the moment correction is Somebody's

31:18

given a presentation and there's a typo on

31:21

page six, you know I think that's fair

31:23

game to say in public Whereas

31:25

you always make typos and your

31:27

work is sloppy like The

31:30

a that's a bad way to give it

31:32

but be if you if you had that

31:34

criticism You'd need to have that conversation in

31:36

private So that I think is important

31:39

and also as a general rule I

31:42

think you want to give Feedback when you're

31:44

giving it as close to the incident as

31:46

possible almost immediately as soon as you can

31:48

get a private moment with The person to give

31:52

really good feedback. You want

31:54

context Observation result

31:56

next step and

31:58

if you do it right after the meeting You

32:00

can just say in the meeting and you don't have

32:02

to remember all the other context Let's

32:05

talk about and I guess this is a form of feedback

32:07

as well. But how do you disrupt bias? Yeah,

32:09

so I think the first thing to

32:11

do is to be clear in your

32:13

mind What's the difference between bias prejudice

32:16

and bullying so that you know what

32:18

it is that you're disrupting? So if

32:20

bias is not meaning it it's

32:22

like a mental hiccup Prejudice

32:25

is meaning it it's a consciously held

32:27

belief and bullying. There's no

32:29

belief conscious or unconscious at all It's

32:31

just being mean so if you think

32:33

what's happening is bias and you

32:35

don't have to be right, but you're guessing

32:38

It's bias a simple way

32:40

to sort of disrupt it is

32:43

an I statement I

32:45

don't think you meant that the way it sounded and That

32:48

you can if you're whether you're the upstander

32:50

or whether that bias was targeted at you

32:53

That can be helpful, but that almost never

32:55

happens. I mean, I'll tell you a story

32:57

about bias disrupted Friend of

32:59

mine a lien Lee was going into a meeting

33:01

with two colleagues who were men and they sat

33:04

down At a conference table waited for the other

33:06

side to come in the people they were negotiating

33:08

with first guy came in and sat across From

33:11

the guy to aliens left next person

33:13

came in and sat across from the guy

33:16

to his left and everybody else filed

33:18

on down the table leaving a lien dangling

33:20

by herself and a lien

33:22

was the person it turned out that had the

33:24

expertise that was going to win her team the

33:26

deal so she started talking and when

33:29

the other side had questions

33:32

They directed them at her two colleagues who were

33:34

men not at her as though she weren't

33:36

speaking as though she weren't even in the

33:38

room And it happened once it happened twice

33:40

and having a third time and finally her

33:42

colleague Stood up and said

33:44

I think a lien and I should

33:46

switch seats So that's a nice statement and

33:49

that was all he had to do to totally

33:51

disrupt the bias in the room Everybody else realized

33:54

what was going on and they changed it. They

33:56

didn't intend to do it They were just sort

33:58

of instinctively doing it And he

34:00

did that because he cared about Aileen and

34:02

didn't like singer get ignored. And he also

34:04

did that because he just wanted to win

34:06

the deal. And they knew if he couldn't

34:08

get them listening. So that's an example of

34:10

an I statement, but that kind of thing

34:13

very rarely happens. I had to kind of talk to

34:15

a lot of people to get that story for the

34:17

book. So what can you

34:20

do as a leader to make

34:22

that happen more often? And there's,

34:24

there's a process, a bias disruptor

34:26

process that I recommend three steps.

34:29

The first step is to come

34:31

up with a shared vocabulary. What's

34:34

the word or phrase that your team will

34:36

use to disrupt bias in the moment? I

34:39

like purple flag. It's on the

34:41

floor. So I'm not going to reach down and grab

34:43

it. We can imagine your state. You're waving a purple

34:45

flag right now. Yeah. So I'm waving a

34:47

purple flag. So a purple flag is, you

34:50

know, it's a friendly flag. It's not a,

34:52

it's not a red flag. It's not a

34:54

yellow flag. It sort of invites someone in

34:56

and it's like an I statement and invite

34:58

someone in to notice that that bias has

35:00

just made itself known. Bias

35:02

or prints has entered the building. Something

35:05

has entered the building. The

35:07

other teams that I've worked with

35:09

have used things like ouch, or

35:11

one team would throw up a peace sign.

35:14

So whatever it is that your team,

35:17

what's the, what's the way that

35:19

your team agrees to, to flag

35:21

bias when it happens. So that's

35:23

a shared vocabulary. Next is step

35:25

number two, which is really to

35:28

help everyone come up with a shared

35:31

norm for responding when it's you whose

35:33

bias has been disrupted. Cause as we

35:35

were just talking about, you

35:37

feel ashamed in this moment and

35:39

this has to happen publicly bias

35:41

disruption. If you ignore it and whisper

35:43

and the person dear after the meeting, then the,

35:47

the bias gets reinforced. So

35:49

you've got to disrupt it. It's like a correction.

35:51

It's like, think of it like a typo. But

35:54

people need to learn how to not

35:56

get defensive when their bias is, has

35:58

been disrupted. So. So it should

36:00

always start with, the shared norm should always

36:03

start with, thank you for pointing it out.

36:06

And then one of two things, either I get it, I'll

36:08

try not to do it again, or the second thing you

36:10

can say is, I don't get it. Can you explain it

36:12

to me after the meeting? The

36:14

I don't get it part is really hard,

36:17

because now I'm doubly ashamed. I'm ashamed because

36:19

I've harmed someone else, and I'm ashamed because

36:21

I'm ignorant. I don't know what I did

36:23

wrong even. And in

36:25

that case, people need

36:27

to understand that that's going to happen, that

36:30

that is going to happen to all of

36:32

us, and that we're educating each other, that

36:34

it's okay for you not to know. Why

36:37

do I suggest talking after the meeting?

36:39

The reason is, I think bias disruption

36:41

should happen in every

36:44

single meeting you have. So that's the third thing, a

36:46

shared commitment. But if you're going to disrupt bias in

36:48

every single meeting, you want to

36:50

disrupt bias, not the meeting. So

36:52

you want to talk about it after the meeting. That

36:55

are some ways that I could make the end of this

36:57

podcast better than the first, for you, as an interview. I

37:00

would love to talk about bullying, and I

37:03

would love to talk about a specific form

37:05

of bullying. I would call

37:07

it bloviating bullshit. Let's get to bloviating

37:09

bullshit right now. Talk to me about bloviating bullshit.

37:12

All right. So have you ever

37:14

been in a meeting where one

37:16

person who is, shall

37:18

we say, usually overrepresented and

37:21

overconfident takes up all the

37:23

airtime, even though they really don't know anything

37:25

about the topic that the meeting is

37:28

addressing? Ever happened to you? I've many times

37:30

been that person. Yes, me too.

37:32

Because it works. That's the problem with

37:34

bloviating bullshit, is that it actually works

37:37

quite well. In fact, I learned this

37:39

when I was in high school doing

37:41

Model United Nations. And usually,

37:43

I like super prepped for the Model

37:46

UN, but this year, I was, I

37:48

forgot what happened, but I didn't prep

37:50

at all. And I went in,

37:52

I was terrified. And then I just kind of

37:54

watched what was going on, and I realized people

37:56

were just hurling insults at each other. And

37:59

so I was like, well, I'm not going to do that. I can do that, you know? I

38:01

jumped in and by the end

38:03

of the day, I felt kind of disgusted with myself.

38:06

You know, I had been kind of a bully and

38:10

I had made a bunch of stuff up. I didn't

38:12

really know what I was talking about and I kind

38:14

of went home. I thought, oh gosh, somebody's gonna punish

38:16

me. And my mother, Kate

38:18

burst into my room and said, they're calling

38:21

you, you won the best delegate award. Oh

38:24

wow. Yes, it was

38:26

really a lesson. And

38:28

it took me a lot more years to

38:30

realize that that was not the person I

38:33

wanted to be. That that kind of postulatory

38:35

boldness was not really productive. And that

38:37

it was, that I was able to get away

38:39

with it probably in no

38:42

small part because of privilege.

38:44

And so one of the things

38:47

that I really encourage leaders

38:49

to do is to create consequences for

38:52

bullying. Sort of conversational

38:54

consequences. You gotta shut it down in the

38:56

moment. You also wanna

38:58

create compensation consequences. Don't give high

39:00

ratings and bonuses to people who

39:02

indulge in any kind of bullying.

39:05

And you wanna create career consequences. You

39:07

don't wanna promote your bullies. And if

39:09

they can't stop bullying, you may even

39:11

wanna fire them. And

39:13

I would really encourage leaders to

39:16

focus in on this bloviating BS. Cause

39:18

I think one of the reasons why

39:22

teams are not as successful as they

39:24

could be is when

39:26

one person dominates. When one person does too

39:28

much of the talking. And

39:30

I think it's much easier for

39:33

people who are

39:35

overrepresented to get away with that kind

39:37

of BSing. And so

39:39

what do I mean by underrepresented?

39:41

Like as a white person in

39:43

California, I'm part of an overrepresented

39:45

minority. So I think it's useful

39:47

to think about things not in

39:49

terms of minority majority, but just

39:51

in terms of underrepresentation. If there's

39:53

underrepresentation, there's usually some

39:55

bias, prejudice and bullying going on. Well,

39:58

Kim, it has been such a pleasure. Thank

40:00

you so much for making the time to do this show.

40:03

And I'm so excited to hear all the feedback from

40:05

all of the people listening on how much this has

40:07

helped them and all the ways that they put it

40:09

into practice in their own lives. Thanks for

40:11

being here. Thank you so much. Love

40:13

the conversation. That

40:16

is it for today's episode of How to

40:18

Be a Better Human. Thank you so much

40:20

to today's guest, Kim Scott. She is so

40:22

fantastic. And her books are called Just Work

40:24

and Radical Candor. I really, really recommend them

40:27

both. I am your host,

40:29

Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me,

40:31

including my weekly newsletter and information about my live

40:33

comedy shows at chrisduffycomedy.com. How

40:35

to Be a Better Human is brought to you

40:37

on the Ted side by Anna Phelan, Whitney Pennington

40:39

Rogers, and Jimmy Gutierrez, who, in addition to purple

40:42

flags, are all currently designing personalized flags of their

40:44

own, which they'll be using to claim snaps around

40:46

the world. Every episode of

40:48

our show is professionally fact-checked. This episode

40:50

was fact-checked by Julia Dickerson and Erica

40:52

Yoon, who are both radically candid, but

40:54

also fair and just. On

40:56

the PRX side, our show is put together by

40:58

a team that has both figuratively and literally no

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bobs. Morgan Flannery, Rosalind

41:03

Tordesillas, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn

41:05

Gonzalez. And of course, thanks to

41:07

you for listening to our show and making

41:09

this all possible. We will be back

41:12

next week with even more episodes of

41:14

How to Be a Better Human. And in the

41:16

meantime, it would be a huge help if you

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could share this episode with someone who you think

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It makes a huge difference. Thank you, thank you,

41:24

thank you.