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0:31

Hello, everybody. Welcome

0:35

to the Radical Candor podcast. I'm Kim

0:37

Scott, co-founder

0:37

of Radical Candor and

0:40

author of Radical Candor and Just Work. And

0:42

I'm Jason Rozov, CEO and co-founder of

0:44

Radical Candor. Amy's out today teaching

0:46

Radical Candor, so Kim and I will be bringing you the

0:48

banter. I'll try to keep up with Amy's

0:51

quick turns of phrase.

0:52

You know,

0:54

I substituted for Amy last time

0:57

and it was hard. It's hard to be a podcast

0:59

host. It's a job and she does it really

1:01

well. She does.

1:03

We've mentioned in some previous episodes that

1:06

at many organizations, the only opportunity for

1:08

growth and advancement and a pay bump is

1:10

to become a manager. So for

1:12

folks who thrive on building a team

1:14

and guiding others to achieve results, becoming a manager

1:17

may be a dream come true. For

1:19

high-performing individual contributors who are experts

1:21

in their fields, however,

1:23

and may have a low frustration

1:26

tolerance for herding cats, management

1:28

could be an absolute nightmare.

1:30

So how do you know if management

1:33

is right for you? Way back

1:35

in season one,

1:36

Kim and Russ had a conversation

1:39

about this. However, given

1:41

the recent data, which

1:43

we will share links to in the show notes, that

1:45

bad management is costing the global

1:47

economy trillions of dollars,

1:50

deciding whether or not to become the boss is

1:52

a decision one shouldn't take lightly.

1:55

I would argue you should never take it lightly, even

1:57

if it wasn't costing the economy trillions

1:59

of dollars.

1:59

Yes, I

2:02

agree. The trillions of dollars are

2:04

really beside the point. You create misery

2:07

if you're a bad boss. That

2:10

does cost trillions of dollars, but before

2:12

that, it creates misery, and that's the real

2:14

problem. Yeah. We can

2:16

start with taking a look at our own experiences.

2:19

We obviously, both you and I, decided

2:21

at some point to become managers,

2:24

people managers. Was that an

2:26

intentional decision on your part, Kim?

2:28

Yes, it was intentional,

2:31

although I think my intentions

2:33

were not always perfect.

2:37

I'll say a few things, then

2:39

I'll tell my story about

2:41

that decision. I think, first of all, if you're

2:44

reluctant to become a manager, that

2:46

does not mean you shouldn't become a manager.

2:49

In fact, if you're over eager to become

2:51

a manager, that may be a bad sign about

2:54

what your intentions are. At

2:57

the same time, if you've really thought deeply

2:59

about it and you decide you don't want

3:01

to do it, it's going to make yourself and everyone

3:04

else miserable to do it. So don't do it if you really

3:06

don't want to. I think one of the best

3:08

questions that a professor

3:11

of mine, Richard Tedlow, ever asked

3:13

was, do you want

3:15

to be a manager, or do you want

3:17

to do the things that managers do?

3:21

That's kind of the way to think about

3:23

this. Give

3:26

them that big question, what do managers

3:29

do? We can talk about that in a minute,

3:31

but do you want me to describe

3:33

my journey to becoming a manager, or

3:35

what's next? Since you're the

3:37

host, I'm going to rely on you to tell me what to do,

3:40

Jason. Actually before we

3:42

go on, I think

3:44

our goal in this episode is to

3:46

help listeners start to

3:49

answer the question

3:50

whether

3:52

being a manager is right for them. Basically

3:54

by sharing our own experiences, we'll give them

3:56

some thought starters at the very

3:58

least, if not guidance. About whether

4:00

they might be on the right path, but i'm kind of curious what

4:03

do you think your uh, you said you're

4:05

a professor What do you think he meant by that question? What

4:08

was he trying to distinguish between? Because

4:10

it's cleverly worded

4:13

Be and do yeah, so

4:16

I think what he meant is I think

4:18

the reason bad reasons

4:21

to become a manager are because You

4:23

want sort of the authority

4:26

that comes with being a manager you

4:28

want the power that comes with being

4:30

a manager You want the money that comes

4:32

with being a manager? And none of

4:34

those are good reasons to become

4:36

a manager. Uh, those are kind of

4:38

the be the you know I want to be

4:40

the boss. That is not a good reason to

4:43

become a manager Whereas

4:45

if you enjoy helping people

4:48

Improve if you kind of

4:50

have that coaching mindset where where you're

4:52

really interested in helping people get better

4:54

at their job That's a good that

4:56

that's one of the things that managers do through

4:59

feedback if you have a dread A

5:02

lot of people describe that they have an existential

5:05

dread about feedback and that's okay

5:07

I think that's actually very human and normal,

5:10

but if you if you have some

5:12

interest in overcoming that existential

5:14

dread and And

5:17

being the person who's willing to both

5:19

hear it and to to

5:21

give praise and criticism That's

5:24

one of the things that managers do And

5:27

another thing that managers do is they build teams

5:29

and part of building a team is deciding who

5:31

you're going to hire who you're going to promote

5:34

and who you're going to fire and those those

5:36

are hard really difficult things to do And

5:39

that you've got to be willing to do those and to

5:41

take that seriously And then of course managers

5:43

get stuff done. You also need

5:45

to as you get stuff done spend time

5:48

listening Helping people clarify

5:50

their thoughts Uh, you

5:52

you need to be willing to create

5:55

a culture of debate Uh,

5:58

you need to be willing to help others persuade each

6:01

other and you know that whole

6:03

get stuff done wheel that we've talked about.

6:05

Yeah. So you don't get to jump

6:08

directly to you

6:10

know

6:11

implementing ideas that you have.

6:14

There's a lot of stuff you got to do before that.

6:16

Right. So I actually think that's a

6:18

perfect segue into

6:21

our first topic which is what is it really like

6:23

to be a manager? You just described a bunch of things that

6:25

managers do but what is it

6:27

really like to be a manager? I

6:29

wonder if you have any

6:32

stories that you feel like encapsulate what

6:36

it is like to be a

6:38

manager.

6:38

Yeah. I mean one of them

6:41

is a story that

6:43

I think I'm told but maybe bears repeating

6:45

which is I had started

6:47

this company, Juice, and I walked into

6:50

the door and

6:51

I had planned that

6:53

day to set aside the first two hours

6:55

of the day to make an important pricing

6:57

decision. So I walked in the door

6:59

and ready to

7:02

like you know I was in this I'm going to analyze

7:04

a bunch of crunch a bunch of numbers and figure out

7:06

how to price this product and

7:08

somebody walked up to me and was

7:11

having a major health problem. So I had to stop

7:13

and talk to him and we spent about 30 minutes

7:16

talking and having a cup of tea and

7:18

I encourage him to go home and

7:20

take care of this health

7:23

issue that was coming up. And then

7:25

I walked past another employee

7:28

and his child I knew

7:30

was in the intensive care unit and

7:32

so I couldn't just say healthy going or say nothing.

7:35

So I spent some time talking to

7:37

him and then

7:40

again I encourage driving my

7:43

employees out the door, encourage him even

7:45

if he didn't need to go back to the hospital to go

7:47

home and sleep or go take a swim or just to take

7:49

care of himself for this period of time

7:51

because he was under

7:54

you know incredible emotional

7:56

and practical stress.

7:59

deep breath, okay, well, I still have about an

8:02

hour to work on

8:04

this pricing decision. So I passed by another employee,

8:07

and

8:08

his daughter has just won the

8:11

number one math award in the

8:13

city of New York, which is a big deal. So

8:15

now I'm having to shift very quickly

8:18

from sort

8:19

of

8:20

having compassion for one

8:22

parent's real terror

8:25

and celebrating with another.

8:29

And so it's like emotional whiplash. And

8:31

by the time I finally sat down to

8:34

try to make the pricing decision,

8:37

I felt wrung out. So

8:39

I went into a private room and called my coach, and

8:41

I said, am I an emotional babysitter

8:44

or the CEO? Stupid questions.

8:47

And she said to me, this is

8:49

called management, and this is your job.

8:52

So that moment for

8:54

me was a realization that

8:57

a lot of this

8:59

work that felt like

9:01

sort of a sideshow was actually very

9:03

central to the job of being a manager.

9:07

And actually, I realized I care about that. That's

9:10

way more interesting than the pricing decision.

9:13

And the pricing decision still had to be made.

9:15

And so I think that, for me, is what

9:17

it's like to be a manager. A lot

9:19

of the work that you're doing, it

9:22

doesn't feel like

9:24

it is your job, but it is your job. I

9:27

feel like every

9:29

manager that I have managed

9:31

has come to me with essentially

9:34

that same question. Yeah. Yeah.

9:37

Which is, what is it that I am doing? I feel like I

9:40

get pulled around in 10 different directions every

9:42

day. And it's very hard for me

9:44

to sort of do the focused work

9:46

that I'm used to doing. And I think this,

9:48

to me, is a key question

9:51

for someone who's considering becoming

9:54

a manager, which is, if your

9:56

happy place is hours of uninterrupted

9:59

time, thinking very deeply about

10:01

a particular problem and then sort of crafting

10:04

a solution to that problem. That's

10:06

very hard for a manager to pull off. Not

10:08

impossible, but this is very

10:10

hard for a manager to pull off. I

10:13

remember in

10:16

a really humbling way I

10:19

was managing the design team

10:21

at Khan Academy, and I remember

10:24

similar situation, but I was like, there's

10:27

this thing that I wanted to fix on the site for a

10:29

million years, a little visual

10:31

bug on the site, and today I'm going

10:33

to fix that bug and I'm going to check in some code

10:35

for the first time in a really long time. I

10:37

go and I sit down and I start to

10:39

fix this bug. Similar thing, a parade

10:42

of interruptions walk

10:44

into my office. It

10:46

was emotional whiplash in the same way that you're describing.

10:49

Someone was dealing with a personal problem. Someone was dealing

10:51

with a really difficult work situation

10:53

and they needed some advice. Someone was actually looking

10:55

to brainstorm with me because they had a problem

10:57

that they were trying to solve and they wanted

10:59

my input on it. I remember

11:02

getting to this. This is like morning

11:04

into lunchtime and it's late, so

11:07

it's like 12.30 or 1 o'clock in the afternoon

11:09

and the last sort of interruption is walking

11:11

out of the office. I said, I'm

11:14

really looking forward to getting back to fixing

11:17

this issue, this bug that's been

11:20

around the site for a long time. He

11:22

looked over my shoulder and he said,

11:24

oh, you can't fix it that

11:26

way. If you fix it that way, it's going to break

11:28

these three other things. I

11:31

have an idea of how to fix it. Give me five minutes.

11:34

He went back to his desk five minutes later, he had checked

11:36

and a fixed for the whole thing. This

11:38

whole plan that I had, not only was it like

11:40

did I not have the time to do it, but I was going

11:42

about it the wrong way. Part of the problem

11:44

was I didn't have the time to sort of... I wasn't

11:47

in it to work in the same way that

11:49

I had been for a long period of time.

11:52

I remember the feeling

11:55

of chagrin and I was sort of embarrassed. I

11:57

was like, oh man, that's so great. to

12:00

figure this out." And he was like, no, no,

12:02

that's what you're doing. You're going about it all the wrong way.

12:04

And in five minutes, he had solved it. So I set aside a whole

12:06

morning to solve something that a person on my team

12:09

could solve in five minutes better than I could.

12:11

And that was the moment where I realized, oh,

12:13

that's not the job. The job isn't to like swoop

12:16

in and fix a particular thing.

12:18

The job is to know who

12:20

on the team is really great at fixing that

12:23

kind of thing and make sure that they're aware

12:25

that it's a problem. And then we can figure out

12:27

how to get it fixed the right way in less

12:29

time. Yeah. I

12:31

had a similar experience where when

12:34

I was managing the AdSense team

12:36

at Google,

12:37

it was really important to me that

12:39

everyone who was managing

12:42

still was getting their

12:45

dirt under their fingernails. They were doing

12:47

the core job, that they were answering some of these, for

12:49

example, customer support questions. And

12:52

so I made a really big

12:54

deal of demanding that

12:57

all the people working for me spend

12:59

a certain amount of time each week answering

13:01

customer support emails. And finally, someone

13:04

right out of college on the team came to me and very

13:06

quietly said, could you please ask your

13:08

managers to stop doing that? They mess

13:10

up everything. You're creating way more

13:13

work for us. And

13:15

so figuring out... So

13:17

we had to come up with a different way where they just

13:20

observed people working, but they still

13:22

spent the time understanding what was going

13:24

on. So it's important to know how

13:27

to do the work,

13:28

but often when you dip

13:31

in and dip out, you cause

13:33

more harm than good. Right.

13:35

And I think the catch is that

13:38

theoretically,

13:40

you're used to generating value through individual

13:43

actions. That's the most people's work experience

13:45

is generating value through individual actions. And

13:48

all of a sudden, you're being asked to do a job

13:50

where your job is to help other

13:52

people generate value through their individual actions.

13:55

And maybe even if you're doing really

13:57

well as a manager to help them collectively do

13:59

more than they can. do individually. Yeah,

14:01

yeah.

14:02

And that's a very different thing from doing it yourself.

14:04

I mean, and just because you like

14:07

to spend long hours of uninterrupted

14:10

time thinking doesn't mean you'll be a bad manager.

14:13

I mean, I'm a writer, you know, and so

14:16

when I am in writing mode, I am long

14:19

hours of uninterrupted. And I love that.

14:22

But, you know, for most

14:25

of my career, I couldn't support

14:27

myself writing. And so I spent most

14:30

of my time being a manager. And

14:32

I did spend a little bit of time,

14:34

I wrote a novel while I was managing teams

14:37

at Google, but I did that I didn't, I

14:39

didn't have a lot else going on in my life. And

14:43

so I did that sort of early in the morning and late

14:45

at night. So

14:47

you can you can do both, but

14:50

it's tricky. And I think we're pointing

14:52

to a couple of different types of tension, which to

14:54

me is part of why we get

14:57

stories like the essay that was

14:59

that Mitra Kalita wrote in

15:02

for time. They're the co founder

15:04

and CEO of URL media. They

15:07

called the first year of being a manager

15:09

the worst year of her life. Yeah.

15:13

And, and it turns out she's not alone. And HBR

15:15

survey of first time managers found nearly two

15:17

thirds are uncertain or anxious about their new role.

15:20

I think this transition is quite challenging.

15:23

It's quite challenging to shift gears

15:25

in this way. And I think it's also challenging

15:27

if you feel like you don't either

15:30

have a great role model or great support to

15:32

learn how to do the new

15:34

things that you're expected to do

15:36

as a manager.

15:37

Yeah, I mean, when I when I started

15:39

juice software, I

15:42

remember a friend of mine said to me, Oh, Kim,

15:45

this is a hard situation for you because

15:48

you hate the man and now you are the man

15:50

and you're not even a man. And so

15:54

it was tricky. It's especially

15:56

if you've had if you've learned

15:59

what Management is from

16:02

negative examples instead of from positive

16:04

examples. It's hard But even if

16:06

you've had positive examples, it's

16:08

hard and I I don't know what the solution

16:10

to this particular problem that I'm about to

16:13

describe is but one

16:15

of the things that we found at Apple

16:18

is that teaching people Manage

16:21

about management before they came managers

16:24

didn't work very well With

16:26

you know, and that was when they had time to learn and then and

16:29

then teaching them after they became managers

16:32

Also didn't work that well because they were so

16:34

busy And so there's

16:36

sort of you know, you spent you may

16:38

spend years learning how to become a lawyer

16:41

You may spend years

16:43

learning how

16:44

to become an engineer or to develop

16:47

your sales skills or whatever It is that you

16:50

that you do and you're in your function But

16:53

most people get at best

16:56

a day and a half long course About

16:58

how to become a manager and it's one

17:00

of the most difficult things you can do and so

17:02

figuring out like

17:04

how to speed up that learning process

17:07

so that people I Think what

17:09

happens usually with people is that they're sort of thrown

17:11

into the deep end And the problem is

17:13

when you're thrown into the deep end of management

17:16

Not only might you yourself drown

17:18

but you might drag ten other people down

17:20

with you and that's stressful

17:22

Yeah, and I think for leaders

17:24

out there who are thinking about how

17:27

do we? Create a

17:29

sort of career path around management. I can

17:32

I think you have some some words of wisdom for

17:34

them because in the radical candor you said when

17:37

management is the only path to higher compensation

17:40

the quality of management suffers and The

17:42

lives of people who work for these reluctant

17:44

managers become miserable At

17:46

the very least it cannot be the only

17:49

way to succeed given how

17:51

challenging it is to become

17:53

a manager There needs to be another path for growth.

17:56

Yeah, and it's really important. I

17:58

mean and I think it's really important And

18:01

that, at tech firms,

18:03

that was pretty well

18:05

developed, at least at Google and Apple,

18:07

where I worked, for engineers. So,

18:09

if you were an engineer at either Google

18:12

or Apple, you could progress

18:14

along a technical career path

18:16

or a leadership career path. And

18:20

at Google, at least, the technical

18:22

career path was actually more prestigious

18:24

than the management career path. It

18:27

was more sought after and maybe

18:30

slightly better paid. And

18:32

that was important, not

18:34

because I think a technical path

18:37

is worse more necessarily than

18:39

a management path, but because

18:43

in the usual course of

18:45

things, the managers wound

18:46

up with all the power. So, they sort of had

18:48

to create a counterbalance to that.

18:50

When I was teaching this class, managing

18:52

at Apple, I remember there was one very awkward

18:55

moment where we would always bring in

18:57

these leaders at Apple

19:00

to talk about management and

19:02

what it was like managing at Apple.

19:04

And one day, we brought in this engineer

19:07

who I didn't really know, and I didn't bet

19:09

these people. They just sort of came

19:11

into the beginning of it. So, I'm teaching this class, managing

19:14

at Apple. And this guy said, yeah, I'm

19:16

glad you all are doing this because my agreement

19:18

at Apple is don't

19:20

make me manage anyone and I will not quit.

19:23

It

19:25

was sort of very awkward.

19:29

Everybody's like, ugh, you know.

19:31

But I think that that's a real

19:33

attitude among people is some

19:35

people have this dread

19:38

of management. And if you dread

19:40

it, if you understand what it is and you dread it and

19:43

you really don't want to do it, then don't do it. And

19:46

if you're a leader, you need to create a

19:48

path for people. There are certain

19:50

salespeople who should get

19:52

bigger and bigger accounts and they should

19:54

continue to grow in their career,

19:57

but not by leading other salespeople.

20:00

They're

20:00

not interested in the things

20:02

that may, they don't want to do the things that managers need

20:05

to do. Yep.

20:06

So I feel like you're taking into

20:09

our, us into our next topic, which

20:11

is questions to ask yourself

20:13

before becoming a manager. And

20:15

I think you started to illustrate

20:19

some qualities of people who should not

20:21

be managers. Yeah.

20:23

And I don't know if these are qualities

20:25

because I think, I think anyone,

20:28

I think you can teach people to, to, I

20:30

don't think leadership is some kind of innate attribute.

20:33

I don't think management, I think you can teach people,

20:35

but I do think if you enjoy

20:38

talking

20:39

to people

20:41

one on one about the problems that

20:43

they are having and solving their problems,

20:46

then that's a good sign that you would be

20:49

a good manager.

20:50

If you find it incredibly

20:53

irritating and disruptive to your flow

20:55

when people come in to you and, and

20:59

talk to you about their problems, that's

21:01

maybe a sign that, that

21:04

you're, you're not a great manager.

21:06

Actually, I would say, I mean, this is, this

21:08

is

21:09

a weird sort of test.

21:12

So you can tell me if you think it's a good one or a bad one, Jason.

21:15

I think, I think if you love to read

21:17

novels,

21:18

it's a sign you're going to be a good manager

21:21

because it's a sign that you're interested

21:23

in like getting inside someone else's

21:25

head and understanding how they're,

21:27

how they're approaching life.

21:30

So I think actually novel reading, in

21:33

fact, Brandy and I were talking earlier about

21:35

maybe making a list of books that managers

21:37

should read that have been very

21:40

helpful for me. And there's going to be a lot of novels.

21:42

There's not going to be any management books on

21:44

that list, although there are some great ones, but

21:47

there's going to be a lot of novels. So I think, you

21:49

know, being really interested

21:52

in other people and what makes

21:54

them tick. And especially being

21:56

interested in other people who

21:58

maybe have a very different approach.

21:59

approach to life than you have is

22:02

really important for being a good manager.

22:05

I think getting a

22:07

real bang out of watching other

22:09

people grow and when

22:12

other people succeed, you know,

22:15

can you really cheer them on wholeheartedly?

22:17

Are you thrilled when they succeed? I

22:20

think an interest in teaching

22:22

people stuff they don't know. Like there

22:25

was one moment when my

22:27

daughter was very little and

22:29

I, we were drawing

22:32

and I drew a shark from the side,

22:34

you know, and it had one eye and she was

22:36

three, I think at this point.

22:38

And

22:40

she said, well, sharks have two eyes. Why don't

22:42

you have two eyes on your shark?

22:44

And I turned my head to, so

22:47

she saw it in profile and I said, how many

22:49

eyes do

22:50

you see?

22:51

And she, you know, her eyes got big with

22:53

understanding all of a sudden she's like, oh,

22:56

you know, and it was like

22:58

a small moment, but it was so incredibly

23:00

satisfying for me to be able to

23:03

explain that to someone who had no idea what perspective

23:05

was. So if that gives you a real thrill

23:07

to explain something to someone,

23:10

then that's a good sign

23:12

that you're going to be a good manager.

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24:16

You also have to have

24:18

some patience with managing

24:20

conflict. Yeah, so what

24:23

are we going

24:23

to say about managing conflict? I think

24:25

before we get to conflict, I think you

24:27

have to be comfortable with disagreement. And

24:29

like vigorous disagreement. Even

24:32

before it becomes like an actual conflict

24:34

where there's tension

24:36

in the room, part of

24:38

being a manager is creating

24:41

space for and welcoming differing

24:44

views. The temptation is

24:46

to treat every disagreement as

24:48

a conflict, like something that needs to be resolved

24:50

when often the disagreement works itself

24:52

out. There can be a debate

24:55

or discussion that works itself out before

24:57

it becomes a conflict. But there are some people

24:59

who are very uncomfortable with disagreement.

25:02

In the presence of disagreement, they retreat

25:04

as opposed to saying, yes, tell me

25:06

more about that. Why do you feel so differently

25:09

than I feel? Or why do you see or why

25:11

do you understand the situation so differently than

25:13

I do? I think that curiosity

25:16

about how someone arrived

25:18

to a very different conclusion than

25:20

the one that you arrived to is

25:23

an essential ingredient in being able to

25:26

be a manager over the long run.

25:28

Yeah. And I think the word that

25:30

you chose, curiosity, is much better than

25:33

comfort because I'm very uncomfortable with

25:35

conflict or disagreement. It makes

25:38

me very uncomfortable. But if I can shift

25:40

into that novel mindset where I'm like,

25:42

oh, why do they understand

25:45

this? Why are they thinking about this that

25:47

way? Or what's going on here? Then

25:50

I can find the wherewithal

25:54

to overcome my discomfort

25:55

and to help them come to...

26:00

to an agreement. I mean, I think

26:02

conflict resolution is probably

26:04

one of my least favorite parts of being

26:07

a manager, but it is part of the job.

26:09

And so being able to find

26:11

some way

26:12

to manage conflict

26:15

in a way that doesn't

26:18

send you into some kind of spiral is

26:20

really important.

26:21

And I think for a lot of people, it's uncomfortable.

26:24

I don't think you have to be

26:24

comfortable per se.

26:26

I totally agree with you. I think it

26:29

is uncomfortable

26:32

what you said about adopting a curiosity

26:34

mindset. I kind of see that as the flip side of

26:36

the coin of the perspective

26:38

story. Right? Which is like,

26:41

on the one hand, it's helpful to want

26:44

to show people a different way

26:47

of looking at things. And on the other hand, it's also

26:49

really helpful to constantly

26:51

be curious for your own sake

26:54

to find different ways of looking at things or

26:56

different ways of understanding things.

26:58

Yeah. And to be patient. I mean,

27:01

my daughter was three, so it's more

27:03

natural to be patient with her. But

27:06

you could imagine that

27:08

one could, in that kind

27:10

of situation, be like, why don't you understand

27:12

that I'm doing this from the side? Sort of taking

27:14

it like, why

27:17

is she asking me this question?

27:20

That anytime something seems

27:22

obvious to me,

27:23

I know that I need to take a deep

27:26

breath and realize that it's not obvious to

27:28

the other person for some kind

27:30

of good reason. Not because the other person is stupid,

27:33

but because they have a different perspective.

27:35

And I need to be

27:37

confidently humble. I just did

27:40

a radical candor talk for a CEO. And

27:42

he, when we talked about humble

27:44

as being one of the things he said, folks

27:47

need to be confidently humble. And I really liked

27:50

that sort of Amy and I had talked

27:52

about problems with the word humble.

27:55

So humble, not

27:57

meaning allow yourself to be humiliated,

27:59

but

27:59

Humble meaning curious and open

28:02

so confident and that requires a good deal of

28:04

confidence. So I think that is Part

28:07

of what is really helpful?

28:09

So these are sort of like introspective, right? We're

28:11

talking about how do we look inside ourselves

28:13

and see if the seeds

28:16

of being a great manager?

28:19

Are in there and they don't have to be any qualities,

28:21

but they're sort of interest or curiosity Desire

28:24

to learn some of the things that would make one

28:27

into a great manager now,

28:29

let's go to the other side of the equation

28:32

for a second and you and think

28:34

about the folks who Are

28:37

deciding whether or not to promote someone in

28:39

into management. So you're you're sitting there and someone

28:42

says I'm ready I am excited to

28:44

be a manager. What are some questions?

28:47

One might ask in that situation to help you

28:50

Reveal whether or not that person

28:52

is ready at that moment to sort of step up

28:54

into management.

28:55

I think that one Simple question

28:58

is why are you interested in management? And

29:02

often people will give you sort of nutty

29:03

answers So

29:06

for example, there

29:08

was a friend of mine from business school who called

29:10

me up and and said he was looking for a

29:12

CEO role and I happened to know

29:14

of a COO role that was open

29:16

and So I said

29:19

why not a COO room and

29:21

his response to me was well if I'm the

29:23

CEO other people have to deal

29:26

with my neuroses, but if I'm

29:28

the CEO of And and

29:31

I think that that is a tear That

29:33

is a terrible terrible terrible reason to

29:36

be a to become a manager

29:38

so I think one of one of the things

29:41

that we

29:42

Haven't talked about as

29:45

is you need to go through you

29:48

need to do the work on yourself. That is necessary

29:50

I was talking to a young

29:53

CEO recently who said That

29:56

the most important thing that he

29:58

did as he became a CEO

30:00

was get a good therapist and

30:03

and not a good coach but a good there I mean also

30:05

a good coach but Therapist

30:08

is different from a coach

30:09

And to do the work on himself

30:11

so that he wasn't imposing his neuroses

30:14

on others. So Ask

30:16

that question. Why do you want to be a manager like

30:19

and if the person wants power?

30:22

Then that's not a good reason

30:24

if the person wants to neglect Doing

30:27

the work on themselves that they need to do that

30:30

is not a good reason So just ask that question

30:32

like why do you want to be a manager?

30:34

I think a corollary

30:36

to that is

30:38

To ask someone what does a manager

30:40

do at your company because like every

30:43

every organization has a slightly different Perspective

30:47

on what a manager does but I think

30:50

this question From the from the top

30:52

of the episode of do you want to

30:54

do the things that managers do

30:57

so like not only what is your motivation but like

30:59

what what do you imagine yourself doing

31:01

because I think

31:03

one of the things that I have

31:06

Noticed is that there are a lot

31:08

of people who come to management

31:10

at the wrong moment who think that management

31:13

is the right Move for them and they're

31:15

they're probably right, but they're just not

31:17

right right now like there's just yeah They

31:19

need some time Yeah, and

31:22

often it boils down to the things that

31:24

managers do less about the mindset

31:26

and the motivation But like are you actually ready?

31:29

Are you going to be happy? Spending

31:32

your time the way that a manager spends their

31:34

time.

31:34

Yeah, are you gonna be happy and one-on-one meetings?

31:37

Are you gonna be happy soliciting

31:39

feedback? I mean another great question

31:41

is

31:42

what's the best feedback

31:44

you've ever gotten and

31:46

And asking if the

31:48

person is always talking about getting

31:50

feedback from their boss and never talking

31:52

about getting feedback from a peer or from

31:54

someone

31:55

who is Sort of has

31:58

more recently joined the organization than they have

32:00

then then that's not a great

32:02

sign. I mean you want to make sure that people are

32:05

open to hearing the

32:07

perspective

32:07

of others.

32:09

That perspective taking, there's probably

32:11

at many different ways of getting at it but

32:14

like another interesting question might be

32:16

what's something

32:18

that

32:19

someone else did or said that changed the

32:21

way that you look at how we work.

32:24

Yeah. Or the work that we're doing at the company

32:27

because

32:27

that is the other thing that I think is the

32:29

sort of like mental agility,

32:32

the willingness to change one's mind

32:35

in the face of evidence

32:37

that there's a better way

32:39

to approach things.

32:41

Yeah. I mean another thing is

32:44

to pay attention to

32:46

how

32:47

they behave with people who they

32:49

perceive to be less powerful than

32:51

they are.

32:52

And so are they, like

32:54

if someone is rude

32:57

to your assistant, never ever promote

32:59

them to management. I mean without

33:02

giving them that feedback, take them out

33:04

to lunch and notice how they treat

33:07

the waiter. I think that is

33:10

really important to notice

33:12

how people deal with power.

33:14

Is it gonna go to their head?

33:16

Have you ever had someone who worked for you who came

33:18

to you with regrets who said

33:20

I have made the

33:23

wrong choice? I wish I did

33:25

not. Yes. Absolutely. And I've always worked

33:26

really

33:30

hard to

33:31

find an off-ramp for that person

33:33

that helps them achieve what

33:36

they want to achieve in their career because that

33:39

kind of self-awareness is priceless

33:43

and you want

33:44

to reward that. What's coming to mind is this

33:46

idea of a premortem. I wonder

33:49

if you have an interesting conversation to

33:51

have with someone who is considering

33:54

becoming a manager is this sort of premortem conversation

33:56

of like imagine your worst day

33:58

as a manager. Yeah. Like everything

34:01

that could go wrong has gone wrong.

34:03

How are you feeling? What do you do when

34:06

it all goes wrong? Because I do think

34:09

there's a resilience element to management.

34:11

We talked about high frustration

34:14

tolerance or the willingness to sort

34:16

of be in disagreement or conflict with somebody

34:18

else. But I think at the end of the day,

34:20

like your advice about a therapist relates

34:23

to this. But at the end of the day, there's also this element

34:25

of resilience, the willingness to get back up and do it

34:27

again tomorrow, even though it might

34:30

seem sort of fruitless. There are moments

34:32

of doubt. I think

34:34

I'm trying to think of it back over

34:36

the course of my career. Most of the conversations

34:39

I had about either becoming

34:41

a manager or seeking a promotion

34:44

tended to be almost Pollyanna-ish,

34:47

like positive. Because

34:50

there was a desire, people wanted

34:52

to push me because they thought I had some potential,

34:54

but also probably because they're like, well, Jason's

34:56

reliable and he's going to take work off my plate if

34:58

he takes his promotion. There's

35:01

this thing that I experienced where people are like, oh,

35:04

it's so great being a manager and all

35:06

this other stuff. I wonder if there's a conversation

35:09

to be had about, maybe it's

35:11

similar to this podcast, or just sharing those moments

35:13

of when things went wrong, what would

35:15

you do if you found yourself in that situation? Yeah,

35:18

and I

35:18

think another aspect

35:20

of being a manager is

35:23

just dealing with stress. It is incredibly

35:26

stressful because when you're

35:28

leading a team of people, one

35:31

aspect of the job is almost like you're an emotional

35:33

shock absorber. People are bringing

35:36

you their stress all day long and

35:38

you have to be able to process

35:40

their stress as well as your own stress.

35:43

It

35:45

is really exhausting. I

35:48

just think that

35:51

there's so much

35:52

emotional labor that is part

35:54

of being a good manager

35:57

that is really, really tiring.

35:59

out like making sure that

36:02

you have the wherewithal to remain

36:04

calm and the like at one point at

36:06

juice I remember I realized that one

36:08

of the most important things I could do was

36:10

was go running every day Because

36:13

that's what I needed to do in order to

36:15

process my own stress

36:18

and if I didn't go running every day, I was

36:20

gonna start snapping at people and realizing

36:24

that that was But

36:27

like instead of feeling guilty about

36:29

taking the time to go running whether

36:31

that meant I came in a little later than I otherwise

36:34

Would have hurt go out in the middle of the day

36:36

and go running I needed

36:38

to realize that that was actually part of my

36:40

job as surely as talking to People

36:43

about the stresses that they were going under

36:47

And getting enough sleep like something there would be times

36:49

where I'd feel like oh I could do another

36:51

hour of analysis

36:52

from 10 to 11 But I really

36:55

need to go to sleep at 10 o'clock and

36:57

that was part of my job taking care

36:58

of myself

37:00

You want to make sure that people

37:02

will be able to take care of themselves

37:04

because the stress is is

37:07

Think not to be underestimated.

37:09

Yeah, I like that question

37:11

So we talked about that when we were

37:13

saying what do you ask yourself before

37:16

becoming a manager? Yeah, how am I managing my

37:18

stress? You talked about getting?

37:20

Getting a therapist. I think

37:22

the reason I like that question better than

37:24

you know Do you have a high frustration

37:27

tolerance is it's very practical.

37:29

So the question of like, how do you manage your stress? Yeah,

37:31

there should be an answer which is like well These

37:33

are the things that I do like if I'm having a tough

37:36

day I go for a job like you're looking for

37:38

people to have a practical

37:40

answer to that question It's not abstract.

37:43

It should be very like tangible and practical

37:45

Yeah, and and if it's not I mean,

37:48

I'm it may not be determinative as

37:50

to whether or not this person is ready to be a manager But

37:53

it might be a really useful moment to say like

37:55

hey, this is actually really critical This

37:57

is a critical part of being a manager

37:59

is knowing how you manage your

38:01

own stress level. And so that's

38:04

a great conversation to have regardless of

38:06

whether someone is a manager or about to become one. It's

38:09

like, how do you manage your stress? And

38:12

getting down to those sort of practical details.

38:15

In the book, you talk about the sort of happiness recipe.

38:17

Like what are the things that you need to feel

38:19

fully engaged, to

38:22

feel well and fully engaged at work?

38:24

Yeah, and I think also, I

38:26

guess I feel a little bit like

38:28

I'm a person who,

38:30

I do have low frustration tolerance

38:32

myself for certain things. And so

38:34

sort of like being stuck in traffic

38:36

or waiting in line, like my

38:38

only prenuptial agreement with my

38:40

husband is that I would never have to go to Disneyland

38:43

because that kind

38:46

of waiting in line stress is something that

38:48

I just hate. And

38:50

so I feel like for

38:53

a lot of normal things, I have extremely low

38:55

frustration tolerance. But

38:57

for management, I have

38:59

hot, you know, so I

39:02

think it's, because I'm interested

39:04

in other

39:06

people. Like for editing

39:08

a book, I have high frustration tolerance. So

39:10

do you have frustration tolerance for

39:13

the things you're going to have to do?

39:14

As a manager. Yeah, as a manager or

39:16

whatever job you decide to take.

39:19

Because what is tedious

39:21

to one person is fascinating to another. Like

39:24

I cannot read, as you know, Jason,

39:26

I cannot read a legal document. I just can't break

39:28

through the language.

39:32

Yeah. The

39:34

tedium.

39:34

But I know

39:36

a lot of lawyers who love their work.

39:38

Same here. And I think

39:40

having

39:41

had the opportunity to collaborate

39:44

with you on

39:46

expressive work,

39:48

like essays or

39:50

scripts that we've worked on together or something,

39:52

I know that you also have a very

39:54

high tolerance. Even though

39:57

I feel like my tolerance is reasonably high

39:59

for a legal document, I think I feel like you

40:01

have an even higher tolerance for frustration

40:04

tolerance, for refining the

40:06

words to express

40:08

an idea exactly as you want. So I've observed

40:12

that difference in you.

40:13

And I think

40:15

if you're in the position of considering someone for

40:17

promotion, you should have that kind

40:19

of data. You should be looking back to those observations.

40:22

Like what are some moments that I can look

40:24

back on in my experience with this person

40:27

that show me that they have

40:29

resilience, frustration tolerance

40:32

in the face of the kinds of ambiguity

40:35

or sort of tedious things that are likely to

40:37

come up as they

40:39

become a manager.

40:39

Yeah, are they gonna get a bang out

40:42

of the problems that managers have?

40:43

Or are they gonna approach it with dread?

40:46

I think that in some ways,

40:48

I think that

40:50

that is, to me, is the vibe

40:52

of this entire conversation that we've had.

40:55

Is that management can be incredibly

40:58

exciting because it

41:00

gives you an opportunity to

41:02

flex a specific set of muscles

41:04

that have to do with curiosity about other people's

41:07

experiences, the desire to sort

41:09

of empathize with

41:11

other people's points of view, getting

41:14

a kick out of helping people solve

41:16

their problems as opposed to solving

41:19

your own problems. Like it can be really

41:21

thrilling to be a manager. It can be incredibly

41:23

fulfilling. It is tiring.

41:26

All of these things take energy. They're not free.

41:29

So it does take energy and knowing

41:31

how you manage your own energy is really important

41:35

to make sure that you have it available to help

41:37

people when they need it. And

41:39

I think the flip side of it is it

41:41

could also be horrible. Like it could be the

41:44

worst job in the world for you. If

41:46

those things do not sound interesting

41:48

to you, then being

41:50

a manager or rather doing

41:53

the things that managers do is going

41:55

to make you very unhappy. Yeah. And

41:57

that's not a bad thing because to your point, there's lots

41:59

of options. opportunities in the world for

42:01

non managers like in fact

42:04

the majority of People who

42:06

do work are not managers.

42:09

Yes Yeah, and

42:11

there's lots of opportunity out

42:12

there Yeah, and there's a lot of I mean like I

42:14

would say right now at this point in my life

42:16

I'm spending more time writing and

42:18

I'm not and you're the manager. I'm not like

42:21

we've worked it out So I can I can

42:23

go and have those long like I

42:25

never could have written Just work

42:27

without you and the

42:30

in the radical candor team Taking

42:33

on all the all the work of running

42:35

the company so that I could have those long uninterrupted

42:38

patches of time Yeah,

42:40

so so there's which

42:42

doesn't mean that I don't care about management It's

42:45

just that I know that when I'm in in

42:47

one mode and in writer mode, I

42:49

cannot be in manager mode

42:51

Yeah,

42:52

and and so I think if if you are

42:54

out there listening to this and you're

42:57

wondering if you should become a manager I think

43:00

What I would be looking for is an emotional

43:03

response to our conversation if you start to

43:05

get excited when we were talking about all The hairy

43:07

issues that you have to figure out or help problems

43:09

You have to help solve or walking

43:11

a you know a mile and somebody else's shoes

43:15

If all that sounded great to you Then you're probably

43:17

on the right path and the same thing if you're evaluating

43:19

someone for a management role If that's

43:22

what excites them is helping other people

43:24

succeed and building a team Caring

43:27

about the experience of other people then you're probably

43:29

looking at someone who maybe not right now

43:31

right this moment But who is a reasonably good

43:34

candidate for management? But

43:36

if someone is sitting in front of you and telling you I want to

43:38

be a manager But because I

43:40

want to be a manager because I'm I'm

43:43

sick of being told what to do And I just want to tell other

43:45

people what to do then you're probably not talking

43:47

to someone who is ready to be a manager

43:50

Yes,

43:51

yeah, exactly right. I mean and I will

43:53

say when I first

43:55

when I started juice I started it in

43:57

part because I had

43:59

all these negative examples

44:01

of managers who I had had.

44:05

I thought, if I'm the CEO,

44:07

everything will be great. It

44:10

was not great, actually. It

44:14

was a very humbling and important lesson,

44:16

which is that

44:18

a lot of being a manager

44:20

is about setting up systems

44:23

and rules so

44:25

that nonsense doesn't happen.

44:28

Just because you're a good person doesn't mean

44:30

that good things will happen. In fact,

44:32

almost certainly bad things will happen. If you don't design

44:35

the way that your team works

44:38

to be fair, then you're going to create

44:40

systemic injustice, and that's

44:43

no good.

44:44

All right. Let's

44:46

wrap up the episode today with our checklist.

44:50

Tips you can use to start putting radical

44:52

candor into practice.

44:54

Tip number one, before becoming

44:56

a manager or promoting someone else to

44:58

manager, ask the question, do

45:00

you want to be a manager for

45:02

power, money, control, or do you

45:05

want to do the things that managers do,

45:07

like coaching, soliciting,

45:08

and giving feedback, and building

45:10

teams to get stuff done?

45:12

Tip number two, before becoming a manager,

45:15

commit to doing the work on yourself

45:17

that's necessary for you not to impose your

45:19

neuroses on others so that you can lead

45:21

from a place of collaboration and curiosity

45:24

versus command and control.

45:27

Tip number three,

45:28

mental agility is an incredibly

45:30

important quality in managers. Are

45:32

you able to change your perspective in

45:35

the face of new evidence or information?

45:37

Do

45:37

you know how to manage stress

45:40

and do the things that you need

45:42

to do to stay centered?

45:44

If not, management is probably not

45:46

right for you right now.

45:48

For more tips, you can go to radicalcandor.com

45:51

to download our free learning guides,

45:53

sign up for Radical Candor on Masterclass,

45:56

get our lit video book, register for our workplace

45:58

comedy series, The Feedback.

45:59

loop and more. To

46:01

see the show notes for this episode, head to radicalcandor.com

46:04

slash podcast. Praise in public,

46:07

criticize in private. If you like what you hear, please rate

46:09

and review us on Apple Podcasts. If you have criticism

46:12

for us, please email it

46:14

to us at podcast at radicalcandor.com.

46:17

We really do appreciate getting it and

46:19

we read everyone. And we will reward

46:22

the candor. Yes, we will. Bye

46:24

for now.

46:26

All right. And now we have a bonus

46:29

segment. We're going to talk about

46:31

these are some of the things we love,

46:34

some of the products that we love. And

46:37

we'll put a link to these products so you can

46:39

buy them on Amazon

46:41

or anywhere else where you like to buy stuff. So

46:43

one of the things that I've learned recently is that

46:46

we use almost as much oil

46:48

and gas in making single use plastics

46:51

as we do in our cars. And

46:54

so I'm really working on eliminating

46:57

single use plastics from my life.

46:59

And one of the things that was bugging me every

47:02

day when I wash my hair, which I do

47:04

just about every day, was squeezing

47:06

shampoo out of a single use plastic bottle.

47:09

And so I found these Attitude

47:11

Leaves Bars. Here they are, Attitudes

47:14

Leaves Bars shampoo

47:16

and conditioner. I was so skeptical

47:19

that I could condition my hair

47:21

with a bar of conditioner, but it

47:23

works great. So I recommend

47:26

it. If you also hate single

47:28

use plastics, I really recommend that you try

47:30

this.

47:32

Bye for now. The Radical Candor podcast

47:34

is based on the book, Radical

47:36

Candor, Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing

47:39

Your Humanity by Kim Scott. Episodes

47:42

are written and produced by Brandi Neal with

47:44

script editing by me, Amy Sandler. The

47:47

show features Radical Candor co-founders Kim

47:49

Scott and Jason Rosoff and is hosted

47:51

by me, still Amy Sandler. Nick

47:54

Karisamy is our audio engineer.

47:57

The Radical Candor podcast theme music was

47:59

composed by by Cliff Goldmacher. Follow

48:02

us on LinkedIn, Radical

48:04

Candor the company, and visit us at

48:06

radicalcandor.com.