From Bottlenecks to Buy-In: Overcoming Bureaucracy 7 | 16

Summary

Podcast Summary: Radical Candor 7 | 16

Episode Title: From Bottlenecks to Buy-In: Overcoming Bureaucracy
Date: April 16, 2025
Hosts: Amy Sandler, Jason Rosoff
Featured Topic: How to address bureaucratic bottlenecks, communicate persuasively with management, and foster change while practicing Radical Candor

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles a listener’s question about navigating cumbersome approval processes that slow teams down and burn out managers. The conversation offers practical advice and real-world examples on how to communicate problems to management, suggest process changes, and persuade leaders to embrace new approaches—all while maintaining Radical Candor’s ethos: caring personally and challenging directly. Through their signature blend of storytelling and actionable advice, Jason and Amy break down nuanced dynamics related to trust, bureaucracy, and upward communication.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Listener Question: Frustration With Bureaucratic Bottlenecks

[01:06–02:36]
A listener describes frustration at a workplace where every decision requires multiple approvals, causing bottlenecks and burnout among frontline managers. They ask how to communicate these issues upwards and make a case for process change—without being seen as escalating or merely complaining.

• Amy highlights the listener’s challenge: Problems are compounded not just by inefficiency but by perception (“often I come off as escalating the situation”).
• Jason acknowledges both the efficiency and trust issues inherent in these processes.

“The combination of those two things—feels slow and sort of difficult to get things done, and I’m not really trusted to make decisions on my own—really do contribute to burnout pretty quickly.”
— Jason [02:36]

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2. The Hidden Costs of Approval-Heavy Workplaces

[02:36–07:29]
Jason shares his own experience: High-approval environments chip away at trust and drain morale, especially when approvals seem arbitrary or do not materially improve outcomes.

• Clear rationale for big-ticket approvals is understandable (e.g., $2M equipment purchase in a $50M company).
• When small, routine items are equally scrutinized, it creates resentment and inefficiency.
• Bureaucratic processes are rarely revisited or updated, despite changes in the organization.

“It seemed nearly random and it very rarely felt like the decisions were consistently improved by the approval process. …the person having to ‘approve’ it was really nothing more than an obstacle in my way.”
— Jason [06:13]

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3. Radical Candor Principles: Move Decisions Closest to the Facts

[07:11–08:50]
Amy and Jason discuss the Radical Candor principle of enabling those with the most visibility and expertise to make decisions.

• Bureaucracy should have a purpose, but regular process reevaluation is critical.
• Historical processes may outlive their usefulness if not revisited.

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4. Start With Curiosity, Not Criticism

[10:03–12:38]
When advocating for change, the best entry point is sincere curiosity about why existing processes are in place.

• Avoid making stakeholders feel defensive by assuming their reasons are invalid.
• Seek understanding of the original (potentially outdated) rationale behind current procedures.
• Be aware that previous insincere “curious” challenges may have made managers wary.

“The place that I like to start from is…a place of curiosity, which is like, ‘Hey, we do things in this way, but I don’t totally understand why.’”
— Jason [10:45]

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5. Dig Deeper: Find the Real Need Behind the Process

[14:23–15:24]
Go beyond surface-level reasons and look for the original need the process addressed. This opens the door for targeted, mutually beneficial change.

• Use specific examples (e.g., approval limits on software purchases) to ground the conversation.

“If you can get to that underlying need that these processes were created to meet, then I think you’re building from a much stronger foundation.”
— Jason [14:29]

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6. Share Specific Examples and Propose Incremental Solutions

[16:45–17:01; 23:02–24:12]
Jason recounts his early-career mistakes (enduring instead of addressing bottlenecks) and later success when raising issues with curiosity and specificity—especially when bringing other teams into the loop earlier for cross-functional decisions.

• Propose small tests or adjustments rather than broad pronouncements.
• Ground feedback in concrete examples instead of general complaints.

“Instead of focusing on the overall pattern, focusing on a specific example and coming up with a specific solution is really useful…”
— Jason [24:12]

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7. Role Play: Communicating Process Concerns Upwards

[28:44–39:20]
Jason and Amy act out a scenario where an employee (Amy) wants to change customer assignments to better meet client needs, but current policy disempowers her. Their role-play models:

• Acknowledging both your own goals and your manager’s objectives (e.g., customer satisfaction vs. inventory management).
• Seeking to co-create solutions rather than forcing a choice between competing priorities.
• Suggesting practical, low-lift process tweaks (“maybe we could tag cars that are already reserved”) to prevent problems before they occur.

“If you want to be able to give someone else the benefit of the doubt… that means showing a genuine concern or interest in what they are trying to accomplish.”
— Jason [38:36]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Process often exists for some reason. It’s very rare that there are people who are like, ‘You know what would make everybody miserable? I’m going to come up with a bunch of processes.' That’s rarely where they start from.” — Jason [10:03]
• “People have such good BS detectors.” — Amy [12:38]
• “Sometimes it helps to generalize from the specific: to take a small example, show a different thing that can actually work, and that tends to build a permission structure for trying something bigger.” — Jason [28:25]
• “I recognize that this isn’t the first time we’ve talked about why it’s important for inventory management, but I feel like right now it’s a choice that I’m having to make: make the customer happy or follow the process. …Maybe there’s another way that I’m not thinking of…” — Jason [39:20, as suggested dialogue]

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Radical Candor Checklist: Tips for Practice

[40:27–43:56]

1. Start with Curiosity, Frame Observations Clearly
   • Encourage open dialogue. Ask about the purpose of processes and the underlying goals.
2. Focus on Shared Goals When You Encounter Resistance
   • Reaffirm team and organizational objectives (performance, oversight, efficiency), and suggest pilot tests for process changes.
3. Be Patient—Change is Incremental
   • Processes didn’t arise overnight and won’t change overnight. Use specific examples and maintain a constructive, solution-oriented tone.
4. Mindset Matters: Vent, Then Approach With Genuine Curiosity
   • Take time to process your own frustration before initiating the conversation to avoid escalating tension.

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Closing Reflection

Jason and Amy emphasize that managing up is about partnership, not just escalation. Leaders—regardless of hierarchy—can unite around shared goals when discussions begin with curiosity and concern for all stakeholders. Progress is built through small wins, not sweeping complaints, and by remembering that everyone, up and down the ladder, wants to succeed.

“Sometimes, even though there’s hierarchical power, it’s important to remember that leaders…need to be on the same team, pulling in the same direction.”
— Jason [44:48]

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Listener Question – [01:06–02:36]
• Hidden Costs of Bureaucracy – [02:36–07:29]
• Approval Process Rationale – [10:03–12:38]
• Finding Underlying Needs – [14:23–15:24]
• Making Concrete Suggestions – [23:02–24:12]
• Role Play Demonstration – [28:44–39:20]
• Actionable Checklist – [40:27–43:56]

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For further reading and related topics, see the show notes at radicalcandor.com/podcast. Reach out with your own workplace dilemmas at [e-mail].

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[C]

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[C]

Hello everybody and welcome to the Radical Candor Podcast. I'm Jason Rosoff.

[D]

I'm Amy Sandler. Today we have got a question from a listener about how to communicate a problem and persuade management to adopt a new process. So this person writes. Quote In a recent podcast episode, Kim mentioned that often she would need to ask a manager for approval and Kim would go ahead and ask for forgiveness and instead of permission.

[C]

That rebel. That rebel Kim.

[D]

Yes, rebel. Rebel with a cause. We will advocate on behalf of Kim, who's not with us today. The listener continues. Quote I'm in a framework like that where everything needs approval, which leads to bottlenecks and the frontline managers get burnt out and have to face the problems caused by the bottlenecks. It's problematic and stunting our growth and even seems to be paralyzing the already unnecessarily complicated standard procedures when attempting to communicate why this is an issue. It leads to more bottlenecks and often I come off as escalating the situation. So my question is how can I communicate this to my managers and at the same time persuade them to adopt a new process to eliminate the bottlenecks while staying within the Radical Candor framework? Thank you for that great question. I know Kim would be very grateful for that question. But Jason, what's your kind of blink reaction to what this person is having to face?

[C]

The first thing is to acknowledge that how frustrating it is because I think there's two elements. There's the efficiency element to why it's frustrating and I think when you work in an since having worked in an environment where there's a lot of seeking approval type of steps and processes and things like that the other part of this, that wears on people over time and I think, you know, potentially leads to burnout and things like that, is this feeling of not being trusted. Right. Because even though it's technically part of the process to seek approvals at various stages, if those approvals don't add meaningfully to the quality of the work, for example, then it just sort of feels like someone's constantly looking over your shoulder, you're being, being micromanaged. And I think the combination of those two things, which is like feels slow and sort of difficult to get things done. And I'm not really trusted to make decisions on my own. I do think that those two things combined really do contribute to burnout pretty quickly. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and commiserate a little bit. Like having been in an environment like that, I can appreciate just how frustrating it is.

[D]

Jason, I really appreciate you mentioning about almost the hidden costs. So to your point about the efficiency, but on the trust, do you. Have you mentioned that you've been in a situation like this? I'm curious what kind of sparked for you around how that takes away from trust.

[C]

It's one thing if you're, let's say, let's say you have a company and this will be. I'll modify the example slightly to protect the innocent, but let's say you have a company that has a budget of $50 million. So the overall company budget, 50 million. $50 million. And you have to purchase a piece of equipment and that piece of equipment is going to cost you, let's say, $2 million. It makes sense to me that something that represents a significant chunk increase in the overall budget of the company would go through sort of a multi layered approval process. Right. Like you, you wouldn't want someone to be able to go sign a 2 million. Well, most organizations would want someone to be able to go sign a $2 million check, effectively increasing the budget of the company by 5% without asking anybody else. That that I think makes sense to people. And so you want both the specifics of that decision as well as the rationale for that decision to be examined and approved by other people. Because you're not the only one almost. You are almost never the only one who's going to bear the cost. Some way that cost is going to have to be made up in the company. Now if you also need to get approval to buy a box of pencils, that is where the trust starts to break down. And I think this is what I experienced was not so much like it was the tiniest things, although there was scrutiny on those, it was that it seemed nearly random and it very rarely felt like the decisions were consistently improved by the approval process. And from my perspective, the point of having some kind of approval process, unless you work in like a highly regulated industry or something like that, the point of having an approval process is to bring the perspective and experience of others into the decision making process in some formalized way so that the decision is more likely to be correct, that it's going to. You're more likely to succeed in that decision. That's the good reason to bring some level of approval process. But that wasn't my experience. It was just like random things I would have to get approval on. And sometimes it felt like I had to jump through multiple hoops to get approval on buying a piece of software that I needed. For example, for my, for my team, you know, we're talking an expenditure on the order of 1,000 to $3,000 a year. I would have to, you know, get signatures and triplicate in order to make that kind of decision. And that really did slow us down because I was not the type of person to spend frivolously, spend other people's money frivolously. And so by the time I was going to somebody with a decision or a request for funding or something like that, I had really thought this through, I had considered alternatives, and in many cases I was the expert in what I was asking for. And so this person having to quote, unquote, approve it was really nothing more than an obstacle in my way because they didn't add anything into the decision making process. So that, and I think one of.

[D]

The things you're talking about is, you know, certainly in radical candor, Kim talks about, you know, move those decisions to the person sort of closest to the fact. So in other words, you are the one that had the best visibility into the reasons for doing this. So you, quote, should have been the decision maker on that allocation.

[C]

Correct. So I share those examples because I think that there's a spectrum here. I don't want us to come across as saying approvals are bad and you shouldn't ever have any obstacles to making decisions. I do actually think that it can be helpful sometimes. But I want to give an example of when I think it's actually helpful versus when I, when I, when I think it can be harmful from both an efficiency perspective and, and a sort of like, enablement or sort of trust perspective. And my guess is that, you know, that they have the set of standard Processes that this person describes in their note. And my bureaucracy, that's sort of a bad word, which is like some set of processes or procedures that are pre agreed on in order to accomplish a set of tasks. That's effectively what like bureaucracies are designed to do. Bureaucracy as being described here, one of the things I've noticed about it is that it's very often, very rarely, rather reexamined. So it's very rare to go back and say, hey, do we still need all these processes and do we need them to work exactly the way that they're working now? That I think is quite rare. So I would guess that this person is maybe up against a couple of things and one of them may be sort of history or the path that this organization took to get there.

[D]

We had a really great conversation recently with Stanford professor Bob Sutton and talking about efficiency and friction. He's also written a lot about how to work in an environment where you're surrounded by assholes and he uses that term. So I encourage you, we'll put that in the show notes because he does distinguish between, you know, simple challenges which, you know, there can be quicker results versus more complex situations. And so I think just that idea, Jason, of reexamining a little bit of how we got there. So just to go back to our letter writer and getting into some practical tips for them. One is around thoughts around the actual process, like how you would recommend this organization and this, this letter writer sort of advocate for a new process, but specifically around the communication because this person said, how can I communicate this to my managers, you know, and at the same time persuade them to adopt a new process. So I'm just curious what guidance you might have at a broad level for this letter writer in terms of communicating upwards. And then maybe we can get into some actual practical tips on what this person specifically could say.

[C]

Yeah, so I think my preamble was really teeing up, my first point here, which is that process often exists for some reason. It's very rare that there are people who are like, you know, what make everybody miserable. I'm going to come up with a bunch of processes. That's rarely the place that they start from. But as I was saying right before you teed up, what I think is a great, a great framing for the rest of the conversation is like things change. And so the rationale that led you to having a process in this particular spot in the company, maybe that rationale is no longer valid and it hasn't, hasn't been reexamined. But I think it's important to start with the assumption that think people have done things this way for a reason.

[D]

Yep.

[C]

Because I think one of the best ways to. To make enemies of the sort of like people with approval rights is to make them feel silly for doing a thing that, you know, there is a rationale behind that you may not fully understand or appreciate. And so instead, the place that I like to start from is like, we say this all the time, a place of curiosity, which is like, hey, we do things in this way, but I don't totally understand why. So the first conversation I might want to have with somebody is basically like, can you help me understand why this process works in this particular way? And it's important to say that this is if you want to make a difference, if you want to have an impact in this situation, I think this can't be insincere. You actually really need to want to understand what's going on because I'm sure you are not the first, nor will you be the last person to criticize whatever this process is. And so my guess is that the people that you're talking to are likely going to be on edge a little bit if you come in saying, like, tell me how this, why decisions are made this way. Because most of the people who have asked them that question were not sincere. They weren't actually curious about why the decision was made that way. And so you might encounter, even though you're approaching with curiosity, you're doing all the things sort of right, you might encounter some resistance because other people, in an effort to sort of pay lip service to curiosity, have come before you and asked that question and then immediately said, well, you know, another way to do this is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So clearly it was like a tee up to give themselves permission to share their own idea as opposed to understand.

[D]

It's kind of like a flavor of the feedback sandwich where it's like, let me give you this throwaway praise so that I can get to what I really want to say. And people have such good BS detectors, you know, as you were sharing that, Jason, I was reflecting and I may have shared this story before, but I have a story when I landed in manipulative insincerity about a project that I had been working on for years where I was doing the research. And originally I'd written this really obnoxious email to the project owner and I said they were wasting millions of dollars. And I felt very righteous. And then I was no longer on that project. But the Project continued. And so a new project owner came on and they said, you know, the reason this project failed was because there was no research. And, you know, I'd spent several years doing the research, then I spent several more years like trying to get the people to listen to me about the research. And I sort of gave up at that point and that's where I landed in manipulative insincerity. But one of the helpful things from that experience, which was very stressful to kind of be in that spot, was that it gave me a lot of empathy. When I was a new employee, I. The first thing I noticed was kind of, why are we doing it this way and why are they doing it that way? And it just, none of it made sense. But rather than kind of coming in guns blazing, which is probably what I would have done before, I realized, like, oh, there is probably a reason why this is happening and it might not be obvious. And so, at least for me, I think having been on both sides of that coin, and it's not necessarily just about being new, but sometimes those fresh eyes can point those things out. And we might not realize that. To your point, like this process started for a reason and now it's like, well, it's just the way we've been doing things.

[C]

And, and like, I think the sort of second level of investigation is not just like, why do we do things the way that we do? Because that often gets you a sort of historical answer. You also want to dig one level below that, which is like, and why is that important? Because my guess is that there is actually alignment to be found as to like, why it is important to have some level of process or rigor around these types of decisions. And if you can get to that underlying need that these processes were created to meet, then I think you're building from a much stronger foundation to talk about how we might be able to approach things differently. Because you're talking to, you're speaking to that person sort of underlying need or the goal that the process exists to meet. And that's a very different point of departure. I think if we said like, hey, you know, I, I know we have these approvals on software purchases, for example.

[D]

Yeah, I'd love a specific example. That would be great.

[C]

Yeah, we have these approval processes on software purchases because technically, you know, they're over, it's over the thousand dollar, you know, limit that managers have discretion over. And almost every software purchase is going to be over the thousand dollar limit that managers have control over. And so I'm wondering Like what? Like why do we have the thousand dollar limit? Was there a problem that we were trying to fix by putting, by putting that limit into place? Because I imagine that this is also a lot of work for you. Like you wind up having to approve a lot of, a lot, a lot of things coming out of like the tech teams and stuff like that. And so I'm wondering if, like, if we can explore that together because I want, like, I want to make sure that, you know, I'm thinking about this as sort of like clearly and holistically as possible when I'm giving guidance to my team. So before I make, suggest that we make changes and like, help me understand, tell me like, what problem we were solving when we put this into place so that I can give my team some advice about how to do this. Because you're going to hear from us a lot since almost every purchase that we'd make is going to cross the threshold.

[D]

So helpful. Jason, just to rewind the clock a little. When you were talking about your own example with that software purchase, like, did you actually have this conversation with your manager or are these lessons from things that didn't quite go as well as he would have liked?

[C]

Yeah, no, I, I, I was really early in my career and I, I didn't really know like what to ask for. And so I was, I just put up with it basically. And, and over time it did really, it did really sort of wear me down and contribute to burnout, like not addressing it and in other instances where I have addressed these things. So I'm thinking of another example maybe 10 years later where there I was working at an organization that had like tons of leeway and then there was like a very specific issue where we wanted to invest some money in some new hardware. We were building, we were building products. This is at a time before AWS and all this other stuff where you didn't have. We had to build our own server infrastructure and we wanted to invest in some hardware that we thought was going to take a bunch, save us a whole bunch of time. And, and all of a sudden we like ran into this like, pretty big set of roadblocks and in, in the purchasing process. So like, my team wasn't able to do this and we had to go get approval from somebody else and they had to get approval from somebody else, which is like very unusual. And, and so when I asked the question, I was like, hey, you know, this is like really diff, just really different than the experience that I've had here so far. I Not used to getting these kinds of approvals. Can you tell me, like, why is it that we do this particular thing this way? And they, they were able to make it clear that like one of the, one of the challenges with this is like another team is there's some cross functional responsibility. So even though we're purchasing the hardware, we're reliant on another team to actually go to the data center and install it. And they're also then responsible for making sure that piece of hardware stays up and up to date and running smoothly and all this other stuff. So it wasn't the same kind of decision because we didn't operate independently. We couldn't operate nearly or completely independently. It feels sort of reactive. Like to me it felt sort of reactive. I wonder if there's like another way for us to communicate that this type of decision is being considered so that it's not like all the way at the end of the process that we like run into the roadblocks. Because I said, you know, I think it feels more frustrating because we're at the, you know what I'm saying, We've already made that. We're like all the way down this path and we made this decision and now all of a sudden we're having to check with all these other people in order to make sure it's okay. Like, is there some other way for us to approach this so that, you know, the system administration team can be brought along earlier on and give us sort of their approval as we're going through the decision making process and we can get their perspective as we're going through the decision making process so that we don't like, doesn't feel like we're throwing up roadblocks at the very end. And it feels like it's helping the decision be stronger or better. And that was like, you know, it was the right environment. Like I said, there's a lot of trust and leeway given to people, but that was met with like a really positive response, especially from the head of the system administration team who was sort of like, that would be great. Like we'd love to be brought in on these conversations earlier. Like, I kind of hate the fact that I have to like, you know, it feels like I throw on the brakes in these conversations at the very end. You know, the process of approval is there as a sort of backstop. But there was no proactive process to like get the system administration team perspective earlier on. And that would be much better for both, for the team making decision and the team responsible for sort of dealing with the work after the decision was made.

[E]

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[D]

Just to kind of reframe or repeat what I heard you say. There was kind of one step which is the curiosity help me understand why this process works this way. Why is that important? Find some alignment of you know, what's the problem we're trying to solve. So that's kind of one initial starting point. And then if I hear you correctly, you're also suggesting that what is the timing of when to have this conversation and to have it be more of an ongoing check in rather than some kind of frustrated like at the end coming in and dealing more with let's try to get a new process rather than potentially almost like a pre mortem, a post mortem, just some kind of more frequent communication. So like just to go back to the listener's question, they say when attempting to communicate why this is an issue, it leads to more bottlenecks and often I come off as escalating the sit. So their question is how can I communicate this to my managers and at the same time persuade them to adopt a new process? So is, am I hearing that correctly that you're saying this is really almost a process about communicating about the process that we're doing it more frequently?

[C]

I don't know that I would make that specific recommendation. So like if I was going to generalize the point I was trying to make, it was more like once I understood that the issue was that there was another team involved that needed to, to be aware of and give input on these decisions, essentially I said well I think the, the, that doesn't frustrate me. I, I, I feel bad sort of, you know what I'm saying, that I got through this process and I didn't consult that other, that, that other team. But I think it's a flaw to, to say like we make, we make a bunch of plans and then once those plans are formulated we, you know, we present them to the system administration team who then signs off on those plans. I was like that seems wrong. Like one, we're not getting their perspective and so we spend a bunch of time thinking about things in a way that actually isn't likely to work. And two, the like, it's much harder for them to absorb all that context and figure out like, and harder for us to document everything. So like if they were brought along in the process, we're able to give their input earlier. That would just make things easier. And so instead of an approval process that happens at the very end, it's a collaborative process, collaborative decision making process on what architecture or sort of what, what computer equipment we should be buying as we go along. And, and, and that, I don't know, that sometimes may be generalizable. That idea of like if the issue is sort of like other teams or people are relying on information and they need to be informed about what's happening and have the ability to give input into the decision, et cetera, then maybe massaging the process so that's happening on an ongoing basis is a generally useful approach to getting away from the sort of like approval at the end, which I think can often be very inefficient. But I think more generally like what this person is basically saying is, or how I interpret what they've written, because this may not be what they intend is that they're trying to address the meta pattern of processes required, like being too overbearing And I think just like our current, our conversation where you're like, you know, what a really specific example. Like, instead of focusing on the overall pattern, like, focusing on a specific example and coming up with a specific solution is really useful because otherwise it's sort of hard to understand because I could imagine if I was this person's manager, and they're like, our processes are so overwrought, and it's really hard to make decisions. I feel like we're constantly being slowed down. We need to new or need a different process that, that would feel like an escalation. Like, sort of vague escalation. Like you're sort of like. And the intent is to make things better, but it comes across as sort of a complaint. Like, energetically, it feels like yet another break that we're sort of trying to put in as opposed to saying, you know, Amy and I talked about this and we'd like to, you know, I think I understand that why this process is the way that it is. You know, this is what she and I discussed. And I'd like to try the next time we have to do this. I'd like to try something a little bit different. I'd like to try, you know, bringing Amy in earlier. So if I went to my, like, that's very different. If I'm your manager, you come to me and say, like, hey, you know, I've been feeling a little frustrated about this. So I did some digging, and here's what I've discovered, and here's a concrete recommendation for how we can make it better. You know, would it be okay if we, if we try, if we tried this new approach the next time around? That's very different than saying, you know, people are frustrated and we need to improve things. The, the, you know, basically, like, there's two theories here, which is like, some people like to. And I, I, I tend. I, I strongly sympathize with this because I tend to be like, pattern, big picture thinker. Like, that's the way that my brain likes to work. And so I tend to try to generalize from the. To. To specify from the generalized pattern. Like that. That tends to be. My approach is like big to small.

[D]

Mm.

[C]

But when things are sort of grindy or difficult, like, sometimes it helps to try to generalize from the specific. To take a small example, show a different thing that can actually work. And that tends to build a permission structure for trying something bigger.

[D]

So would it be helpful just to, you know, for our listener, just to give one specific sort of role play of if you were coming to me of what you were talking about, of a specific example that you would like to posit to your manager, should we give that a shot?

[C]

Sure. What are we trying to get agreement on?

[D]

I don't know if this is a good example, Jason, but recently we were together for a team off site. This came to mind because I was with Brandy, our. Our producer, and we were renting a car, and the car was so large that it was. Car isn't actually the right word. It was basically like the size of a bus. And as we were leaving the rental car place, the woman at the front, she said, you know, you don't look that comfortable driving this truck. And I said, I am not comfortable driving this truck. And she said, let me see what I can do. She also mentioned that she had a manager that was not gonna be very happy about this, but she wanted us to be happy. So she actually enabled us to get into the car that we were more comfortable with. And so I was so grateful that she felt empowered to make that decision. But let's say maybe she got in trouble from her manager because, oh, at the desk, this customer got this truck, but then they left in this. Like, what happened here?

[C]

Sure. So I'll try to put myself in the position of that person, because I think. And let's just for the sake of argument, let's say that to add some spice to the. To the role play, let's just say that because of corporate policy, these changes to a reservation, once a car has sort of been assigned to somebody, do require management approval. Right. So a manager has to approve these changes. If you imagine that for a second, I could. I think you can imagine why a manager would be frustrated, because I'm sure there's lots of reasons why people want to change a car after it has been assigned to them. Some of the. Many of them not having anything to do with sort of safety or comfort, but, you know, like some. Some other sort of, like, unstated preference or something like that. And let's imagine there's, like, some paperwork or form that the manager has to fill out.

[D]

So I'm gonna play the role of the person who helped me so I can be closest to it, and you'll be the manager.

[C]

I'm happy. Would you like to do it that way or the other way?

[D]

Yeah. Yeah. Cause I feel like I have a visibility. So I'm now coming to you, and I have to explain myself.

[C]

Well, yeah. So you've just seen real Amy struggling with the car, and you've Given.

[D]

And by the way, it was not what I had requested, to be clear. Like, I had paid a certain amount. So they were. It wasn't like they gave me something more expensive. We actually got something less expensive, but more what I had requested at the front desk. That's, like, the validation I would give to my lovely customer service person.

[C]

Okay, fantastic. But I'm not aware of all this.

[D]

Correct.

[C]

Okay, great. Your goal in this scenario is to get me to understand why it's important for you to be able to make this change.

[D]

Correct.

[C]

Okay, great. Let's do it.

[D]

Okay, so. Hey, Jason, I saw that you wanted me to meet with you.

[C]

Yeah. We approved another change order at the last minute, and I, you know, I feel like we talked about this last week. Like, these change orders, they take a lot of. A lot of effort. I just don't understand why they keep. Why it keeps happening.

[D]

We did talk about it. I hear you. I didn't feel like you heard me about why I need to make these changes. This was a customer who was in a vehicle that they had not asked for. They had said at the front they wanted something smaller, and they were clearly uncomfortable, didn't feel safe in the vehicle. And from my perspective, our primary role is customer satisfaction. And so they were extremely grateful I got them the vehicle they needed. It was actually a less expensive vehicle. And from my perspective, I want to feel empowered that I can get the customer happy with what they actually purchased in their agreement.

[C]

Yeah, I did hear you. But these processes exist for a reason. We are not just responsible for the customer's happiness. That's one part of it. But we're also responsible for managing this fleet of cars. And it's really hard to do inventory management when we're changing things at the last minute. Right. We can't, like, it makes it. We increase the risk that someone else is going to come in, and we won't have the car that they asked for either. So it's just like, you know, it's important that we follow the process of, you know, giving them the. The. The car that, you know, the front desk orders for us.

[D]

So are you saying the next time this happens and I see a customer who is clearly uncomfortable with the car, I just let them leave? Or what can I do to meet my goal of a happy customer?

[C]

That's an interesting way to frame it, I would say, like, you have two goals. One of them is a happy customer, and the other one is to make sure that we're managing the car inventory correctly. And so what I like I don't know what was going on with this particular customer, but maybe there's a way to. Maybe you could sell them on the bigger car. Maybe you could say, ah, yes, you seem a little uncomfortable, but wait till you get on the road. It's so much nicer to be higher up in the car and you can see over everybody. Like maybe we could make them happy with.

[D]

So are you saying lie to the customer?

[C]

But it's not a lie. Like I drive a big car and it's really like I enjoy the.

[D]

Do you drive a bus?

[C]

I. It is a small, It's a small bus. Yeah. I guess the thing that's on my mind is we can't trade short term happiness of one customer for sort of like long term problems of managing this fleet. Because like I said, it doesn't just affect this customer. Like there might be another customer who reserved that exact car that we just gave away.

[D]

Right.

[C]

And that's the thing that, that's why this process exists. So in this case it was okay. Right. Because we actually had that car was inventory by somebody else. But that's the risk. And so I think so, so how.

[D]

Could we create a process or reevaluate our process so that we could. In that situation, I would feel empowered to do something but at the same time not potentially impact another customer. So. Because I hear you on the, the inventory thing, but I, I want to feel empowered that I can kind of do the, do the right thing. And maybe there's, there's a third way that we haven't yet thought of.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, may, maybe you know, things tend to move fast around here, but maybe there's like a way for us to, you know, when we, when, when we start a shift to go through and tag all the cars that are already reserved so that you can visually see, maybe they just get a little piece of paper or something underneath the windshield wiper so that you can see like, you know, these cars are.

[D]

Reserved because that's the problem you're trying to solve for. You don't want me to give away a car that's not available.

[C]

Right. And so because like, even though technically we might be able to meet that customer's need, like there's like another car, like we've set 1x but you know, we've set an expectation with them that they're going to get a particular car. So I don't want us to be essentially creating, you know, another, another problem that, that's really what I'm trying to solve.

[D]

Like, well, the Real problem is that the people at the front desk don't really know what they're doing when they're assigning those cars. And then I'm left at the end just before they go out, kind of having to clean that up. You know, that's. I think that's probably my bigger frustration.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, that's certainly something we could ask them about. Right. We could bring that up to the team in the next meeting. Like, I don't have any direct influence over them. Like, I, like, manage what's going on back here. I don't manage what's going on over there, but we could talk to them about it.

[D]

Okay. And scene.

[C]

And scene. All right, we did it. Role play over.

[D]

All right, Jason, how did that go?

[C]

I mean, I think it went well. I think the difference between what. What I had in mind before we went in and what you did, not that it's necessarily bad, is that you were framing things from the perspective of you getting what you want, which is to be able to meet these customers needs, which I think is really important. And I think that the. The thing that I would say to this person is that if you're going into the conversation with your boss is like being concerned with and curious about what they are trying to accomplish. But I thought the.

[D]

Can I just like pause on that? Because I think that's such a great example. And especially if you're going to your boss, like you, as the direct report, might have a very legitimate frustration. Right. And so I just want to acknowledge that tension there of what, you know, for you to be successful in this conversation, there is that frustration of like, I'm just trying to do my best possible job. And now I'm having to go into this conversation where I have to worry more about you. And that could potentially be frustrating.

[C]

Yeah. And what I. What I would say is, like, if you want to be able to give someone else the benefit of the doubt as that there's a reason why things work the way that they do. I think that means showing a genuine concern or interest in what they are trying to accomplish.

[D]

So are you saying I should have started that conversation based more like rather than what I think could have happened, someone saying, hey, I got another, you know, you had another approval and this is a real issue. So then just rather than me saying, I'm so frustrated, I'm just doing it for the customers, just first start, tell me more about this process. I heard you last time, but I clearly didn't get why it's so important. So explain to me why this is so important because I think I'm not getting it.

[C]

Yeah, I mean that you, you could have done that. I don't think you have to be quite so self deprecating. I think you can say like something to the effect of, you know, I just want to acknowledge that's really hard for me because I'm standing there in front of a customer and they're saying they're really frustrated and they, this isn't the car that they want or they don't feel comfortable in it. And I don't want that to be their experience leaving the, you know, the, the rental agency because I feel like that's bad for us. And I recognize that, you know, this isn't the first time that we've talked about why it's important for inventory management, but I feel like right now I feel like it's sort of a choice that I'm having to make which is like, make the customer happy or like, do, you know, follow the process. And you said this in the discussion, which I thought was a really good turning point. It was like, maybe there's another way that I'm not thinking of because maybe I don't fully understand the goals of the process or what we're trying to accomplish.

[D]

I think that sounds really, really helpful. All righty. Shall we wrap it up?

[C]

Yeah, let's wrap it.

[D]

Shall we take this car out for a spin? This bus?

[C]

Yes, I think that's right.

[D]

All right, so now it is time for our radical Candor checklist. Tips you can use to put radical candor into practice immediately.

[C]

Tip number one. I think the key to this whole, the key to the whole approach is starting with curiosity and then framing your observations very clearly. So when we're discussing a situation, you want to encourage the other person to just like we do in feedback, to share their sort of like the context of what they need their observations about, like maybe what's going on or where the challenges are and the impact that that has. So you're trying to gather that data in the same way that you're going to express your observations about the situation. So when you say, well, here's what I'm trying to accomplish, you know, the customer's frustrated in front of me, clearly feeling uncomfortable in the car. And my observation is like, that we have a way to solve that by giving this person another car. But the result of this is like you, my manager, feel frustrated because I haven't done the inventory management thing correctly, even though I've solved the customer problem. And I'd really like to understand better, like how we might accomplish both of those goals. Can we explore that together?

[D]

Tip number two, if you encounter resistance, remember to stay focused on your shared goal. So from the listener writing in, it's about team performance and reducing manager burnout. From our role play, it was about this idea of sort of this third way between inventory management and a happy customer. So for our listener, you might say, you know, I understand the importance of oversight and I want to help find a way to maintain appropriate controls while allowing our team to work more efficiently. So could we identify a few decisions where we could test a more streamlined approval process? And I think, Jason, you gave a really good example of in this way getting really specific, like what is that one? Next test that we could actually try out.

[C]

Yep. And then tip number three, the processes didn't come into existence in an instant and they're probably not going to change in an instant either. So don't be totally shocked if this initial conversation isn't, you know, a roaring success or like a totally well received. I think the important thing is to, to keep gathering data and information to look at specific reasons why those bottlenecks are appearing and offering concrete ideas for how to address them. The general pattern is really important, but I think in order, in this case, in order to make a dent in the sort of the way things are currently happening, you're going to want to patiently and persistently pick out those specific examples and then, you know, keep reinforcing that idea that the goal is not to create chaos and have everything happening willy nilly, but instead to create a process where oversight and approvals happen in a way that actually makes the outcome better for the company and the process more pleasant for all of the team members involved.

[D]

And I don't know if this is a tip number four, Jason, but what's coming up as we're talking is putting myself in the shoes of the letter writer, the emailer, that they're having to do this upwards management. So ideally we're in an organization where our manager is soliciting feedback and oh, it seems like there's something in our processes that are frustrating. So I just want to acknowledge our listener for writing in and the frustration of having to kind of manage upwards around this. And also even in the example that we talked about, just a place where they can kind of vent their frustration in a helpful way so that when they can go to this conversation, they're able to show up with some genuine curiosity. Do you have anything more to say? Just given the you know, we're putting a little bit more onto our listener just because of the dynamic.

[C]

I think that, I think that's, that's really important is like. Is essentially like. How I would frame that tip is like, make sure that you're in the right mindset to have these conversations like you, because it is frustrating. And I think it, to me, it sounds like this person is a leader in the organization that, you know, they're advocating on behalf of frontline managers. And, and what I would say is like, sometimes, like, even though there's hierarchical power, like, sometimes it's important to remember that, like, leaders in an organization need to be on, on the same team, like, working, pulling in the same direction in order for people not to be even more confused or frustrated than they already are already are. And so I do think that that instinct of managing up is, is a good one. But I think if you frame that slightly differently and say, like, hey, I'm part of the leadership team. I'm part of the sort of like leadership cadre in this organization, that can also be helpful to say, like my, I have two teams. I have the team of people who I'm advocating for and I also have this team of leaders that I'm trying to, I'm trying to help. And that can sometimes help us maybe get out of the us versus them kind of mentality that can come from the idea of managing, of managing up.

[D]

Well said. Thank you so much, Jason. For those of you listening, head on over to radicalcander.com podcast. You can see the show notes for this episode. Praise in public, criticize in private, like we like to say. So if you do like what you hear, we hope you do, please do rate and review us wherever you're listening. Send your criticism, send your stories. Thank you again to our listener and email podcastadicalcandor.com Bye for now.

[C]

Take care everyone.

[D]

The Radical Candor podcast is based on the book Radical Be a Kick Ass Boss Without Losing youg Humanity by Ken Scott. Episodes are written and produced by Brandi Neal with script editing by me, Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co founders Kim Scott and Jason Rosoph and is hosted by me, still Amy Sandler. Nick Kharisimi is our audio engineer. The Radical Candor podcast theme music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Follow us on LinkedIn Radical Candor the company and visit [e-mail] your sausage McMuffin.

[B]

With egg didn't change your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5 only at McDonald's for a limited time.

[C]

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