← Radical Candor: Communication at Work
Radical Candor: Communication at Work
Rethinking Authenticity and What to Do Instead with Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic 8|5
01:05:23
Loading summary
Transcript134 lines
- [00:06]
A
As a chef, I know flavor doesn't begin in the kitchen, it begins on the land. And West Home's Nature Led Australian Wagyu is a story written in the landscape of Northern Australia. Cooking is storytelling, and West Home Wagyu carries a story of Northern Australia itself. Raw, powerful and deeply authentic. It's a testament to the passion and care raised in the rhythm of Northern Australia. I'm chef Meilin from 88 Club in Los Angeles and I invite you to visit westhome.com maitland to learn more and taste a story only Westholm Nature Led Australian Wagyu can tell. That's W-E-S-T-H-O-L-M-E.com M-E-I-L-I-N hello everybody, I'm Kim Scott, and before we jump into our episode today, I want to let you know that the Radical Cander podcast team is going on a radical sabbatical and we are going to be thinking about how to make this podcast better. So we want to hear from you. So send us notes podcastradicalcander.com if there's anything you want more of or less of. But don't worry, we're still going to be dropping some interviews with authors whose books I've read recently and who I love. And they will be. These are going to be some fun conversations. So stay tuned and and send us some thoughts. Podcastadicalcander.com if you have feedback. Amy, any words of wisdom for the Radical Sabbatical?
- [01:39]
B
Well, Kim, I was going to ask for feedback. I was going to say how much I'm looking forward to the radical sabbatical, but you've said it all. So I'm excited to hear your interviews. I'm excited to come back after our radical sabbatical. By the way, kudos to Nick Karisimi, our audio engineer, for coming up with that one and and enjoy this conversation we had with Tomas Chamaro. Permusic.
- [02:06]
A
Hello everybody and welcome to the Radical Candor Podcast. I'm Kim Scott.
- [02:11]
B
I'm Amy Sandler. We are so thrilled to welcome Dr. Tomas Chamaro Pramuzik, who is the Chief Science Officer at Russell Reynolds Associates. A professor of Business Psychology at University College London and Columbia University, Tomas is also author of several books, including one titled why do so Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders and How to Fix It. Interesting title. We were just talking about that. You also have a TEDx talk based on that book. And Tomas has a couple other books including I AI Automation and the Quest to reclaim what makes us unique. And then most recently, we'll be digging in today, which is don't be yourself, why authenticity is overrated, and what to do instead.
- [03:02]
A
Welcome to I'm so happy that we're having this conversation.
- [03:07]
C
Me too. And thank you so much for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here.
- [03:12]
A
So I have to let our listeners know that Tomas is here as a result of some radical candor. So I read, I read an article that you and Amy Edmondson wrote, and in the article you kind of conflated radical candor and obnoxious, what I call obnoxious aggression or brutal honesty or whatever you want to call it. And at first I was like all upset about it and then I thought I should take my own advice and I should reach out and talk. And we had this lovely conversation. So thank you for being open to my point of view on what radical caner means and doesn't mean and changing the article and having such a fun conversation with you.
- [03:59]
C
Well, first, you own the concept, so I think you have the right to define it in whichever way you do. And it was our sloppiness for not kind of. And you say everything can be beautifully explained by a two by two and it's tr. But in an age in which people have zero tolerance for nuance, even a two by two is easily forgotten. So even though I had read your book and I had talked about your concept for a long time, I ended up sort of like making the same mistake that annoys me when people do it, which is overly simplify something and kind of distort it to the point that actually we lost the kindness. Ironically, that's everything I advocate in not just in this book, but previous books as well. So anyway, it's an it's a nice way to kind of get to know each other, I think. And even if there was something that is substantive or I think profound disagreement, I always enjoy when people meet to talk and debate. But I think here we're mostly going to agree, which might be very boring for listeners. So that's maybe a disclaimer.
- [05:14]
A
Yeah, we're not going to have a fight. We wholeheartedly agree. And I, to be, to be fair to you, I named radical candor. Maybe to be more precise, I should have called the book compassionate candor, but that probably wouldn't have sold as many books.
- [05:32]
B
So.
- [05:32]
C
Yeah. But isn't that interesting, right? I think that kind of, I thought at some point to do a book on radical moderation and you know, why we need to Embrace sort of nuance. But probably nobody would read it even if you call it radical moderation. Right? Because it's like, you know, there are some instances in which it's good to be honest, but in others I was like, oh, my God, you lost me at the second.
- [06:00]
B
It's a very good segue to. To your book Don't Be Yourself, which I'm curious about. Tomas. The actual title of Don't Be Yourself. We'll get into what it. What it means, but in the same way that radical candor might be misinterpreted or. So much of what you argue for is about nuance, but here we are having to. To make a title that's compelling. So how come Don't Be Yourself?
- [06:25]
C
Sometimes I joke, at least to myself, that it's a useful note to self. And there are many instances where I benefit from reminding myself that I shouldn't just. And, you know, even Kim, when you said that you had, like, somewhat visceral and excitable negative reaction to that. I experienced that all the time. And, you know, that would be a good example. Example of like, don't be yourself. Just, you know, go for a swim or run or count until 10 and then dilute it. Right. But I can't take credit for the title. It was my publisher, hbr. I think they know what they're doing with titles. I again, had a very boring title in mind for this one. Something like Rethinking Authenticity or something like that. But in the end, I wasn't unhappy with the title because I think, well, I mean, if you really think about it, it's whatever you do is part of who you are, and you'll always be you, and you will always be stuck with yourself, no matter what you do and where you go. So it's kind of silly to say, be you, don't be you. But I do think that there are benefits in at least alerting people of the potential virtues of trying not to repeat the things we do over and over again and going outside of our comfort zone and in trying to express or display some novel or neglected elements of our kind of behavioral toolkit. But I think, yeah, the title works in maybe a little bit of a clickbaity fashion. It has this kind of also effect that I think strong titles have that people either love the book or hate it before reading it because they just say, oh, finally somebody's taken down, you know, this authenticity. Yes, I love it, but are you actually going to read it to see. And on the other hand, like, this guy is crazy. I'm never going to open this, like, how wrong can that be, right? But that was the story of the title.
- [08:11]
A
I love, I love the title. And part of what struck me when I first read your title was an experience I had when I first started talking, giving talks about radical candor on the care personally dimension. I used to say at the top is, you know, you, you, you've got to bring your whole self to work.
- [08:29]
C
Yeah.
- [08:30]
A
And I got a lot of feedback from a lot of different kinds of people saying that that wasn't always the best idea. Some people said they felt like bring your whole self to work was used by jerks to say, you know, that's just who I am, I can't help it, you know, and, and then, and I think you talk a lot about in the book, but also people, a lot of people told me that they felt because they're underrepresented along some dimension or another that it wasn't safe for them to bring their whole selves to work and that it was unfair. It was easy for me to say bring your whole self to work because I'm, I'm white and you know, went to fancy schools and whatever. But, but it's not safe for everybody. And, and so I change it to build real human relationships at work. Instead of bringing yourself to work, the
- [09:25]
C
bring your whole self to work. I mean, first of all, I don't think people often really mean it, you know, and it's interesting because much like so, you know, at some point, maybe 15 years ago or so, I got into a lot of trouble with the coaching community because I wrote an article against strengths based coaching saying, you know, basically along the same lines, it's like, yeah, look, if you overuse your strengths, you're going to limit yourself and even good things become bad in excess. Right? And then every coach told me, no, no, but that isn't strengths based coaching. We also look at opportunities, whatever, and you know, and a lot of times when I talk to people about the negative implications of the bring your whole self to work, they say, no, no, but what we want is your best self. Okay, then say that because I don't know about you both, but in my case, my whole self includes argumentative me, irritable me, narrow minded me, overly sensitive me. And I think my whole self is someone or something who perhaps four or five people in the world have learned to love or at least tolerate. Not for the entire duration of the Christmas lunch or the Thanksgiving lunch. And even at home they're very happy when I take some aspects of my, some parts of my whole self out of the home and preferably not to work. But then again, you know, we've come a long way, right? Because in like the mid 19th century, Karl Marx wrote about how capitalism would alienate us and work would suck right at scale. And work for everybody would be clocking in and out of the assembly lines and factories and life really started at the pub or bar in the community. So we've come a long way from that, which, by the way, was how most of us experience work 100 years ago to now with people aspiring for a career and having meaning and purpose. A hundred years ago, people wouldn't have returned home after a busy day at the factory and complained to their spouse that they didn't find a sense of purpose or a sense of calling. You clocked in and out and you did work to get and it sucked and you hated your boss and that was it. So we've come a long way, but there's still a difference between creating sort of like consumer like experiences for employees and of course, a lot of offices becoming like adult amusement parks. You still have to be your best possible professional self. And ideally that is finding a compromise. You should feel proud of your professional self and identify. You shouldn't feel that you're a fraud or work somewhere that profoundly is at odds with your values. And where you feel like an imposter, that's not good. But let's also not take it to the other extreme, which is like, you can tell your boss anything you want or everything you think about them. You know, whatever happened to smiling to your boss or your clients and bitching about them when you get home? It worked for many, many years. Now, to your point, if you overdo it, you have leisurely, passive, avoidant, passive aggressive culture where problems will happen. You know, people who avoid conflict, a lot of conflicts in the long term, which is your point.
- [12:32]
A
Very often when you talk about authenticity, people mistake that to think, oh, I can, I can ignore the impact that I'm having on others. And, and that's not authenticity. Authenticity is about being yourself, but also paying attention and adjusting how you communicate, depending on who you're talking to and acknowledging their humanity, whether it's your boss or your employee or, you know, someone who's been at the company for 30 years or someone who just joined.
- [13:04]
C
So to your point, you know, why are shows like the Office so popular, whether it's the American version with Michael Scott or the British version with David Brennan? Because there are people who don't care or are even unwilling and unable to understand how they impact others. So they think they're funnier than they are, they think they're smarter than they are, and they're embarrassing. And it's so funny to watch it because it's cathartic. You're like, oh my God, this is cringe worthy. Now what's interesting if you look at the research on authenticity, is that there are these two dimensions of it. So there's like. I mean, authenticity is always an attribution. It doesn't exist as a thing. Right. It's not like this microphone or this computer. It's an attribution that we can make about our own behavior. When we feel that it aligns with our values, with who we think we are, we feel that we're acting authentically as opposed to when we feel that we are under enormous external pressure to say or do something that isn't us. Right?
- [14:04]
A
Yeah.
- [14:04]
C
And then there's a more important one, which is the attribution you make on other people's behavior. And that really matters. Because if you are a leader, what matters is how authentic people think you are. When people tell you they're authentic is a bit like when restaurants tell you they're authentic. Authentic Mexican, authentic Italian, authentic Chinese, for sure is not. But in order to be seen as authentic by others, you have to get the nuance and the balance right. You have to not be a politician, but you have to have some political skills to ensure that when you are expressing certain parts of yourself, you do so with kindness, with consideration, and fundamentally that you can tweak and adjust your behavior based on what people think of you.
- [14:47]
A
So wise.
- [14:49]
B
I thought it would be helpful, Tomas, when you talk about this balance that we have to make, the book focuses on four. You call them authenticity traps. So we talked about one of them, which was this idea of bring your whole self to work. Do you want to share some of the other traps that you refer to?
- [15:07]
C
Yeah. So the first is always be honest with yourself and others. And the second is don't worry about what people think of you. The third is always be true to your values, no matter what. So uncompromisingly true to your values. And then the fourth is bring your whole stuff to work. So, and you know, why are they problematic and why are they not always as easy to follow or as beneficial to kind of follow? Well, on the. Maybe the most counterintuitive one is the first one, you know.
- [15:36]
A
Yeah.
- [15:36]
C
Yeah. We love self awareness, but actually it often pays off to be slightly Deluded and deceived. You know, if I go to a job interview thinking that I'm a stable genius, I can tell you, you, I'm going to get that job over somebody who says, you know, have you done this before? Honestly, I haven't. But I think if I deploy myself and I try, I can probably, you know, 10 out of 10 for honesty. But you won't get the job. Right. And the best way to impress others is you bullshit yourself first. I think I'm not going to go into the always be honest with others because, Kim, you're the expert and you written, you know, a whole book on this and give talks on this. But yeah, sure, but I think there are many instances where what others seek from you is definitely not unfiltered, brutally honest version. But they want validation, comfort, et cetera. And actually the how you convey your version of truth, even if it is, is more important than the, you know, always. By the way, as children, we're already rewarded and told and kind praised for learning to kind of tell white lies, et cetera. I would say, you know, I have small kids and like other parents with small kids, you get very upset when they come from somebody else's home and they tell you they behave so well and they like food, and it's like, this can't be my child. And it's like, why? Why does this happen? Universal phenomena. Well, because at home they are themselves, and when they go somewhere else, you know, oh, this was really nice. I loved your meal, Ms. Kim.
- [17:19]
A
It's really funny. When I started writing Radical Candor, I said one of the things that often goes wrong is on the. On the sort of challenge, directly slash, tell the truth. Dimension of Radical Candor is that from the time we learn to speak, our parents say some version of, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. And that's. If you take that too far, you're never going to say anything at all. You know, you're not going to challenge directly in the way that you have to. And yet when my kids were little, when I was writing the book, they were two, three. You know, we'd go to the grocery store and some. One of them would yell about somebody's body or say something they really shouldn't have said, really wasn't kind. And I would catch myself almost saying to them, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. And what I tried to say instead is be respectful. Your first job is to be Respectful. And if you can't tell the truth in a way that's not respectful, then figure it, figure out how to say it in a way that is.
- [18:32]
C
And by the way, you know, you will pay a price if you're a phony and if you're a fake and if you're telling everybody, you know these people who are like, oh, you're wonderful. Yeah, you're the most cashier. I mean that's the very. Exactly. You see, you know, which is actually not to go into politics, but I do think that the rise of unconventional contrarian, non politician leaders in the world is because people are fed up with the fakeness, you know.
- [19:00]
A
Yeah.
- [19:00]
C
So you can see that sometimes the reaction. Yeah.
- [19:04]
A
Can I say one more thing about always be honest? I really like what you said about, you know, sort of putting your thinking about that you don't have to share all your self doubt all the time with everything. You know, we all have self. And I was. It was exam time recently in December and my kids were both, they're 16 now and they were both stressed out. And I realized that when I was growing, I grew up as a Christian Scientist and in that religion the belief was God is infinite mind and you are its infinite manifestation. And going into exams, you know, believing that I was God's perfect child, reflecting infinite mind was really helpful. Now I don't believe that anymore. But figuring out how to identify what you're, what you are sure about, what you are confident about and present that when you go into an interview, I think is really important.
- [20:10]
B
Tomas, because you talk about that quite a bit in the book. I'm really curious Kim mentioned for an interview, but what tips do you have for people? You talk, you know, sort of the quote, fake it till you make it or confidence and competence for folks who may be competent but don't necessarily feel that confidence. What are some of the practical ways people can do that and still feel like they're being in integrity with themselves?
- [20:33]
C
First and foremost, the objective should always be to try to develop or acquire competence for which you need to be self aware. And for this moves to the second trap. Right. You need to absolutely internalize feedback from others. And that's why I think the book and your work, Kim is fundamentally about creating the conditions in which cultural and organizational conditions in which this can happen more often. Because if we live in, if workplaces become so nice that everybody is fake. It's like social media, right. If whatever I post, oh, this is what my cat has had for breakfast. Oh, you're amazing. 400 likes. Yeah, this is not a very healthy world to live in, you know, so let's not make workplaces the same. But it requires some skill. You need to internalize feedback from others and you know, internalize your reputation, which is crowdsource your reputation, which is sort of like desegregated or dispersed in other people's views of. Views of you. Even when people say, oh, I don't care about that. Where does their identity come from? They weren't born with it. It's not in their DNA. You know, they internalize. And the problem often is that if all you have is the memory of your parents tell you you're the smartest, funniest and best thing in the world and you, you're shut down to everything else. Good luck getting a job or not being seen as an entitled, you know.
- [22:05]
A
Yes.
- [22:06]
C
So competence is what you need to develop. And I don't care if you have imposter syndrome, if you over prefer prepare, it's painful, but this is how you strive for excellence. Now when the minute of performing arrives, then yes, you know, take the delusion pill. I don't care if it's science, the Chr. Christian Science, or, you know, narcissism or overconfident, because that's what's gonna make people say, wow, this person has the X factor. Why? Because the world is so complex that people become lazier and lazier. And if I'm interviewing you, Amy, I can either prepare and look at your track record and everything, or just go with the flow and, you know, at least 50% of the impact will be style, not substance. It sounds bad advice. I would rather live in a world in which this doesn't happen. And it will be quite good, especially, you know, when it comes to leadership. But the reality is that you need to do both. So make it until you can fake it so that you can make it. Maybe is the revision.
- [23:10]
B
Make it, fake it, make it. It's a virtuous cycle.
- [23:13]
A
Well, I think also you want to go in. Being confident does not mean ignoring what other people think or, or the impact you're having on how they feel. And, and I think the, the moment, at least for me, what, what was really helpful was realizing I could go, I, I could give myself that pep talk or do the Wonder Woman pose or whatever I needed to do to go in. But then the conversation was going to go much better if I did worry about what that other could do it in a way that didn't destroy my confidence. And so soliciting Feedback, you know, asking people if you don't know what they think, there's a simple way to find out, which is to ask them, but realizing that you don't have to agree with everything someone else thinks in order to really care about what they think.
- [24:12]
C
Yeah, exactly. And on the first one, you know, you reminded me of, I think Serena Williams, you know, who was, was incredibly is but as a, when she was active as a tennis player and I think her sister just made a return in the Australian Open, which is interesting. But Serena, maybe the most highly kind of crowned and successful tennis player of all times, if you count men and women, I think had incredible talent, worked very hard, but when she went up the court she has this little post its out that says you're the best, beat them, whatever, very simple nudges or hacks to kind of just stop the imposter syndrome, etc. Now on the other kind of hand, I think moving on to the second trap, it is not possible to improve on anything if you are deaf or blind to what people think of you. You know. And then by the way, you know, yeah, it's already paradoxical to have as one of the kind of hacks or tips, don't worry about what people tell you when you're telling me what to do. Right. I mean that's fundamentally already kind of a non trivial paradox. But yeah, the best leaders are capable of internalizing this feedback without getting defensive. And you made a really important point Kim, which is that is true confidence because there is an in between level of like fake, you know, narcissistic, like especially vulnerable or neurotic narcissists who want to have a big and inflated ego. But they get very defensive or you know, disconnect if somebody criticizes them. They will avoid any situation in which other people can criticize them. So you need to have real courage, guts and confidence to say I think I sucked. Don't you think I did? Yeah, because my ego is fragile, as is the case with a lot of vulnerable narcissists. I'm going to say wasn't I great?
- [26:26]
A
Yeah.
- [26:27]
C
And create the conditions for you to say like social media thumbs up, you know.
- [26:31]
A
Yeah, yeah, I think. And the key to not worrying what others think so much that you can't solicit feedback that you can't hear criticism when it's, when, when it's offered to you is a growth mindset. You want to realize like I'm pretty good, I could always get better. And other people, when they tell me what I did wrong they're going to help me get better.
- [26:56]
C
Yeah, exactly. Everybody says feedback is a gift, but I like to say it's sort of like it's a little bit like that unwanted or awkward Christmas gift that, you know, your aunt knitted you this ugly sweater.
- [27:12]
A
Yeah.
- [27:13]
C
And you open it and you have to go like, oh, thank you so much. This is great. And you wear it and it's itchy and embarrassing, but it will make you a better person, you know, if you have the capacity to do that.
- [27:26]
A
Yes. And sometimes it doesn't fit. And you, you know, you got to be honest about that.
- [27:34]
C
Yeah.
- [27:35]
A
You know, sometimes I always joke, and at the holidays there's. Everybody gets a couple of gifts every year that. Where it feels like the other person is saying to you, gee, I wish you were a whole different person.
- [27:48]
C
Like, oh, yeah.
- [27:50]
A
And. And those you don't have to wear, you know. Well, this is sweater knitted with love. You do have to wear.
- [27:56]
C
But this is a really interesting angle because on the one hand, you have people just wanting to be themselves and be accepted for who they really are or think they are or want to be without any effort. And on the other hand, the. The world is trying to change us.
- [28:11]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [28:12]
C
You know, maybe one is the consequence of the. Of the. Of the other.
- [28:16]
A
Yes, exactly. Exactly. All right, so what about number three? What's wrong with staying true to your values?
- [28:23]
C
That one sounds almost like impossible to refute. Right. But I mean, of course you have to covet it and sort of like, you know, first, let's first talk about what those values are like, if they're toxic, antisocial, or destructive. By the way, every brutal dictator and destructive leader in history had no problem being true to their values. It just turned out that they were. Their values were bad and they were bad for everybody else. And those might be extreme cases. So let's part them and look at a much more trivial but I think ubiquitous case, which is we are so tribalized and polarized today that we seem to have even lost the capacity to entertain the notion that perhaps our values are not the best or not right. Or that other people who think differently might have a point. And if you're a leader, you know, now the temptation to offer your unsolicited views on what's happening and, you know, every single aspect of news world, politics, climate, abortion, religion, the temptation is very high.
- [29:34]
A
Yeah.
- [29:35]
C
But then don't be surprised if you just run a cult or divide people, because that's not uniting people, I think, to even have the capacity to Say, well, these are my values, but I'm going to part them for a little bit and see how other people think and where they're coming up and try to kind of work with that. For me, that is leadership. Not kill everybody who thinks differently or impose your values on others, which by the way means you're not even them, letting them think or make choices.
- [30:07]
A
Yeah. John Stuart Mill said that if you have a belief, and I'm sort of conflating values and a belief, but if you have a belief, even if you have no intention of changing your belief, it's something, you know, maybe it's your faith or whatever, it's still useful to debate that belief with others. Not because you're going to change your mind, but because you deepen your belief. And if you don't do that, then your belief turns into a prejudice. If you're not open. Yeah. And, and I, I've been thinking a lot about that lately.
- [30:41]
B
It seems to be related to Tomas, to, you know, part of your book where you talk about like the privilege of authenticity, who gets to be themselves. Like, it feels very related. You, I think there was a quote you had where you said complete self expression is often, quote, a luxury of the powerful, a privilege for the elite. Love to hear more about that.
- [31:01]
C
Kim alluded to this when she said, you know, when you're talking about the pushback you got or backlash, when you said bring your whole self to work, well, it's easy for you to do it. And you know, I mean, I think, well, we all have some headwinds and some tailwinds, but it, it was always quite interesting and problematic to me that on the one hand, they bring your whole self to work, which is the fourth trap mantra kind of was owned by the diversity and inclusion movement back in the days when it existed before, you know, it ceased to exist. But yes, and I think it was well intentioned, well intended, because that, okay, you know, it's not sufficient to bring unconventional people from the out group or diverse individuals to the organization. You also have to make them feel wanted or make them feel like they belong. And you have to create the conditions that basically give you inclusion. Of course, you know, if people don't truly feel that it is safe to be themselves or they want to separate, you know, not everybody who identifies as LGBT plus wants to talk about their LGBT plus weekend and to tell them, go and do it, and then you encourage them to do it and when they do, it is not safe. And also, you know, if you think about it, so should I bring my whole self to work. If I'm a fascist, probably not. Hopefully not. Right. What about a communist? Well, yeah, ideally not either. Sexist, racist, ageist. So we could make all this kind of different. A list of exclusions, and then actually you end up with, like, you can bring your whole self to work if it aligns with what the startup.
- [32:43]
B
Well, that's why it seems related to stay true to your values. Because part of what you posit in the book is like, whose values are we talking about?
- [32:50]
C
And the reality is that, you know, and it's somewhat unfortunate, but, you know, to use a hypothetical example, if you're the richest man in the world and you own your social media platform, you can probably behave without much consideration for what people think of you. And in a less exaggerated or radical way, authenticity is a privilege for the elite. You know the famous line, Amy, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's exactly about this, that the more power you have, the less inhibited you are to behave in whatever entitled way you want. This again happens most terrifying and destructive dictators start as perfectly democratically elected charismatic leaders, and then they decide that they can do anything they want. Equally, all of these cases, whether it's Bernie Madoff or Epstein, what underpins their dark side and toxic excesses is a lack of accountability. And of course, I'm not saying that, oh, everybody who feels no pressure will end up like that. They're extreme cases. But the fundamental power dynamics still apply the closer you are to the status quo. If you're one of the boys or part of the elite or part of the, you know, the ruling regime, you can relax and just be yourself. By the way, even in an interview, you can talk about where you went from school, what your football team is. What do you care? And you can even make jokes that might be considered sexist or racist by people who are not there because you're one of the guys or one of the girls.
- [34:35]
A
Yeah. And even if you are one of the guys, my father was definitely one of the guys, but he also really cared about. About his impact on others. And he. What he's. When I first wrote Radical Candor, and I would, the tagline was just say it. And he came to me and he said, I can't just say it because when I do, everybody thinks I'm an he. You know, he wasn't always as situationally aware because he hadn't had to be his whole career. He was in, you know, in the. In. In the overrepresented majority, I guess.
- [35:19]
C
We'll say, yeah, and isn't it interesting, right, that now we're also, I think again, you know, a lot of people say, oh my God, there has never been a worse time in history to be a middle aged white male because
- [35:30]
A
it's not really reflective of reality.
- [35:32]
C
Reflective. Right. It's not reflective reality or it's all relative. But, but, but it is still sort of like somewhat of an indicator for the fact that people had enough and are asking, you know, pay a little bit, don't be a jerk, pay a little. Just because you are the status quo doesn't mean you have to behave in that. And on the, on the. Bring your whole self to work. You know, there's this rather obscure but valuable concept called self complexity which I love and talk about in the book. In essence, you know, is the notion that we inhabit multiple selves and our identity is multidimensional. And work is rarely an invitation to express or display all of these aspects of who you are, but rather a test of your ability to understand which parts of yourself are relevant and need to be activated. For sure, if you work somewhere for 10, 15, 20 years, you have your group of people, you can be more unfiltered with them. By the way. It also means you are becoming the status quo. So then the pressure will go down. But you can't just tell the people who just started. Yeah, you can bring your, look at me. You can bring. That's a little bit like when people, you know, you ask, do I need to take my shoes off here in your house? No, no, don't worry. It means yes, you should. Everybody else has taken it off.
- [36:59]
A
Yeah.
- [37:08]
B
This might be related to what you're just sharing. Tomas, in the piece you wrote the piece in Fast Company with Amy Edmondson and it was the quote that psychological safety is not about comfort, that it's a platform for productive discomfort. The kind of discomfort that fuels innovation, learning and growth. And it feels like that was a big part of your book, which, which is that we need these kind of, this friction in many ways to actually get stuff done in the most beneficial way. So do you want to talk more about like how do we work with that productive discomfort?
- [37:42]
C
I often suffer from a very narrow minded kind of bias because I'm in essence a personality psychologist and I focus a lot on the individual. So I try to kind of overcompensate for that and look at systems and you know, with this, for me to use a cultural analogy that I'm allowed to use because I'm going to Talk about my own country. Imagine a country, Argentina, where I grew up, where everybody is an anarchic, rebellious, creative, sort of like contrarian, individualistic genius in their own mind. Obviously, reality is different.
- [38:22]
B
Anarchic genius instead of a stable genius.
- [38:24]
C
Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. And nobody wants to. If there is a rule, you have to break it, right? Well, you can't get innovation at scale or creativity or even like, we are the only perpetually declining economy in the world for 150 years, and that's. We still don't. And at the other extreme, you know, I spend a lot of time going to Singapore. It's the exact opposite. Right. And often, like Singaporeans, tell me, oh, you know, you study innovation and creativity, et cetera. We're so conformist. It's like, yeah, so both extremes might be. But what you need is the right kind of balance and formula. So in any system, I think it's a prerequisite that the majority of people follow a norm and a kind of conduct. But you also have to allow for some people who deserve it because of their talent, skills and personality and leadership to break the mold and evolve the system. And I think psychological safety needs to be understood as one of the mechanisms that regulates this. And when Amy and I sat down to write that article, actually what triggered that article was a quote that I had in my book by Karl Popper, which says, in order to have a tolerant society, you must be intolerant to intolerance. Yes, wonderful. Right? And it's.
- [39:47]
B
Can you say that again?
- [39:50]
C
He actually says you, you can't have a tolerant society unless you are intolerant to intolerance, which actually is the foundation of freedom of speech. Right. You have to have some guardrails and some parameters. If everything goes, it doesn't work. And so then we try to apply that to safety. And safety is like, yeah, ideally you create the conditions for people to speak up, including the ability for people to tell their boss that the boss sucks. Wouldn't that be wonderful? And in some cultures, this is so far away from happening, you know, but in others, we have made it quite possible. Now, in order to do that, you have to still censor bad actors, bad behaviors. And I can't come and bully somebody or belittle somebody or make, you know, that is not safety. That creates unsafety.
- [40:47]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so interesting, the. Because it is really important to be able to speak truth to power. But people tend to forget that bosses are people too. You know, they either kiss up or they kick up, and you don't want to either kick or kiss.
- [41:11]
B
Up, up.
- [41:12]
C
Yeah, it's important. There is a skill to doing that. Right. As I pointed the book, like, usually the same people who love authenticity love emotional intelligence. If you unpack. Emotional intelligence is almost the antithesis of what the traps or the mainstream kind of authenticity mantras or cult advice. Because to have a high EQ or emotional intelligence means that you tune into what other people think and feel, including what they think of you. You have the ability to adapt to the situation and express what's relevant. You know, the epitome of a high EQ scorer is a good poker player, not somebody who you can see right through and you know, who is leaking all their emotions, etc. And who also understands where they write, where their right to be themselves ends and their obligation to others begins, which is fundamental to this, you know?
- [42:11]
A
Yeah, I keep thinking of that. My right to swing my arm in any direction ends at your nose, like.
- [42:18]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Who said that? That is a really good one.
- [42:22]
A
I think it is. I think it was Oliver Wendell Holmes, but I don't know.
- [42:26]
B
I know there's a James Baldwin quote that's related, but not quite. The swing, the arms, the arm swinging.
- [42:32]
A
It was some. It was. Somebody on the Supreme Court said that.
- [42:36]
C
Often people ask me, so, you know, but what's your main advice? I mean, if I just have one, it's understand that the right to be you should not override your obligation to others. And often, you know, this is almost a projective test. When I say this to some people, they're like, oh, my God, this. You're creating, like, you know, Nazi Germany, a conformist society.
- [42:57]
A
That's not true.
- [43:00]
C
I'm trying to create a place that can be optimized for everybody, not for you. In the book, I tell the story of a person in my team who showed up to his performance review wearing this T shirt with the caption, just be you. They will adjust. I couldn't help myself. I had to be myself. And say, before we start, can we talk about your T shirt? Because either there's only two possibilities. Either you're the only person in the world that wears it, and we are just, you know, little satellites floating around you, the center of the universe. Or we all wear it, and then we cannot have a functioning.
- [43:39]
A
Yeah, then we have chaos, and we have chaos, which is even worse than totalitarian.
- [43:45]
B
I found the two quotes, and it's really interesting, Tomas, because I would love to get your perspective. So, Kim, your right to swing your fist ends where the other man's nose begins, apparently, only men have noses. But this was from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The quote that I was thinking of, which is from James Baldwin, which is, we can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist. But it says it's attributed to James Baldwin, but it's from activist Robert Jones Jr. But that was from an AI thing. So I don't know quite what the truth is.
- [44:24]
C
But what I do know, everything is footnotes to Plato.
- [44:26]
B
Everything is footnotes to footnotes. Footnotes. But what I'm really curious about, Tomas, because you talk about this in the book, which is There is. In the. In the Holmes quote, there is an action, right? The person is swinging their fist. But what Baldwin or this other quote is getting at is just my intrinsic being, my race, my gender, my short hair, if the disagreement is just because of my actual fundamental right to exist. So I'm curious, like, how do you differentiate between those?
- [44:53]
C
Yeah, and, yeah, they are different. Right. And. But I think we kind of diluted the meaning of, like, core values. It's almost, you know. Well, my core values is I don't take any calls before 10am so it's like, you know, sorry, I, you know, start meetings there or, you know, I mean, I think for each and one of us, there's probably a handful of things, and they might not even be a handful, two or three that are fundamental foundational moral beliefs. By the way, that area of research is called moral authenticity. And it started in philosophy and religion as well, kind of a theology. But now it's almost like, well, this is who I am. So, you know, leave me alone. There's. There's a book that I discovered after writing mine, which is called. It has a great title as well, is infantilized by a Danish anthropologist, I think James Hayward or something like that. Not a Danish name, but if you look up infantilize, you can see it. And it starts with this anecdote also of somebody having her performance review. And the boss tells this young woman, I'm very happy with you. You hit your numbers. Very good. Highly productive, above target. You know, if I have one opportunity or recommendation for development, it'll be great if we pay a little bit more of attention to how you spell. Because it's. What do you mean? Says the employee, and says, well, you know, at times your spelling is sloppy. And, you know, if you're communicating with partners in our organization or clients, it's important. And the Answer is, but this is how I spell it.
- [46:36]
A
That's not okay.
- [46:37]
C
I know. That's infantilized. Right. So, you know, and I think, I think we kind of weaponize sometimes. It's how. And again, be it how you feel, but I do think that we would all benefit from trying to be a bit more flexible. By the way, when I mean, I tell the story all the time and I think mention in the book as well, it's rather painful, but I think quite helpful. And I do it all the time to try to go outside your filter bubble or your echo chamber and to expose yourself to news media commentaries that you profoundly disagree with. 90% of the times it's masochistic and painful and it makes, it's always painful, but it's your blood pressure go up. But 10% of the times, or maybe 20, you learn and at times you even flex and you know, I mean, that's how, how we can live with people who aren't all the same. Right. For me, the simple test is like the airport, the latest, especially in America, where it happens quite often. And you tend to sit at the bar and talk to the person next to you at the bar. Usually if you meet a stranger, you comment on the sports that's on, you complain or bitch about the airline being late, and then you strike conversation. You make small talk. At some point, inevitably you will find that they vote differently or think differently or think when that happens, you don't stand up and walk away. Right. You try to go back to what you have in common or at least, you know, respect or park your differences. And at work, especially in social media, online, we seem to have completely lost the ability to do that.
- [48:31]
A
Yes. Just in general in our society is you're, you know, you're stuck somewhere and you may as well get something interesting out of the conversation. My most recent airport delay, there was a climate change denier.
- [48:49]
C
There you go.
- [48:50]
A
And, and it was, I mean, it was fascinating because I really tried to understand, like, what, what was going on. And I didn't change my mind and he didn't change his mind. But, but we didn't hate each other. You know, we had a good conversation. It was like one of those John Stuart Mill moments. I have a belief, and it's useful to talk to people who disagree with it because it makes me think more deeply about something I care a lot about.
- [49:16]
C
By the same token, if you only speak to people who think like you, it's kind of boring. And, you know, you're listening to yourself all the time.
- [49:21]
A
Yes. And you don't, you don't get challenged, you don't improve, you don't grow.
- [49:27]
B
One of the things that you closed the Fast Company article with Tomas, which I thought was, was really helpful and I'd love to see if you could give us maybe an example or two because this sounds kind of hard. You said leaders have to be human, vulnerable and real to build trust, but also regulate, filter and discipline their impulses to sustain safety. And the same is true for peers. So whether we're managing people or not. So so much of radical Candor is about doing the both the caring personally, the challenging directly. And I'd just love to hear. Do you have any examples of how either for yourself you've managed that or folks that you've researched?
- [50:04]
C
Yeah, so I do it all the time or I try to do it all the time. But yeah, you know, I think when you probably read that finale of the article, it was clear to you that actually we were saying the same thing and that we misinterpreted or ill defined radical condor to mean something else. To mean what is the term use obnoxious or obnoxious aggression. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Or we didn't interpret it as kind candor or et cetera. But yeah, I mean I do it all the time. I try to monitor precisely because I spend a lot of time thinking about how my behavior impacts others. I try to look first for blind spots when I'm not thinking about that at all because I feel that I have a stronger rapport or chemistry with part of my team or my employees or my co workers and I work with them. I'm like, okay, this may be now it can be a blind spot or a weakness because I might not be focusing enough on others and you know, end up mansplaining things or dominating the meeting or thinking something is clear when it isn't. And then equally when I don't find that I have a natural affinity or connection or something. You have to have a plan. You know, you have to have a plan for how you deliver feedback, how you invite feedback when you know that people are reluctant to talk or tell you how they feel you need to. It's almost like I see it as a challenge to think of in what ways can I meet people where they want to be met. And I always feel like I suffered from. I think in Argentina we are kind of pre wired to be somewhat overconfident by design. So I had to. As I then moved out of my country and ended up living in different places. I Spent a lot of time trying not to be myself on that to the point that even when I feel like, oh my God, this, I was almost like so scripted, wooden and not me, I know that a lot of me still comes out sufficient is out there for people to understand. Like, I know if anything, I will suffer for being too authentic and not too inauthentic. I try to, you know, do the opposite.
- [52:23]
B
It's so funny about the do the opposite. I don't know if you ever watched Seinfeld, but one of my favorite episodes, the character George Costanza, who is unsuccessful at work in romance, and he's sitting at the diner and he says, I'm gonna just start doing the opposite. And he finally orders a different sandwich. He usually wouldn't go ask the girl out on the date he does. And he's wildly successful. And now he's like stumbled into this huge career doing the opportunity opposite. So there is an element of that,
- [52:51]
C
like serious season three or four. Right. That's one of the early. Yeah.
- [52:54]
B
We'll have to find it and put it in the show notes. But your book reminds me a good bit, a good bit of that.
- [52:59]
C
But honestly, if you think about it, you know. Oh, yeah. I spend some time coaching leaders and advising people who coach leaders. And, you know, most people would agree that if coaching doesn't make people self aware, it's probably pointless and it doesn't work. Right. And that self awareness isn't enough because you also have to trigger the will to change, which is the hard part. But also fundamentally that all coaching is to some degree, EQ coaching. And to some degree is. That's like a glorified way of saying footnotes to Dale Carnegie. You know, in a world where everybody's self obsessed, what if you ask people what they're called and focus on them and it's like, wow, it's like you have so many social skills for doing that, but fundamentally it's about helping you. Maybe not the opposite, but do things differently. Right.
- [53:48]
A
Yeah.
- [53:49]
C
That's why you have a coach. And in theory we shouldn't need one, but it helps. Now, they can be AI, wearables, whatever, but it's like, how can you broaden yourself? How can you become a more expanded version of who you are? I love my friends. Ermina Ibarra's concept of. Of why would you limit yourself to your past and present self if you can create a future self?
- [54:13]
A
Yeah.
- [54:13]
C
That is broader and that is like Constanza. That is like, oh, you know, and at the beginning it's weird and you're out of sight of your comfort zone. But then they become habits and that's the evolution of you.
- [54:25]
A
I think it's so interesting what you're saying because it feels like the writing process, it's living process. But like the hardest thing about writing and maybe just living is getting. Getting inside my own head. The second hard thing is getting inside my own head. But the hardest thing is getting back out. And for that I need other people and I need criticism. I need people to tell me where I'm wrong or where they disagree or where I could have said it better, done it better.
- [54:53]
C
And don't you think that maybe because we have an individualistic society, when you distort sort of individualism and it gets too close to kind of the narcissistic end of the spectrum, we think that even paying attention to what people think of you is a sign of weakness. That you're a kind of mindless, feeble sheep conformist bystander. And we also think that the way to know who you are and by the way, if you don't know who you really are, how could you even be authentic? Is to engage in like intra cycical rumination or exploration. Like the Beatles checked into an ashram and found themselves, you know, through psychedelics. Now hipsters go to Costa Rica and experiment with ayahuasca. You can go, you know, I started as a therapist, you can go to a psychoanalyst and after 10 years they'll tell you that you're either neurotic or psychotic. Neurotic means there is no answer to the question of who you are. Psychotic means you're crazy, you're certain who
- [55:52]
A
you are, you're too certain and shut down.
- [55:54]
C
Exactly. Self awareness is really about other. Awareness is about co creating your reputation and then your identity by, you know, that meaning is negotiated in your interactions with others. That's why again, you know, if you're surrounded by people who lie to you or don't tell you, only tell you what you want to hear is like the death of Lenin, you know, Stalin, you know, the movie is like, oh, wow, surprise.
- [56:21]
A
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [56:23]
B
Going back before we close Tomas, I. I have, yeah.
- [56:26]
C
I love Amy. How you bring us back to kind of I'm here.
- [56:29]
A
Goodness for Amy Thomas. I would be off in Russian history
- [56:33]
B
somewhere, which would be fun. But I am thinking of you, our listeners. So you had, and I know that this might be on some people's minds because it's certainly been on mine. So you had this TEDx talk and this book, why do so Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? And it came out in 2019, millions of views. And I'm just, I'm so curious. We're in 2026, like if. How would you be pitching that talk right now? It just feels like it's a different, different time, a different moment. Your last chapter of Don't Be Yourself really talks about diversity and inclusion. So where are you now on how you might frame that talk and those concepts?
- [57:10]
C
Unfortunately, you know, the phenomenon that is described in and sort of like dissected in that book, which is a very specific kind of incompetent leader who more often than not is male rather than female. Precisely because what the book describes is a world in which we're too lazy to focus on substance, so we focus on style. And delusional narcissism is mistaken for competence. And immature followers gravitate towards a kind of psychological populism in leaders that lubricates and increases their ego as opposed to increasing their actual welfare or well being. So in the acknowledgments of the book, I acknowledge all of the incompetent men who are leaders for being the critical sales force of that book back in 2019. The book is based on an article that came out in 2013. I don't need to answer the question of whether we have improved or not. I think we let our audience make up their mind. How about that?
- [58:27]
A
I think that's good.
- [58:28]
B
I think we have a smart audience and they'll know where you are going with that.
- [58:32]
C
But you know, it's interesting because then actually the next article that we have with Amy, which should be out any minute, so maybe even before this podcast is out, is on.
- [58:42]
B
And Amy Edmondson just.
- [58:43]
C
Yeah, Amy Edmondson, yeah, sorry. Is on. On followers and on whether in order to be a good leader, you also need to be a good follower. As in, if you look at some of the qualities that make you a good follower, you think you try to be reasonable, rational, not dogmatic. And you know, you have a pro social spirit, empathy, integrity and kindness. It's kind of what we need in leaders as well.
- [59:09]
A
Yes.
- [59:10]
C
A lot of the times what we're getting, sometimes it seems like we have double standards and we're like, well, if you're in charge, you know, these things don't apply. Or that to be a follower is a bad thing. And there's this glorified or kind of a superstar category of leader. By the way, Barbara Kellerman, who used to be at the Kennedy School of politics in Harvard, talked a lot about that. You go to business school and everybody's prepared to be a leader. Nobody says, I want to be a good follower. It's almost like it has a bad connotation. Right? But, you know, you need more followers than leaders, and you need good followers to. To have good leaders.
- [59:49]
A
Interestingly, I gave a talk at West Point recently and. And the whole theme of the conference was, how do you. How can you be a good follower and speak truth to power? Was the answer. I was very. It was impressive.
- [60:05]
C
Absolutely. And also, as I say in the book, it takes competence to not just spot, but also stop incompetence. Yes, we can't be lazy. You know, we need to spend a little bit more time than we wish. Maybe less time spent on TikTok and social media and more time actually analyzing and thinking the leaders that we have and choose and trying to reduce the gap between the leaders we need and those we actually get.
- [60:32]
B
I love that. As we close, just since you talked about going from systems to individual, one of the other ideas I want to make sure that we speak clearly about is that this shift from bring your whole self to bring your best self to work. So just what would one, one tip be for folks as they're listening to this? What would the best self look like?
- [60:53]
C
I mean, I think it's somebody who adds value to the organization and their teams and others. That's the fundamental one. If you have your performance review and said, well, I didn't achieve any of my KPIs OKRs, that wasn't productive, but actually I really identified with my work personnel. It's like, great for you, but, you know, it's like, what's the benefit? But let's start with adding value to the organization and then try to craft, create, design a version of your professional self that includes or injects parts of you that are meaningful and that you want to share with others. You know, and yes, if you get to. If you can get to a point where you identify with your work self, that's great. I always say the original definition of employee engagement by William Kahn in 1990 is the degree of psychological identification with your work Persona is beautiful, is the opposite of Marxist alienation, if you think about it. But I would even say if you identify so much that that's all there is and you're putting all your eggs in that basket, you're either in a cult or crazy. So, you know, be careful with thinking that everything there is in life is your work Persona. So. And understand that this is not a fixed thing. There is a yin and yang and it's something that is fluid and permanently negotiated. And just because your boss doesn't agree with you about what's happening in the Middle east or Venezuela or hasn't spoken up about Black Lives Matter doesn't mean you have to quit. And just because this week was a little painful or dreadful doesn't mean you need to work for yourself. I think. Try to be realistic and try to navigate the delicate balance between, again, self expression and being a nice person or not being a jerk.
- [62:57]
A
I love it. I think the other thing that folks can do is they can go out and buy the book. Don't be yourself off why authenticity is overrated and what to do instead.
- [63:07]
C
Well, actually, of all the things that were said here, that is really the one, the most and only important one.
- [63:14]
B
That's truly the best self.
- [63:15]
C
Yes, yes, exactly.
- [63:17]
A
So go. If you want to be your best self, buy that book. Tomas, where can people find you?
- [63:24]
C
Yeah, in my website, which is Dr. Thomas.com. that's D R T O M A S.com and every no h yeah, no h. Thank you.
- [63:34]
B
All right, well head to radicalcaner.com podcast for the show notes for this episode. If you're a visual person, you can now watch our podcast on YouTube and Spotify praise in public and criticize in private. If you like what you see and hear, please do rate and review us wherever you're listening or watching. Please share the episode and if you have feedback for us or a question for a future episode, please email podcastadicalcandor.com thanks so much.
- [64:03]
A
Thanks so much everyone. The Radical Candor podcast is based on the book Radical Be a kick ass Boss without losing your Humanity by me, Kim Scott. Episodes are produced with thanks to Podium Production company with script editing by Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co founders Jason Rosoff and me. It's hosted by Amy Sandler. Nick Kimi is our audio engineer. The Radical Candor podcasting music was composed by Cliff Goldbacher. Follow us on LinkedIn Radical Candor the company and visit us@radical candor.com.