Effective Communication Styles: Radical Candor

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:17)
Hello and welcome back to the show. This topic today, I think, was brought up in one of our live guest shows a couple of weeks ago. They mentioned Radical Candor. And I wanted to dive in to communication styles. So why not start off there? We're going to jump in and talk about Radical Candor. I'm Stephen Sakach here with Tullio Siragusa and Ash Maher. Hey, guys.

**Ash Maher** (0:42)
Hello.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:43)
Let's get radical.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:45)
Yes, sir. No better way than starting with some Radical Candor, I guess. Ash, kick us off. Tell people what's Radical Candor.

**Ash Maher** (0:56)
Yes. Okay. So Radical Candor is a concept introduced by Kim Scott, a former executive at Google and Apple. At its core, Radical Candor is about creating a culture of open and honest communication while maintaining genuine care for each individual. So you're not trying to hurt the person that you're sharing open and honest communication with, but you're still being open and honest with where we stand and what you stand on a project, so on and so forth. The two key dimensions, care personally. This means showing that you genuinely care about the people you work with, not just as employees but as human beings. It's about building real relationships where people feel valued and understood. Challenge directly, though. So if someone's not doing what they're supposed to be doing, this involves being willing to give honest, straightforward feedback, even when it's uncomfortable. Challenging directly is essential for growth, both for individuals and the organization. Now, you have to be able to balance the two dimensions. Okay, so the magic happens when you combine caring personally with someone, with challenging them directly, not passively, directly. The magic happens when you combine the caring personally with challenging directly. It's not about being brutally honest without regard for feelings, nor is it about being so empathetic that you avoid tough conversations. Radical Candor is the sweet spot where honesty and empathy meet in the middle.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:12)
Have you ever said, can I be brutally honest? I mean, maybe you can stop right there. Wait, no.

**Ash Maher** (2:20)
If it's brutal, no. You can show us.

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:23)
It looks like this. Man, what's with that shirt, but I love you, bro.

**Ash Maher** (2:29)
Ash, you're doing it again. Not great.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:33)
Tullio, let's dive into this a little deeper.

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:37)
There's actually four quadrants of communication styles. Let's talk about them. Ken Scott describes these four quadrants that result from how we balance caring and challenging, which is what Ash was just talking about. Radical candor is one of the quadrants, which is care personally plus challenge directly. Then there's the obnoxious aggression, which is challenge directly but don't care personally.

**Stephen Sakach** (3:08)
Most people are probably familiar with that one.

**Tullio Siragusa** (3:10)
AKA. Karen's. Ruinous empathy, this is an interesting, where you care personally but don't challenge directly, and then manipulative insincerity, which is care personally nor challenge directly, also known as sarcasm.

**Stephen Sakach** (3:32)
Let's go through those and-

**Tullio Siragusa** (3:35)
Yeah, let's dig into them. I think even just by the names, we can figure out which ones we don't want to probably adopt, but let's talk about them because it might resonate with some listeners to be like, oh, I didn't realize that that was how I communicate.
Radical Candor, let's go through Radical Candor. This is where we're actually aiming to be, because it involves open communication where feedback is given honestly, and it's received positively because it's rooted in genuine care. This is sort of like the way you would communicate as a parent with your kids. They know you love them, right? So you're going to care for them, but you're going to be direct about what they need to change. So it's kind of like that, right? Then there's obnoxious aggression. This is-

**Stephen Sakach** (4:21)
The way a lot of parents communicate with their kids. Is this next one?

**Tullio Siragusa** (4:24)
This next one? Yeah, this is where parents have had it up to here. So it's like direct feedback without any lack of empathy. Just get this done, that kind of thing. Don't care how difficult that is, just do it. That might also resonate with some bosses that some of us have had in the past. Oh yeah. So it comes across as harsh and abrasive, damaging relationships. And for example, a manager bluntly would criticize an employee without considering their feelings. It's like, what's wrong with you? You always get this wrong. You know, and maybe that person just like lost their grandma or something two days ago. You know, that kind of thing. Then there's the ruinous empathy. That is where we care so much about the person that we avoid giving them necessary feedback.