How Not to be an Asshole
Kim Scott | kimmalonescott.com
Kim Scott, the cofounder and CEO of Candor Inc. and author of Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, is all about caring. She has worked as an advisor, as faculty, or in management for several Silicon Valley companies and this work is her cumulative advice for anyone who is, or has, a boss. Developing radically candid relationships is at the heart of her recommendations. She insists that you must “bring your whole self to work.”
“When more people insist on a positive working environment, not only will results for your company improve, your happiness will as well.” - Kim Scott
Where is the management sweet spot?
- Radical Candor is what happens when you put care personally and challenge directly together. It is “radical” because so many of us are conditioned to avoid saying what we think that this action is something we need to overcome.
- Obnoxious Aggression is real asshole behaviour. It is criticizing—or praising—without care. Though it is obviously very negative, Kim still finds this second best to being Radically Candid, because at least everyone knows where they stand and businesses can achieve results.
- Manipulative Insincerity is guidance that “happens when you don’t care enough about a person to challenge directly.” This happens when the person in power is too vainly focused on themselves and outcomes effecting them directly.
- Ruinous Empathy occurs in environments where “being nice’ is prioritized at the expense of critiquing, and therefore, improving actual performance. It is different from Manipulative insincerity in that this empathy is sincere—it just happens to be detrimental to actually getting things done.
Other Kim Scott Insights
- Get feedback first before dishing any out.
- In dealing with assholes, or highly accomplished people you may have to go to extremes to “break through their tendency to filter out critical messages.”
- “Growth” is not good to encapsulate everyone when building a great team. Some people do not wish to advance to a new role, but to perfect what they are doing.
- When offering guidance to your boss, be helpful, humble, do it immediately and in person, praise in public (if it doesn’t look like kissing up), criticize in private, and don’t personalize.
- Casual moments prove useful to know who you are working with. Much like how those who interview at Baird are scrutinized to see if they exhibit asshole behaviour, Kim uses these casual observations as well to see if the people she is working with are those she’d like to have relationships.
- Be wary of gender politics combined with the anti-guidance trend going around due to fear of reprisals. Debate and critique and critical to getting things done and to learning in general.
A FEATURE DOCUMENTARY FROM JOHN WALKER
A JOHN WALKER PRODUCTION IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH THE NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA IN ASSOCIATION WITH DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL
CINEMATOGRAPHER PAUL MCCURDY EDITOR JEFF WARREN COMPOSER SANDY MOORE SOUND DESIGNER ALEX SALTER ANIMATOR RON MCDOUGALL LOCATION SOUND JIM RILLIE PRODUCERS ANN BERNIER ANNETTE CLARKE JOHN WALKER WRITTEN BY JOHN WALKER ROBERT SANDLER DIRECTED & NARRATED BY JOHN WALKER
A John Walker Production in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada in association with documentary Channel and Canada Media Fund, with the assistance of the Government of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Film & Television Production Incentive Fund, Telefilm Canada and the Rogers Group of Funds, through the Theatrical Documentary Program, Rogers Telefund and The Canadian Film or Video Film Tax Credit and developed with the assistance of Superchannel
