‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

Do we really have such poor social skills that candor and niceness are at odds? Really? I get that it can be a difficult goal to achieve both, but goddammit we're all adults here. We should all have developed those skills! Just because you're going to be frank doesn't mean you have to be an asshole about it. This whole idea seems to justify people taking the easy way and putting nice and candid at opposite ends of a spectrum.

This is that thing where managers buy a book and pay some consultants to (further) justify being dicks to their subordinates isn't it?

Ray Dalio published his &quot;principles&quot;.<p>It&#x27;s a fascinating read<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bwater.com&#x2F;Uploads&#x2F;FileManager&#x2F;Principles&#x2F;Bridgewater-Associates-Ray-Dalio-Principles.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bwater.com&#x2F;Uploads&#x2F;FileManager&#x2F;Principles&#x2F;Bridgew...</a><p>The other interesting aspect is that Dalio is an adherent of Transcendental Meditation and IIRC the principles really sprang his study of TM and Buddhism.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.huffingtonpost.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;02&#x2F;12&#x2F;meditation-creativity-per_n_4769475.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.huffingtonpost.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;02&#x2F;12&#x2F;meditation-creativi...</a><p><i>Meditation has also transformed the corporate culture at Bridgewater. Dalio pays for half of the fees for any employee who&#x27;s interested in learning TM, and the office features meditation rooms and group sessions. The company is also known for its &quot;brutally honest&quot; meetings, and Dalio says meditation helps his employees to adopt an attitude of calm equanimity that helps them to engage in a productive dialogue without reacting emotionally.</i>

The clash between this and the culture of &quot;trigger warnings&quot; and &quot;safe-spaces&quot; that people are picking up in universities will be a thing to watch.

Heh, Randstad advocating candor, who could have guessed. It&#x27;s a Dutch company, and straight-to-the-point, no-BS candor is one of those Dutch culture things. Of course you need to strike a careful balance, as Kim Scott aptly defines according to the article: candor = &quot;giving criticism while showing genuine concern&quot;.

Kim Scott&#x27;s blog has a lot more on the topic, and she has a book coming out: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kimmalonescott.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kimmalonescott.com&#x2F;</a>

Great, now &quot;candor&quot; will become a loaded word like &quot;disruptive innovation&quot; or &quot;agile.&quot;

Is being able to deliver blunt and direct criticism without being rude a unique or rare skill?

There are two comments in the article, copy-pasted below which roughly summarize why this is a terrible idea.<p>----<p>Gene Consbruck:<p>You had better not front-stab your boss.<p>Mike Tian:<p>&quot;niceness&quot;, &quot;politeness&quot;, or &quot;etiquette&quot; were invented to allow strangers to co-exist with less friction. They are a code of conduct to prevent violence when people lived in clans and tribes. It was a good invention.<p>Within a trusted circle, you can strip away some of these things and be &quot;brutally honest&quot;, and not rupture your relationship.<p>But in a larger organization, where people are not necessarily your most trusted confidants, such a strategy is likely to massively backfire.<p>You cannot have &quot;brutal honesty&quot; (e.g. strip away all the social lubricants of politeness) without a deep and abiding trust. Doing so will result in warfare, either open or subtle.

&gt; Kim Scott, an executive coach and former Google Inc. executive in online sales and operations, is writing a book about radical candor, which she defines as giving criticism while showing genuine concern.<p>A key point in the article, radical candor feedback may be blunt but should also be well intentioned, not merely derogatory.

It seems to me that for some the problem isn&#x27;t just that other people are blunt&#x2F;assholes&#x2F;etc.<p>It&#x27;s that many people lack the skills necessary to deal with assholes.<p>I don&#x27;t think trying to create conflict-free workplaces (as opposed to personal environments) is a good answer.

One thing I have wondered is how much cost there is in maintaining a conflict free environment where nobody is ever told the truth? It must be pretty large.

Article is behind a paywall.

I don&#x27;t think this is a good idea. The point of a company is to execute the business plan and create revenue and profit by doing so. Requiring brutal honesty of employees doesnt help this. As an employee, you&#x27;re supposed to play into your role as a cog in the machine. Your honest opinions don&#x27;t matter very much.