What Is Radical Candor? How Leaders Practice Candor

0:03Welcome to Leadership DNA, a podcast for those who aspire to be a better leader. Alongside Arturo Gomez, I'm Rob Cressy. Today's topic, candor. Arturo, what is candor? Well, before we start, I just want to say it's great to be back. But, you know, candor is, to me, is really just honest speak. But I think we can also, you know, candor, I think the more modern term that people are using right now is really just transparency. And so that form of honesty and transparency when it's being brought into leadership and into the business world, I think does a lot for the team. I think it does a tremendous amount for the business. And I think it does a lot for the development of the people that are part of this team.

0:57And so, sometimes honesty is not the easiest thing to do. And it's certainly, you know, you have some leaders that come from a school of thought that not everybody needs to know everything. And I think that there's some aspects to that that potentially can be true. But I think that, you know, I've found some real success in bringing together a team when everybody feels like they actually are well-informed. And being well-informed allows people to make very quick decisions on behalf of the business. But it also, I think, brings people to this level where they feel really vested in the business.

1:40And so, you know, I think today, more so than any time, this type of candor and type of transparency is essential in a business environment. Because right now with what we're experiencing with the pandemic and the economy and just the, I would say, tepidness and volatility around everything, there isn't a lot of room for mistakes. And in order for you to really kind of hedge that and make sure that you have a higher level of efficiency within the team, within the business, whatever it is, you have to have all stakeholders on the same page. And in order to be able to do that, you have to be able to share information honestly across the board and really focus. And what this honesty, this contribution, this transparency is going to develop is one, it gets everybody in the know.

2:35And it also starts developing each individual team player to just, I think, a higher level of efficiency. Yeah, and I think one thing that's extremely important in candor is it's not about feelings. It's about growth or positive construction where so often you hear about yes people out there. It's a very, it's an example you hear all the time at higher levels of management or leadership where, oh, you just have a bunch of yes men around them. But as a leader, I would want people to hold me accountable and to tell me what I am not doing well because I see it as a sign of weakness. If you're not willing to do the things that you need to improve, I would love for you, Arturo, to call me and be like, Rob, I see you're slipping. Like, what's up?

3:25Like, you want to be called out because it is this, it's an ego thing is what it really comes down to is we think we know all and we can do all and there's nothing that I can't do perfectly. But guess what? That's completely not true. If you're going to be great, everything's going to be up and down. It's going to be a roller coaster. But you need to be comfortable enough to say, listen, hold me accountable. If you see something, say something to me.

3:53And I think this goes for all levels, whether you're at the top or you're managing other people where you say, listen, I want to be candid with you about your performance. It's not about me hurting your feelings. It's about me making you better. Totally. Totally. And it's, you know, I've seen, I've had a tremendous success with this style throughout the years of, you know, being in the positions that I've been in.

4:17And I think, again, I think you really get the most out of people when they feel, I think there's a feeling of compassion or that there's care for my well-being when you have a leader that is being honest with you. And sometimes it's not the easiest thing to digest. And some people really, you know, again, it's honesty sometimes can be painful. But in the end, in the end, and I'm experiencing it right now.

4:47And again, you know, I've had these experiences throughout my career. And I, you know, I can reflect going back on many of them. But right now there's a bunch of incidents or things that we're going through. We just opened up a business a month, a month ago, not even a month ago. And it really requires everybody to be on the same page. But it also requires every person to be the best version of themselves.

5:15And so there's a lot of coaching going on. And I'm getting feedback from these individuals as well, real time. And I'm getting messages from people saying that, hey, you know, I've never been in a, I've never worked for anybody that gives me this type of autonomy. I've never worked for somebody that's this much of a support for my improvement or my advancement.

5:42And the one thing that I tell them is that it's, I do it for them. I really want to see them evolve and I want to see them develop. But I'm doing it for the better of the business. And the better of the business, the business will be in a much better place. If I have a bunch of team teammates that really feel like they've been empowered and they've been given the reins and developed in a way that keeps them grounded with real honesty against how we're improving or not on a daily basis. Here's what I'm curious about is how do you handle, let's call it repeated candor.

6:24I mean, someone who is doing things consistently or where they need to be corrected by you or someone where a lot of times, boom, you see something once, hey, cool, go ahead and do this. We're good. But if all of a sudden it happens numerous times, and I think to myself, in Bacon Sports when we were a publisher, I was the editor in chief.

6:48So I go through and I'm extremely meticulous about things and we have content that's been created on social media nonstop. So I can look at something and when something is not correct, I'm going to say something because the goal is for us to publish them. But all of a sudden, if you start seeing a pattern where I was like, man, that's like three or four of these in the last week where I don't want to come off as I'm jumping on top of you. But I'm unemotional about this. I see it and this is not correct.

7:18How do you handle that when you're not trying to jump on someone nonstop, but it is what it is. If you're not doing something correctly, it's our job to say something. Yeah. I mean, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as a leader, you have the responsibility to the business and to really to the rest of the team to hold everybody accountable. But I think part of it is also is balance.

7:40I mean, you have to you can't be that individual that is just constantly you there can't be somebody on your team that is just only giving things that need to be corrected. There's things that everybody on the team, regardless of who they are and where they stand, I think can contribute or do contribute that require some type of positive feedback to like, hey, that was great.

8:05I appreciate you doing that, whether it's somebody showing up on time, whether it's them putting in an extra effort to make, you know, to really complete a job at a high level, whatever it is. I mean, there's always going to be opportunities, I think, to give people feedback, constructive and positive. And so I think that the balance is really important because nobody wants to work for somebody who only identifies the things that need to be corrected.

8:30You have to you have to be able to give them is there's a little bit of give and take in that relationship. But at the end of the day, it's you have people that are very successful in business don't make things personal. And this is never, ever personal. It's just it's just a matter of fact. And so I've had, you know, just even in the short time that we've been we've been open in this particular business.

8:52There's been a lot of conversations because, you know, in certain aspects, we're in uncharted territory operating in in, you know, the eye of the storm, so to speak, in this pandemic. And there's things that from a business standpoint, we're we're learning on the go. Behaviorally, people are changing in the way that they used to do things or used to want things have have evolved. And so there's a lot of dialogue going on on a daily basis.

9:18And some of it is it's all positive and it's all coaching related. But, you know, there's no there's no real emotion there. You want the best for everybody, but you also want the best for your business. And so, you know, that's how you have to, I think, look at it. So let's get to how do you do it or how do you work on it? And for me, candor is so important.

9:40It's one of my core values that number one, right out of the gate, I set the tone and say, listen, candor is extremely important. I am going to give you I'm going to give you feedback to make you and everyone better. So setting those ground rules right out of the gate. Number two, asking for feedback from others, I think, in candor, the way that you can work on it yourself is to say, hey, Arturo, what can I be doing better?

10:07Or it's not easy to go and ask others for feedback about yourself. But guess what? Do you want to become a better version of yourself? If so, there's a reason why there's checks and balances in place in terms of people are often doing year end reviews or monthly things. Hey, let's look at the last year. But what if we did that on a more consistent basis? I'm someone who does not believe in yearly type stuff because I want constant improvement.

10:36So because of it, I want to feed I want to create a feedback loop with those around me where they feel comfortable to come to me and say something. And likewise. 100%. I mean, it's you can't you can't be a strong leader or consider yourself a strong leader if you're not a great communicator. You have to be constantly communicating, whether it's with your audience, whether it's with your guests, but certainly with your team.

11:02And so honesty is just it's it's the only way to get everybody improve at a very quick rate. And yeah, you have to 100%. You have to be open to feedback yourself. And that's, you know, that's something on a daily basis in whatever business that I'm interacting with, whether it's, you know, I'm over here or I'm over there. I think that there's always a question of how can I help? How can I support you or what are the things that I can do better to to improve your situation?

11:32And it's always about, again, multiple conversations yesterday about, hey, I just want to make sure that you have the proper tools to do your job. And so, you know, when I ask you a question or when I kind of poking around in your area or your space, it's it's because I'm concerned that we aren't at the highest level of efficiency and that we think we have some things that we need to correct.

11:58But I'm also trying to understand if I've done if I've done 100% and actually providing this individual or that team with the right tools. And very often the answer is no. The answer is like, no, you actually didn't set us up 100% for success. And so then, you know, as a leader, you're responsible for going in there and correcting that.

12:19So the dialogue and the expectation from these kind of bilateral dialogues is that you're coaching and you're developing candor in your team as well. So that honesty in this transparency is flowing back and forth because the one thing that you don't need is you don't need teammates, employees or other individuals in the organization not providing you back with with with with important real time feedback. Because, you know, you can't be everywhere.

12:50And so you have to you have to count on what you're getting as being a non emotional disclosure of reality. And so and sometimes I you know, when I get I'll get a message from somebody who's who's on the team and there's a lot of emotion tied into that that response. And hey, so and so is not doing this or we're not performing over here or whatever. So try to strip strip out the emotion and actually really get to to the core of what's going on.

13:19But and that's a coaching process. You know, we shouldn't bring a lot of bring passion, I think is OK. But I think we've got to be very careful between allowing too much emotion to get into these responses about where we stand at the moment. Yeah. And you'd mentioned balance before. And I think balance is so important in all of this between knowing when to be candid and when to say nothing, because a lot of times you may see something. A lot of times let's call it someone's appearance or something where you're like, well, I should just say something to someone because I can help make them better. You need to understand the difference between the two in the greater good of the business or the entire team.

14:05And I think this is something that on the personal side, I'm extremely candid with all of my friends. They know if they're going to ask me a question, I'm going to give them the real truth. But a lot of times other people will offer up my thoughts on you or about something. And that's where candor can sort of get misplaced because the intention is not the same. It is more sometimes you can hurt someone more than you're improving them.

14:35And you need to make sure that the situation is one of improvement. Right. And, you know, I guess if you ask me my level of candor in my personal relationships as opposed to my business relationships, I would hope that they're very close. But I will tell you that there's probably some instances of, you know, being asked a question by maybe somebody who's not such a close personal contact.

15:01And, you know, you just sometimes maybe there is a reason not to be so direct and honest because that could, you know, because it could hurt somebody's feelings. But in business, I've actually really kind of stripped a lot of that emotion away because I think it's delivery. And I think that you owe it to the business and you owe it to the employee to give them a fair assessment of what's going on. And some of it can be some of those some of those more whether it's a uniform standard thing or appearance thing or whatever it is. I think that there's there are moments that you can find to give somebody some coaching and bring them to where they should be.

15:55So I've got three books that are awesome that you can read about this one extreme ownership by Jocko Willink and Arturo, as you were saying, hey, someone might be messing up. Am I not giving them the tools? Great leaders. You always need to think, what did I potentially not do in this to cause this situation? Extreme ownership. One of the best books I've ever read. Number two, ego is the enemy by Ryan Holiday. What is this all about?

16:24It's all about your ego and understanding it. So once again, same thing. How much are we letting our ego rule the things instead of saying, you know what? Let me be candid about this situation. And number three, fierce conversations by Susan Scott. It's pretty much all about candor in the way that you can have these productive yet candid conversations. So Arturo, do you have a takeaway or action item?

16:52I think, you know, the action item and or even maybe potentially kind of dual takeaway is that people, you know, you have to look at the individual in the mirror really in everything. But it's hard to be very candid and honest with people if you're not actually walking the walk. And so, you know, business leaders have to hold themselves in the highest standards.

17:17And if you aren't, it's going to be really difficult for you to have these kind of honest coaching moments with individuals when they have the possibility of looking back at you and kind of questioning whether you're doing it. And so, you know, there's more to this. There's a lot more depth in terms of being very candid and creating transparency because transparency also shows and can potentially expose the flaws of leadership.

17:46And so, you have to be conscious of that. And when you actually can really deliver and be the best version of yourself around your team, then that honesty and that transparency actually flows down tremendously. So, you know, always look at yourself as being the catalyst for either good or potentially issues that may arise in your organization. And my action item is we want to hear from you. When you listen to the leadership DNA, let us know because we always want to improve. We want you to hold us accountable. Be candid with us and say, hey, what can Rob and Arturo do better? Or what would you like to hear from us so that we can add more value to you?

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