Radical Candor Examples to Build Trust and Communication

As a boss, your job is to ensure that work is going according to plan. You must also look after your employees. How do you strike a balance between these two often conflicting notions? ⚖️

That’s what the book Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity tries to figure out. It was written by Kim Scott, who was a CEO coach for well-known companies such as Dropbox and Twitter.

Radical candor is a communication style that combines being compassionate and direct. It aims to improve work culture and help leaders break free from toxic patterns that hinder their teams’ progress.

In this article, we’ll describe the key concepts from the book, exploring their impact on the workplace. We’ll also share some real-life radical candor examples and give tips on implementing the wisdom in your leadership role.

Radical Candor Examples: How Trust and Open Communication Can Transform Work

The Concept of Radical Candor

Kim Scott's Radical Candor Matrix — Via: Radical Candor

To help us understand the concept of radical candor, Kim Scott has designed a 2×2 matrix. The two axes of the matrix are:

Caring Personally: This trait underlies basic human decency. It revolves around understanding, acknowledging, and valuing other people and their feelings
Challenging Directly: This trait enables a person to provide honest feedback to others while being as direct and specific as possible

Below, we’ll explore each of the four matrix quadrants.

1. Manipulative Insincerity

Manipulative Insincerity is the least desirable of all four quadrants. It implies dishonest communication—flattering people to their faces and talking badly behind their backs. This type of behavior often stems from the desire to win the popularity contest or gain a political advantage. In any case, it’s toxic and represents the demise of a healthy workplace culture. ☠️

2. Obnoxious Aggression

Some leaders focus only on the results without considering that they’re speaking to a live human being. Such leaders display what the book author calls Obnoxious Aggression or front-stabbing. This behavior revolves around brutal honesty that shows no signs of compassion, which is ultimately unhelpful. It causes the person on the other end to feel attacked and stifles their motivation. 🙁

3. Ruinous Empathy

On the other side of the matrix, we have Ruinous Empathy. This behavior sacrifices honesty for cordiality. It often results from the fear of hurting someone’s feelings or the desire to be considered a “good boss.” A person with this trait provides vague, sugar-coated feedback or avoids it altogether. Although comforting, this behavior hinders people’s ability to grow and develop their skills. 🛑

4. Radical Candor

When you combine Caring Personally and Challenging Directly, you get Radical Candor. The word radical means thorough, impacting the fundamental nature of something, while candor is another word for honesty.

The author describes Radical Candor as feedback that’s kind, clear, specific, and sincere. She also highlights that challenging people is an excellent way to show that you care about them. 🙏

The Impact of Radical Candor on Workplace Culture

Radical candor has the potential to transform a company’s culture and, subsequently, its output. Here are some benefits you can expect after switching to this communication model:

Stronger relationships: It fosters open communication and builds trust between team members and bosses. People are more comfortable opening up and more engaged with the company
Growth orientation: It turns the focus away from finger-pointing or coddling and points it to growth, which is in everyone’s best interest. It encourages people to give and receive constructive feedback
Improved performance: A culture based on genuine care and honest communication allows individuals, teams, departments, and companies to thrive

Pro tip: The right tools make efficient communication and improved performance easier. ClickUp is an all-in-one project management platform that automates manual tasks, increases work visibility, and cultivates transparent and effective teamwork.

Below, we’ll share two real-life stories with Radical Candor to demonstrate its influence on individuals and companies.

The personal impact of Radical Candor: Joe’s story

Joe Dunn, an evangelist, shared a story from when he was a young project manager. As many do, he was arguing with the software architect about a task—the architect wanted to do it slowly and deliberately, whereas Joe wanted him to deliver as soon as possible. A while into the horn-locking session, the software architect walked out. Joe was sure he’d proved his point and gotten his way until he was confronted by his boss, Jim, who had been listening to the argument.

Instead of praising his confidence and perseverance like Joe expected, Jim condemned his approach. He explained that even though Joe got things done, he did them by behaving like a bully and made it clear that he must drop this approach. 💢

Jim had previously helped Joe in times of need, so Joe thought highly of him. His words left a huge mark on Joe and stuck with him for a long time.

By supporting Joe, Jim proved that he cares for him. His immediate and honest response was his way of challenging Joe directly. This situation demonstrates how powerful feedback can be when it’s direct and backed by trust.

The corporate impact of Radical Candor: Zenhub’s story

Zenhub is a company best known for its agile project management tool that shifted the standards of modern software development. In its book, Better Software & Stronger Teams Zenhub shared its experience with the Radical Candor method.

The company’s internal engineering team realized that they were stuck in a rut. They all cared a lot about their work but didn’t want to get into conflicts, so they only commented on the positives and never the problems. As a result, they were repeating the same mistakes, which cost them a lot of money. 💸

After coming across Radical Candor, they realized they needed to improve their performance reviews. They upgraded their existing post-Sprint retrospective meetings to include candid conversations about what went wrong and what they should improve in the next Sprint. They used the start, stop, or continue strategy and root cause analysis to examine their problems and behaviors.

Pro tip: If you want to implement these techniques through performance review templates, you may enjoy the ClickUp Start Stop Continue Template and the ClickUp Root Cause Analysis Template.

By practicing Radical Candor, the Zenhub team could achieve higher agility, address issues faster, and improve their mentoring process. Mistakes became opportunities to learn and teach. The mindset shift was so apparent that interns were enhancing the code of senior team members.

Download This Template

Implementing Radical Candor in the Workplace

A switch to a radical candor mindset can’t happen overnight. It requires a lot of observation, self-reflection, and restraint. It also needs to occur across the team to achieve a significant impact. You should start with yourself and then spread the knowledge when the opportunities to do so arise. 📣

If you’d like to practice this methodology with your team, here’s what you can do:

Start from within: Now that you know what unhelpful patterns to look out for, try to recognize them in your demeanor. Understand where they’re coming from and resolve the issues they stem from. Change your behavior one situation at a time. Give yourself time to pick your words and think about their consequences during each interaction
Check in with employees regularly: Meet with team members one-on-one every week or month to discuss progress, share mutual constructive feedback, and see if there are any problems they need help with
Know when to give feedback: Provide feedback when the individual completes a task or project and during performance reviews. Pinpoint specific areas that deserve praise or criticism
Reward the effort: The whole point of radical candor is to improve collaboration across the organization. That will only be possible if the majority of people adopt the approach. Praise all attempts to provide honest feedback, no matter how small

The Importance of Radical Candor in Agile, DevOps, and Scrum

Today’s software engineering teams have to be flexible to keep up with the high demand, short deadlines, and remote work culture. That’s why so many of them today embrace the Agile, Scrum, and DevOps methodologies. Radical Candor can be a powerful catalyst for many of their principles.

In Agile, iterative improvement happens through continuous feedback. Radical Candor implies direct and honest communication, allowing teams to resolve issues quickly, adapt to ongoing changes, and produce the highest results possible. 🥇

Radical Candor also aligns with Scrum values, with trust lying at the heart of both approaches:

Courage: Scrum teams dare to do the right thing, and radically candid criticism helps them get their point across effectively
Respect: Scrum team members believe in each other’s capabilities. They can display it by caring personally and being kind when offering feedback
Openness: Scrum teams and other stakeholders are candid about their work and the challenges that arise from it

The DevOps framework aims to improve collaboration throughout the product’s lifecycle—from planning to deployment. Specific teams, such as development and operations, often work in silos, which leads to severe problems down the line. They can break this communication barrier with the help of Radical Candor.

As we’ve seen in Zenhub’s example, this model can transform how Agile teams and companies operate, helping their employees work more efficiently and independently.

Bonus read: Explore the DevOps vs. Agile concepts in this guide.

Radical Candor and Building Trust

According to Gallup’s 2023 report, only 23% of U.S. employees trust the leadership of the organizations they work for. Low trust in leadership and among team members usually results in a tense atmosphere, frequent conflicts, and high turnover.

Trust is the foundation of collaborative work. Team members who trust each other feel comfortable voicing concerns, sharing ideas, and taking risks. By doing so, they can not only hit their goals but also exceed them. 🥅

Trust has to be earned, though. Here’s what you can do to build trust and strengthen work relationships:

Show, don’t tell: You have to lead by example. If you want team members to care personally and challenge you directly, you have to show them how. You should also ask for feedback before providing it
Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable: You shouldn’t try to evade emotions—they’re an inevitable part of the human experience. While oversharing personal details is not advisable, you should be honest about your feelings and encourage others to do the same
Be understanding: All attempts to gain trust will fail if you don’t acknowledge that your employees have lives outside of the organization. When a personal event, be it a move to a new place or a terminal illness, hinders their ability to focus on work, you must display compassionate candor
Encourage self-development: You should help employees develop their skills and follow their desired career path regardless of their current jobs

Radical Candor in Feedback and Communication

According to Kim Scott, feedback should be HHIIPP—acronym for:

Humble: Feedback should be delivered kindly. You mustn’t seem high and mighty but rather curious and open to objections
Helpful: Explain that you intend to offer support and encourage improvement above all
Immediate: While you should think before you speak, providing feedback sooner rather than later will make it more effective
In-person: Non-verbal communication can give you a clearer idea about how the person received your feedback. If you work remotely, leverage video calls
Private/public: Offering public praise will invoke strong positive emotions in the recipient and encourage others to follow their example. When criticizing, do so privately so as not to make the person uncomfortable and embarrassed
Non-personal: When giving feedback to an employee, don’t comment on their personality or overall aptitude. Be as specific and clear as possible. Instead of You’re incompetent at X, you could say This part of X wasn’t satisfactory because…

Pro tip: Use the ClickUp Evaluation Report Template to collect and organize your thoughts on long-term employee performance so you can deliver effective feedback.

Download This Template

The Potential Pitfalls of Radical Candor

The most notable downside of the Radical Candor model is the difficulty of implementation. It requires a lot of introspection and emotional intelligence, which you can’t teach easily. It also needs to happen across the team or organization.

You can’t expect people to magically become better communicators overnight. You should provide education, training, and support to help everyone adapt to the new approach. It’s also important to raise awareness about potential biases and learn how to overcome them.

Radical Candor is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Not all cultures, teams, and team members are the same. You must be flexible in its implementation so as not to force it on anyone who doesn’t feel comfortable with it.

When you’re trying to be direct, there’s a chance someone will interpret your efforts as brutal honesty and feel upset. In those cases, being sensitive and clarifying your intentions is essential. Some people need more time and support to adapt to frequent and direct feedback than others.

Radical Candor is a constant balancing act. You must attempt to show that you care personally without slipping into Ruinous Empathy and challenge directly without resorting to Obnoxious Aggression. As you get feedback, fine-tune your approach to get the desired effect.

Tools to Help Your Team Communicate

A project management tool like ClickUp streamlines team management, allowing you to focus on developing your relationships and communication. Learn how you can use ClickUp to collaborate seamlessly with your team.

Manage work with ClickUp Tasks

ClickUp acts as an all-in-one workspace for you and your team. Break down work into tasks and subtasks, assign them, and define the expectations for each in the task descriptions. Keep all of your team members’ information in one place—from payment details and documentation to 360° feedback results.

Provide all the info your team needs to complete their tasks in the ClickUp Task view

Visualize different aspects of your work with over 15+ views:

Assess team members’ availability with the ClickUp Workload view
Create a project timeline and envision task dependencies with the ClickUp Gantt view
Book one-on-one or group meetings with the ClickUp Calendar view
Collect feedback from employees with the ClickUp Form view

Build your ClickUp Dashboard using over 50 cards and track performance—from work in progress (WIP) to the various stages of the employee onboarding process. 📊

ClickUp Dashboards — Assess team performance quickly with your custom ClickUp Dashboard

ClickUp Whiteboards are an excellent tool for process mapping, brainstorming, and communicating big ideas to a team. For example, you can introduce the concept of Radical Candor to your employees or create relevant internal documentation by illustrating the matrix on the Whiteboard. ✏️

If you want to create a wiki where all team members can learn about proper communication methods, use ClickUp Docs. Format the text so it’s skimmable and proofread it with the help of ClickUp Brain, the platform’s AI assistant.

Communicate with ClickUp Chat view

Although you should ideally provide feedback in person or via video call, you can use ClickUp’s Chat view for quicker everyday communication. Create Chats for any purpose, from casual team-wide water cooler conversations to personal one-on-one check-ins. Embed spreadsheets, webpages, and other attachments for reference.📎

Put Radical Candor Into Effect with ClickUp

Make implementing Radical Candor one of your next HR goals and let it transform your team management and feedback processes. This approach enables you to foster open communication and build trust, laying the groundwork for successful collaboration. If you work in an Agile, DevOps, or Scrum environment, Radical Candor will fit in perfectly with your existing conventions.

Implementing this approach is an ambitious endeavor, but ClickUp makes it more feasible with its comprehensive collaboration features. Try the platform for free and uncover the secrets to being a kick-ass boss! 🥊