Radical Candor

Why Bob Got Fired

Kim Scott once hired a man she calls Bob. Stellar résumé, glowing references, instant likeability. Then he turned in his first piece of work, a document explaining how Juice Software's product worked, and it was, in her words, word salad. Incoherent. Bad. She told him it was a good start.

For ten months she kept telling him it was a good start. She offered to help finish. She softened criticism into encouragement. She never once told him plainly that the work was not good enough. She could see the shame in his eyes and the apology in his smile, but she would not put words to it. Meanwhile his colleagues quietly fixed his slides at midnight, missed their own deadlines covering for him, and watched the overall quality of their work slide. The team's morale collapsed before the company did.

When Scott finally fired him, over coffee, Bob asked two questions she has never forgotten. The first was, "Why didn't you tell me?" The second cut deeper. "Why didn't anyone tell me? I thought you all cared about me."

That is the wound at the center of Radical Candor. Scott wrote the book because she keeps meeting versions of Bob and versions of herself, well-meaning bosses withholding the truth in the name of kindness and watching that supposed kindness destroy careers, friendships, and entire companies. Juice Software failed not long after Bob left. The line, Scott writes, runs straight from lack of guidance to a dysfunctional team that gets poor results.

Her thesis is simple and uncomfortable. Caring about someone and telling them the truth are not opposites. The most generous thing you can do for a colleague is to challenge them clearly. The most cowardly thing you can do is leave them guessing.