A good technique to give and receive feedback is to follow the guidance of Kim Scott from her book Radical Candor. Kim introduces a framework based on the level of care and the level of challenge that we exhibit when providing feedback.
Radical Candor
The upper right corner is the radical candor quadrant. That is where we want to be to provide clear, specific, concise, and sincere feedback. Unfortunately, we all sometimes provide feedback using behaviors from the other quadrants.
Obnoxious Aggression
The lower right corner is the obnoxious aggression quadrant. This is when we are being brutally honest, challenging someone directly without showing care. It is feedback that isn’t delivered kindly or praise that does not feel sincere. This is the 2nd worst quadrant.
Ruinous Empathy
The upper left corner is the ruinous empathy quadrant. This is when we care but fail to challenge directly. We don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings so we stay silent, or we always praise and encourage and never provide feedback on things that need improvement. If we do provide feedback, it is unclear or we sugarcoat it to spare someone’s feelings. The feedback is non-actionable.
Manipulative Insincerity
The lower left corner is the manipulative insincerity quadrant. This is when we neither care personally nor do we challenge directly. This is the worst type of behavior to provide feedback. It’s insincere flattery and harsh criticism behind their back. It’s toxic, passive aggressive and leads to destroying team trust.
By understanding the different behaviors from the 4 quadrants we become better aware of how to behave to provide radical candor.
A Framework for Feedback Using Radical Candor
The framework demonstrates how to give radical candor, get it, and encourage it.
Give or Deliver Feedback with Radical Candor
To give radical candor, follow these steps:
- Give it humbly – It is not brutal honestly. It is a direct challenge to improve.
- Give it helpfully – [m going to tell you something so I can help you to get better. Or provide the help.
- Give it immediately – Don’t wait to provide feedback. Give it when it happens, otherwise, the behavior will keep happening without awareness and without it getting addressed. Do not let it pile up or it will blow up. It doesn’t have to take an hour to deliver feedback.
- Give it in person – A major part of communication is body language. Do not provide imprortant feedback via email. Do it in person to be able to gage people’s emotional reactions. You need to see it so you can adjust. Did they hear you? Are they blowing you off? Are they crushed?
- Give it in private when criticizing.
- Give it in public when praising.
- Give it without personalizing it. Keep the feedback about the topic and not about a person or the person’s character). For example, instead of saying you are wrong, say I think that is wrong.
Get or Receive Feedback with Radical Candor
- Have a go-to question – Don’t put people on the spot and in an awkward situation. Figure out how to ask for feedback in a way that shows you really want it and you really need it. For example, say is there something I can do or stop doing that will make it easier for you to work with me. Or try, there is 1 more thing, the most important thing you can do to help me is to tell me when I am screwing up.
- Embrace the discomfort – To avoid discomfort, a typical response you might get is that everything is great. This helps end the conversation and minimize the discomfort by not providing genuine feedback. Wait to see if someone thinks through the question before responding or whether you get immediate feedback. If you feel they were trying to avoid discomfort, follow up later by reiterating that you really want to get feedback and that you appreciate their opinions. Another approach borrowed from the factory floor at Toyota involves drawing a box on the floor, asking people to step into it, and then letting them know that they can’t get out until they criticize you.
- Listen with the intent to understand not to respond – When receiving feedback, listen with the intent to learn and change your mind. Try not to get defensive and encourage them to criticize you.
- Reward the candor – When you receive feedback, it is because someone has taken the risk to tell you something. Act on it and fix it, or tell them why you won’t or can’t fix it, but don’t ignore it. You need to show that you are trying, that you care, that you heard them, and that you appreciate it. Otherwise, you will never get feedback again.
Encourage Feedback with Radical Candor
- Don’t triangulate – To create a culture of radical candor you want to lead by example. You want to go beyond 1-on-1 conversations between you and your team members and have all team members being candor with each other.
- Don’t stir the pot – Avoid trying to patch things yourself and instead, have team members work things out themselves.
- Do encourage people to work it out directly – You want team members to work out issues directly between each other instead of having you triangulate and shuttle between team members when they have concerns or complaints
- Do recommend they escalate together – If they are not ready to work things out directly, require joint escalation by encouraging them to come to you together to have discussions as a group.
Use a Tool to Help with Feedback Using Radical Candor
To help with radical candor, you can use the 2 by 2 matrix by having people place a dot in the quadrant where people believe the feedback came from. Which quadrant did the praise or criticism come from? This helps by becoming more aware of how you are being perceived so that eventually you can provide feedback from the radical candor quadrant by becoming more caring and challenging directly.
Start using radical candor and learn other communication and facilitation techniques in the Advanced Certified Scrum Master Class.