Radical Candor

The author tells us that when she started her first company, her goal was to build an environment where people loved their jobs as well as each other. However, in an effort to create a positive and stress-free environment, she skipped over a fundamental part of being a leader: telling people clearly and directly that they are not doing their job well.

Bob was a pleasant and funny person, with an excellent CV and excellent references, he just had one problem: his work was terrible. It's difficult to tell people when they are wrong; management is a tough job. So, Scott didn't say anything. She did Bob's work herself and so did his colleagues. This went on for ten months until eventually, she had to fire him. When he asked her why she had never mentioned any of this to him before, she realised that she had reached the lowest point of her career. She had never given Bob any criticism and worst of all, she had not created an environment that would allow his colleagues to tell him when he was going off the rails. The lack of praise, as well as the lack of criticism, had had disastrous effects on the team and on thei results. Not only was it too late for Bob, but for the whole company. Shortly afterwards, they went bankrupt.