Most feedback fails for one of two reasons: it's too soft to be useful, or too harsh to be heard. Feedback Using Radical Candor is the space in between. Five minutes, three quick rounds of practice.
Recognize the four feedback styles, tell radically candid feedback apart from the look-alikes that feel safer, and rewrite weak feedback so it lands.
Show the person that the relationship and their growth matter.
Name the behaviour, its impact, and the next step without hiding the message.
Strong feedback holds both at once. Drop either one and the message moves into a failure mode.
Kim Scott found that good feedback sits at the meeting point of two things: how much you care personally about the person, and how willing you are to challenge them directly. Drop one, and feedback slides into a failure mode.
Most well-meaning managers fail on the Ruinous Empathy side: they care, so they soften the message until there's nothing left to act on. Let's train your eye.
Read each line a manager actually said, then choose the style it falls into. You'll get the why after each one.
Here's a piece of ruinously empathetic feedback: kind, but useless. Rewrite it so it keeps the care and adds the challenge.
A strong rewrite usually does three things:
Designed and built by Juliana Dos Santos as an example of interactive, practice-based microlearning for emerging managers.
Try it again