Radical Candor

Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

By: Kim Scott

Narrated by: Kim Scott

Find the fully revised and updated edition of Radical Candor on Audible.

Now a New York Times best seller

This program is read by the author.

From the time we learn to speak, we're told that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. When you become a manager, it's your job to say it - and your obligation.

Author Kim Scott was an executive at Google and then at Apple, where she developed a class on how to be a good boss. She has earned growing fame in recent years with her vital new approach to effective management, Radical Candor.

Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly. When you challenge without caring its obnoxious aggression; when you care without challenging its ruinous empathy. When you do neither its manipulative insincerity.

This simple framework can help you build better relationships at work, and fulfill your three key responsibilities as a leader: creating a culture of feedback (praise and criticism), building a cohesive team, and achieving results you're all proud of.

Radical Candor offers a guide to those bewildered or exhausted by management, written for bosses and those who manage bosses. Taken from years of the author's experience, and distilled clearly giving actionable lessons to the listener; it shows managers how to be successful while retaining their humanity, finding meaning in their job, and creating an environment where people both love their work and their colleagues.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2017 Kim Scott (P)2017 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Radical Candor is packed with illuminating truths, insightful advice, and practical suggestions, all illustrated with engaging (and often funny) stories from Kim Scott's own experiences at places like Apple, Google, and various start-ups. Indispensable." (Gretchen Rubin, author of New York Times best seller The Happiness Project)

"Reading Radical Candor will help you build, lead, and inspire teams to do the best work of their lives. Kim Scott's insights...will help you be a better leader and create a more effective organization." (Sheryl Sandberg, author of the New York Times best seller Lean In)

"Kim Scott has a well-earned reputation as a kick-ass boss and a voice that CEOs take seriously. In this remarkable book, she draws on her extensive experience to provide clear and honest guidance on the fundamentals of leading others: how to give (and receive) feedback, how to make smart decisions, how to keep moving forward, and much more. If you manage people - whether it be 1 person or a 1,000 - you need Radical Candor. Now." (Daniel Pink author of New York Times best seller Drive)

Excellent First Half

Any additional comments?

The first half of this book offers great recommendations that could apply to any workplace, but the second half is dedicated to specific recommendations for large corporate workplaces. This might cause you to lose engagement if you don't work in that type of environment, but it was still fairly interesting. The quality of the first half of the book alone makes this one worthwhile.

I think this audiobook would have benefited from a professional reader or from more editing, as the reader (the author) stumbled over her own words at times and was a little unclear at times.

Great information

Amazing information. Got off the rails a bit for me when she got into the feminist rants. I'm sure it bolstered her ideas for some but to me the overall information was strong enough on its own. High quality data though.

Not a bad book

What made the experience of listening to Radical Candor the most enjoyable?

It related to my job

Who was your favorite character and why?

No sure there was a character in this one

Have you listened to any of Kim Scott’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

being more candid

Amazing story and amazing content. Rough voice

I have never made more bookmarks in audible than I did in this book. The tidbits of information and amazing advice was well worth the read. Unfortunately, the voice of the reader almost made you quit multiple times. I think Kim is a wonderful business women with experience and amazing business acumen. But she should've had someone else read her book. Radical candor is great.

Best Book for 2018!

As a leader who working in multiple organizations from employees of 5 to 300 Radical Candor is THE BEST leadership takeaway book I've ready in the past few years. Honest, practical & down to earth. LOVE KIM's Narration and personal insights. If you lead a team of any size, you need to not only read this book but implement in your organization. It will help you retain staff & hire well for future hires.

Very helpful, insightful, and practical frameworks

I loved the personal stories that Kim wrote and I could relate to a lot of them. I’m a junior in college studying Computer Science and I’ve been applying Radical Candor to the hackathon team I lead, my startup, and at my Product Management internships. Bonus: she replied to my tweet :)

“The truth to change”

Kim Scott depicts her step by step success story to managing high performance teams in an easy to follow guide. Great book for those that are willing to develop people in an interdependent relationship. “Thank you Kim for sharing your wisdom”.

Great book

This is a fantastic book on people management It’s got a lot of tips that I have used to get me great ROI. I highly recommend anyone who is interested in managing a team read this book

Radical Candor book kicks ass!

What did you love best about Radical Candor?

It confirmed some of the things I am doing.
It gave me a lot more things to work on to make myself better.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Kim herself. She went through both her successes and failures with each job. That makes me feel that my failures are just learning to be better.

Which scene was your favorite?

I enjoyed when she talked about "flying off the handle" and writing the email then finding out she did not understand the full picture.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. I wish I could have, but it was broken up in 45 minute increments from work to home and home to work each day. The time in between did give me time to reflect on her words. That might have even made it better.

Any additional comments?

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing everything you did. Great book! Taught me a lot!!

Must Read for Leaders

This book was a captivating listen and provided great details on how to kickoff radical candor on a team. I recommend taking notes when possible to reference at a later point in time; with that said, I plan to listen to this book again.