Bookworm Transcripts

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This episode of Bookworm is brought to you by Arrowpress.

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Brew better coffee on the go with the new Arrowpress Go Plus.

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Save 20% on your order by going to arrowpress.com/bookworm.

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So I just got back from Craft & Commerce,

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and I have to tell a quick story here.

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Craft & Commerce is amazing.

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It's the ConvertKit Conference.

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And if you are aspiring to make anything on the internet,

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you should totally go.

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But I was there,

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and I got there a day early.

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I like Boise a lot,

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so I just wanted to kind of be in the city

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and have a little bit of time to get my bearings.

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And I don't know, it just makes travel easier for me

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if I have some buffer before the actual conference starts.

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I'm an introvert, so I got to ramp up for all those people.

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So the first morning I was there,

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I went for a run on this area of the city.

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They called the Greenbelt,

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which is like this big park that has a zoo

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and a band amphitheater sort of a thing

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and tennis courts and stuff like that.

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And then it kind of runs along this river.

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And so I really like that area.

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And so every time that I go to Boise,

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I try to go for a run on the Greenbelt.

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There's even some meetups that will specifically meet up

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and they'll go for a run on the Greenbelt before the sessions

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once the conference actually starts.

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But I got there the day before

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and I'm running on the Greenbelt

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and I'm listening to my podcasts on my headphones

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as I always do when I run.

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And I looked to the left and the road

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that's about maybe eight feet from the trail that I'm running,

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walking the other way is Ali Abdall.

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And before I could think about it,

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'cause I'm just like, oh, hey, there's Ali.

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'Cause normally I would be like, I don't want to be that guy.

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I'm not gonna go run up and interrupt his flow.

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He's got his like vlog camera

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and I think he's practicing his talk

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'cause he's the closing keynote speaker.

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But I couldn't help myself, Corey.

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Before I could catch myself, I fan-boyed and I'm like,

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hey, Ali!

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But Ali is super cool.

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He stopped what he's doing, comes and talks to me.

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As soon as I realized with it,

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I'd broken up his flow, I felt really bad.

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And so I just kept it real short,

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but hey, I really appreciate what you do.

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Here to see you, like, oh, awesome, well, we'll catch you later,

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you know?

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And then I sent him a message via Twitter afterwards.

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And then he followed up with me via Twitter.

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And his response was, oh my gosh, you're the bookworm guy.

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I've been listening to your podcast for years.

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So that was probably the highlight

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of my Crafted Commerce experience,

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even though it wasn't direct.

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It was like, I got to meet Ali Abdall

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and confirmed that he does, in fact, listen to bookworm.

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So Ali, thanks for listening.

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- There you go.

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- And thanks for saying hi at Crafted Commerce.

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You did a great job on your keynote,

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that visualization exercise at the end was powerful.

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But yeah, if you are an internet creator, please come.

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Hang out, we'll get coffee, it'll be great.

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- And it's every, like, June, it's June every year?

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- Yeah, it's usually the second week in June,

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I don't think they have the page up

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to buy the tickets for next year yet,

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but I will be going.

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They did have a pre-buy thing at the conference,

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so I do already have my ticket for next year.

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I will be there, so coming out.

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- How many people?

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Like, roughly.

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- Oh gosh, only like two to 300 would be my guess.

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It's a pretty small group, but they're pretty cool people.

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Also had dinner with Jay Popisan, author of The One Thing.

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So it was a lot of fun.

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But we got lots of action items here,

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so you wanna go through yours first?

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- I will. So my first action item was to apply scarcity to areas where I lack moderation.

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Now I am trying to do this. I think the biggest challenge that I have had with this one is

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staying mindful of the fact that I need to apply scarcity or that I lack moderation in

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an area. So it's like, you know, you have so many of these ingrained grooves that you

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do. Like at this time, I do this thing. At this time, I do this thing. At this time, I do this thing.

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So reminding myself that it's like, hold on, you're not, you don't have moderation right now.

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Like what is, what's happening here and what is causing the scarcity loop and what's underlying

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that scarcity loop. So I would say, you know, if we're going to like red, yellow, green this,

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right, where green is, I did a great job, yellow is on, and red, I'm like somewhere between red

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and yellow, right? Like so not great on this one, for sure. Okay. The take a month and try to

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get rid of one thing every day. This was just not possible right now. I failed to realize the

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amount of travel and the amount of things that we had going on for the month of May and June.

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So I think this one will hit in July. I will tell you, I did get rid of a bunch of stuff,

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but that just so happened, that just so happened to be because we had the dumpsters in our

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neighborhood. So our neighborhood, the HOA gets dumpsters every year. So we just had dumpsters.

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So we just threw away a bunch of old stuff that we didn't need anymore and stuff that was taken

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up space. So I did get rid of a lot of things, but it wasn't the way I had planned it where,

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you know, I tried to do an active or a, you know, conscious getting rid of a thing every day. What

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about you? Well, I think I didn't take action on any of these. No, it's not totally true. I'll

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start with the revisit my ideal week. I did do this. I did not get to the result that I wanted,

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which was four hours of created work per day. I'm not sure that that's feasible right now. And

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I say creative work per day. I'm thinking of that as creative work on my projects and my products.

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I do quite a bit of freelance work currently as I'm trying to ramp up the independent creator

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business. So I don't really count that work because that's transactional. Once it's done,

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I get paid for that article. That's it. I, yeah, it was kind of depressing as I was doing this,

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to be honest, but that's okay. Like progress, not perfection. The flag is in the ground. Like

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this is the direction that we're moving and I'm very clear on the, you know, come back from

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crafting commerce, talking to a bunch of people, going to a bunch of workshops. One of the most

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helpful workshops that I went to was JClaus's workshop on developing your offer ladder. And I

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know the specific pieces that I've got to build and the things that I've got to work on. Which,

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by the way, I forgot to mention, if people want my notes from crafting commerce, I took sketch

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notes of all the sessions. I shared them individually on Twitter, but I'll put a link to download all

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the notes people want them in the show notes here. Next one, collect gear nut stuff. I mean,

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I guess you could say that's sort of successful. Like I haven't just bought stuff. I have this

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mindset now when I'm looking at things, but I also haven't bought anything. I've been traveling.

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So we'll see. The next one, working from the bottom up, decide on purchasing decisions within 60

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seconds, avoid finding justification. I guess you could say I failed hard on this one because I

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walked out of crafting commerce thinking I should go to VidSummit, and I'm still thinking about

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whether I should go to VidSummit. What is a good summit? VidSummit is like a YouTube

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conference. Yeah, it's a YouTube conference in Dallas in September, which is hosted by MrBeast,

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I believe. But I mean, a lot of the stuff that I'm doing in terms of growth is happening on

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YouTube. And I should know what's going on there. Maybe not to the tune of $900. That's what the

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ticket costs and then obviously flights and hotel and things like that. I do know several people

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from crafting commerce that are going to be there. So I do think if I had the means, that's

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probably a good place to be. It's the right room to be in. I would learn a lot, but I'm just not

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sure that I can can swing that yet. So still working on that one. So probably we can come back

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to this. We'll check the tape later. But my guess is that if you're talking about, is it

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pertains to this action item, I will find a way to justify that cost at some point. And I will

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have failed on this action item. I feel like you have to give yourself that 60 second one. You

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have to give yourself a... There's a threshold there maybe. Yeah, there's tears.

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Sure. Okay, if it's under this much money, 60 seconds, if it's this one, then we can think

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about it longer. Okay. All right. Good. I feel better.

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And then the last one asked, I want to be right. I want to be happy. This wasn't an actual asking

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myself that question. This has been in the back of my mind, but again, been traveling. So I haven't

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had a whole lot of application or opportunity to apply that action item personally. So I look at

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this list and I'm like, I didn't do any of this, but I sort of did one of them and the other ones

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didn't really have an opportunity. So I don't think I'm going to have any of these carry over.

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But definitely didn't get the big payoff that I thought I was going to get when I listed these

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as action items a few weeks ago. Yeah, I'm in the same boat that I think the one that would carry

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over more likely is the... Try to remember where I lack moderation and then like, what's the loop

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underlying that? Yeah. I need to get rid of a bunch of stuff, but I don't think it's going to happen.

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All right. Well, let's talk about today's book. Today's book is Radical Cander by Kim Scott.

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And this was a book that I was familiar with from the previous day job, although I had not read it

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for the previous day job. I always kind of wanted to. They had core values for the company that were

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all based on books and most of them were based on books that I had read. This one was not one

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that I had read, but it's also like 300-something pages. So every time I was like, I should read that,

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I quickly got overwhelmed and didn't do it. So a few weeks ago, you were talking about books that

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you were interested in and you made a comment or maybe it was in the midst of an episode about

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how you were interested in the team culture stuff. And I had gone through the cliff notes version

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and some trainings on Radical Cander, but I had not invested the time to actually read the book.

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And I was like, "Oh, well, this seems like a good one." So I picked it and we went through it. Now,

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which version did you read, by the way? Because the one that I got is this orange one that says

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fully revised and updated edition. Is that the one that you have? Correct. Okay. Is there one I

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have, yes, as well. Okay. So I think this one is quite a bit longer. It's broken down into essentially

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two main parts. Part one is a new management philosophy, part two is tools and techniques.

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But then there are a couple of additional sections getting started and afterward,

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and then a bonus chapter in the one that I've got. So that's kind of, I think, how we'll break

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down the chapters for the podcast episode. We probably won't go chapter by chapter in each one

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of these sections because a lot of it flows together, but we will see. What was your initial

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thoughts picking up this book? Okay. So I had heard of this book very, I mean, I don't even

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remember where I heard about this book, but it's like, I actually didn't have much interest in

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the book itself or the topic, right? So I had heard of it before, but it was like,

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"Okay, okay, whatever. I'm not that interested." So I didn't know anything about Kim Scott.

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I didn't know anything about Radical Cander or what the premise was, but I've since found out that,

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like, and as you just said, this is like a way of thinking framework that's very, very popular in

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industry. Like, I mean, this is, you know, trainings and, I mean, she talks about in her book that,

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you know, they've done a lot of coaching sessions with managers and bosses and leaders.

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I didn't have any idea that it was so focused on being a boss and managing, right? So that was,

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that was kind of a shock to me. So like, that was my first impression going into it is I knew

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very, very little about it, but I knew what the word "canderment." Like, I knew what the word,

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well, at least I thought it, I thought I knew what the word "radicalment," and I thought I knew

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what the word "canderment," and then she helped me learn more about that.

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Well, that's the thing is like, you see the model even in the new, you say to yourself,

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"Well, I understand this, but you don't understand it." She's got 300 pages to show you how little you

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understand it. She has a really good job of it, by the way. You are right that this is something

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that is used a lot in industry. In fact, I was at a session at Craft & Commerce led by Barrett Brooks,

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and the Barrett Brooks is sort of an operations guy. He was the COO for ConvertKit, and then he left

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to do his own thing, and now he coaches, coaches entrepreneurs in helping them develop better teams.

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And the session that he led was really good at one of my favorite sessions while I was there,

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but he brought up Radical Cander in that session. He showed the Matrix, and everybody who was there

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with me saw that I actually had the book with me at the Airbnb, be like, "Oh, look, it's Radical

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Cander." I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I understand it now." So I told a guy this morning that we were

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going to talk about this book today, and he goes like, "Oh, yeah, we do those trainings all the time."

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He's like, "I don't ever go to them, but we do those trainings all the time."

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Yeah, yeah. While people should go to the trainings, I feel, because this is something even at the

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day job that we struggled with. People thought they knew what it meant, and I think if you dive

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into it, you recognize that it's not exactly what you think it is. And so when I read this, I had

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context of having all those discussions and working through things with the day job experience,

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and could identify the people that fit into every single one of those quadrants.

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I'm going to do my best to leave the personal experiences out of this and talk generally.

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That was my hardest part of this book. It was like, "Oh, I know so-and-so," or, "Oh, this situation

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happened," and that is an example of this. And I was like, "Quare, you need to stop doing this,

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and just take what you can take from the book, stop assigning..." Because it's kind of judgmental,

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right? That I'm putting people. But at the same time, you're processing through your mental model.

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Well, that was one of the things. Barrett Brooks shared about Radial Cander, and he

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shared about the different axes and the different quadrants. And you could see the people that were

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there that had a team, they got all excited, and they were just going to take this back and share it

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with the team. And as soon as they shared the model, they assumed that things were going to click.

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They didn't say that, but that is totally what was happening. I could see it in their eyes.

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And as a discussion evolved, I actually jumped in at one point for a little bit, but

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Barrett did a good job of funneling it this way too. It's really what you... The standard that you

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are holding as a manager or as an executive, someone with authority in the organization.

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You can't just say this stuff and be like, "Okay, this is what people should do.

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They should be radically candid." That sounds good, but it's not what you

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profess or what you hold up as the ideal. It's really what you tolerate. It's the things that you

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allow to happen on the bottom end of that scale that can sabotage this whole thing.

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If you really want radical candor, then you can't let anybody act as the obnoxious jerk.

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Just as an example, if you allow that in your company culture, it will permeate.

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Then you've got this dissonance, "Well, they say this, but they do another thing."

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Then people don't know what to believe. I think that's an important caveat as we get into this,

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is that a lot of this is idealistic, and it's going to take time to get to this point,

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to get to the point where this is actually being practiced in your organization,

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if it's something that you want to implement. Ultimately, you can only do what you can do,

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and you really need to do your best to make sure that you are living this out authentically 100%

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of the time. 95% is not good enough, or if you make a mistake, you got to call yourself out in

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front of your team if this is really the behavior that you want to see. They need to know this is

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the standard, this is where the bar is always going to be. The minute that they have to guess,

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it's not going to work. Yeah. I think the whole first part, that preface, where she is commenting

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on the fact that I wrote this book, and now I'm writing the revised version of this book,

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and here's all the stuff we've learned, that was really interesting to read,

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not having read the initial book, and not having gone into that, because it was like,

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"Oh, well, this has had a pretty significant impact on people, and people have interpreted it

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incorrectly." They've tried to use it and apply it incorrectly. I liked that, actually,

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because it made me pay attention, and it probably made me, I don't want to say take more seriously,

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but it made me really go, "Oh, I need to think about this in practice, not just as a framework

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that I can apply this piece and this piece, but not really worry about this other piece." It's like,

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"No, I really need to think about this." I liked that she made it more serious in that preface

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section. Yeah, you got to be all in with this, which I guess we should probably talk about the

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model. Let's get into part one, which is a new management philosophy. In part one,

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there are several chapters. Chapter one is "Build Radically Candid Relationships."

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Chapter two is "Get-given-encourage-guidance." Chapter three is "Understand what motivates

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each person on your team." Chapter four is "Drive Results Collaboratively." This is a master's

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course in team performance. It's not just a simple framework that you can use, so we're definitely

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not going to get into all of this, although I can tell you, as a former integrator, so essentially,

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like a COO with an operational focus in an agency setting, the stuff that she shares in all these

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different areas is very good. You could learn a lot from any one of these chapters, any one of these

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ideas, but I think we're going to focus on at least to start the core framework, and then we'll

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see where it goes from there. Let me interrupt for a second. I think her pedigree or her background

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is important because she comes from startups. She goes to Google. She works at Apple. It's not

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the big names. That's not what I'm saying is the important part. What I'm saying, the important part

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is the different experiences she would have gotten at each of those things. A small startup

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operates in a certain way. Google, from the way she describes it, was very, very different

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operationally than Apple was, but at the same time, she was a boss and a manager at all of these

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different things. I guess the best way I can describe it is refined through fire. She had

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all of those different experiences to mess up and to learn and to grow to then be able to come and

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tell us in this context, in this context, in this context. She's very, very open about, like,

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I screwed up here. This happened and I still feel bad about it today. This happened and I found out

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that 10 years later, the person's doing great. Man, that was a big relief because I was really,

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really stressed out about how poorly I handled that situation. It's like, I really like

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her candor for lack of a better way to put it in terms of explaining to us what she's been through,

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where she's been through those things. It didn't feel like I'm bragging about the fact that I've

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worked at Google and Apple and been in leadership on the AdSense team and those type of things.

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It more felt like, here's why I know this and here's why I can speak to this situation,

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which I liked. It wasn't a braggadocious kind of thing.

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Yeah, she shares a lot of mistakes that she's made, but she's also very successful. You mentioned

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Google, where she worked under Larry Page. She worked at Apple and she's had a lot of different

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experiences. She's had a lot of, she shares a lot of the interactions she had with her

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former bosses and shares what she learned from those interactions, which was really cool. I think,

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regardless of the situation, there's a lot that you can learn from the stories that she

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tells there, for sure. All right, Mike, what's the model?

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Yeah, the model is the standard two by two grid. I guess, though, it's not like a box. You've got

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these arrows on the X-axis. So the one that goes across the middle, you've got challenged

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directly. And so on the left side is you're not challenging directly on the right side. You

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are challenging directly. And then on the Y-axis, so from bottom to top, you have care personally.

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And what that does is it creates these four different boxes of the different combinations of caring

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personally and challenging directly. Now, if you care personally and you challenge directly,

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you end up in the upper right quadrant, which is radical candor. If you care personally, but

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fail to challenge directly, you end up in the upper left quadrant, which is ruinous empathy.

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If you challenge directly, but you don't care personally, you end up in the lower right,

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that is obnoxious aggression. And then if you don't care personally or challenge directly,

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you end up in the lower left, which is the manipulative insincerity or Barrett Brooks

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actually called this apathy, where you just don't care. And that is obviously a very dangerous place

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to be. Radical candor is obviously where you want to be. I'm going to ask you right now, if you

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had to pick between ruinous empathy or obnoxious aggression, which one would you pick?

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I would probably pick obnoxious aggression. I mean, neither of them are good, but I think

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if you're asking me to rank them, I think obnoxious aggression is a little bit better than ruinous

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anything. Like when you put the word ruinous in there, it's like, man, we're, we're, you know,

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defeat ourselves. So well, the thing that is so dangerous about ruinous empathy, in my opinion,

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well, let's just break down what ruinous empathy is. It is being too scared to tell somebody that

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what they're doing is not good enough. And to understand why that is important, you kind of

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have to back up a little bit to the first thing she mentions in chapter one about being a boss,

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being a boss is emotional labor. And a boss is someone who guides a team to achieve results.

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So that's not just a boss at work. Like you could be a boss in a lot of different areas. You

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could be the boss of your family. You could be the boss of a nonprofit organization, a boss of

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the ministry. Right. So someone who guides a team to achieve results guidance means feedback,

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team building, you're guiding this this team, right? You have to figure out who are the right

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people in the right roles. And then to achieve results, that's kind of self explanatory.

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Okay, so let's go back to ruinous empathy. There are so many things that could be out of place

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with the organizational structure. And ruinous empathy is being unwilling to address them,

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because you don't want to hurt somebody's feelings. I, well, let's say you've got somebody who

00:24:15

has worked at the place a long time. And they're a great person. Everybody loves them.

00:24:21

But the whole structure of the organization has changed. And there just really isn't a job for

00:24:26

them anymore. The tendency can be, well, let's create a job for them. There are these things

00:24:32

that we have to do. Surely we can find something that's valuable to the organization for that

00:24:37

person to do. But the problem with that is that you end up focusing on the wrong things. You have

00:24:43

people who are doing these things that really aren't attached to the bottom line for the

00:24:48

organization. Why is that a problem? Because what's good for the, how's that saying, what's good

00:24:54

for the hive is good for the bees. If the company goes under, then everybody feels this.

00:25:02

So it's almost like you can't take this so isolated focus and just this one person and this one

00:25:09

relationship. You have to recognize that there are a whole bunch of other people that are going to

00:25:13

be impacted by every decision that I make as a manager or as a leader. And I have to do right

00:25:20

by everybody in addressing these things that are going to ultimately long term hurt the organization.

00:25:27

So I agree with you. I think ruinous empathy is the worst one just because it's so easy to fly

00:25:34

under the radar. That's really not that big a deal. Now, obviously you do need to be able to tell

00:25:39

what is actually a big deal and what's not. And I have been in the wrong in terms of just like

00:25:46

making everything a big deal. This is wrong. It has to be fixed. Well, maybe not. You know,

00:25:52

going back to my action, I don't want to be right or don't want to be happy. Sometimes you got to

00:25:56

let some things go. But the things that really matter, you can't let them go. You have to address

00:26:00

them. Well, and I think, you know, another way I thought about ruinous empathy was like enabling.

00:26:07

Right. Like, but the fact that we're not addressing the situation, we're enabling the person to,

00:26:12

in a work environment, we're enabling the person to continually underperform,

00:26:16

you know, which in the long run hurts everybody, right? So it either hurts the business in terms

00:26:22

of staying in business. It hurts the culture for sure because everybody looks and goes, listen,

00:26:28

everybody knows so and so is not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And if they're

00:26:32

getting away with it, well, can I get away with it too? Or they just get bitter about it because

00:26:37

she has a whole section in there where she talks about bitterness and those other things. I think

00:26:42

going stepping back a little bit, I like that in the preface, she talks about this word radical

00:26:48

and what radical is and what radical is not. And the fact that she uses the word radical and she

00:26:53

actually makes the statement, to me, the word radical indicates a management philosophy that

00:26:57

is both new and dramatically different from what came before. So it's like, it's not this,

00:27:02

it's not this management philosophy that's supposed to be like, what's the word? Like,

00:27:09

so out there that like, oh my gosh, I can't believe we're doing this, like, no, this actually

00:27:15

makes sense. It's a logical way to think about, you know, oh, I care personally about somebody,

00:27:20

and I challenge them directly, right? Like, that's not a radical way of thinking, but it's radical

00:27:26

to management. Like, so I want to make sure that, you know, as people listen to this, it's not like

00:27:30

some like, oh my gosh, it's so crazy and out there, it's more just a matter of it's so different than

00:27:34

what everything that came before it was, that that's why she called it radical candor.

00:27:39

Well, I think it is a little bit radical because you can think about this in terms of the results

00:27:46

or in terms of the people. I think those are the two common ways that people would prioritize.

00:27:51

And radical candor is kind of both. It's recognizing that you are valuable and important as a person,

00:27:59

but ultimately you have to produce too. There are limitations with that in certain context.

00:28:06

You're not kicking your kids out of the family because they're unproductive.

00:28:10

Yeah, but when you're talking about an organization that could literally be life or death situation

00:28:20

for the organization, if you continue to tolerate that unproductive state. Now what's completely

00:28:26

unfair though, is if you hire somebody for a role and you're not clearly communicating to them

00:28:34

that they are falling short of the standard and you that's what that's what ruinous empathy is

00:28:41

essentially is like, you don't tell them that they're not doing a good enough job. You never give

00:28:45

them a chance to rise to the occasion and do what's actually required. And then you let them go because

00:28:52

they're failing to meet the bar and they feel blindsided and they're like, well, why didn't anybody

00:28:56

ever tell me? And I've seen situations like that too where you might look at the numbers and be

00:29:04

like this person is obviously falling short, but they don't know that they're falling short.

00:29:08

You have to clearly communicate. And that's the thing. The most important part of this I feel

00:29:14

goes back to something she says at the beginning about the measure of radical candor gets measured

00:29:21

at the listener's ear, not the speaker's mouth. So it doesn't matter what you say as a boss or a

00:29:28

leader. What matters is what people hear. Now, obviously there are limitations to this. You can

00:29:35

do your very best and communicate effectively. All of these different things over and over and over

00:29:40

and over and over again. You could do everything right. And if people still are just not getting it,

00:29:45

then maybe they're not the right people. But I think more often we assume that because we said

00:29:50

something once that people attached to that and they wrote it down on the stone tablets and they

00:29:56

know that this is the thing. It's not the thing. I remember listening to Sean McCabe talk about how

00:30:02

you haven't communicated as a leader until you hear your vision coming back to you.

00:30:10

Unprompted from people's mouths. They have to be saying it back to you without you asking for it.

00:30:18

That's the thing with radical candor is I feel like it's real easy to assume that because we

00:30:24

talked about this in a town hall or we mentioned this once in a meeting, unless you are communicating

00:30:30

directly with this person in a one-on-one performance review and then you're following that up with,

00:30:35

let's look at the numbers and how are you doing. You're really doing people a disservice. That

00:30:40

manager is doing that person a disservice if you're not measuring it by that critical number.

00:30:45

And that's the thing is like everybody needs to have a number. One of the things that I've done

00:30:50

since I left that job, I've done a little bit of operational consulting to help people

00:30:54

create scoreboards and things for their organizations. And I always ask them, like, what's the one thing

00:31:00

you're focused on? What is it that you're trying to do? What's your one measure of success? Usually,

00:31:04

they say like sales or revenue, but that's a lag measure. That's not a good measure. You can't

00:31:09

actually control that. So what is the thing that you can do that's actually going to move the needle

00:31:13

for your business or organization? Okay, so that thing then, every person in every department has

00:31:19

to have one number that they control that they can see how it's connected to that one so that

00:31:25

they can see whether they are winning and whether the team is winning. And ideally, when they win,

00:31:30

the team wins. I think one of the things I realized through this first part is how difficult it is

00:31:38

to walk the line of being a good boss. It's really, really easy for me to not say enough,

00:31:45

but it's also really, really easy for me to say too much. And you said that thing about like,

00:31:49

you can't just say it once, but then there are those other things where you say it once and it

00:31:53

sticks into somebody's brain and it messes with them for five years. And it was just a throwaway

00:31:58

comment as you were walking between your office and the coffee machine. So it's like, yeah,

00:32:04

it's such a fine line to walk to be a good boss. And it's not that you have to be perfect. It's just

00:32:09

a matter of you really have to be intentional and you really have to think hard about the things

00:32:15

you're doing, the things you're saying, as you said, the metrics that you're pushing,

00:32:20

the things you're repeating, when you're repeating them, how you're repeating them. So it's like,

00:32:25

I think one of the big benefits for me for reading this book was just thinking about being a boss,

00:32:33

right? Because it's very, very directed towards your boss, your manager. It's very directed towards

00:32:40

that audience. And for me to think about what that would be like and how would I operate in this

00:32:46

situation or what would I do in this situation? That was a really valuable thing for me to get

00:32:50

from this book. Well, I think there's a lot of places that you could apply it.

00:32:55

As a professor or teacher, you could practice this with your students. Very first day of class.

00:33:00

This is what's expected of you. If you do this, you will get these grades. If you don't,

00:33:05

this is what will happen. And then when it gets to the end of the semester and people are scrambling,

00:33:09

you can say, well, look, I told you, this is the expectation you fall in short. But

00:33:14

just waiting till the end, waiting for them to fail isn't a good way to do it either. So when you

00:33:19

see them starting to fall behind, you reach out to be like, hey, you should really come to an office

00:33:23

hours or if you need a little extra help, here's a resource. Then when it gets into the semester,

00:33:28

you can honestly say, I did everything that I could because you can't do it for them. They have to

00:33:32

actually apply it. Yeah, the the care personally one for most students, especially at a small

00:33:40

institution like I'm at, is really easy. Like, like, they get that we're here because we care

00:33:44

about them. We want them to be here. We want them to succeed. The challenge directly one is a lot

00:33:49

harder because they see challenge directly as you think I'm an idiot or they see challenge directly

00:33:56

as like, Oh, I'm, you know, I'm useless. I'm worthless or whatever it is. And it's like, no,

00:34:02

no, no, you just did that thing really wrong. Like, and let's fix it. And it's not a matter of,

00:34:06

you know, you're still a wonderful person and I care deeply about you. You just did it really

00:34:10

wrong. Right? Like there, there's no, you know, there's no other way to do that. So it's, uh,

00:34:16

that's the one that I am, I actually, um, that's what I'm looking forward to working on in this,

00:34:23

in this coming year when the students come back to campus. So that's the thing is that, uh,

00:34:28

you can't wait until the perfect opportunity to have those conversations a lot of times.

00:34:35

They mentioned, she mentioned in chapter two that the need for honest communication doesn't always

00:34:40

wait until you built a relationship. And this was something that I heard over and over and over

00:34:43

again is like, well, you got to build relationships. And I was doing my best to build relationships.

00:34:46

There were also issues that need to be solved. So let's talk about the issues, you know, before

00:34:51

12 months from now, I built a, built a relationship. Um, but then that, what does that look like? I

00:34:58

mean, I guess there's an example here of caring personally and challenging directly as it pertains

00:35:03

to telling somebody that their fly is down. Maybe we should just walk through these. This is pretty,

00:35:08

pretty brilliant, I think. Radical candor, when you recognize that somebody's fly is down,

00:35:12

is whispering to them, Hey, your fly is down obnoxious aggression is, you know, challenging

00:35:18

directly, but not caring personally. You shout front of everybody, look, his fly is down. Yeah,

00:35:23

exactly. If you care personally, but you don't challenge directly, you just don't say anything.

00:35:27

You don't want to embarrass them, but the whole time they're standing up there, giving

00:35:30

their presentation and their fly is down. Like that's not good either. And the manipulative

00:35:34

insincerity, like you're silent, you're worried about your own feelings. You're just so focused on

00:35:39

yourself and how it's going to make you uncomfortable that you don't do anything.

00:35:43

So this is really important. Like, I don't think it's an overstatement to say that everything,

00:35:51

everything rises and falls on this because everything does rise and fall on, on leadership.

00:35:57

And that's the other thing with radical candor is this is not something you communicate to your

00:36:00

team. Be like, okay, you guys, now you go be radically candid with me. No, you start

00:36:06

by asking for criticism, not giving it. So you can't have the town hall and be like,

00:36:12

now we're going to do radical candor. And here's, I'm going to take the first step and I'm going to

00:36:18

be candid with you. It's like the, I get this picture of a festival from Seinfeld,

00:36:22

the earring of grievances. It's like, boy, do I got a lot of problems with you guys.

00:36:26

That's what it comes across as if you don't invite it first.

00:36:30

Yeah, it's easily going to come off as obnoxious aggression, right? Which is why I think she...

00:36:34

Yes.

00:36:35

Is so strong on. If you're going to implement this, you are the first person who gets,

00:36:41

you know, receives the radical candor. And you kind of learn through that, which, you know,

00:36:46

I like that a lot. I'll move us in if you want to move us back, we can. I really liked the rock

00:36:53

star versus superstar connection here in this first chapter because I'd never heard anybody

00:36:59

talk about that. But like, that was in the back of my head or I've experienced that before,

00:37:04

where you just have people in the organization and it's like, they're completely happy.

00:37:08

They're, they like where they are. They do a really good job. They are the rock of this division,

00:37:16

right? Like, I mean, they just, they turn that gear, they grind that thing, but things don't change

00:37:21

frequently. Like, they know every year, this is what I'm going to do. It's going to be difficult.

00:37:25

I'm going to do a good job at it and everything's great. Then you have those other people that are

00:37:29

like, man, I want to advance in this way. I want to move up in this way. I want to do this

00:37:34

other thing or I want to really, really nail that new project. I really, really want to nail that

00:37:38

new grant or that new contract or whatever it might be. And like the operations that are kind of the

00:37:44

underlying churn, those are fine. I'll do those, but I don't get as excited about those. Like those,

00:37:49

so your rock stars are those first people that are like really good at what they're doing. And she

00:37:54

refers them to a refers to them connecting them to the rock of Gibraltar, right? So it's like,

00:37:58

they're stable. They're there and they love it. And they just love it. And then your superstars are

00:38:03

the ones that are like, I'm looking for that next thing. I'm looking for the thing that's going to

00:38:07

that's going to jet the organization forward or that's going to jet myself or like personally

00:38:13

advance my career. I really, really liked this framework. Like I really like the way of thinking

00:38:20

about these two people and these two groups of people because it's just so real. I mean,

00:38:24

you see those people all the time. And I like that she also acknowledges that it's not a static

00:38:30

thing that you're that forever. It might be a season of life, right? Like so in this season of life,

00:38:35

I'm a rock star. Why? Well, because in my personal life, all this other stuff is happening. So therefore,

00:38:42

I'm not looking for craziness in my work life. I'm looking to be stable, do really good work,

00:38:49

continue to do really good work. And then that season of life at home or personally ends. And now

00:38:54

I'm looking to advance like now I'm looking to to roll through. And she and she talks about this

00:38:58

with her with her own career that she would hit different periods of this. And I think the

00:39:03

reference she gave was was children and spending time with her with her children, right? Like there

00:39:07

were there were different times or different people and that she would supervise. So I really

00:39:12

liked this this example. Yeah, there's two different paths here for the growth management matrix that

00:39:19

she talks about, which is essentially the paths for the rock stars and the superstars. I thought

00:39:23

this was pretty brilliant. So there's excellent performance and gradual growth. Those are the

00:39:28

really the rock stars. And those are people that you want to recognize, reward, but not promote.

00:39:33

And then there's the excellent performance steep growth where you keep them challenged and unblocked.

00:39:37

Two very important things that often get overlooked with both of these descriptions.

00:39:44

The gradual growth, recognize, reward, but don't promote. That reward piece is extremely important.

00:39:53

And she calls us out in the book, you have to give them raises. You have to give them more than just

00:39:58

token gestures of, Oh, hey, you're doing a good job. So the rock stars are not the people that you

00:40:04

can just kind of set and forget. And then 20 years from now, they're still going to be doing the thing

00:40:09

that this is not automated. These are people. These are relationships. It's tricky. People need to

00:40:15

know that they're valued. You can't just forget about that. The other thing, and this is the one

00:40:19

that really hits with me. Because I think this is the one that I kind of identify as the. And I

00:40:26

don't like the term superstar because I feel like that's kind of saying like I've achieved a certain

00:40:30

level, but this mindset is there, you know, I am constantly looking for the next thing. Even when

00:40:38

I was at the day job, I was constantly looking for ways that I could learn more and do more.

00:40:44

So keep them challenged and unblocked unblocked all the time. If whenever they hit a block,

00:40:54

they get immensely frustrated. I used to think this was like a character flaw for me, that I would

00:41:00

get so frustrated when I would hit these roadblocks. And then I read this book and I was like, Oh,

00:41:03

actually, that's like there's situations where this isn't the case, where you actually have

00:41:10

people who are just looking to remove every roadblock that they can for you. And wow,

00:41:15

what would that be like? Yep. And this isn't saying that you are a boss or a rock star or a

00:41:22

superstar. I think as you pointed out, people can go back and forth between these different

00:41:26

roles. People are always always changing. But this, this is the one that resonated with me.

00:41:33

And as I am starting to build out a team around the stuff that I do, I think this is really

00:41:41

important for me to make sure that I am not the roadblock for anybody at any time. And I know

00:41:48

that's aspirational. It's never going to be perfect like that. I will encounter. I will be the roadblock.

00:41:52

I know that. So then it's building in the systems where we can alleviate that stuff quickly. Like,

00:41:58

one of the things I want to do at some point in the near future whenever I can afford it is to get

00:42:04

an assistant. And when I get an assistant, like a full time assistant, I will have

00:42:10

at least weekly, maybe even thinking about maybe even daily meetings where it's simply

00:42:17

where are you stuck? And they can bring the agenda and they can point out, well, I need this from you.

00:42:22

And on the call, we can get that for them. But the goal of those like unstuck calls is that

00:42:29

they're only 10 to 15 minutes. I walk out of there like, these are the things that I need to do.

00:42:33

And that becomes then my top priority. Everything else that I was going to do that day

00:42:37

gets put on pause until I get my team unstuck. And then I can go do the thing that I was going to do.

00:42:46

And is that going to cause a short term dip in productivity for the things that are the most

00:42:51

important probably because those systems and things don't exist yet. I'm going to have to

00:42:55

craft that stuff as I work with the person. But that's okay, because I'm playing the long

00:42:59

game. And I know that as we build those systems, this is going to become more and more efficient.

00:43:03

And they're going to be able as they get more comfortable, they're going to know,

00:43:06

because I don't want to micromanage everything to give them the authority and the decision-making

00:43:11

guidelines and the SOPs to do all this stuff that they can just handle it the way that they

00:43:16

think is best. And if they make a mistake, we'll talk about it. And while I would have done it this

00:43:20

way and we'll change the SOP and they can do it better for next time. But the goal is to get out

00:43:24

of the way. And I think this is where it ties in really well with slow productivity and the idea

00:43:30

of that living document that sits up there that they can go in and say, "Here are the four different

00:43:37

ways I'm stuck right now," or the four different ways I'm being slowed down. This is priority number

00:43:41

one, priority number two, priority number three. Because I think when then that ties into you,

00:43:46

because you look at that when you've got 25 minutes of, you're not going to do anything incredibly

00:43:51

creative with that time, it's end of the day or whatever it is. "Oh, but I can really knock that

00:43:56

out. I can knock out number two right now." And I don't even have to have a meeting about it.

00:44:00

I know it's there. But I think that's a great philosophy. The thing you made me think of when

00:44:07

you said about bosses, superstars, rock stars, she calls out here that not everybody wants to be,

00:44:12

she actually says not everybody, not every superstar wants to manage. But I think it's more general

00:44:16

than that. Not everybody wants to manage. And you have to be okay with that. So this is a book for

00:44:21

bosses. Bosses are always thinking about who's the next rung of leadership on there. Well,

00:44:27

there are certain people that just don't want to. And don't push them into it because it's probably

00:44:31

not going to end well. Let people do what they're really, really good at, which ties later into the

00:44:37

book when you're having these conversations with people. And you're really trying to understand

00:44:41

their motivation. You're trying to understand their dreams and their desires. And that's what

00:44:46

we have to do. But that's later on down the road. That's part two. So what you should be.

00:44:50

I get to part two pretty quickly, but we should talk about the get stuff done wheel first.

00:44:54

I was going to say, what do you think about the get stuff done wheel? So good. I'm going to say

00:44:58

page. Yeah. So this is essentially how you get buy-in from your team, where first you listen. And I

00:45:05

like the definition she has for listening, which she got from Johnny Ive, giving the quiet ones a

00:45:09

voice. I've definitely been in those meetings where it's like, okay, anyone have anything to say?

00:45:14

And nobody says anything. And then eventually it's the same person or two that says the same thing

00:45:19

every single time. You're like, well, I know what you think. But what does everybody else think?

00:45:23

It's like pulling teeth sometimes. So you listen, you clarify, you debate, you decide,

00:45:29

you persuade, you execute, and then you learn. And then you go through it again. And I think this

00:45:36

is a really cool model. I mean, that's a very brief summary, but I feel like she's got the

00:45:42

real important steps there. The thing that the one thing, if I was pick one thing from this model that

00:45:47

is worth calling out, it's that persuade doesn't happen until the fifth step. Because I feel like

00:45:54

it's easy if you're a boss, a visionary, or maybe you're just on the leadership team, you know,

00:46:00

and you've had this discussion about things and you just go to your meeting with your team.

00:46:05

And you instantly go into persuade mode. So there's a whole bunch of stuff that needs to happen

00:46:13

before that. And it's not just at the very top level. I feel like this is really important at all

00:46:18

levels of the organization. Yeah, I thought about this wheel. And I tried to overlay the six

00:46:26

thinking hats on top of it and was like, all right, how do these two things kind of combine? And I

00:46:31

can't tell you that I got to like a good map of those two, but like that would be, I think,

00:46:37

a fun exercise if I was teaching like a, you know, management course, or if I was teaching a,

00:46:43

you know, be a boss kind of course, it would, it would be a fun assignment to have students take

00:46:50

this model, and her description of each of these things take a version of the six thinking hats,

00:46:56

you know, like a produced down version and say, how do these two things overlap? And how do these

00:46:59

two things align with each other? Because I think there'd be a lot of overlap there in terms of how

00:47:05

we work through that process with a with a team. Yeah, potentially, I didn't, I didn't think of,

00:47:09

think of it that way, but I could see that for sure. This episode of Bookworm is brought to you

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00:49:10

I'm good to move on to part two, the tools and techniques. All right, part two is, as you said,

00:49:17

tools and techniques. And this part I feel like is going to go quicker than the previous part.

00:49:24

There's a lot of discussion on the philosophical stuff in the first part. And there's a lot of

00:49:29

tactical stuff in this second part, which some of it I think is good. Some of it I think is,

00:49:36

has room for improvement, shall we say. But for the most part, it's pretty solid. If you were looking

00:49:42

for a textbook and I'm starting a company and I have a team, what now? This is running teams

00:49:48

for dummies, essentially, the second part of this. This is a great place to start. So yeah,

00:49:54

there's chapter five is relationships. Chapter six is guidance. Chapter seven is team and chapter

00:50:01

eight is results. And this is really getting into the nitty gritty of how, what we mentioned at the

00:50:09

very beginning, the boss is someone who offers guidance for a team to help them achieve results,

00:50:16

how you practically do that in the day to day. I don't think that this part necessarily even needs

00:50:23

the radical candor part from the philosophy. But if you embrace this stuff with that emphasis on

00:50:29

radical candor, it makes this a lot more effective. Now I have a single piece of this that I really

00:50:35

want to kind of nitpick, but I'll defer to you at first. Is there anything from this that really

00:50:41

just jumped out to you, Corey, that you want to discuss before before I do the jump out is

00:50:46

normally I'm the more practical, the better, right? Like I like thinking about the, you know,

00:50:53

the theory stuff. And I like thinking about those things. But usually I relate better, read with

00:51:00

more engagement to the practical side. This might be the exception to that. Like this book for some

00:51:06

reason, I felt like we were almost two in the weeds or maybe my roles to date and current role

00:51:13

is just kind of too far from this. It wasn't that any of it was bad. It was more of just a,

00:51:19

okay, like, yep, okay, yep. And I kept finding myself going like, okay, this is fine. Okay,

00:51:24

this is fine. This is fine. I think that's a good idea, but I don't really have any chance to

00:51:27

really apply that. You know, like, yeah, there were those that happened a lot through 5, 6, 7, and 8

00:51:33

for me, which it made it feel kind of like a slog like to work through part two. Part two just felt

00:51:44

long now. If I was a manager or a boss, like specifically, I could easily see myself, like you

00:51:52

said, using this as a reference or a textbook of like, how would I implement this and how would I

00:51:56

do this in my current context? Those those type of things. Now there are a couple things that

00:52:01

stood out to me. So well, let me say the bad thing first. I don't like at all the guidance equals

00:52:09

praise, criticism, get from give to encourage between like, there's a table where she like,

00:52:14

kind of maps this whole thing out and she kind of follows the table as you go. I don't like that

00:52:18

at all. Like, I just think it's very, very like, not confusing, but just, I just don't think it's as

00:52:24

effective as as she means it to be. And maybe that was just me. Maybe I didn't like, grasp it enough

00:52:30

at the beginning, but I wasn't a big fan of that. I love the idea of fix it weeks. Oh my goodness,

00:52:36

I love the idea of fix it weeks, where you just take a period of time and you go, we're going to

00:52:40

fix all the problems right now. We're not going to focus on anything new. We're going to fix all

00:52:43

the problems right now. I don't think a week is necessary in my context, but like fix it days,

00:52:49

where, you know, every so many weeks in class, I go students, we need to fix things. And we just

00:52:55

have a fix it session, right, where we fix all the all the issues. That was one of the,

00:52:59

the huge takeaways for me. The other thing I liked about this was in the results section. So

00:53:06

chapter eight, I liked working through each of those meeting types and relating it back to the get

00:53:13

stuff done wheel about this is why we would use this meeting type. This is why we would use this

00:53:18

meeting type. I thought that had a lot of applicability more broadly like, oh, if you want to do the

00:53:26

following things, have this style of a meeting. If you want to do the following things, have this

00:53:30

style of a meeting, I thought that was a those are my two like kind of big takeaways from the

00:53:35

second part. Yeah, interesting. So I get the perspective and I guess I recognize my bias a little bit

00:53:43

coming into this now because essentially what that part is, it's very prescriptive. And it's very

00:53:49

much for lack of a better term. I think what people would call that is a business operating system.

00:53:57

So this is a lot like, have you heard of EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system?

00:54:04

That's a Gino Wickman and forgetting other person's name, but was made made popular in a book called

00:54:13

traction, which I've read. And then also, there's another one rocket fuel, which kind of describes

00:54:22

the EOS system and the relationship between the visionary and the integrator. And these are both

00:54:30

like, so those, I mean, those are both books that pertain to EOS. And EOS is something that a lot

00:54:34

of small businesses, it seems like try to try to implement. But there are lots of other

00:54:40

business operating systems out there. Another one that comes to mind is scaling up by Vern Harnish.

00:54:47

And that was something that I came across when I was working with the Asian efficiency team. I

00:54:53

actually really like that one. But all of these are essentially designed to give you a firmware

00:55:02

for your organization that when this happens, this happens. And what that does is it alleviates

00:55:09

a lot of the decision making. And there are many different business operating systems.

00:55:15

And there are many pros and cons to different business operating systems. And I think a lot of

00:55:21

businesses try a lot of business operating systems trying to find the one specific system that is

00:55:27

going to make everything work. I kind of think that when it comes to running a business,

00:55:33

much like using a task manager, you have to find something that works for you. And a big part of

00:55:41

that is the culture that you have developed either intentionally or unintentionally. And so that's

00:55:47

where the whole first part of the book comes in, in my opinion, is like, this is all the stuff that

00:55:54

needs to be there in the bedrock of the culture in order for anything else to work. So essentially,

00:55:59

there's two different books here, in my opinion. There's the radical candor framework. And this

00:56:06

is kind of like, if you want to build a culture that you could use with any business operating

00:56:10

system, this is what you use. And then you get into the second section. And I hadn't really

00:56:15

recognized this until you started calling out some specific things. But this is a lot longer.

00:56:20

It is very prescriptive. There's a lot of details in here. And essentially, this is how

00:56:25

she runs her companies from all the different things that she's learned, all the different

00:56:29

places, but she even calls out multiple times throughout the book that this is going to be

00:56:32

different, different places, what worked at Google was not, well, that was that was frowned upon at

00:56:37

Apple and vice versa, different cultures, different leaders, you got to figure out what works.

00:56:43

And there is the issue, I think, with this section is I, well, I won't say issue. I'll just say that

00:56:51

there's a, you got to be careful with this, because anytime you encounter a system like this,

00:56:57

I don't think this is Kim Scott's intention, but this is how these types of books read.

00:57:03

It's like, I have this experience. I am the guru. Just do this. And it's not that simple.

00:57:10

You have to figure out what of this you want to apply. Now, there are certain things in here that

00:57:14

are great. And I think that's where if you're a C level employee or the owner of a small company

00:57:23

or even a manager or a leader at any level, you could go through this and be like, well,

00:57:29

that's a good idea. I could see how that fits. That's not, we're not really going to do that.

00:57:33

Oh, but that one, that sounds awesome. We should implement that tomorrow. And my advice would be,

00:57:39

that's the, those are the things to take from this section of the book. But I will say, because I have

00:57:46

a lot of experience with these different business operating systems that what she's sharing here

00:57:50

is pretty solid advice. Like, this has got a lot of overlap in a lot of different areas. She

00:57:56

frames some things a little bit differently. The one specific thing that I wanted to talk about

00:58:01

was the hiring process, because this is an area of interest to me. But before we get there,

00:58:07

anything else that you wanted to talk about just in terms of like the, the prescriptive nature of

00:58:12

the system that she's talking about here? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I'm intrigued

00:58:17

to hear your hiring process. Thought. Okay. Well, okay. So there's a, some reference,

00:58:26

some context, I guess that people need to understand with my perspective on the hiring process.

00:58:31

I grew up in family business. My dad developed assessment and skill building tools for

00:58:37

one of the areas was emotional intelligence. And there were corporations like Michelin Tire

00:58:44

and Apple that used our emotional intelligence tools in their hiring process. The validity of

00:58:51

those assessments is kind of what sets them apart. There was 140 plus a trial level papers and books

00:58:58

written on the specific assessments that my dad developed and used. So there's lots and lots of

00:59:04

research behind it. And then also the sample size. I think it's like eight and a half million people

00:59:08

who have gone through it or something like that. It's big. So it's not just like, I made this survey

00:59:15

and people seem to like it. Yeah. Yeah. That's my issue with a lot of like the assessments

00:59:20

that we come across and a lot of these books that we read is like, no, you just had an idea and

00:59:24

made a Facebook was to tell a story. So that being said, emotional intelligence,

00:59:31

a lot of the research that I was, I grew up around showed that the things that really are going to

00:59:38

make somebody successful are not the academic or the hard skills. It's the soft skills that are a

00:59:44

lot harder to measure. Things like resilience, things like empathy, drive, strength, assertion

00:59:51

versus deference, you know, all that kind of stuff. So you can though, if you have the right tools,

00:59:57

assess and develop those skills. So that is a very important part of the hiring process

01:00:06

for me. So let's just talk through the different steps that she's got here in her recommended

01:00:12

hiring process. You start with a job description where, let's see, I have a typo here, you define

01:00:20

the team. Hmm. It's rigorously as you define skills to minimize bias. What did I mean to type

01:00:26

there? I'm guessing this is where some of the culture stuff comes in. This is going to be the

01:00:34

things that you're looking for in terms of radical candor, like that type of stuff. When I applied

01:00:38

for the David Peralge, they actually call out radical candor. Like that's what this, this is in

01:00:43

my opinion. You've got the skills there, but you also like, this is the type of person that we're

01:00:49

looking for in this, this role. And then you want to build skill assessments to minimize your bias

01:00:56

from the interview process. But not just the academic skills, I would, I would argue, not

01:01:02

just using the emotional intelligence assessment that my dad developed, but I've used that in the

01:01:08

hiring process with people. And every time I've done it with people, like, Oh my gosh,

01:01:11

I can totally see this. This makes so much sense. You know, this is why that person said that in

01:01:15

the interview, I see what's going on here. Right. And then you use the same interview committee for

01:01:20

multiple candidates to allow for meaningful comparison. You have casual interviews that

01:01:24

reveal more about the candidates than the formal ones. You make those interviews productive by

01:01:30

jotting down your thoughts right away. And if you're not dying to hire the person, then don't

01:01:35

make them an offer. So there's some good stuff in here. There are some additional things that I would

01:01:39

add to this process. One of the books that I read was a book called top grading. How are you

01:01:46

familiar with this? I'm not. No. Okay. So top grading, again, is a whole system that I think is

01:01:53

honestly overkill. But there's one piece of top grading, which is pretty brilliant. In my

01:01:57

opinion, it's called the threat of reference check. And so what you do at the very beginning,

01:02:01

and the way we implemented this at the day job was we had a, a cannellic link that people could use,

01:02:06

what we looked at the, the resumes on indeed and people we wanted to interview, we sent them a link,

01:02:11

and in the little calendar link, there's a box they have to check that says essentially,

01:02:16

as part of our interview process, we require you to set up a call with a former boss or manager,

01:02:23

if asked to do so, are you willing to arrange such a call? Now the trick is that you don't actually

01:02:28

have to arrange that call, because if they say no, then you ask why. All right, if they say yes,

01:02:35

then that just instantly injects some truth serum into the rest of the interview conversation,

01:02:41

and they say that they tell the truth, because they know in the back of their head that you may

01:02:46

actually try to verify this. So you're not getting duked by somebody who just can nail an interview.

01:02:52

And then from there, after that, when we did the interviews, the people, I've had some specific

01:03:01

questions that I asked, which are kind of off the wall questions, which people always were like,

01:03:05

oh, that's interesting. But everyone involved in the hiring process was like, yeah, that was

01:03:09

really cool. Like, we got more out of those types of questions than the standard ones that you would

01:03:13

would ask in a 20, 30 minute interview. And then we would invite them to take this emotional

01:03:19

intelligence assessment. We'd always say it's not a pass fail. There's no right wrong. We just have

01:03:24

a heavy emphasis on our culture. These are the things that are important to us, and we want to

01:03:27

make sure that this is a win-win situation, that this is a good fit for you. And so people would

01:03:32

take the assessment and we'd get it back. And because I've seen thousands of them, I knew the

01:03:37

patterns to look for. You know, this person isn't going to be happy here long term, because this

01:03:43

job is for this, but ultimately their drive strength is off the charts, and their empathy is low,

01:03:48

like they're not going to get along well with the team coming in at this low level position.

01:03:54

That sort of thing. And that's not a what's the word I'm looking for, a deal breaker.

01:03:58

It's just another data point. And you get enough of the enough of these data points,

01:04:03

and you get an idea for like, okay, is this person really going to be a good fit? It's a lot

01:04:08

harder to measure, but it can be done. And if you have all these pieces that you fit together,

01:04:12

then you can significantly increase your hit rate when it comes to hiring, which is really important,

01:04:18

because mishiring is the most expensive mistake you can make. You hire somebody, you spend

01:04:26

months probably training them to do this job. They're finally at the point where they can do it,

01:04:32

and then it has never been a good fit. And you didn't realize that and they quit. And you got to start

01:04:38

all over. You really got to make sure that you're getting the right person. And it's not as simple

01:04:43

as like, well, this is our culture. This is what we do. This is who we are. You got to ask

01:04:47

about them. You got to make sure that this is a heck yes from their perspective as well. And they

01:04:52

may just say heck yes, because they need a job. So you have to kind of tease through this and

01:04:58

figure out, is this really going to be a match? The part of this that resonated the most with me

01:05:04

were the interview, but not formally, like steps of it. Like taking them to breakfast,

01:05:10

taking them to lunch, going just a random walk in the middle. So one of the things we'll do is

01:05:15

we'll tour people around campus. And it's yes, it's to show them campus. But two,

01:05:21

different conversations happen when you're walking around campus looking at buildings,

01:05:25

and students are around and all that stuff, then they happen in a boardroom or in like a,

01:05:30

you know, classroom or a meeting room. And I've seen this so many times where she calls out a

01:05:35

couple different times where you've, she found out some pretty drastic or stark things, you know,

01:05:41

walking somebody to the parking lot or somebody she knows would always walk a cannon to the

01:05:45

parking lot, because they would, they would learn a bunch of things. The number of times that

01:05:48

happens is unbelievable. You're like, wait a minute, that interview was like fantastic. And then like,

01:05:54

they drop this bomb just randomly, like you didn't ask any questions, you didn't do anything,

01:05:59

but this bomb drops and you're like, wow, that stinks because they were looking really good. And

01:06:05

then, you know, there's this thing where it's a culture fit or it's something about credentials

01:06:10

or they're, you know, the last person they worked with or whatever. So I, yeah, I like that. That's

01:06:16

what that was a good section. Awesome. And I did find the word I was looking for for the job

01:06:22

description to find team fit as rigorously as you define skills to minimize bias. Team fit.

01:06:27

Like team by what the? Yeah. I mean, there's lots of other good stuff in here, but I think that's

01:06:34

probably good, like absentee management versus partnership versus micro management, but what

01:06:40

is it pertains to the discussion here? What did you think of that table? I mean,

01:06:43

treated by what you thought of that table? Sure. I thought it was good. I think

01:06:48

obviously partnership is the gold standard. And then in the table, they're essentially comparing

01:06:57

the bad versions of both absentee management and micro management. Just to give some examples,

01:07:03

like for absentee management, it's hands off, ears off, mouth off,

01:07:07

micro management is hands on ears off, mouth on, and partnership is hands on ears on mouth off.

01:07:14

So they're juxtaposing these things side by side. And that's important. I like this table a lot.

01:07:21

And I like the things that you can glean from looking at them side by side. I don't think it's

01:07:27

a comprehensive, you know, this is everything you need to know about these three different areas,

01:07:31

but it does a good job of communicating pretty clearly what absentee management looks like

01:07:35

versus partnership, what that looks like versus micro management, what that looks like. And again,

01:07:40

this is one small piece of the puzzle, but it is a good table. I don't have a picture of the table,

01:07:46

but I did break down the different sections in my mind map with all the different criteria

01:07:50

underneath there, because I think it will be a handy reference. And the reason I asked you about

01:07:54

this, I like this table because this one's an easy one to print out, put on the wall, or put in

01:07:59

your little like, am I being a good manager binder, you know, where you just you scroll through this

01:08:04

every so often, you know, every month or whatever. And it's like, okay, in my hands on yours on

01:08:08

mouth off, am I leading collaborative goal setting? And you know, am I sharing relevant context as

01:08:14

as appropriate? Like it's an easy one to go down that middle column in particular and just be like,

01:08:18

am I doing the following things? So from an accountability standpoint, I like that one,

01:08:23

as I think about like moving into a management role.

01:08:25

Yeah, agreed. One last thing from chapter eight, it kind of ends. This is the last chapter in this

01:08:32

section. And she does a good job of explaining this, but it's a detail that can be lost. If you're

01:08:38

just glossing through or skimming through the book, she mentions that as it pertains to results

01:08:45

specifically that culture eats strategy for lunch. You've said this. The culture. Yeah, the culture

01:08:53

for an organization is so important. And it's so hard to get right. And it's really hard to

01:09:01

to create something that isn't ingrained in who you are, which is why going back to the previous

01:09:09

discussion or the previous section, I was talking about how radical candor has something you're

01:09:14

an implement can't be something that you do once in a while. The core values that you have in your

01:09:19

organization can't be things that you practice once in a while. It can't just be, this is what we

01:09:25

want to do when it's convenient. It has to be everything that is not in alignment with this

01:09:33

is an automatic no. It has to be like the ruthless elimination of everything counter

01:09:39

to this culture. The minute that you start to tolerate something else, it's

01:09:47

forgive the analogy, but this is really what it is. It's like cancer cells. If you don't get rid

01:09:53

of them, they're going to multiply. And the longer that you wait, the bigger the problem becomes.

01:09:58

And now you've got to amputate part of your organization or you're going to lose part of

01:10:04

your organization just because you've allowed this thing to fester and you never dealt with it.

01:10:08

That sounds extreme, but it's the truth, I believe it in every single situation. There is no

01:10:15

thing that is little and benign. If it is counter to your culture, you cannot sweep that stuff under

01:10:20

the rug. You have to deal with it. Okay. So here's a question for you. If you're

01:10:24

starting a company, running a company and you've got 10 employees, are you implementing the radical

01:10:32

candor approach? Absolutely. But I think it's easier to do at the beginning, like before you have

01:10:37

the 10 employees. So one of the things that I'm starting to do now is I'm starting to build out

01:10:41

my org chart, not in terms of this person does this, but these are the different positions in

01:10:47

the Mike Schmitz universe, like community manager, YouTube editor, all that kind of stuff. And then

01:10:53

you can plug people into those different spots as your team and organization grows. But along

01:10:58

with that is these are the values. This is the manifesto. This is who we are, what we do, who we

01:11:04

are who we exist to help, how we intend to do that, how we measure our success. That stuff's got to

01:11:09

be crystal clear. And then the core values, obviously, that's the decision making framework for

01:11:14

everybody in the organization, because you don't want to micromanage and say, well, this is the

01:11:18

right thing to do here. You want to say, do what you think is best in accordance with these values.

01:11:22

And it's got to be real clear. This is what this value looks like. And if you try to layer that on

01:11:27

top of people who have been there for a while, what you are competing with is, well, it's not the way

01:11:32

we used to do it. You're right. That isn't the way that we used to do it. We've turned a new page.

01:11:36

It's essentially like we're a new organization, a new team right now, forget everything that you

01:11:40

knew. We are starting over. Yeah. And that's really hard to do. Yeah. All right. Should we go to the

01:11:49

next section? We're getting started. We should. All right. And I think this part's going to go

01:11:54

fairly fast because I don't have a whole lot here. This is basically a checklist for how you would

01:11:59

start implementing this. I guess we could break down this piece by piece. First thing you should

01:12:03

do, start asking your team to criticize you. I like that. That is essentially the best way to,

01:12:08

that is absolutely the best way to start this. Number two, you have to prove you can take it

01:12:13

out, take it before you start dishing it out. Begin having career conversations with your teams.

01:12:18

Perfect your one on one meetings, start improving and prompt you feedback, step back and see what's

01:12:23

working, return to guidance, fight meeting proliferation, kill the meetings. Exactly. Plan for the future

01:12:29

of your team. Return to guidance. Walk around, revamp your processes. I think this is a really good

01:12:34

checklist, but there's so much here. And again, like you have to really buy into everything that

01:12:38

she's talking about in the previous section in order to have a visual of how this stuff gets applied.

01:12:43

But I think down the road, if you're building your team and you've dialed in your business

01:12:49

operating system, whether it's this one or a different one, this checklist is helpful to go back

01:12:54

and revisit and say, okay, so we've done this, we've done this. Oh, the one on one meetings,

01:12:59

that's the one we really got to nail this down. And we got a craft a better agenda so that those

01:13:04

are better or something. And then once you get to the end, you go back to the beginning and you

01:13:09

see if anything's drifted, if anything needs to be fixed, because that's going to happen.

01:13:12

Yeah, I think, I think this section lost me in terms of this is written for somebody who's in the

01:13:23

weeds of managing. They're in the weeds of being a boss. And it's like, and if you're not there,

01:13:28

this is fine, but there's not a ton of like, what do I do with this? It's more of just like, okay,

01:13:33

okay, okay, okay, okay. So it's like, this whole section was, I won't say it was lost to me, but

01:13:39

it's like, I didn't get a ton out of it other than what you'd said is the checklist, right? Like,

01:13:43

okay, there's a checklist at some point, I might look at that in the future. But as of right now,

01:13:47

I don't know, didn't really get a ton out of that section. I imagine the next two sections will be

01:13:54

similar. They are. They are very similar. All right, so let's go to the next section then.

01:14:00

This is the afterword to the revised edition. And this is where they talk about two ways to

01:14:07

increase self awareness and relational awareness. And that is through storytelling and role playing.

01:14:15

Now they give very specific exercises here, which I think are very helpful. There's four different

01:14:21

stories. There's a radical candor story, the obnoxious aggression story, the ruinous empathy

01:14:25

story, the manipulative insincerity story. But then there's also the feedback triangles that

01:14:29

pertains to the role plays. This is where you get into a group of three, you describe some

01:14:33

feedback you shouldn't should have given to someone but didn't. And then one colleague plays the role

01:14:38

of the intended feedback recipient. The other is simply an observer. And I can totally see how

01:14:43

practicing that could help people learn and develop situational awareness for when and how to practice

01:14:50

radical candor. But I don't think that this is something that is high on my list of things to

01:14:57

implement. Maybe I will change my tune once my team starts growing. And if I recognize that

01:15:02

we're having trouble implementing this, then this is the kind of thing, you know, on your,

01:15:06

your offsite that you you practice for for an hour or so. But I don't know, I personally at this

01:15:15

moment believe that you can communicate what radical candor is and encourage a culture where

01:15:21

it can be practiced without having to do a whole bunch of role play. And I don't know if you about

01:15:28

you, but just the whole idea of role play, I kind of, I don't want to do that. I'm not a

01:15:33

huge fan of that either. Yeah, I don't know why, you know, I think as you watch the exercise,

01:15:38

like, yeah, I totally see the value in that. But I think it just is a little bit difficult and

01:15:43

uncomfortable to put people in that situation. Okay, we're going to do this now. I think it's

01:15:47

better if they can just get it and they can see it day to day. And the best way to do that is to

01:15:50

model it yourself. Well, and this is the afterword to the revised edition. So what I got out of this

01:15:57

was, all right, we've been coaching a bunch of teams or been coaching a bunch of bosses on this.

01:16:02

Here is something that would help the majority of people. So not everybody can come to coaching.

01:16:09

So I'm going to distill down what we do in coaching into a couple of different, you know,

01:16:14

takeaways. And I'm going to put that into some stories and I'm going to put that into a couple

01:16:18

different frameworks, storytelling and role playing. And I think again, I think that's good. But I

01:16:24

don't think if you're in the situation where you're having these problems or wanting to apply this,

01:16:31

I just don't think it adds a ton to a ton to the narrative of the book, if you will, right,

01:16:37

or the or the major content of the book. I agree with you. I don't mind that it's in

01:16:43

an afterword. I do think that this could be a helpful little bonus for somebody in the right

01:16:47

situation who is reading this book. But I think for most people, yeah, you don't really need this.

01:16:52

So it's fine where it is. And then the last one is the bonus chapter. And I don't know really what

01:17:02

to say about the bonus chapter. They've got elements of a formal review process, which again are good.

01:17:10

This is essentially a way to do a prescriptive way to do these regular performance reviews.

01:17:17

And I think regular performance reviews are awesome and very important. And that's the place where

01:17:23

you really have to be clear on the numbers like this is why you are or are not meeting expectations.

01:17:30

So they have like the number of ratings. I guess that's worth calling out the number of

01:17:34

ratings. They say for is ideal because then you can't just pick the one in the middle. So they say

01:17:40

not okay. Okay, for now, good or great. And depending on which middle one you choose, you're

01:17:45

leaning one way or the other. So at least the person knows where they stand. I think that was

01:17:48

that was my big takeaway from this. But there's some good elements here. I have no desire whatsoever

01:17:55

to implement that exact review process. And I think, I mean, again, I'm going to sound like a

01:18:00

broken record. But if I'm wanting to instill or I have a radical candor culture in my company,

01:18:08

and I want to specifically look at performance reviews from that radical candor lens,

01:18:13

this is a great chapter, right? This is a great bonus chapter. But I like, here's where I like

01:18:18

that she put it as a bonus chapter, because if I'm not in that context, boom, it's a bonus chapter.

01:18:23

Like I don't need it. It wasn't essential to the to the book. I can just kind of not throw it away,

01:18:28

but I can just ignore it and not feel bad as I read the book. But if I really care about performance

01:18:33

reviews, boom, like I read this chapter and probably get a ton out of it.

01:18:38

The thing is with performance reviews that most people will do is they'll just use whatever tool

01:18:43

comes with whatever business operating system that they're using. Like the one that I've used

01:18:48

is the one that I like is part of a software product called 90 90.io, which is a little bit

01:18:56

clunky dashboard system for implementing EOS. And I say clunky just because it doesn't automatically

01:19:04

integrate with all of the different things. But that's kind of the point. Like there's dashboards

01:19:09

in there, you identify the people that are part of your leadership team. It's essentially software

01:19:12

for your leadership team. The rest of the team isn't using it. And so you have your leadership

01:19:16

meetings and you discuss things. And then if there's trickle down action items, you can just roll those

01:19:21

down to the team leaders in those different areas. But part of it is these dashboards and

01:19:26

everyone has this number that they're responsible for. And then that gets pulled into automatically

01:19:31

into these templates that they use for their performance reviews. And they're good. You know,

01:19:36

I do like the number of ratings. I feel like that is something that would be cool to implement to

01:19:40

that. But there's no way you're going to you're going to code your own thing just so you can

01:19:45

have four different options instead of three when you do your performance reviews. So you're

01:19:49

going to look at that and be like, well, that'd be nice. But we already have this tool and this is

01:19:54

what we're using. I would love to be have a role where I'm the boss who has to do performance

01:19:59

reviews to get the other side of this perspective. Performance reviews frustrate me. Like, because

01:20:06

it's it's a matter of, and I know this isn't true. So I'm not being fair. It seems like

01:20:11

that legal thing that you do that way when you promote people or fire people or whatever it is,

01:20:17

like we have evidence and documentation. Because like in my style, like you're an employee of mine.

01:20:24

If I'm your boss, you and I are talking so frequently and we are in like in communication

01:20:30

in a way that's like, you're constantly having a performance review, right? Like,

01:20:35

this isn't something that we have to do or if to sit down and make it this formal mechanism.

01:20:38

And that's why the word formal really matters, right? Like, like, we don't have to do this,

01:20:42

this formal mechanism. Now, I know that's not realistic. And I know that every company is going

01:20:46

to have these and especially larger companies that you have to have these because you can't have

01:20:50

that that relationship with everybody in your organization. But at the same time, I have this

01:20:56

aversion to formal performance reviews because I feel like we're checking boxes that way,

01:21:01

if down the road, we need to call back on this. We've checked the right boxes and, you know,

01:21:07

we can we can call back on it. So I have an aversion towards performance reviews, like formal

01:21:12

performance reviews to begin with. Well, you're right. That's that is one of the functions of them.

01:21:18

They are kind of a cover your butt mechanism. The best version of this is that you do have the

01:21:25

regular relationship with your direct reports and everything that you share on the performance review.

01:21:31

Is not a surprise. They've heard it a dozen times already in reality. That doesn't happen very often,

01:21:38

which is why radical candor is important because there's a lot of people who just don't care enough

01:21:42

about the team that they're working with. You really need to care. And then you really need to,

01:21:48

because you care, challenge directly. I mean, going back to the very beginning of the book,

01:21:52

it's a very simple message. And I like the way though that it trickles all the way down through,

01:21:57

like everything in the organization. You can see how all the puzzle pieces fit together.

01:22:01

But if you're going to boil it down into what is this book about, that's it. It's that simple

01:22:06

framework way back at the beginning. And it's really powerful if you implement it, right?

01:22:10

That was a lot. It was a lot. All right. Action items. All right. What are they, Mike?

01:22:16

What are your action items? So let me search my my node file here, but I have a feeling I know

01:22:28

what I'm. Yep. That's what I thought. I have no action items from this.

01:22:32

I'm in a similar one, except I have one, but it's not like a really good one.

01:22:39

When the fall semester starts, I think I'm going to take the radical candor framework.

01:22:47

And I'm going to put it on the wall. And I'm going to talk about it with at least the senior

01:22:54

capstone design course, because the senior capstone design course is a more. It runs more like a

01:22:59

company than a classroom. So if I'm going to model it in any one of them, I think that would be the

01:23:05

fun one to model it in just to see how it goes. And I'm going to emphasize the axes, right? So

01:23:12

the care personally and then challenge directly, I'm not going to emphasize the quadrants as much

01:23:16

just because I don't. I mean, if it comes up and we get into that maybe, but really what I want to

01:23:21

do is I want to see what it's like to have a group of students work through this where we're trying

01:23:27

to care personally and challenge directly and what that looks like for a semester. So it's a very,

01:23:34

very, you know, kind of fluffy, high in the sky one that won't be implemented for another three

01:23:39

months. But at the same time, I think that is my my action item out of this is put in the lab and

01:23:43

see what people think. All right. Well, I like that. And I want to know how that goes.

01:23:51

Unfortunately, we have to wait a bit. Yeah, we need to set a reminder. Also, I'm going to forget

01:23:55

to talk about it. Yeah. All right. So let's get into style and rating my book. So I will go first.

01:24:04

I absolutely loved this book. The fact that I don't have an action item with it is not an

01:24:12

indication of the value of this book. I think the it's kind of interesting that there was so much

01:24:20

prescriptive stuff in there. And I didn't walk away with, Oh, this app, this one thing I absolutely

01:24:26

want to do. But like I shared in the episode, I think that's because I've got a lot of context

01:24:30

with a lot of these business operating systems. And the thing that really stands out to me is the

01:24:35

philosophy piece at the beginning. It was really cool to see how she implemented radical candor

01:24:40

and all the tools and frameworks that she used in the second part of the book and then

01:24:44

the other chapters at the end. But that's not the thing that is really going to stick with me.

01:24:51

I think that's going to stick with me also is not even just the model that she shared with that

01:24:56

that grid. It's all of the examples and everything that she shared in terms of this is what manipulative

01:25:04

insincerity looks like, or this is what obnoxious aggression looks like. Going through this,

01:25:10

I feel like I understand the I had a I had an understanding of what radical candor was before.

01:25:15

And I think for the most part, I was spot on in my understanding of it. But I feel like I understand

01:25:22

it at a whole different level because of this. And even with the with the second part of the book,

01:25:28

you know, I mentioned like the first part of the book is really the one that's going to stick with

01:25:31

me. But the reason that it sticks with me is because she so closely tied it in to all of the

01:25:37

other practical examples of how she managed her companies. That really was an effective model.

01:25:44

And I think that this book is five stars for the right person. So I'm going to put it at five

01:25:50

stars with an asterisk, I guess, because if you aren't in a position or to lead a team or that's

01:25:57

not something that you aspire to do, there's probably limited value in this for you. If you're low on

01:26:05

the totem pole for lack of a better term, and you're just looking for something interesting to read

01:26:12

because you want to develop yourself, this is not the book for you. This is really something that you

01:26:19

want to roll out across your team or organization. But that's really hard to do from the bottom up.

01:26:25

So it's still valuable to read, I would argue. And I would do it and then have discussions with

01:26:31

the people above you. Maybe if they are absolutely against the idea of radical candor, you've just

01:26:35

proven to yourself that this isn't the right place for you because you actually care about people or

01:26:40

because you care enough about the long term health of the organization to actually bake in a

01:26:46

consideration of the results that people are getting. I don't know, but that's what the superstars

01:26:51

want is they want to be a part of those teams that are going to do amazing things. You kind of owe

01:26:56

it to your people to set them up for a chance to do that, I feel. And so this is a really powerful

01:27:03

book. I feel like this is a much needed book. I wish I could just open up the heads of like every

01:27:11

business owner in the world, every manager who has at least three or four people reporting to them

01:27:18

and download this matrix style into their psyche. But that's not going to happen. So in the meantime,

01:27:24

I will champion for this book and say, "Kim Scott, you go girl and give this five stars."

01:27:29

Okay. All right. You said a thing in your style and rating that I didn't remember until you said

01:27:36

it, but she is very, very adamant multiple times in the book about like if you don't, if you're not

01:27:43

an organization that has radical candor, you should leave that organization or you should think about

01:27:47

going to a different organization, which I thought that was a very, very like strong opinion,

01:27:52

not that I agree with it or that I disagree with it, but more that she is like sold out on that.

01:27:57

Like she is really, really sold out on that. So that was something that made me think about it.

01:28:01

Now let's get a style and rating. I am the opposite of you on this book. I may come to eat my words

01:28:10

here in the next, you know, minute and a half or however long this is going to go. I did not

01:28:16

like this book. I think it's very valuable. I think what was said from an implementation standpoint,

01:28:26

this is the kind of organization I want to work at. This is the way I want people to interact.

01:28:31

This is what I want to have happening 100% of the time. I did not like this book at all. I just,

01:28:39

just didn't like it. I mean, I don't know. And maybe this is an indication. So for those of you

01:28:45

a little behind the scenes, you finished this book so fast. Was that because you really liked it?

01:28:50

Or is that because you had a bunch of time between when we started this one and when you finished it,

01:28:55

like, or both? No, I started reading it when I was traveling and just kept just kept cranking.

01:29:03

Okay. I was like, I was like, well, maybe he just liked it so much that he like couldn't put it down

01:29:08

because I was the exact opposite. I was like, man, I got to read Radical Candor again.

01:29:13

Man, I got to read Radical Candor. Like, that's the way it was. And again, it wasn't really because

01:29:18

I didn't agree with what was being said. It was more of just something about it.

01:29:23

I can't put my finger on it. It was just like, whoa. So maybe I'm that person you're talking about

01:29:29

that would definitely not rate this a five star book. But what I could easily see

01:29:34

happening five years down the road, 10 years down the road is you and I have a conversation

01:29:40

again about Radical Candor. And I'm like, that was one of the most impactful books that I've ever read.

01:29:45

And I'm implying and implementing so many of those principles that I've gone and reread it,

01:29:49

right? Like that I've gone and reread it and it's a completely different experience for me.

01:29:53

So my rating on this book is a two out of five. Right? I mean, it's like, I just did not enjoy

01:29:59

the book. It felt like a slog to read. I just I wasn't into it at all. And I feel, I mean,

01:30:06

I kind of feel bad, right? But at the same time, that's just my feeling on it. Like,

01:30:11

I came in, I came in going like, I wonder what Mike's rating is going to be because mine is

01:30:17

going to be low, right? Like for me to get to a two, for me to get to a two, I mean, that's,

01:30:21

that's fairly low for my rating system. So yeah, I'm a two and I can't put my finger on exactly what

01:30:27

it was. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm not in like boss slash management mode enough to really,

01:30:35

really appreciate this book. But that's where I am.

01:30:38

No, I totally get it. I think I am a pretty weird person where like I enjoy the

01:30:48

for lack of a better term, dry business books. That's what I prefer to read.

01:30:53

Okay. I like to know how those those teams, high functioning teams and organizations work.

01:30:59

And then again, you know, I've got a whole bunch of business contexts. I've read the different

01:31:04

business operating systems books, which totally I can see how that improves my

01:31:09

the standing of the book in my opinion. I can definitely see and specifically with you

01:31:18

where there are places to implement it, but this is this really doesn't affect your day to day.

01:31:23

You're not going to go to the head of your university be like, hey, we need radical

01:31:26

candor now. Like, that's not how things are done in the world where you live.

01:31:30

So what I like to, yes. Is that a reality right now? No, it's just not it's just not going to happen.

01:31:36

But one of the things that makes me happy about this is I think this is the first book you and I

01:31:42

have significantly disagreed on. Yeah, yeah. So that makes me happy. Like we're we're human.

01:31:46

Like, you know, we're going to have differences of opinion every every so often like significant

01:31:50

difference of opinion. I agree. And it's not a surprise to me that we had a difference of opinion

01:31:55

on on this particular book. You know, I'm going through this and thinking of all these different

01:31:58

scenarios, practical examples where like I could implement this tomorrow, you know,

01:32:03

because this is the world where where I live. And I can totally under empathize with someone

01:32:09

who is just like, yeah, this is good information, but maybe someday. I'm better off for having read

01:32:15

it. But like, I would not want to read this book again. Like, I like, I'm just totally get it.

01:32:21

Totally get it. When you say put it on the shelf, I'm like, well, I'm going to put it on like the

01:32:24

shelf behind the other books. Cool. Yeah. So continuing this conversation just to reiterate,

01:32:32

that asterisk is really important with that five star rating. If you're just going through the list

01:32:36

of like, Oh, Mike rated five, oh, I'm going to buy that book. No, definitely make sure this is

01:32:40

something that's going to be interesting and applicable to you. I think through that one.

01:32:43

Then you get the book and read it. But for for me, you know, I've yeah, this is a great book.

01:32:49

And it's also nothing to do with the writing, right? Like it was it was clear, organized,

01:32:53

the stories were good, all of that stuff. I mean, I just didn't like the book. It just wasn't my

01:32:58

cup of tea, but okay. Yeah, there you go. All right. So let's put radical candor way back there on

01:33:04

the back shelf, at least for Corey. What's next? All right. So my next book is called

01:33:09

Co-intelligence, living and working with AI by Ethan Mullick. Now Mike found this book,

01:33:15

and I was struggling to figure out a book, but he remembered that I was interested in AI and I

01:33:20

had pitched him a whole bunch of AI books, I don't know, a couple months ago. And he was like, hey,

01:33:25

this new book just came out right. So it came out in April of this of this year. And it's by a

01:33:30

Wharton professor. He also has a sub stack newsletter that's described as the playbook or a definitive

01:33:38

playbook for working, learning and living in the new age of AI. So it's called Co-intelligence,

01:33:42

living and working with AI. And we're going to see how AI applies to our lives and how it might

01:33:47

apply to our lives in the future. So I'm excited about this one. I've wanted to read more on AI and

01:33:53

I like the idea that's going to impact how this stuff impacts us as humans. So I like that.

01:34:01

How about you? Hopefully you liked that one better than you liked it. I feel bad. I

01:34:08

made a recommendation for Corey and he didn't like it. No, I'm going to be a little bit more

01:34:12

wary in the future. No, no, no, no, don't do that. I mean, I'm better at all for it. It's just a

01:34:17

matter of didn't like it. All right. After that, we're going to read the new Ryan Holiday book,

01:34:22

which is out. So right thing right now by Ryan Holiday, this is the the Stoic Virtue series.

01:34:28

I'm excited about this one asterisk. I was Ryan Holiday's biggest fan when we started getting

01:34:37

into the Stoic Virtue series. I feel like these have not quite been to the same level. So I'm going

01:34:44

into this one a little bit side. I have to admit, but it is Ryan Holiday and this is bookworm. So,

01:34:50

of course, we're going to cover it. Yes, absolutely. All right. Got any gap books?

01:34:54

No, I'm just going to tell you right now. I just came off of a crazy May and June,

01:35:00

or partial June of traveling and I'm not even attempting any gap books right now. Like, no.

01:35:07

Okay. That's fair. I have one that I'm going to try and read it smaller and it was just released

01:35:15

called Simple Marketing for Smart People. And this is a book that is written by someone

01:35:21

named Billy Broass. And this is the guy who does the marketing for Tiago Forte. In fact,

01:35:25

it says Billy Broass with Tiago Forte on the cover. Nice. I just got this one in the mail yesterday.

01:35:32

I preordered it and I'm looking forward to going through this one. What I understand to Billy

01:35:37

Broass is that the marketing is very anti the traditional what you would think of as internet

01:35:44

marketing. I don't know. I've been a fan of Tiago's for a while and I think all of his marketing

01:35:50

materials and sales pages and stuff look great. They're not insulting to anyone.

01:35:55

They're not trying to trick you into anything. It's not like, by now, and you get all of these

01:35:59

bonuses, $3,000 value, only $19.99. Yeah, I know. So I could use that sort of stuff for my creator

01:36:07

business and I hope that this book will be helpful. All right. We did it. Well, thanks everyone for

01:36:15

listening along. If you want to support the show, we would really appreciate it. You can do that

01:36:22

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01:36:41

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01:36:48

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01:37:03

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01:37:09

going. So thanks so much. Absolutely. If you're reading along with us, pick up Co-intelligence

01:37:15

by Ethan Molick and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.