Kim Malone Scott's Blog

Today I turn for inspiration to Daryl Davis, the R&B musician who helped persuade Roger Kelly, Imperial Wizard, to quit the KKK.

“While you are actively learning about someone else you are passively teaching them about yourself. So if you have an adversary, an opponent with a opposing point of view, give that person a platform. Allow them to air that point of view regardless of how extreme it may be. And believe me I’ve heard some things so extreme at these rallies it will cut you to the bone. Give them a platform. You challenge them. But you don’t challenge them rudely or violently. You do it politely and intelligently. And when you do things that way, chances are they will reciprocate and give you a platform.”

(You can hear him talk on this podcast. His book needs to be re-printed!!)

Like so many people watching Trump’s press conference yesterday, I woke up this morning with a pit in my stomach. Did the President really defend white supremacists yesterday? How have we elected a man with so little understanding of what is great and what is shameful about our history that he puts Robert E. Lee, defender of slavery which defines the very worst of what we did as a nation, with George Washington, who symbolizes our highest ideals?

Trump’s words are putting my ideals and philosophy to the test. I believe in Radical Candor–challenging others while still caring about them as fellow human beings. Do I really have to care about Donald Trump? Since I don’t know him, I can’t care personally. But is showing common human decency in the face of his bloviating bullshit even desirable?

Yes! One of the most evil, and oldest political tricks in the book is gain power by sowing fear and hatred in the population at large. I’m saddened but not surprised at what Trump said yesterday. What alarms me most is how many ordinary Americans have reacted to it by hating each other. In his book On Human Nature, EO Wilson explains the danger of dividing ourselves into artificial tribes, democrat and republican.

In all periods of life there is an equally powerful urge to dichotomize, to classify other human beings into two artificially sharpened categories. We seem to be able to be fully comfortable only when… humanity can be labeled as members versus non members, kin versus nonkin, friend versus foe. Erik Erikson has written on the proneness of people everywhere to perform pseudospeciation, the reduction of alien societies to the status of inferior species, not fully human, who can be degraded without conscience.

That’s why I am so alarmed when those who find what Trump said abhorrent, as I do, resort to hurling insults and saying that everyone who voted for Trump is evil. The reaction will allow him to gain more power by sowing hatred in our country. Trump’s press conference set off an explosion of “degrading each other without conscience.” When we fight hatred with hatred, when hurl insults at one another without regard for our common humanity, we are risking everything we hold dear.

It doesn’t begin and end with one man, unfortunately. But both of our political parties have contributed to the mess we are in. Michael Porter and Katherine Gehl explain why politics is failing America. The more fear and loathing of the other party there is, the more money each party raises. The more cooperation in congress there is, the more the American people benefit, but the less money each party can raise.

But it’s not just the political parties. It’s all of us. Too many of us, those who agree but also who disagree with Trump, have followed his lead in how we Tweet and how we talk to each other. We “pseudospeciate.” We divide all of America into two groups, and assign all kinds of traits to the other side that justifies our very worst behavior.

This is especially dangerous because our country has broken itself down into super-majorities by region. Even when a supermajority sees itself as committed to civil discourse, if you’re in the minority, you’re likely to feel shouted down by sheer numbers. And in today’s political environment, both the left and the right seem more committed to unmeasured vituperation rather than open dialogue. So you probably don’t just feel shouted down, you probably are, literally, shouted down with rude and painful insults.

In San Francisco-Hayward-Oakland, 76.7% of people voted for Clinton; in Silicon Valley (Sunnyvale, San Jose, Sana Clara), it was 72.9%1. In the Bronx it was 88%, and in Manhattan it was 86%2. In Birmingham, AL 58.6% of people voted for Trump; in Oklahoma city it was 58.5%3; in Staten Island, it was 57%4. In metros with less than 250,000 people Trump won on average 57% of the vote. But major metropolitan areas are not the place to look for a conservative supermajority. It is places like King County, TX (west of Dallas, east of Amarillo) where 91% of people voted for Trump5.

It’s hard to be a minority voice in a supermajority. It is hard to be a conservative in Silicon Valley. And I imagine it was hard to be one of the five people in King County, TX who voted for Clinton. This difficulty is tearing our nation, our companies, our friendships, and our families apart.

Today, try to have a radically candid political conversation–one in which you challenge somebody’s political position but still show you care about that person. Choose a topic you have strong views on, but not one that makes you see red. Choose a person whom you respect and get along with easily. Start by asking why they have the opinion they have on some policy. Listen with the intent to understand. Repeat what they’ve said to you to make sure you understood correctly. Ask more questions. Then ask if they’d like to hear about your point of view. Only if they seem genuine when you proceed should you continue. Explain your position. If the conversation is going reasonably well but you still don’t agree, try switching sides. Ask the other person to take your position, and you take theirs.

Don’t judge the success of the conversation on whether you change the other person’s mind, or change your mind. You just have to be willing hear the issues from the other person’s perspective, and to express your point of view with respect but with unstinting clarity–all the while, not losing sight of the fact that you actually like the person you’re talking to, even if you don’t agree about abortion or healthcare or gun control, even if they don’t share your feelings about what Trump said yesterday.

This conversation going to feel unnatural. Why should you have it?

Because it’s your job. If you are an American citizen, you are a leader. The founding fathers made each and every citizen of this country a boss. It’s the job of all of us–we the people–to choose our executives, legislators, and judges carefully. It’s our ability to hold them accountable for good governance. And it’s our job to elect somebody different if they are failing us. In other words, we hire, hold accountable, and fire the team who governs this nation. That’s a very basic job description of a manager. You might not want to be a manager. But if you vote (or even if you should’ve voted but didn’t), you are one!

If we can’t lead by example–if we can’t discuss the important topics of our time with each other in a civil way–then it’s going to be difficult for us to insist that our elected officials do so. History is as much a bottoms-up process as it is top down. Your words matter.

If we can’t find a way to disagree while still seeing the person we are disagreeing with as a fellow human being, our democracy may fail. Too many people seem to think that in order to challenge effectively, we have to hate. Nothing could be further from the truth. In order to challenge ideas we disagree with, find abhorrent, or even evil, we must not ourselves become evil. To be effective, we must bring our full humanity to bear, and see humanity in those with whom we disagree, as never before.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/12/mapping-how-americas-metro-areas-voted/508313/
http://abc7ny.com/politics/how-each-nyc-borough-voted-(hint-clinton-didnt-win-them-all)/1598306/
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/12/mapping-how-americas-metro-areas-voted/508313/
http://abc7ny.com/politics/how-each-nyc-borough-voted-(hint-clinton-didnt-win-them-all)/1598306/
https://www.cnbc.com/election-2016-the-counties-that-led-to-a-trump-victory/

The post Reacting to Trump’s Bloviating BS with Radical Candor appeared first on Kim Scott.

I’m excited to announce the launch of the Radical Candor podcast this week! I host this podcast with my Candor, Inc. co-founder, Russ Laraway; each week, we’ll be sharing stories and advice for better relationships and success at work.

How not to hate the boss you have…or be the boss you hate

Our first episode is available now! Listen below, or on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure to subscribe to get new episodes as soon as they are available. If you don’t use a podcast app, you can also subscribe to get new episodes by email.

And please leave us a review in iTunes! It will help others discover our show, AND Candor, Inc. is doing a t-shirt giveaway to listeners who leave us an iTunes review.

The post The Radical Candor Podcast appeared first on Kim Scott.

You can now get a signed bookplate if you pre-order Radical Candor! I’ve been signing away and have noticed that I’m still not used to signing Kim Scott instead of Kim Malone :) The ‘c’ often doesn’t show up as much as it should!

Make sure to reserve your bookplate now — my hand can only last for so many signatures!

More details about this offer

The post Signed Bookplates for Radical Candor appeared first on Kim Scott.

How did we get here?

How did we get here? I am sick at heart about the results of this election, and state of public discourse over the course of this election.

Why have we locked ourselves in our corners and refused to talk to each other, or even show one another common human decency? Why are we so entrenched in “the other side is stupid,” or “the other side is immoral” attribution errors? The vast majority of Americans, and indeed of human beings, I have met in my travels are both highly intelligent and highly moral. Of course, we’re all also highly imperfect. And that’s why we need to remember how to talk to each other, to care about each other, and to challenge each other. That takes energy. Instead, we’ve mostly resorted to basic name-calling!

Here’s how I got here

I can’t answer the question of how “we” got here. It’s too big. But I do know how I got here, and I suspect my story is not all that unusual. Maybe it helps.

I grew up in the heart of Red Country.  And I love a lot of people who voted for Trump. Family members, neighbors, friends. How could these people who helped me become the person I am vote for somebody who seems to me the very antithesis of everything I care about. Well before Trump came along, though, I disagreed, vehemently, with their politics. And because I couldn’t figure out how to disagree with so many people I cared so much about, I never went back after I left for college. I spent the next couple of decades finding “my people” and feeling exiled from home at the same time.

The other night I woke up at 3 am wondering what country I should move to if Trump won. Suddenly, I was plotting my escape again, just like the first time I left home. But this time I want to stay and fight. More importantly, I want to stay and love. No matter who wins tonight, we are going to need a lot of love to heal the wound that this election has inflicted, or at least revealed.

Like the vast majority of Americans, I’ve spent the last twenty years talking mostly with other like-minded people, and simply ignoring those who have a different stance than mine on politics–specifically, on abortion or gun control or education or economics. Partly out of laziness, partly out of fear.

Fear

What do I have to be afraid of?  Like most people’s fears, mine developed when I was young and vulnerable. Not unique to me but hardly universal, they also grew out of being female and nerdy.

At work, people didn’t believe I was smart enough to do the job because I was female and, worse, blonde.

“I know you don’t understand what you’re reading,” said the only woman executive at the company when she saw me with the Wall Street Journal.

“I didn’t know they let pretty girls into Princeton. You coulda gone to Ole Miss. You’d get more dates that way!” the CEO exclaimed.

He was right. The problem, one well-meaning friend explained to me, was not that I wasn’t pretty. It was just that I was so–weird!  

I couldn’t find satisfaction in work or love. Afraid, I just ran away to college when I was 18 and never went back, heading to the edges of the country, first the East Coast, then the West.

Like most Americans, I’ve retreated to my corner where most of the people I interact with day to day agree with me. And I’ve lost touch with my country.

It’s hard to be out of step with the people around you. It’s a little bit scary. One of the people I’m closest to has a very different worldview than most of the people in San Francisco, where I now live, and it’s brutally hard for him. I’m afraid I haven’t done enough to make it easier.  And when I’ve gone home, I’ve just kept my political views to myself. I’ve not engaged.

Stupidity

Back to being 18. Hurt and lonely, and wanting to embrace my newfound home away from home, I rejected the attitudes I’d left behind as “stupid.” This was just defense mechanism, of course. I don’t actually feel smarter than others; usually I feel more baffled and confused than anything else. Moreover, as my grandmother used to say, pretty is as pretty does, smart is as smart does. Neither attribute is absolute, or all that important, in the end. Even though I believed that, it was easy to dismiss both the opinions and the people I disagreed with as “stupid” rather than challenge them, or try to understand them.  My response was–well, stupid.

And it has become clear how dangerous succumbing to that kind of attribution error is during this election.

Recently I went back to Red Country for a visit and saw a bumper sticker: “My kid beat your honor roll student’s ass.” On the one hand, I find that offensive and alarming. On the other hand, watching the way the coverage of this campaign has gone down, I feel some compassion for the driver’s frustration. Not just compassion, but kinship. I too wanted to lash out at the people who thought I was too stupid to do my job just because I was blonde and female. But I’m five feet tall and not exactly muscle-bound, so that wasn’t really an option or a credible threat.

Thinking about that bumper sticker, I am ready to concede defeat. In this election, his kid did beat my honor roll student’s ass. And, as long as we are talking in metaphor and not about my actual children, I’ll admit that we sort of deserved it.

I am redoubling my commitment to try to understand the people who hold very different political views than mine. Not just the opinions, the people. I want to understand why “they” think what “they” think, feel the way “they” feel. I want to stop thinking of them as “they” and start seeing people as people. Because thinking of people who disagree with me as “them” leads me to dehumanize “them,” which clouds my ability to think clearly and to behave decently. So, I want to listen with the intent to understand not to disagree. I want to state my positions in a way that demonstrates at the very least basic human decency, and at the best, love.

Morality

A couple of weeks ago when I found myself seated next to a Trump supporter at a dinner during a conference we were both attending. I decided I wanted to understand why he was voting for Trump. I asked some questions. It came down to this. “I am voting for Trump because I am a moral person.”

Suddenly, I was so sputteringly angry I could hardly speak. He assumes I’m immoral because I’m voting for Hillary?? What a dumbass!! I recalled my promise to myself to stop doing that. I tried to take a deep breath.

“Can we just assume that everyone sitting at this table is a moral person? Do you really assume that I am immoral because I am voting for Hillary?”

It was pretty clear he did. Rather than defend my honor, I succumbed to an overwhelming lethargy, left dinner early and abruptly, crawled into bed–and tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep.

Laziness

Once again, I’d retreated to my corner. But, my corner was no longer a retreat, because we are after all one nation, indivisible. It occurred to me that part of my reluctance to challenge a different point of view was pure laziness on both our parts. It was so much easier for him to dismiss me as immoral, and for me to dismiss of him as a dumbass, than to actually talk. I couldn’t find the energy to understand him, or to explain myself. He and I had nothing to fear from one another, so this wasn’t about fear. It was about habits born of earlier fears. And a certain laziness, a lack of energy to overcome those fears. We were just too tired to engage properly. But around three in the morning I realized that if we didn’t connect, we were reinforcing rather than mending the dangerous political climate that has been waking me up nights.

The Path Forward?
“Only Connect”
                     –E.M. Forster

Happily, I bumped into my dinner companion the next morning. I’d just given a talk on Radical Candor–the ability to show you care personally about people even as you challenge them directly. I apologized for my abrupt departure the evening before, confessing I’d fallen into obnoxious aggression–what I call it when one person challenges another but doesn’t care about them at a human level. He also confessed he feared he’d caused offense. He told me a story about himself. I shared a story about myself. We talked about a specific policy, and found there was more common ground than our conversation the night before had led us to believe. We came out on different sides of the issue, but I understood his a bit better, and he mine. He still voted for Trump, I still voted for Hillary. But my thinking about why is a little clearer, and his thinking about why is a little clearer. And it was possible for us to have a civil discourse.

No matter who wins the election tonight, if we all go find somebody who voted differently, and find a point of connection, a way to show some common human decency, or even a way to show that person you care about them at a personal level, then the healing can begin.

But love is not all we need. We still need to challenge each other. To disagree, to debate. Not a debate to “win,” but a debate to help each other get to the best answer.

It’s often said that politics divides. But NOT talking about politics with those who disagree with us is part of what’s gotten us to the awful place that was this election. Not talking politics has led us to the brink of something terrible.

So let’s talk. Let’s not be afraid to disagree with each other. Swallowing our disagreement and retreating to our corners has gotten us to a scary place. I’m going to try to connect as I disagree. I’m going to do a better job remembering there’s a real live human being on the other side of the argument.

The post Let The Healing Begin appeared first on Kim Scott.

Radical Candor is a great book to buy for teams, and a bunch of people have been asking me what the best way to buy for their whole team is. So I wanted to share some of the places that are offering bulk order discounts for the book. Use one of these retailers to order for your team, company, clients, students, etc.

BookPal

800 CEO Read

Bulk Books

 

If you have any questions, please get in touch!

The post Bulk Order Options for Radical Candor appeared first on Kim Scott.

I’ll be speaking at several events in the coming months, talking about Radical Candor and how to be a better boss. Come say hello!

Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Annual Discovery Show

Oct 27-28, 2016

South San Francisco, CA

INBOUND 2016

November 8-11, 2016

Boston, MA

Make sure to register for my talk on November 9th!

The post Upcoming Events appeared first on Kim Scott.

I recently got the chance to talk with Kimberly Weisul at Inc. Magazine about Radical Candor and giving good feedback. Watch the video of our conversation:

The post Video with Inc. Magazine appeared first on Kim Scott.