Abridged summary from the publisher: Radical Candor is simple, you have to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly. When you challenge without caring, it’s obnoxious aggression; when you care without challenging, it’s ruinous empathy. When you do neither, it’s manipulative insincerity.

Below are some bullets that really stood out to me:

• Rock Stars and superstars – Each person at your company can be either of these at any given time. Understand where they are and help support them accordingly.
• Relationships can drive you forward in your goals, not power
• Care personally and challenge directly
• Don’t tell things like, “it’s just business,” or “let’s be professional here” or “don’t take it personally”
• Bring your whole self to work without expecting work to eat into your life
• Be more concerned with getting to the right answer than with being right
• Radical candor is not about being mean, but rather about being clear
• Don’t sandwich your feedback. It will most likely come off as fake
• Steep growth doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go into management. That should only happen for those who are right for it
• Only 5% of people have a vocation. That confuses the rest of us
• Be a partner with your team. Not an absentee manager or micromanager.
• Growth should be separate from performance
• Give appropriate rewards and recognition to your to rock stars.
• Don’t squash your all-stars. Let them fly. Someday you might work for them
• The ideal: people nominate themselves for promotion and a committee decides. Not your boss. Google does this.
• Don’t conflate management and growth. Einstein didn’t go into management. Acknowledge growth trajectory without management or leadership
• Google has individual career paths that are more prestigious that the management path
• Management should not be the only path to higher compensation
• Everyone can be exceptional somewhere. At your company or somewhere else.
• The book has an entire section on the ways to let someone go and how important it is to get that right
• Having an off quarter – Recognize when you’re just off. It’s not a reflection of your career, and can be turned around.
• Getting to Mars. Understand that there’s no one person who can grasp all that it would take, it requires the joint knowledge of a team
• Steve jobs always (ultimately) got it right
• When building a ship: don’t drum up tasks for your team such as: collecting wood. Build a vision for getting out onto the sea
• Build a culture of fixing lots of little ideas
• In a debate argue each other’s side
• Expecting people to get behind decision without being involved is ridiculous unless you try explaining or persuading
• Think of your listeners’ emotions when persuading
• Essence of leadership is not getting overwhelmed by circumstances
• Can’t give a d* about others if you don’t give a d* about yourself
• If you have to use someone else’s name or authority to get your point across, then there’s little merit to the point. If you believe show it
• The happiness project: hugging
• Just say that you’re having a sy day, not because of you
• Admit emotions. Don’t say about not making personal.
• Listen to criticism with an intent to understand. Not respond!
• Reward criticism and followup to show you’re trying to get more of it. Find something to agree with and followup! Or disagree clearly
• Use lots of details with praise and criticism
• Criticize yourself publicly if you’re boss. Everyone else privately
• Be just as careful with your public praise as you would with private criticism. Public praise, when not grounded in the correct details, can throw the person under the bus
• Ask your team, “is there anything I could do or stop doing to make it easier to work for me?”
• Praise (carefully) in public, criticize in private. Note: public debates, providing factual information to validate information, etc is ok. Just be very specific about any public feedback you’re giving
• Fundamental attribution error
• Tell a team member, “that’s wrong”, not “you’re wrong”
• “Don’t take it personally” worse than useless
• Listen, challenge, commit
• Kill the angel in the office
• Having a flat organization is a myth. Think of ways for all to feel free to speak truth to power. Have skip level meetings
• Have a long-term vision and 18 month plan
• What do you want the pinnacle of your creating to look like
• Difference between praises and thank yous
• Be careful with publicizing promotions
• Give gurus the chance to teach classes internally
• Great chart on micromanagement versus partnership, etc.
• Your best meeting is the 1-1. Think of it as an opportunity to get to know people better. There were some great 1-1 questions
• New ideas are fragile **
• Block time to think
• Set up meetings to debate. But NOT decide, make those separate meetings
• Foster debate! Ask debaters to switch roles
• The sole product of a debate should be a clear summary, with recommendation to keep debating or make decision
• Kanban. Make all work transparent
• Culture eats strategy for lunch. Strong culture is self replicating
• Becoming a boss is like getting arrested. Everything you say or do can and will be used against you
• Is your culture ask for forgiveness vs permission, or measure twice cut once? Both can be great, just know which you’re in
• Have an onboarding folder for new hires
• Daily: solicit guidance and criticism
• Must adjust radical candor for relationships or culture
• A fundamental building block of management: getting and giving guidance
• Enforce no backstabbing
• Encourage peer radical candor; peer guidance