One of the things about radical candor is that sometimes people hear the term and they assume it is licensed to act like a jerk, which it is not. So if you think about caring and challenging at the same time, those two things, they don't really seem so radical. So why do I call it radical candor?

Everyone I've ever met struggles with feedback. They struggle hearing it and they struggle giving it. So you don't want to be obnoxiously aggressive because it's inefficient. Like if I'm a jerk to you, Chris, then you go into fight or flight mode and then you literally, physically cannot hear what I'm saying.

So I'm wasting my breath. When I realize that I've acted like a jerk, it's not actually my instinctive response to move up on the care personally dimension of radical candor. Instead, it's my response to go the wrong way on challenge directly and say, Oh, I'm sorry. It's no big deal.

I didn't really mean it, but it is a big deal. And I did mean it, you know, so now I'm basically lying. And so now I've landed in the worst place of all, manipulative insincerity.