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hi thank you very much it's good to be
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here good to see all of you um so what I
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want to talk about today is guidance
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because it is for my money the single
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most important part of managing people
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and by Guidance I mean praise and
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criticism and it's important obviously
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to give it but it's even more important
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to get it you want to know when your
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people think you're going in the wrong
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direction but the thing that's going to
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give you more leverage than anything
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else is learning how to encourage it
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between the people who work for you
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because there's more of them than there
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are of you um when guidance is great I
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describe it as radical cander and in
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order to explain to you what I mean by
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radical cander I'm going to tell you a
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story about a time that my boss
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criticized me I had just joined Google
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and was going to give a presentation
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with gok actually to the founders and
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the CEO about how the AdSense business
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was doing and for me working at Google
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it wasn't just a new job it was it was
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actually like the resurrection of a
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dream I had started a software company
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four years before that had failed
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unfortunately recently and part of the
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reason why I started that company was
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that I wanted to create a workplace that
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was like a free zone where
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people actually loved the work they did
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and at least enjoyed working together
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and so it was very sad to me when the
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company failed for a number of reasons
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including that one and the first time I
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stepped on Google's campus for
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interviews the first time I went there
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the joy that people took in the work
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that they did felt almost palpable to me
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and the respect that people showed
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people like gok uh and Greg uh showed um
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each other was it was almost a tangible
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thing and I was really curious to
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understand how the leaders at Google had
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pulled this off did you have to have the
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world's greatest business model and
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money spouting from the earth or were
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there some things that any of us could
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do luckily there's some things that any
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of us can do and I'll tell you about
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those today um so anyway that's a
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long-winded way of saying this was an
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important me to me I I I wanted to make
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a good impression and so I walked in
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feeling a little nervous and happily the
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AdSense business was on fire and when
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Greg and gok and I told Larry Sergey and
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Eric how many Publishers we had added
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over the last few uh months Eric almost
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fell off his chair and said what
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resources can we give you to help you
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continue this amazing success so I sort
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of felt like the meeting went okay after
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it was over my boss uh said why don't
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you walk back to my office with me and I
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said sure sort of expecting a little bit
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of a Victory lap and she started telling
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me about the four or five things she
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liked about the presentation how
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impressed she was with how the business
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was doing but I was getting more and
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more nervous as we were walking because
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I sort of had a feeling the other shoe
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was about to drop uh but I had no idea
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what I had done wrong so this was an
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uncomfortable moment and finally she
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said but and I sort of held my breath
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you said um a
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lot and I was like oh no big deal I know
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I do that I it didn't really seem like
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who cared if I said am aot when I had a
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tiger by the
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tail so she said was it because you were
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nervous no nervous not me and then she
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said would it help if Google hired a
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speaking coach for you so that you could
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learn not to do this and I said you know
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I'm really busy it just doesn't seem
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like the most important thing in the
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world and she said you know Kim when you
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do that thing with your hand I can tell
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I'm not really getting through to you
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I'm going to have to be more clear here
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when you say um every third word it
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makes you sound
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stupid that got my
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attention now a lot of people would have
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said that it wasn't very nice to say
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that I sounded stupid but in fact it was
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the kindest thing that she could
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possibly have done for
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me if if she hadn't said it just that
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way I would have kept blowing her off I
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wouldn't have addressed the problem and
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it would have what a silly thing to let
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trip you up um at a job um I still do it
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but not as much it would be a total
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state of paralysis if I hadn't gone to
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that um coach that Cheryl sent me to so
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how was Cheryl it sounds like kind of a
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simple thing to say you need to correct
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something but it very rarely happened so
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what I what I did was I tried to
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operationalize what my boss was so good
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at so that I could do it and so that I
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could teach the people who for me to do
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it and now teach all of you to do it so
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I'm going to boil it down to sort of a
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very simple framework on the vertical
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axis is what I call the give a damn axis
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and part of the reason why Cheryl was
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able to say to me so bluntly you sounded
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stupid was that I knew that she cared
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personally about me she had done a
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thousand things that showed me that when
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I first moved to California from New
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York and I didn't know anybody I didn't
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have any friends she invited me to join
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her book group when I had a family
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member who got very sick she was totally
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clear with me that my first
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responsibility was to my family and I
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should just leave and go and deal with
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that and she had me covered at work and
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she did that not just for me but for all
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of the people who worked for her um so
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caring personally is going to make it
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much easier to do the next thing that
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you have to do as a good boss which is
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to be willing to piss people off Cole
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and Powell said leadership uh often
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means being willing to piss people off
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so the other thing that Cheryl had to do
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was to be willing to challenge me
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directly
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now this is something that a lot of us
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are very reluctant to do since the time
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we learned to speak our parents told us
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some version of if you don't have
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anything nice to say don't say it at all
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right um anybody ever get told that uh
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and now as soon as you become a boss for
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the first time or even if you've already
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been managing people for 25 years it's
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it's now your job to say it and I would
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argue it's not just your job it's
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actually your moral obligation John
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Stewart Mill explains it very well he
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says that the source of everything
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respectable in man either as an
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intellectual or as a moral being is that
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his errors are corrigible
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the whole strength and value of human
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judgment depends on the one property
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that it can be set right when it is
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wrong so it was not just my boss's job
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to tell me that I sounded stupid it was
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actually her moral obligation to me
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right so that is what at the
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intersection of caring personally and
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challenging directly uh is radical
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cander
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right so how can you be radically candid
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if a if an acronym helps you radical
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cander is hip it's humble it's helpful
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it's immediate it's in person it's in
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private if it's criticism in public if
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it's praise and it doesn't personalize
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my boss didn't say you are stupid or
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you're a she just said you sounded
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stupid when you said um right there's a
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big difference between the two however
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that takes a lot of work right takes a
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lot of intentionality in your day so if
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you can't offer radical cander the
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second best thing you can do is to be an
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um now let me be totally clear
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none of you is shooting for second best
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uh I Am Second To None in my dislike of
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jerks so I'm not advocating that you all
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become a bunch of raging I just
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want to say it can be even worse so
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we've all worked with these jerks we've
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all worked with jerks there was one
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person who I worked
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uh who we worked with who we sort of
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affectionately named the biggest
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in Silicon Valley so we'll call him
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Bassy so the real problem with bass
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happened when he had an advisor who was
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trying to help him sort of brush up his
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reputation and unfortunately this
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advisor didn't teach him how to care
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personally the adviser just advocated
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that he quit challenging people so
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directly so he sort of rolled on over to
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an even worse place manipulative
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insincerity right so so he would do
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things like he he decided he would go on
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a listening tour and he was going
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to hear from everybody what they liked
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and what they didn't like and at first
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people were kind of happy to have an
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audience with bass why I don't know they
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should have learned but anyway they were
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but then people his silence was
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deafening and it became we all started
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sort of wondering were we just wasting
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our time putting together all these
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presentations and then we began to get
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the sense that it was it was even worse
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than that we were going to be punished
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for saying what we really thought and in
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fact it became very clear that we were
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when Bassy marched into a friend of
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mine's office hit the speaker button and
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said call up George ask George what he
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really thinks of me but don't tell him
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I'm standing here you're like you think
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you leave that behind in middle school
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but no this was one of the highest paid
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executives in the world anyway um now
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the good news is that the bass fees of
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the world are actually pretty rare I've
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only in my whole career known two people
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that I would sort of elevate to this
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level of annoyance um the vast majority
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of management mistakes happen in a
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quadrant that I call ruinous empathy and
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so to explain what I mean by ruinous
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empathy I'll tell you a sad story about
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probably the worst moment of my whole
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career so there was this guy who was
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working for me we'll call him Bob and
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Bob was Charming he had this sort of
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quirky sense of humor he we we were
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doing one of those offs sites and there
00:10:44
was some stupid get to know you exercise
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and he made us all stop doing it and he
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he went around the room and he said what
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candy did your parents use to potty
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train you oddly we all remembered um and
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for the rest of the year every time
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there was a tense moment in a meeting uh
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Bob would whip out the right piece of
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candy for the right person and break the
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tension totally so I don't know maybe I
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have a weird sense of humor but I found
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this endearing and I really liked Bob um
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so I really wanted to be nice to Bob the
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problem was that Bob was absolutely
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terrible at his job uh and he was sort
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of he kind of knew it and he would come
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to me and he would say I'm worried and I
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would sort of try to reassure him and
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buck him up and after about 10 months of
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this it became clear to me that if I
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didn't address the situation with Bob I
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was I was I was going to lose two or
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three of my very best people so having
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tried to be nice to Bob for the last 10
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months having never criticized him
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because I was trying to be nice I was
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now sitting in front of Bob firing him
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not so nice after all and when I told
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him Bob pushed his chair back and he
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looked at at me and he said why didn't
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you tell me and as that question was
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sort of rolling around like a bowling
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ball in my head he said why didn't
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anyone tell me I thought you all liked
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me and so I realized I had failed Bob in
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six very important ways the kind of
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Praise that I gave him gave him was like
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a head fake it gave him a bunch of false
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reassurances I never criticized him when
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it was my not just my job but my moral
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obligation to have done so uh I never
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asked Bob what he thought because it I
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had kind of written them off frankly and
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even though I liked him uh and I had
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failed to create the kind of culture in
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which everyone in the company would tell
00:12:47
Bob when he was going off the tracks so
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now I had failed to do my job well and
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as a
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result Bob was losing his job because of
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it one of the worst things things about
00:13:00
managing people is that you're going to
00:13:02
learn your most important lessons and
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you're going to make your most important
00:13:05
mistakes on the backs of other people so
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it's really important to learn quickly
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and to try to learn from other people's
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mistakes not only did I learn it on
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Bob's back I also lost $35 million of my
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Investor's money as the company failed
00:13:21
um but I learned some very important
00:13:23
lessons which you are now going to get
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for free
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um so four things you can do this is why
00:13:32
first round Capital likes me um
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so four things you can do to avoid ever
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being in the situation that I was in
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with Bob the first one is impromptu
00:13:43
guidance and this is probably the most
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important one so take this 2 by two
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explain it to your teams draw it stick
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it near your desk get a couple of
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stickers one color for praise one color
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for criticism and get people to put
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stickers where they think your last
00:14:01
interaction was you'll be surprised how
00:14:06
how clear people will be with you about
00:14:10
how they feel about the kind of guidance
00:14:12
that you're giving them and when you're
00:14:14
open to sort of have your guidance be
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raid by your people just the visual cue
00:14:21
will sort of push you towards radical
00:14:23
cander we'll push you towards the right
00:14:26
direction now the next thing you can do
00:14:29
is to make backstabbing impossible this
00:14:33
is the one of the most important things
00:14:35
you can do to sort of foster a culture
00:14:39
of guidance between the people who work
00:14:41
for you um so once another mistake I did
00:14:44
do some things right in my career but I
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learned more from the mistakes so I'll
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tell you about those so I had two guys
00:14:50
working for me we'll call them Charlie
00:14:52
and Douglas Charlie and Douglas hated
00:14:55
each other um they they Charlie thought
00:14:59
Douglas was a bozo Douglas thought
00:15:02
Charlie was a SLE bag and so Charlie
00:15:05
would come to me complain about Douglas
00:15:08
I would sort of understand what Douglas
00:15:10
did wrong I would try to play shuttle
00:15:13
Diplomat I thought I was Kissinger I
00:15:15
didn't realize I was merely their boss
00:15:17
and uh and I would you know go talk to
00:15:20
douglas douglas would then complain to
00:15:22
me about Charlie Charlie would look and
00:15:24
say huh I wonder if they're talking
00:15:26
about me and of course we were um and so
00:15:29
I created by sort of trying to play Go
00:15:33
goete the very kind of toxic political
00:15:36
environment that I was trying to avoid
00:15:39
so what should I have done instead uh it
00:15:42
would have been much better instead if
00:15:44
when Charlie came to me to talk about
00:15:46
Douglas I said did you talk to Douglas
00:15:49
and if he said no I should have said go
00:15:52
talk to Douglas directly without me in
00:15:53
the room and then I should have made the
00:15:56
commitment to both of them if you can't
00:15:57
work it out come to me and I'll help you
00:16:00
come up with a solution but come to me
00:16:03
together don't come to me separately um
00:16:06
and I was talking to uh a a leader once
00:16:10
who said he would always try to come up
00:16:11
with the very worst possible solution
00:16:14
for both people when they came to him
00:16:16
because he didn't want to hear about it
00:16:19
the problem is that if you don't
00:16:21
genuinely try to come up with something
00:16:22
that works for both if conflicts become
00:16:25
too difficult to resolve in your
00:16:27
organization then people will avoid them
00:16:30
they won't challenge each other directly
00:16:32
so I I really try to make a good faith
00:16:34
effort to help them find the solution
00:16:36
and help them find it quickly so that's
00:16:38
thing number two thing number three uh
00:16:41
you've got to make it easier to speak
00:16:43
truth to power right so if you are a
00:16:46
manager of managers you need to make
00:16:49
sure that the people working for the
00:16:50
people who work for you can raise
00:16:53
problems as they arise if the if the if
00:16:55
the people working for you are not in
00:16:57
fact good bosses or haven't learned
00:16:59
right now this is sort of can be tricky
00:17:02
because you can create a situation in
00:17:05
which you are encouraging you're sort of
00:17:08
chopping your people off at the knees
00:17:10
and encouraging people to be boss
00:17:12
killers and that's not really what
00:17:14
you're trying to do here so the thing
00:17:16
that I learned to do was to have um a
00:17:19
meeting called a a sort of a skip level
00:17:21
meeting or a manager feedback session or
00:17:23
whatever you want to call it and so if
00:17:26
Scott worked for me and he had 10 direct
00:17:28
reports I would explain to Scott I'm
00:17:29
going to go meet with your direct
00:17:31
reports without you but this is going to
00:17:33
be a meeting that's going to that's
00:17:34
going to help you so I would get Scott
00:17:36
comfortable and then I would go meet
00:17:38
with Scott's direct reports and I would
00:17:39
explain to them that the purpose of the
00:17:42
meeting was to help Scott learn how to
00:17:43
be a better manager which was good for
00:17:45
Scott and also good for them um the
00:17:48
meeting was going to be not for
00:17:49
attribution in other words I would tell
00:17:51
Scott what everybody said but not who
00:17:53
said it um not because I wanted to
00:17:57
Foster secrecy but because I wanted to
00:17:59
help get the information out there I
00:18:01
also would explain that over time it
00:18:03
shouldn't be necessary for it to be not
00:18:05
for attribution but we were going to
00:18:07
start that way and then I would take
00:18:09
notes in the meeting I wouldn't bring in
00:18:12
an admin to take notes I would take the
00:18:14
notes myself that's very important way
00:18:16
to show people that you're listening and
00:18:19
it's also a very important way to uh to
00:18:22
get Corrections and I would tell people
00:18:25
at the end of this meeting as soon as
00:18:27
it's over not an hour later we're not
00:18:28
going to have time to go back and edit
00:18:30
because we're all too busy as soon as
00:18:32
this meeting is over I'm sharing it with
00:18:34
Scott I'm sharing this document with
00:18:35
Scott and then that sort of had a way of
00:18:39
focusing the conversation in order to
00:18:41
make sure that it didn't become just a
00:18:43
gripe session I would force people to
00:18:45
prioritize issues I would say changing
00:18:47
behavior is hard you can't ask Scott to
00:18:49
change his whole personality as a result
00:18:51
of this one 145 minute meeting like what
00:18:53
do you want him to do what is the one or
00:18:55
two things what are the one or two
00:18:57
things you want him to do um then I
00:19:00
would talk to Scott after the meeting
00:19:02
make sure Scott understood what the
00:19:05
issues were and get Scott to come up
00:19:08
with some specific things very specific
00:19:10
concrete things he could do and make
00:19:12
sure he did those things and not just
00:19:15
communicated them to the team but
00:19:16
overcommunication
00:19:23
that all of you I'm sure have been in
00:19:26
where stuff is happening down in your
00:19:29
organizations that you're that sort of
00:19:30
makes your skin crawl and you wonder why
00:19:32
didn't I how could this have happened
00:19:34
why didn't I know about it but you want
00:19:37
to do you want to learn about those
00:19:38
things in a way that supports the the
00:19:40
managers who are working for you now
00:19:43
last but not least you should listen to
00:19:47
what you were told on your last flight
00:19:49
put your own oxygen mask on first you
00:19:52
can't possibly give a damn about other
00:19:55
people if you don't give a damn about
00:19:57
yourself at one point uh when when I was
00:20:01
having a very stressful period in my uh
00:20:04
in my career I realized the most
00:20:05
important thing I could do for my team
00:20:08
was not hire great people it was not to
00:20:11
raise a lot of money it was actually to
00:20:13
take a run every morning this was not
00:20:15
about work life balance like that run
00:20:18
actually was part of my job because I
00:20:19
couldn't show up and be my best self if
00:20:22
I didn't exercise and I had to exercise
00:20:24
outside going to the gym I found
00:20:26
depressing so I I got pretty religious I
00:20:29
was living in New York at the time about
00:20:30
running around the reservoir every
00:20:32
morning there was one period that was
00:20:34
especially stressful things were not
00:20:36
going as well as we wanted them to go um
00:20:40
and there was a terrible thunderstorm
00:20:42
like lightning and I thought this is a
00:20:43
crazy day to run but I I got to do it I
00:20:46
I took this commitment to myself very
00:20:47
seriously so I was out running around
00:20:49
the reservoir there was usually hundreds
00:20:51
of people there was only one other nut
00:20:52
running that morning and as I got closer
00:20:56
to him I realized it was my co- founder
00:21:00
so a lot of things were going wrong but
00:21:03
we were doing something right so I will
00:21:06
end on the note to please take care of
00:21:08
yourselves thank
00:21:10
[Applause]
00:21:19
you
