Skilled impromptu guidance is essential to our teams at work
Make it look easy
Back when I was a Senior House Officer, one afternoon I was doing a forceps delivery under the watchful eye of my Senior Registrar, Sue. During the delivery, she whispered in my ear ‘make it look easy’. I heard what she said, but I was concentrating on my angle of traction. Was the baby descending with each pull? When to cut the episiotomy, and all the other things that rush through your mind when you're learning the craft of assisted delivery. The baby came out beautifully, everyone was happy, and of course I was proud of myself. Another new life safely into the world.
A few weeks later, after we had done a couple more together on our night shift, Sue took me aside in the doctors’ mess and said, ‘Danny, when you do assisted deliveries, the face you pull is scaring the parents!’ Whoa! That stopped me in my tracks. An acutely intense mixture of guilt and embarrassment washed over me. She explained and I suddenly got it; my concentration, grimace, biting of the lip, with the inevitable dose of anxiety was on full show for the parents to see. It must have looked pretty painful - certainly not reassuring when I have their most precious thing in the world in my hands. She taught me to hide my concentration in stressful situations, to always smile and reassure my patient that all will be well.
Sue had given me some gentle advice on more than one occasion and I didn’t get it. Her frank approach that evening was necessary. But her bluntness didn’t come in isolation. She had shown me through lots of other interactions that she cared deeply about my wellbeing. She had given me positive feedback on many occasions and invested significantly in my development. She had invited me over to her house to meet her family and was as caring as any mentor could be. She had my back covered.
Radical candour - care personally, challenge directly
Sue’s approach to guidance exemplified what Kim Scott, a former Director at Google, calls Radical candour. Guidance that occurs at the intersection of caring personally and challenging directly.
Scott calls the x-axis above the ‘willing to piss people off’ axis and the y-axis is about how much you care. When we consistently demonstrate to those we are responsible for that we care deeply for their wellbeing, they can deal with our blunt honesty. Because they know that it comes from a positive place.
Radical candour in our interactions with others doesn’t always come easily. We’ve grown up being told that if you haven’t got something nice to say, then don’t say anything at all. Of course it’s easier to let these opportunities slip by, to not take the time to build the necessary relationships. As leaders, however, the truth is that it’s not only our job to do this, it’s our moral obligation.
“The source of everything respectable in man, either as an intellectual or a moral being is that his errors are corrigible…. he is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone. There must be discussion, to show how experience is to be interpreted…. The whole strength and value of human judgment depends on the property that it can be set right when it is wrong”
Less satisfactory approaches
So if radical candour is the right way for us to interact with those in our care, what are the unhelpful ways? How do people get it wrong and what should we be looking out for signs of?
We have all known a doctor who is frankly the worst type of leader. The obnoxious aggressive that berates the RMO in front of the whole ward round, the registrar that criticises the nurse in front of the patient. Unfortunately, if this doctor doesn’t get proper feedback and support, when told that these actions are inappropriate, only the direct challenging will be addressed. Unless they appreciate the importance of caring for our team at work, that person is liable to slip into behaviours that are manipulatively insincere.
The vast majority of leadership mistakes occur in the quadrant of ruinous empathy. No-one wants to tell the person that they have a problem; they may care about the individual concerned, but don’t have the courage or skills to confront them openly about what is going on.
How to do it in practice
What other approaches can we use to ensure that our guidance is given with radical candour? Remember the acronym HIP. Guidance in the workplace must be:
Humble
Helpful
Immediate
In person
In private for criticism
In public for praise
and it doesn’t;
Personalise - critique the action not the individual
Keep looking after those around you. Show them every day with small, frequent gestures that you care personally and are invested in their growth. And have the courage to provide the guidance they need when the situation arises. All of us need mentors who do this.