55. Kim Scott on Caring Personally While Challenging Directly

Speakers

Greg McKeown, Kim Scott

---

Greg McKeown     

Kim Scott it’s such an honor to have the author of just work. But also, before that the superb Radical Candor. CEO coach to Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, all the rest of it. But also somebody’s just on the cutting edge of what’s really going on, on the conversations that need to happen. It is. Welcome to the What’s Essential podcast, Kim.

Kim Scott     

Thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here, excited to have this conversation.

Greg McKeown     

Well, it’s nice, it’s nice for you to say that I feel like you and I have crossed paths in like many ways, without really having an excuse to, to be in the same room when it happened until now. So it’s fun for me to fund to pay me to be here. Tell me this, what, what is the? What is the radical conversation that people need to have right now, at this moment of things are starting to open up but people are feeling anxious, and there’s sort of a pressure to get back physically to work like in this moment in this environment? What do leaders need to be doing?

Kim Scott 

You know, this is a tricky moment. And it’s a moment that is full of opportunity. I think it’s a moment in history where people are more open to creating the kind of workplace where we can all just work with that that is optimized for collaboration, not coercion. That is that is optimized for respect, sort of where we respect one another instead of demanding conformity. And yet, it’s also a moment where a dangerous moment I think, frankly, because so many as we were in quarantine, all over the world, so many painful things happen to so many different people that it’s tempting to just shut down. And so let’s not shut down, let’s stay open and use this opportunity to just work just in the justice sense of the word. And just in the sense of let’s just get stuff done. Yes, for sure. There’s a lot of stuff that needs fixing.

Greg McKeown     

I love that. I feel like it’s a very clever play on words with just work that you put together there that you what you just said about, you know, reminds me of something my wife Anna just sent to me. This is the phrase talking is the most dangerous thing people will do.

Kim Scott     

You know what so it is dangerous to talk. But silence, I would say is the most dangerous thing that people do, not talking.

Greg McKeown   

I agree with you that the gist of what the this, you know, this article that Anna sent me is really saying is that we have to make it safe for people to talk because otherwise they’ll do just what you said, which is they go silent. And for sure that’s the more dangerous thing for a team dynamic for society as a whole is to have people that just feel like they can’t speak up can’t be heard.

Kim Scott  

Yeah, you know, I don’t know if it’s the same there. But in the US over the last, you know, call it 60 years, there’s been this sort of conventional wisdom that there’s three things we don’t talk about at work race, religion, and politics. And I think that is how we got where we are, we’ve got to start talking about these things. You know, not just not just at work, but if we have a lot of little conversations, we that is how we that is how we come to a shared understanding of how we can best collaborate because this is this is humanity’s superpower is collaboration. And if we can’t talk, we can’t collaborate.

Which is not to say we always have to agree with one another. I think there’s enormous that a lot of creativity comes from deference and disagreement. And so that’s the, you know, we’re not trying to eliminate difference in disagreement. We’re trying to embrace it.

Greg McKeown     

Just so I mean, we’re not talking about uniformity. But we want to leap forward, it would be if you could have deep mutual understanding.

Kim Scott     

Yeah, yeah. And compassion and sort of, I’m going to read you a quote from Audra Lord, difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between what our creativity can spark only then does the necessity for interdependency become unthreatening. I love that.

Greg McKeown  

I love that. That is, that is such a such a good quote. I, it makes me think of a quote that I just came across.

I was reading this book says, your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.0000001% of what’s happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. So equally smart people can disagree about how and why recessions happen, how you should invest your money, what you should prioritize how much risk you should take, and so on. I just thought that was a great description of, you know, we have experienced so little of the world’s experiences. And yet we often think well, no, we’ve got some to learn but we basically understand how the world works. There’s a humility in suddenly discovering. Oh, I just don’t know.

Kim Scott       

These are these are such important words. I don’t know. And too rarely too rarely used.

Greg McKeown     

What have you learned now both from the coaching work that you’ve done writing these two books. Give me like three practical things that people can do from all the research to make it easier to have conversations around the things that really matter.

Kim Scott     

Yeah. So I think that the thing that has been most helpful to me so we’ll see you can tell me if it’s helpful to others, is learning to distinguish between bias, prejudice and bullying, and learning what to say in the face of each I mean, I’m willing to bet that every single person listening right now has had not just in their career, but in the last week, a moment in a meeting that was so awful that they had no idea what to say. And if we can until they said nothing, as I have done as probably you have done, Greg too often. And I think we have this default to silence in the face of in the face of things that are obviously problematic, but we don’t know what to say about them. And so if we can learn what to say, when we don’t know what to say that I think it’ll help.

So here’s, here’s my advice. If you think what just happened in that awful moment was bias, respond with an I statement. I don’t think you meant that the way it sounded or I don’t think you’re gonna take me seriously when you call me honey, or whatever it is, and use that I statement whether the what was said was directed at you, or whether you’re the upstander, or whether you just observed it. Now, if you think what happened was prejudice. And very often, we like to imagine everything is about unconscious bias, like the person didn’t really mean it. But sometimes people really do mean what they say they have a very conscious, prejudiced belief. So how do you deal with that? Try starting with the word it. So it is ridiculous not to hire the most qualified candidate because of their hair. So you can appeal to common sense with your statement, or you can appeal to the law, it is illegal not to hire women, or you can say it is an HR violation.

So an it statement, sort of is your line in the sand between one person’s freedom to believe whatever they want, and another person’s freedom not to have that belief imposed upon them, and easy to say hard to do. But try just starting with the word it and then notice what comes out of your mouth. Next, sometimes it’s just about momentum. It’s about starting by saying something. Now, other times, it’s bullying that is presenting itself. And unlike an eye, an eye statement sort of invites someone in to understand things from your perspective, a you statement, which is how you respond to bullying pushes them away, because you don’t want to invite someone who’s meaning you hurt that I’m going to define bullying as being mean, right? So if bias is not meaning it prejudices, meaning it bullying as being mean, and when someone is being mean, you don’t want to invite them in closer, necessarily. My daughter explained this to me when she was in third grade, and she was getting bullied. And I said to her, I was sort of advising her to use an i statement, I feel sad, tell this little child, you know, I feel sad when you and my daughter banged her fist on the table, and she said, You know what he’s trying to make me feel sad. Why would I tell him he succeeded? And I thought, gosh, you know, that’s a good point. So, so try and you don’t have to be right about what it is. It may not be clear whether it’s bias, prejudice, or boy, but if your gut tells you it’s bias, say the word AI and then notice what comes out of your mouth next. If you think its prejudice, say the word it and then notice what comes out of your mouth next. And if you think it is bullying, say the word you and if you know if something like you can’t talk to me like that feels like it might escalate the situation. You can use a you question, what’s going on for you here because very often, someone who engages in bullying is not you know, you don’t want to hang a label around their neck, but something’s going on for them that they’re behaving that way in that moment.

Greg McKeown     

I really like those three specific behavioral prompts.

I had an odd situation the other day where I was silent and wished I hadn’t been. Let me give you the scenario and you tell me what I should have done. Okay. So I have the world’s most entertaining hairdresser. I love I love my conversations with her

Certainly, for months, she didn’t even know I was a writer anything. I just it was just so fun to be entertained by her story after story of all crazy things. This last time I was talking to her, and she started telling me stories about what it has been like she’s run this program for her store for 25 years. And some of the experience she’s had as a woman running this establishment, and some of the crazy things that she has had men do to her or proposition her with. And I just, first of all, I said it to her, I said, everything you have just told me is appalling. It and she was, oh, thank you for saying that. And I might, I’m like, I don’t even understand how, like, this isn’t the world I live in. But this has been a reality for you for all these years.

While we are talking about this gentleman comes in kind of rough looking guy, you know, big jacket, he’s carrying a cake. And he just, he just sort of marches in confidently into the into the hairdressing area. And as he’s walking past the hairdresser, he just kind of sort of kind of pinches her kind of on her side, like in a kind of very friendly way, but in a weird way, too. And she just like looks up at the, the, the mirror, and I’m like, Oh, I guess she doesn’t know this person that doesn’t feel comfortable in this moment. And puts the cake down, walks back through does exactly the same thing on the way out and leaves. Ah, right. And, and I’m like, you know, first one, he’s coming. I’m like, Well, I’m sure. I mean, she’s bringing a cake. I mean, and she’s the way she said, Hi Tim, I thought Oh, she must know him. He is a customer to her. But he or she’s not expecting the cake. Nothing. Yeah, it’s the first peculiar interaction. And she is in the middle of telling me this all her experience. And then this guy acts this way. And I’m silent, I didn’t say one word to him. Not on the way in all the way out. I mean, the whole thing took, you know, 10 seconds. But still, I just thought she’s just been violated. It’s clearly wrong, I said nothing. What should I have said in that situation?

Kim Scott     

So first, let me say I’m not going to should all over you. Because it, I want you to give yourself a little bit of compassion, because it is so hard to know how to respond in the moment. One of the reasons why I wrote this book is sort of an homage to all the people who have been upstanders throughout my career, for me, for all the bad experiences that I’ve had, I’ve had a lot of great ones with a lot of great people. And so I think it is, it’s really important to learn how to be an upstander.

Because I think one of the things that happens to all of us when we see something like that happen, and we don’t do anything, now we have been slimed by someone else’s bad behavior, like you have become a victim to that as well. And so I think you’ve got a, first of all, like, be gentle with yourself. One of the most useful things that I read in the course of doing research for Just Work was there’s an organization called Hollaback. And Hollaback writes about the five D’s, how can you be a good upstander?  And one of the things that you can do is just to go up to the person who was harmed by that behavior afterwards and say, Gosh, I’m sorry, and you did that.

Just the fact that you looked that she was able to look at you in the mirror, and you all were able to share this moment is very helpful, because if you hadn’t been willing to talk to her and to dispel the gaslighting because he was behaving as though this were normal behavior. And that is one of the things that is the worst about that kind of behavior is that when someone comes up and pinches you, and you sort of think, what was that early in my career, I had an experience where I got groped on the subway on the way into work. And I was shaken by the experience, right? And I, I talked to a colleague of mine a work man, and he just sort of rolled his eyes and he was like, it happens get used to it. And his response, but like, that is not the response you gave to her. You were like, yeah, that was not right. His response to me was was almost worse than getting groped, yes. Getting groped, I was able to sort of put that as an aberration. But then when he normalized the behavior now I feel gaslit now I felt like oh, I you know, why did why can’t I deal with I shouldn’t have to deal with that, obviously, but That was how he left me feel.

So you did, you did one of the important things that upstanders can do, one. Now there’s other things that upstanders can do when you notice something like that, sometimes you can confront the person directly. But there are times when you may not feel comfortable, you may not feel safe. And upstanders are such an important part of the solution to this problem, I don’t want to put upstanders in harm’s way. So a direct confrontation would use the you statement, you cannot just walk in and punch and punch this woman, that is not okay. So that’s something you could say. But if you don’t feel safe, saying it, it’s okay. Another thing that you can do is you can just you can create a distraction. So there’s a there’s a story I’ve read about a man who interrupted a sexual assault on the subway by spilling his potato chips, he was called snack man. He didn’t feel safe confronting this woman’s attacker directly, but by spilling his potato chips, he caused a distraction, and she was able to get away. So spill your coffee, you know, that it’s okay to take that route, don’t beat yourself up.

Another thing you can do is you can delegate if there was somebody else, if there had been a fourth person and you know, sort of catch that person’s eye, there’s strength in numbers, and that is one of the strengths that upstanders have is there’s often a lot of them. And so if you can get people together to say, you cannot behave that way, that’s useful.

And another thing you can do is you can either film it or you can document in some way, what’s going on. And then you want to make sure that you talk to the person harmed, you wouldn’t want to like put that up on social media without her permission. But so those are the sort of five D’s of things you can do as an upstander.

Greg McKeown 

And just to summarize the five D’s, what are they?  

Kim Scott 

There’s direct, you can confront the person who’s causing harm directly. You can delay you can talk to the to the victim or to the person harmed later, you can delegate that means talk to someone else, who is who is present or catch someone else’s eye, or go get the manager, whatever you can ask someone else to intervene. You can you can distract. That’s like snack man throwing his potato chips, or, or you can document so those are the five D’s. And hollaback I’ll send you the link, It’s really a great organization. I stole that from them.

Greg McKeown     

I know that a lot of people when I talk to them, about, you know, the importance of prioritization, pursuing what’s essential in their lives, you know, that one of their first questions back to me, is, that’s fine. But prioritization isn’t a singular, you know, individual sport. Yeah, it’s a collective, and I completely agree with them. But then they want to know, okay, well, how do you raise that subject? How can you talk to someone higher up in the hierarchy about prioritization either because you think, you know, what you’re doing is more important than what they’re asking you to do. That’s sort of scenario one, or scenario two, is that they aren’t clear about their prioritization. They’re there all over the place, it’s a different thing every day, or it’s just vague for them. And so they want to know how to safely have that conversation.

Across your research, what have you learned about how what someone can say in that situation?

Kim Scott     

I don’t know if this is from research as much as just from personal experience, but one of the things that has been most helpful for me in my career when I when I feel like I’m being pulled in too many different directions, is to create a what I call a proactive forbearance list. And this is basically a do not do list. And there was there was one point in my career where I was really, I was doing too many things, and I was doing none of them very well. And so I was talking to my boss about this. And I said, Look, here are the three things that I’m working on. And every and it’s not going to change much week to week like, these are the three big things. And in order to do these three big things, well, there’s a million things I’m not going to do and every week I’m going to tell you about the things I decided not to do, and I want you to help me feel good about not doing those things. And she agreed, and it really was very helpful in terms of prioritizing.

I think that the other thing that I have found that is really helpful in terms of making sure that I have time to do the things that are important to me, is to block time in my calendar for them. I think very often we use our calendar as, as the way to track collaboration collaborative, like meetings and stuff like that. And if you’re not careful, your whole calendar gets consumed by meetings and collaborative tasks. And the only time you have to do work that you need to do alone is at night when you should be sleeping or sort of having dinner with your family or whatever, or friends. When I write I put blocks in my calendar, and I hold them inviolable. And otherwise, I would never get any writing done.

Greg McKeown   

I love both of those. And I love the language that you use in communicating with your boss. Okay, here are the three things. As a result, there’ll be lots of things I can’t do I help me, I want you to help me feel good about that, that that gives a clear instruction that you’re not, you’re not just looking for sort of permission, you actually need them to encourage you to focus on what’s essential.

Kim Scott     

I needed her to cheer me on for not doing those things.

Greg McKeown     

What language beyond what you’ve already shared have you found useful in being able to negotiate no?

Kim Scott     

I think one of the most important things is to get on the same side of the table in terms of priorities. So for example, there’s there was a woman I worked with who was in marketing, and the company had launched a new product. And, and so she was not going to be able to, and she got no more new resources to launch this new product. And so she was not going to be able to do the usual Christmas holiday sort of marketing around some of the old products. And she realized that what she needed to do is to go to those teams early. A No early is way better than a No late and to say, look, here are the priorities that I’ve been given from the executives, you know, I have to put all my resources against this new product. And therefore, I’m not going to do I’m not going to be doing what I usually do for you around the holiday marketing campaigns. And I’m telling you this now so that you have time to figure out what you’re going to do about it. And they were they were pissed, obviously. But they would have been way more angry if she had waited until November to tell them so she told them this in the summer and that really matters. And no early is way better than then oh, I’m not going to do that at the last minute.

In radical candor I write about this, there’s a great tool that one of my coaches when I worked at Google gave us which is infinite damage to your relationship. So if you look at if time is on one dimension on the horizontal axis, and the time at which your deliverable is due, and on the vertical axis is damage to your relationship. The closer to the date at which this thing is due that you say no, I’m not going to do it, the more damage to your relationship and if you tell them the day after it was due you approach infinite damage to the relationship?

Greg McKeown     

Oh, that’s, that’s really terrific. I love that.

Let me ask you this question. What, what question, if there is one, were you dreading? being asked by me or anyone else in an interview?

Kim Scott     

I think when I was writing Just Work I felt like the question looming over my head was, do I, as a white woman have the right to write this book? Because it’s hard for me to say that I’ve experienced injustice. I mean, it by and large in life, I’ve gotten more than my fair share of the good things that work and life have to offer. And I’ve gotten those things as a result of systemic injustice. And so given that I’m part of the problem as much as part of the solution, do I even have the right to write this book? So I think that is, I don’t know that I dread getting that question but I think that is a question that is hard for me to answer.

I mean, I tried really, I worked really hard in the book to make sure that I was that I was taking into account different points of view, the point of view of the leader, and what leaders can do to prevent workplace injustice, the point of view of the upstander as we talked about, just just a few minutes ago, and how upstanders can intervene when they observe workplace injustice, the point of view of the person harmed which I have, I mean, I have been harmed as a woman in the workplace. And also, what can we do when we are the person who causes harm, which we all are, I would argue from time to time, all of us at the very least express bias and cause harm in other ways.

And so how can we learn to be able to recognize the harm that we do to others so that we can fix it, you can’t fix problems you refuse to notice. And, and that it’s hard. I mean, it was hard for me to think of myself as a victim, it was even harder for me to think of myself as a perpetrator, and writing this book, but I felt like I have inhabited both roles. And I really tried to, to write from both perspectives.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah I can hear that the tension inherent in the project. Right, if you’re going to embark on this project, it sort of comes with the territory that that am I the right voice? Is Is somebody going to feel that somehow it’s a privileged thing to do to sit presumptuous to even do this? I can imagine that tension. But I also think there’s, I can also see why you will have still proceeded because you say, well, I this is this is the part I can play.

Kim Scott     

Yeah and also, as we talked before, like silence is not the answer. So I hope that it helps people and I tried to write it in such a way that it helps people. And I tried to be conscious of what’s there could still be the problem here is that Kim that people will listen to you. So I tried, you know, to with this project, above all do no harm.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah and to be responsible. That’s an important thing is as a career in writing continues. My experience is that the barriers to entry are reduced? There are less people telling you, you can’t write that, you can’t say that, you know, like that, that people, the doors are more easily opened. Yes, I don’t want to overstate how easy it is. But I just recognize that the responsibility grows, you know, and you’ve taken that risk. That’s what you’re saying, I’ve taken the responsibility seriously in taking on this, this new writing project.

Kim Scott     

Yeah, I tried, I and I’m sure I failed. And I think I’m open to feedback from folks about where I failed. And, in fact, I think the subtitle is a failure. And I think we’re gonna change it, the subtitle, on the UK version, the subtitle of just work is get it done fast and fair. And the US the subtitle is get shit done fast and fair. And I think I was playing too much into this Silicon Valley productivity, sort of business. And I think we’re gonna change it. So if anybody has some feedback on what the news subtitle ought to be, let me know.

Greg McKeown   

I love that, I love the request for feedback, I love the willingness to look at it. I also think it’s one of the it’s one of the worst things about being an author and there’s 99 good things.

Kim Scott     

Writing allows us to connect to one another and to collaborate and to respect one another, and in different ways than in person communication, and in ways that are not always inferior to in person communication.

Greg McKeown     

Well, and it opens up the possibility of intergenerational communication and collaboration and wisdom. To me, this is a hugely driving force. When I wrote essentialism, I didn’t have an aspiration, I’m going to write 20 books and 20 years, or whatever I was, like, I just want to write one book that can I do that, and the same now with effortless and I can’t share this without sounding presumptuous.

But I have an author friend, who happened to read the most recent book, and he sent me the loveliest note. And one of the things he said at the end of the note is he said, you’ve written another book that will outlive us all. Yeah. Now, whether I have or not, that’s just a nice opinion. But the but the point is, is that is that that is such a beautiful sentiment, the idea, we can write something, you know, we don’t last forever, you know, we our life, our time on earth is really short, compared to almost anything. But the idea that we could write something that could outlive us, not for the sake of being remembered, but just for the sense of residual impact, to make a difference.

And so thank you, Kim, for taking, you know, precious life blood to write, to try to craft ideas, to try to take that shell from the ocean, to be able to help make a difference. I know I’m confident to just work well as well. I have personally seen Radical Candor, in companies I’ve worked with where people are utilizing it and it’s naming things for them. And it’s helping them to have language and conversations that otherwise they wouldn’t have. And it really is a pleasure to have you on the What’s Essential podcast today. Thank you, Kim.

Kim Scott     

Well, thank you, Greg, your books are incredibly meaningful and it is it’s a labor of love to write these books and so thank you for doing that labor.

Greg McKeown     

Kim, where should people find you right now, is there something specific you would like to point them to, tools, assets, anything?

Kim Scott  

Sure, check out JustWorkTogether.com. That’s our website where we share the framework and we help leaders figure out how to roll these ideas out in their organizations. And we also help individuals figure out how they can speak truth to power without blowing up their careers.

Greg McKeown     

That’s, that’s what it is. That’s exactly the issue that we’re trying to get with. Yes, just work together.com you’re going to learn how to there were a few things there but you’re going to learn how to speak truth to power without blowing up your careers. Everybody wants that. Thank you again.

Kim Scott  

Thank you so much, Greg.