Summary In this episode, Travis and Dave discuss the importance of candor in leadership. They emphasize the need for open and honest communication, even if it means risking friendships or upsetting others. They highlight the trust bank and the importance of being straightforward about performance and development. They also discuss the challenges of delivering feedback and the importance of context and emotional intelligence. Finally, they stress the importance of living by the principles of candor and avoiding hypocrisy.
Takeaways
Candor is crucial in leadership and requires open and honest communication.
Being straightforward about performance and development is necessary for growth.
Delivering feedback requires context and emotional intelligence.
Transparency is important, but it should be balanced with respect and tact.
Living by the principles of candor and avoiding hypocrisy builds trust and respect.
Summary In this episode, Travis and Dave discuss the importance of candor in leadership. They emphasize the need for open and honest communication, even if it means risking friendships or upsetting others. They highlight the trust bank and the importance of being straightforward about performance and development. They also discuss the challenges of delivering feedback and the importance of context and emotional intelligence. Finally, they stress the importance of living by the principles of candor and avoiding hypocrisy.
Takeaways
Candor is crucial in leadership and requires open and honest communication.
Being straightforward about performance and development is necessary for growth.
Delivering feedback requires context and emotional intelligence.
Transparency is important, but it should be balanced with respect and tact.
Living by the principles of candor and avoiding hypocrisy builds trust and respect.
📖 To access Travis' complete book list, visit his storehere
Speaker 1:
This is Unleashing Leadership, and I'm your host, travis Moss, and we're with our Season 5 special guest, dave Nurchi. As we get after the lessons learned from the book the Hard Thing Hard Things by Ben Horowitz and today's message, one word candor. Is it candor or candor? I think candor. I lived outside of a town called Candor, growing up.
Speaker 2:
We're talking candor, though, being open.
Speaker 1:
So good takeoff from our last episode right where we were talking about being all in and being blunt and honest and straightforward and all that kind of stuff, situationally aware, but still straightforward, all right. Well, candor's brought to you by Seed Planning Group, fee-only fiduciaries, a wealth management firm that helps people overcome the challenges that are keeping them from personal fulfillment, and our shameless plug for my and Dave's day job, day job, night job, morning job. It's not really just a job, it's just a way of life for us. I guess you can get more on Seed Planning Group by going to the website seedpgcom. So S-E-E-D PG, as in planning group dot com. All right, so back to Kandor. You call it Kandor, I'll call it Kandor, that way one of us will be right. Right, this is the trust bank we were talking about, mm-hmm, right this is just this.
Speaker 2:
Is that trust bank?
Speaker 1:
we were talking about right. This is, this is the. You're not here for me to worry about whether or not I hurt your feelings. You're here for me to help you grow personally and professionally, because I know that that's going to grow the business. And that doesn't mean I don't care about you. That doesn't mean I don't like you. In fact, I might care about you so much that I will risk our friendship over the fact that I'm going to tell you what I think you need to hear, because I think it's in your best interest to hear it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, and it's funny because I think how many different episodes are.
Speaker 2:
Or even if we don't start with trust or honesty or openness as a topic, we, we kind of we come back to that or get to it somehow and I think it just shows right, we're, we're talking about the hard thing, about hard things, but it is difficult to do that sometimes, whether you're talking about workplace, home, any relationship that you have. It is hard to be open and honest sometimes when you have to deliver bad news or give constructive criticism or feedback, whatever you want to call it. It's not always easy, but it goes a long way. And what you're saying there, with a friendship or a work relationship, that's what's going to make the difference in the long run. And if you have the mutual respect for each other and you want to really see each other or that person succeed, that's what you have to do. There really is no way around it, because you're only going to hurt them or falsely build them up or whatever. The result of not doing it is. There's a lot of negatives to that and eventually it's going to catch up to them.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we were just writing for our management team. We're writing a manager's creed and one of them is, you know, one of the principles that we're going by. So this is kind of like Ray Dalio's principles, right.
Speaker 2:
He runs his what's his firm called.
Speaker 1:
Bridgewater Bridgewater yeah, he runs Bridgewater on, but we were talking about how employees are employees first and friends second. And the reason why that's important is not saying that you can't have a strong friendship with employees or colleagues or anything like that, saying that you can't have a strong friendship with employees or colleagues or anything like that, but you can't let the house burn down because you're afraid of upsetting somebody, right? And there's a part of the book where Ben is talking about his business partner and co-founder and one of his good friends and the guys. I forget what the position is, but he's in upper management with him, he's in the C-suite with him. So let's say one's a CEO, one's a chief operating officer, the CFO or whatever with them. So let's say one's a CEO, one's a chief operating officer, the CFO, or whatever, and he has to go to the guy and he's like look where the business is going, you don't fit that role anymore. You don't have the skill set. I need to move you out of that position or we need to move you out of that position. And the guy you know, and his point is the guy can look back at you and say, well, you don't know what you're doing either, and the answer is yeah, and so two of us can't not know what we're doing. You know, we need to get somebody in here who knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1:
And the challenge with that is because the business will grow and because it will outgrow people in certain positions. Because it will outgrow people in certain positions, the less upfront and straightforward you are with these people who are very important to you they're a part of your past, they're a part of your present. Hopefully they'll still be a part of your future. But the less upfront you are about where they are in that development, where they are in the organization, where they are in what's actually needed Number one the more surprised they're going to be, the more off guard they're going to be, the more defensive they're going to be, but the more likelihood that the relationship will be completely annihilated and in some cases they can destroy the business too. Like you have to and it's a very hard lesson learned you have to be open and straightforward about this stuff, no matter how painful it is, so that it actually isn't personal, right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and that's a good point because you have to be productive about it. If it becomes a personal attack because your approach to it is bad, or you start throwing personal things in there, that isn't the right way to do it.
Speaker 2:
There is a wrong and right way to do this stuff Contextually there's an approach that's going to work better that's going to work better and that's kind of that social or emotional intelligence and awareness that you would have of knowing the person or people that you're addressing and how to best do that. So it isn't as simple, right? If it was as simple as just, I'm going to come in here into the room, Travis, and just tell you the truth and we'll just move on from it. Well, I'm probably going to say something to you, maybe differently than somebody else who I know is going to receive it differently.
Speaker 2:
And that's the intelligence. That's where I see the hard part coming in this is there is probably, in most cases, a better way to do it. And you mentioned Ray Dalio and in the principal's book and just in their uh, in their culture at Bridgewater and and uh, from my experience when I was at PwC I was on a project uh there, and they changed their culture a lot because they were very right. His big thing is transparency. That's one of the words you see throughout the whole book and transparency is great. But it was to the point where meetings were getting interrupted by people just kind of digging into others and it became personal a lot of times and that had to change. So they recognized that over time and they made that change. So it's interesting when you look at it that way. Right, there is that other side of it of transparent, honest, open. That's all good, but what is the right way to do that?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's like. You know, in the book, ben talks about his swearing policies. You know, and uh, we're going to have a, we're going to allow people to swear, but we're going to have rules around what's out of bounds, you know. And so it's just like anything. It's it's understanding. I think we go all or nothing too often. Yep, right, and it's an understanding situation.
Speaker 1:
But I was thinking while you were saying that, sacred cows, you know one of the issues as a business grows and there's been people since the beginning, all the way through, or since major gateways to the next gateway and stuff like that as you're hitting these different thresholds, people hold on to things very tightly, and this is part of like living in the past and not letting go of the past too, but they hold on to things very tightly because it was their idea or their baby or their dream or whatever, and it's not working anymore. And you have to be so honest and straightforward about this stuff. Like, look, it's not happening and we're moving on, it's not going to happen, let it go. And if you can't let it go, then we have to figure out something else to do. Or look, that can't happen, but what else could happen. You know what's a what's a better solution for this. So so there is some tack that you have to learn.
Speaker 1:
And then the other thing that I was thinking was say what you mean and do what you say. You know and that's a big part of this, because I don't like hypocrites Like the biggest thing that I hate out of everything is a hypocrite. You know, somebody who tells you how you should act and then acts completely the difference. You know what I mean. Or somebody who acts all perfect and then they're a dumpster fire behind closed doors. You know. And Kandor, by its definition, means the quality of being open and honest and expression and frankness. But you know, if you're going to build trust with that and not just be a jackass, you have to live it.
Speaker 2:
On the other end, why do most people forget parties or anything like that? Why do most people hate or despise politicians?
Speaker 1:
They don't do that right.
Speaker 2:
They literally tell you to do things or pass laws and do all this that govern the people, but they don't want to live or follow those same rules, or they don't right In some cases. So that's a great example of if you don't do that, what happens right? You lose buy-in, you lose respect for people.