An easy, relatable and entertaining read for anyone who is interested or new to managing a team, or is simply seeing problems in their organization. As a relatively non-empathetic or emotional individual, who tries to reason through most problems from a logical perspective, this book was very eye opening. However, I can see how this book would fall into the category of “stating out the obvious” for many. It’ll probably be a very boring and frustrating read for people who are naturally good at supporting or sympathizing with others. For those who are not though, this book re-iterates that humans are emotional beings, and provides many anecdotes on how to build good culture, relate and bond with the team.

The main point Kim Scott was trying to iterate throughout the book is that emotional labour is part of a manager’s job. The human factor is very important, and at the end of the day, managers need to care. They need to be able to care about people while also be willing to be hated in return. The boss needs to take all the hits of the team, and not expect any praise in return. There were also numerous times when she wrote that a manager needs to eliminate the phrase “don’t take it personally” from their vocabulary. All of this is extremely obvious and may seem like common sense, but it doesn’t come as easy to some as it does to others. Sometimes, one simply needs to have the obvious repeated several times before they implement it in practice.

Aside from the lessons Kim Scott delivers, I was also very impressed by her career path and track record. She started working with coal miners in Russia in the early 90s. She led a very large portion of the advertising organization at Google under the supervision of Sherryl Sandberg, while interacting directly with Sergey Brin and Larry Page. She was a member of the faculty at Apple, and was offered the position of Twitter’s CEO at one point in time. Everywhere she went, she empowered and supported her team, built candor relationships, and also put her family life (having children) first whenever necessary.

The first half of the book was very captivating, having a great mix of anecdotes and lessons. The second half seemed to repeat a lot of the core concepts. Though it did help solidify the concepts, it still felt repetitive.

Having worked at Twitter early in my career, I was able to relate to a lot of Kim’s stories on a personal level. I used to do crossfit with Dick Costolo and Russ Laraway, so it was very interesting to learn more about them from a business perspective. It was cool to learn that Dick has an almost perfect score in unconscious bias, and I was glad to hear about Russ’ success after leaving Twitter.

======= Points that stood out=======

  • Random advice

  • A boss needs to take al the hits for his or her team

  • Emails with feedback should not be personalized - the company policies and mission should be discussed instead

  • Do not be defensive when receiving radically candid feedback, but do defend others

  • There is a difference between being a competent asshole or an incompetent caring person

  • Providing praise or positive feedback without actually caring is just as bad as not saying anything at all

  • Radical candor without caring is simply obnoxious aggression

  • Being an absentee manager is just as bad as being a micro manager

  • Instead of ever saying “You’re wrong”, say “I think that’s wrong”

  • Criticize in private but praise in public

  • Not every superstar engineer wants to manage.

  • Emotional labour is part of the job

One of the anecdotes that really stuck in my head was when Kim explained how she had to do an urgent pricing model analysis. She cleared her calendar, stormed into the office, and headed straight to her desk to get the job done. As she walked through the hallway, she was forced to undergo a rollercoaster of emotions and conversations. I don’t remember the exact details, but some people had positive stories to share about their children’s sports teams or plays, some other individuals were going through serious health problems and needed to take some time of, someone else just wanted to talk. While managers are not baby-sitters, the emotional labour is part of the job.

  • It’s all about balance

The author went on in great detail about there is always a problem at big companies. Things are either moving too fast or moving too slow. There is either too much planning or not enough. This sounds obvious when written so plainly, but it was a strong way for the author to become relatable so early in the book.

  • Diamonds in Russia

After graduating with a degree in Russian literature, Kim Scott got a job working with diamond cutters in July of 1992. She tried to motivate her team by offering American salaries, but all they really cared about is that she teach them english and give a damn about their future.

  • Challenging others & Feedback

Providing candid feedback is not radical if you nitpick or don’t care personally. You need to challenge people and explain what they did wrong, but actually care about them as well. As a rule of thumb, the author said that three unimportant things should be left unsaid each day. She also quote Collen Powell in saying that if people are not mad, they’re not being challenged enough.

When doing yearly reviews, Kim said that instead of asking what a person’s potential is, the right question to ask is what growth trajectory the individual seeks. Also, rather than labelling someone as a “high performer” or a “low performer”, it’s best to to label people’s achievements as a solid quarter, off quarter, exceptional quarter, etc


It is hard to judge someone based on a one hour interview, but everyone can shine somewhere. This may imply working for a different company, a different team, or simply taking on a different role. However, if a person does not seem to have found their “mojo” at a certain company after two years, it is likely that they never will.

  • Sherryl Sendberg

After a few very successful presentations at Google, Sheryl Sandburg did not let the positives outweigh the negatives. She provided Kim with radical feedback by telling her that she sounded stupid for saying um a lot and suggested a speach coach. This turned out to have an immense impact on Kim’s speaking and presentation abilities.

  • Tokyo Interaction

While working with part of the team in Tokyo, Kim noticed that the Japanese are very hesitant to confront their superiors. They never critiqued the process or raised red flags. Kim told the team about how Toyota factories have a red box: every new employee must stand in the red box in the middle of the factory at the end of their first week until they find points on which to critique the whole manufarutinrg process. After bringing up that she considered adding a red box of her own at Google, one person raised a complain about the tea. While this is no impactful, Kim made sure the tea was changed at once, and it led to other changes and improvements over time.

  • Google

Larry page once wasted a summer at an internship and vowed that it won’t happen to anyone else.

The Google product team had a rule to not allow product managers with a computer science degree. Twitter and instagram cofounders ended up leaving the company for this exact reason before starting their own companies.

There was a point in time when Sergei Brin yelled out “if this was a normal company, you would do what I said”. This happened when the awards team thought his idea/approach was wrong, but he still really just wanted two people to try to implement his idea. Ultimately no one went with his approach, and it was the correct decision. The fact that Google was able to build and maintain a culture like this is extremely impressive.

Managers cannot block engineers at Google from switching teams. Author chose to hire a transfer who had very bad reviews. It turned out well!

Someone who excels at Google by constantly iterating may not necessarily succeed at Apple where the product has to be perfect before it ships.