How to Navigate the Messy Middle Between Ruinous Empathy & Obnoxious Aggression 6 | 49

Radical Candor: Communication at Work

Radical Candor

Business, Management, Careers

4.7 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2024

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How the CORE method can help you thrive in the messy middle.

Caught in the middle of a boss who’s all care but no action and a team lead who’s full steam ahead with no brakes? That’s a workplace tightrope no one wants to walk. Your ability to Care Personally and Challenge Directly can seriously be affected when communication falls apart on both ends of the spectrum, and it’s not just frustrating—it’s debilitating. How do you stay productive and keep your sanity when you’re managing up and down with people who either dodge conflict entirely or bulldoze through it? In this episode, Jason and Amy tackle the messy middle, breaking down how to use the CORE method (Context, Observation, Result, Expected Next Steps) to navigate these tricky situations. It’s not about pointing fingers or playing favorites—it’s about finding a way to ditch the drama and focus on what really matters: working better together.

Get all of the show notes at RadicalCandor.com/podcast.

Episode Links:

Connect:

Chapters:

(00:00:00) Introduction
Amy and Jason introduce a listener dilemma about a ruinously empathetic boss and an obnoxiously aggressive team lead.

(00:02:15) Defining Ruinous Empathy and Obnoxious Aggression
What it means to care without challenging and to challenge without caring.

(00:04:44) It’s the Boss’s Job: Accountability Matters
Why the manager has ultimate responsibility and how to provide feedback.

(00:07:53) Raising the Issue with Your Boss
How to approach a ruinously empathetic boss with care and directness.

(00:11:46) Involving Your Boss Effectively
How to engage your boss in resolving team tensions without blame or shame.

(00:17:55) Using the CORE Method
A step-by-step approach to delivering clear and constructive feedback.

(00:20:55) Role-Play: Navigating a Clean Escalation Conversation
How to handle a tough conversation between a team member and an aggressive lead.

(00:31:11) Building Common Ground
Tips for fostering mutual understanding and creating actionable steps.

(00:34:02) Radical Candor Tips
Key takeaways and practical tips for addressing conflict.

(00:36:35) Conclusion

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello everybody and welcome to the Radical Cander podcast. I'm Jason Rosef. Before we jump into our
0:09.1	regularly scheduled programming, I wanted to tell people who are hearing this for the first time
0:13.7	and remind people who have heard us say this before that we've got something really exciting
0:18.4	to share with you. We now have an ad-free version of this
0:21.7	podcast available to anyone who joins our Radical Canter community. If you're interested in joining
0:28.1	the community, you can head over to radicalcander.com slash community podcast and join right now. When you
0:34.8	join via that link, they'll get a seven-day free trial to the community,
0:39.3	access to Radical Candor courses, you'll get access to this podcast. You're listening to right now,
0:44.7	ad-free, and you'll get episodes early before we publish them out to everybody else.
0:49.9	You'll have the opportunity to join in real-time interactive learning experiences, you'll have
0:55.3	the chance to join regular interactions with radical candor experts and so much more.
1:00.3	If you've ever struggled with communication at work, and you probably have, if you're listening
1:04.7	to this podcast, this is the community for you. And we'd love to see you in there.
1:10.5	Yes, we would. And we all
1:12.0	struggle with communication at work. That is why we are here, Jason. I'm Amy Sandler. Today,
1:18.2	we're answering a listener's question about how to navigate a work environment where they're
1:25.0	stuck between the proverbial rock in a hard place, between people embodying
1:29.7	opposite parts of the radical candor framework.
1:34.5	So this person writes, and we'll give a few definitions after, quote, I have a very ruinously
1:41.5	empathetic boss and an obnoxiously aggressive team lead. I find myself being
1:47.0	ruinously empathetic to not make our boss feel worse about myself and also ruinously empathetic
1:54.0	to my team lead. So he doesn't blow up like a volcano and I lose my job. I really need some advice. So just a couple of definitions. First of all,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Radical Candor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Radical Candor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.