Member-only story
It’s Time To Give Up Sugar(coating)
“A real friend tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.”
Fair enough.
If only.
Not only is it uncommon in our personal lives, but it’s also more of an anomaly in the professional world. Giving someone the cold, hard, truth doesn’t seem to be a common practice.
In the bestseller, Radical Candor, author Kim Scott refers to this as Ruinous Empathy; you’re so fixated on not hurting a person’s feelings in the moment that you don’t tell them something they’d be better off knowing in the long run.
When the hard pill isn’t given in the moment, it only becomes harder as time goes on. Before you know it, you begin to resent the person for not measuring up, leading to fewer conversations, which will likely cause the initial issue to escalate.
Eventually, you’ll need to part ways.
When you have that conversation, they’ll be stunned, feeling as though they weren’t given the opportunity to improve. Meaning, “if you would’ve told me exactly what I was doing wrong, I would’ve worked to correct it.”
But you couldn’t because you’ve been conditioned to “be nice”, or even worse, give a “compliment sandwich”…
