warikoo Wanderings

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3 QUESTIONS I ASK BEFORE GIVING DIRECT FEEDBACK

For the longest time, I struggled with giving direct feedback.
I felt I was being too harsh, I felt they will feel hurt, they might not like me, they will confront me and I will not know how to defend.
A million things used to go on in my head.

Until, I read the book 'Radical Candor'.
In this brilliant book by Kim Scott, Kim explains 4 types of feedback and how only one of them is effective.
To explain that, she uses two determinants.
One, do you care personally about the person you are giving feedback to - whether your friend, your relative, your colleague, whosoever!
Second, are you direct with that person or not? Or do you twist and turn or sugar coat your feedback?

Basis these 2 determinants, Kim showed the four types of feedback.

Let's understand them quickly:

If you challenge the person directly, but you do not care for the person - then that is obnoxious aggression!
We all know how that feels, because we have felt it.
The end result of such an approach is instant defensiveness. With little change in the person we gave the feedback to.

If you do not care about the person but you do not challenge directly either, instead sugar coat and pretend to be all nice and warm - that is manipulative insincerity.
This results in mistrust and again, no change!

If you do care about the person, but do not challenge directly, it is ruinous empathy.
it results in ignorance (people do not even know what to fix, if at all to fix anything) and thus no change.
This is what I was guilty of, for the longest time!

It is ONLY when you challenge directly AND you care personally about the person you are giving feedback - that it is Radical Candor.
RC leads to instant change and needless to say, profound in nature!

The book hit me hard.
Because now I had a way of managing my guilt of being harsh towards someone I cared for.

So today, before giving any feedback to any of my known ones, I ask these 3 questions:

Question 1: Am I saying this because I feel anger or frustration?

I was guilty of this a lot during my days at Groupon.
Where a lot of what I said was simply anger/frustration because the team in the US had no idea what Asia needs or wants and they were simply imposing the American understanding.
In hindsight - none of those remarks ever helped.
It just made them more defensive or exercise authority if they could.
Now, I ask a different question:
“What is it that they know that I do not?”
That helps me see their side and approach it from that direction.

Question 2: Do I want the other person to truly win, or would I feel happy watching them lose?

I found myself in situations where I actually wanted the person to lose, so that I could pin point their mistakes, go one up on them and thus establish authority the next time I said something.

Today, I make sure that I want them to win in their role by whatever I say.

Question 3: Will this feedback help them or help me?

Things that I said which, in hindsight helped only me and not them, was not feedback.
It was just my need to express myself.
The chart above helped me a lot.
I am most guilty of ruinous empathy.
It’s my biggest weakness because I still fall in that trap.
Of wanting to help myself (they should feel I am a nice person), than helping them!

I have come to believe that most relationships falter because they never engage in Radical Candor.
I hope this helped you realize where you could be going wrong.
Or, where someone you know could be going wrong and you can now, through Radical Candor, help them see it :)

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2 IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

We have launched a new course - which I believe is India's most comprehensive course if you wish to create content on YouTube AND make money from it.
It is called - How To YouTube - and the course is now live.
If you wish to become a content creator, or already are but stagnant, or just getting started - this course will be tremendously helpful.

I am launching my own community - yay!
There are 7Mn+ people who follow me across platforms. So there is no reason why I should be the only one sharing my experiences. All of you have something to share, something to contribute and something to offer help on.
That is the premise of the community app - epiCrew.
A community centered around seeking and offering help.
So that we can all grow.
Download the app - iOS | Android​

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BOOK I AM READING THIS WEEK

Still reading Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty - and LOVING it thoroughly. It is a very long book (perhaps the longest I have ever read - about 14hrs or so) - but it is so gripping that I can't seem to put it down.
This book is a real-life story of the Sackler family and how they came to dominate the US Pharma industry through advertising, in the 1950s and 60s, with what many people claim was false advertising. They built a fortune and used philanthropy as a disguise for their acts.
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Do Epic Shit is FINALLY in audio (yay!).
​adbl.co/doepicshit​

If you prefer printed books then pick up the book in English (Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle) Hindi, Marathi and Tamil.
240,000+ copies sold.
5 more languages coming up! (Including Portuguese)

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QUOTES TO SHARE

Success is not final. Failure is not fatal.
​​(Share on Twitter)​​

If your manager is the kindest, when you are at your lowest - you have found a friend.
​​(Share on Twitter)​​https://ctt.ac/6w_2b​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Boring process == slow and steady progress
​​(Share on Twitter)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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RESPONSES TO LAST WEEK'S QUESTION

Last week I asked you:

Which language films do you often watch?

1. Hindi films
2. English films
3. Indian regional language films (apart from Hindi)
4. International language films (apart from English)
5. Don't watch films

Here are the responses:

Observations:

• The older generation grew up on films. The younger generation is growing up on OTT series. What a shift :)
• India doesn't watch a lot of international non-English movie content (and I would argue that this newsletter audience represents the top percentile of people who could watch it).
• Almost equal split of English:Hindi content (which is a factor of the audience profile - it is English bent).

My response?
At home, mostly English movies. In cinema halls, mostly Hindi movies :)

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PICTURE OF THE WEEK

I was in Mumbai last Saturday, shooting for a music video (surprise surprise) - excited to share it with all of you soon :))

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Who are you closer to?
​(I know its hard, but you have to pick one)

1. I am male and I am closer to my mother
2. I am male and I am closer to my father
3. I am female and I closer to my mother
4. I am female and I am closer to my father

​​Click here to let me know your answer (anonymously)​​​​​

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CONTENT I SHARED THIS WEEK

Podcast:​
Stocks and life
​Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, JioSaavn, Gaana or YouTube.

YouTube:​
Mutual Fund returns, explained
​You can watch it here.​

Instagram:​
3 signs you are with the right person
​You can watch it here.​

Twitter:​
These 13 things were a lie
​You can read it here.​

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You can, of course, always write to me by simply replying to this newsletter.

I love reading all your emails, even though I may not be able to reply to them all.
Yes! I READ ALL MY EMAILS. ALL OF THEM.
​​​(Diwali par soan papdi idhar se udhar gift karne ki kasam!)

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