Ending NDAs: Radical Candor Podcast

How NDAs Protect Power Instead of People 7 | 15

What do NDAs, forced arbitration, and emotionally manipulating teenagers have in common? Sadly, more than you’d hope. Kim, Jason and Amy rip the lid off the corporate culture of hush-hush harm, legal gymnastics and why emotional manipulation is a feature—not a bug—in some marketing strategies. They dig into the story behind Careless People by Sara Wynn-Williams, the book someone definitely doesn’t want you to read, and expose how companies use contracts to silence the truth and protect power—not people.

Listen to the episode:

Episode at a Glance: Ending NDAs

From creepy ad targeting to leaders who dodge accountability like it’s dodgeball, the crew gets real about why “just business” is a lazy excuse for bad behavior. Kim even owns up to the time she played the NDA game—and why she’ll never do it again. Because real leadership doesn’t mean covering your ass—it means doing the damn right thing, even when it costs you.

Radical Candor Podcast Checklist: Ending NDAs

  • Tip number one, end the use of NDAs for covering up wrongdoing. NDAs should protect business secrets, not shield bad actors from accountability.
  • Tip number two, eliminate forced arbitration. Allow employees access to fair legal processes instead of private company paid arbitrators. You can read more about how to eliminate NDAs enforced arbitration in chapter seven of Radical Respect.
  • Tip number three, build a culture of transparency and accountability. Ensure there are multiple safe ways for employees to report misconduct and take action when issues arise. Build management systems that put checks and balances on the power of leaders and ensure that they can be held accountable for their behavior and their results. Once again, you can learn how to do this in chapter seven of Radical Respect.
  • Tip number four, if you want to not only buy copies of this book, but send them to your senator, your representatives, your state and federal leader’s Best Bookstore. We’ll make that happen for you.

Radical Candor Podcast Resources: Ending NDAs

The TLDR Radical Candor Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Kim Scott: Hello everybody and welcome to the Radical Candor Podcast. I’m Kim Scott. 

[00:00:08] Jason Rosoff: I’m Jason Rosoff. 

[00:00:09] Amy Sandler: I’m Amy Sandler. And today we’re gonna be tackling a critical issue that Kim, you write about in Radical Respect. Question is, what happens when organizations silence employees instead of removing the obstacles that hinder their success. What’s bringing this up to mind is Meta’s recent arbitration case against former employee Sarah Wynn-Williams, whose new book Careless People, exposes misconduct within the company and has prompted us to really explore the broader implications of non-disclosure agreements, NDAs, and forced arbitration in the workplace. So let’s get into it.

[00:00:52] Kim Scott: Yes. Uh, this is such an important issue, I think. When, when, I mean, and non-disclosure agreements are supposed to, uh, prevent people from, from sharing technical secrets, you know, trade secrets. They were not supposed to be used as a way to hide wrongdoing. Uh, and yet that is how they’re being used, as are non-disparagement agreements, which is a whole other thing. Uh, and so I think that this book, this book is really important. Uh, and, uh, I think it’s, it’s not just about this book or Meta. Uh, we have a systemic problem in the workplace, um, and workplace culture that leads leaders to try to dodge the checks and balances that our society has put in place to prevent leaders from harming individual employees or even all of us. And, and in the case of this book, uh, I, I feel like we’re all, the author was harmed, but we’re all being harmed. Uh, I’m excited, uh, I read the book, uh, the whole book. I know you all didn’t necessarily read the whole book yet, but I’m excited to chat with you all about it. 

[00:02:11] Amy Sandler: Great. I will, I will put the book up. Yeah, I have not yet read it. Um, I have purchased it. And Kim, do you wanna just mention for folks why you felt so strongly about encouraging people to take a look at the book? 

[00:02:22] Kim Scott: Yeah. Not just take a look, but buy the book. Because as a, as an author, I’m very sympathetic for what’s happening to this author because when you publish a book, your publisher will tell you the author sells the book. And so by silencing the author of this book from speaking about her book, she’s making it really difficult for, for her to sell the book. I mean, of course it seems the strategy seems to have backfired and now everybody’s buying the book. 

[00:02:53] Jason Rosoff: It’s the Streisand effect in action. 

[00:02:55] Kim Scott: Yes, the Streisand effect in action. Uh, but which is good, but that let’s like get it to the top. Let’s get it to number one on the New York Times bestseller list. 

[00:03:04] Amy Sandler: And this is specifically because of a legal arbitration case that’s, that’s forcing her to not be able to, just wanted to make sure for folks who weren’t aware, uh, where we were in this moment.

[00:03:15] Kim Scott: Yes. You’re probably better at explaining details. 

[00:03:17] Amy Sandler: Oh, I don’t know. I’m gonna throw that one to Jason. He’s our, he’s our, he’s our legal analyst. Even though, I don’t know if he has a JD, but I feel like he’s played the role of someone who has, I just got into law school. That’s as far as I go.

[00:03:29] Kim Scott: I didn’t even, I did so badly on the LSAT I gave up. 

[00:03:33] Jason Rosoff: Uh, I think you’ve, you’ve basically covered it. Essentially, uh, as part of the author’s employment or as part of the separation agreement, at some point she signed something that basically said that she wasn’t allowed to disclose some set of things about her experience as, as an employee. And in addition to that, there was a clause that said that disputes must be decided by arbitration as opposed to being able to go to court. And what I read about it basically said that an arbitrator. Um, and, and arbitration is binding just like a, just like going to court. This is one thing that people may, may not understand is that, um, it’s another pro, another legal process, but at the judgment of the arbitrator was that, um, there would be irreparable harm caused by allowing Wynn-Williams to actually promote the, the book. And so she was enjoined from doing that. She was, she was forbidden, um, uh, from doing it. 

[00:04:32] Kim Scott: And the thing about arbitration is that it really tends to favor employees, uh, employers, over employees. Uh, but because the companies wind up paying these, um, arbitration, but they’re, they’re not totally neutral, I think.

[00:04:48] Jason Rosoff: That is often the case. Yeah. 

[00:04:51] Kim Scott: They try to be neutral and they’re, but they’re not. 

[00:04:55] Jason Rosoff: Yeah, it’s one of those things that in theory, like arbitration in theory is better for employees because you don’t absolutely need an attorney in order to represent you. Like it could be less costly, it could take a lot less time in order to reach a resolution. But Kim, to your point, in many cases, the deck is stacked against, um, similar to the, the, we’ve recreated the, the legal system in arbitration by stacking the deck against the person with less money. 

[00:05:22] Kim Scott: We’ve, we’ve dodged the checks and balances that, um, that the government should be putting on the power of any one company or any one wealthy individual with the legal system. So anyway, it’s a big problem. Now I wanna talk about irreparable harm because seems to me reading this book that there’s an awful lot of evidence that Facebook has done irreparable harm to a bunch of us. So we can’t read the whole book. Uh, but I’d love to just share a couple of passages from a, uh, a chapter towards the end of the book called Emotional Targeting. We can talk about those and then we can talk about, um, about NDAs and forced arbitration, uh, and non-disparagement agreements and, and why it’s a problem. Why these, why these things are, are problems. Uh, how does that sound?

[00:06:17] Amy Sandler: Sounds good. 

[00:06:20] Kim Scott: All right. I’m gonna jump in. In April, 2017, a confidential document is leaked that reveals Facebook is offering advertisers the opportunity to target 13 to 17 year olds across its platform, including Instagram during moments of psychological vulnerability, when they feel quote unquote, worthless, insecure, stressed, defeated, anxious, stupid, useless, and like a failure, or to target them when they’re worried about their bodies and thinking of losing weight. Basically, when a teen is in a fragile emotional state. As a parent, I have to say, this fills me with rage that they would offer this, uh, or that advertisers would agree to do it. So what, so how, what, what do you all think? 

[00:07:12] Amy Sandler: Yeah, I am not a parent, but I am someone who’s, uh, you know, been a teenager. I think we’ve all been teenagers. And, uh, I can just speak to my own, you know, sort of journey around like food and body and psychology and certainly I was obsessed with television and, you know, consuming mass media, but it was not targeted individually to me based on my state. And so it feels like we’re already dealing, you know, in a consumer society, but then to have it targeted at your most vulnerable is, is infuriating and enraging. So that’s my emotional, like, personal reaction to it. And then on behalf of our most vulnerable, like at the most vulnerable moment, um, I, I find it enraging. 

[00:07:59] Kim Scott: Yes, totally. 

[00:08:00] Amy Sandler: Jason, do you have, can you bring us down from our rage? 

[00:08:05] Jason Rosoff: I, I don’t, I don’t think so. I, I think, I think that it is, it is, it’s the right, I mean, like, I think rage is the, is the right reaction to something like this. I, I, one of the most difficult parts of being alive today for people who are connected in some way, shape, or form to, to the internet, is dealing with a bombardment of information that is like constantly coming at, uh, coming at us. Like we just aren’t made for it. We haven’t developed the skills to deal with it. Then to throw into that mix, like not only is it just completely overwhelming and hard to parse, but we’re using the information that we can gather about someone to inject into that stream of difficult to, to parse information essentially, like poison. You know what I’m saying? It’s bad, and so it was like it was already bad.

[00:09:07] Amy Sandler: Yeah. 

[00:09:08] Jason Rosoff: And then it was like, we have an, now we’re just, we’re gonna make it worse. Like we’re make,

[00:09:11] Kim Scott: It’s more precisely bad. 

[00:09:13] Jason Rosoff: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Taking advantage. 

[00:09:16] Amy Sandler: The amplification of it. 

[00:09:16] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. I mean this is commonly referred to like as dark patterns, right? That there are these dark patterns and how people design software that hook into our brains at a very sort of, close to the metal, like close to the hardware. 

[00:09:31] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:09:31] Jason Rosoff: Um, and take advantage of, uh, various vulnerabilities that humans being, human beings have to, when you feel sad, upset, worthless, or whatever, we’re more susceptible to messaging about that same thing. 

[00:09:43] Kim Scott: Yeah. And by the way, it’s not only teenagers who have these feelings, like I have all, but we all, we, we all do. I mean, we wanna protect our children, but we should also protect all of our, you know, protect all of us. And so the thing, one of the things about this book that read very credible, ’cause I can imagine like having worked at a big tech company, like you can’t believe this is happening. And then you look into it and they thought, at first they think maybe this is just a one-off bad actor. And then as they look into it, they find this is systemic. So I’ll read another passage. At first, we think the leaked document is one Facebook made, made to pitch a gum manufacturer targeting teens during vulnerable emotional states. Then eventually the team realizes, no, the one that got leaked was from a bank.

[00:10:34] So now they’re finding a bunch of these. There are obviously many decks like this, so like this is not, this is systemic. This is not just kind of a one-off thing. Um, Facebook does work for a beauty product company tracking when 13 to 17-year-old girls delete selfies so it can serve a beauty ad to them at that moment. We don’t know what happens to young teen girls when they’re targeted with beauty advertisements after deleting a selfie. Nothing good. There’s a reason why you erase something from existence, why a teen girl feels that it can’t be shared, and surely Facebook shouldn’t be using that moment to bombard them with extreme weight loss ads or beauty industry ads or whatever else they push on teens feeling vulnerable. The weird thing is that the rest of our Facebook coworkers seem unbothered by this. Reactions? 

[00:11:34] Jason Rosoff: Like a moment of, of empathy for, for other, for other Facebook workers. Like I, I suspect, uh, as is the case when there are a lot of like questionable slash bad things happening around you, it becomes difficult to like tune your reaction to, to these events appropriately.

[00:11:53] Kim Scott: And I bet a lot of them were horrified. 

[00:11:55] Jason Rosoff: Correct. And then, and then there’s this also this question of like, what’s it okay to express, right? Like it, do you feel like it’s safe to express your horror at, at this particular thing? Or you feel like if you say you’re horrified that you’re taking some other kind of risk with your job or career, whatever else. Um, and, and at the same time, like I, I think, yeah, it’s just, it’s just hard I think to be in a situation where you feel like you have uncovered something that is so obviously horrifying or obviously awful. And then to have the reaction, like a sort of nonplus sort of reaction from the people around you of like, well, you know, it’s just, that’s Tuesday for you. 

[00:12:36] Kim Scott: Yeah. So here’s another moment of empathy for, for Facebook, then Facebook, now, Meta employees. What does Facebook do about this? A junior researcher in Australia is fired for making that deck, even though lots of people are obviously making these decks. Uh, I’m, now I’m reading, even though that poor researcher was most likely just doing what her bosses wanted, she’s just another nameless young woman who was treated as canon fodder by, by the company. Like I, and that that rings so true to me. Like we’re gonna find one person who did this even though we know this is a systemic thing and blame that one person.

[00:13:18] Amy Sandler: What was coming up, Kim, as you were asking that question and reading about it, was even just like the Milgram experiment of just like when people are following rules and feeling like A, my boss told me to do this, so it’s, it must be okay because this is my boss, right? Or this is the rule. And then to what Jason was saying, do I feel safe speaking up against it. So even, you know, people might have had moral concerns, but was there the safety and all of those questions about being a, a whistleblower. So I’m just thinking as, as people are listening to this, the places that we might be in, whether we are the junior researcher, feeling like, do I have the power to, to speak up? And the person who’s forcing the junior researcher to, to do that, to do that work. 

[00:14:01] Kim Scott: Yeah. Or not forcing them, but like, this is like, like this kind of stuff gets normalized and when, when you’re young and early in your career, and this is what everyone around you is doing, like maybe you haven’t asked the questions. And it’s not, you’ve been put in a difficult situation and, and it is the job of your leadership to, to, to lead, not to blame you for something that is a systemic problem that they have created, you know? Um, but firing, it turns out that firing that one junior assistant doesn’t solve all the problems. Uh, they Facebook has to, has to come out with, with more, um, sort of PR, uh, to, to do damage control. And, and so they offer a, another statement that, that, um, this author says is a flat out lie. Facebook does not offer tools to target people based on their emotional state, even though obviously they do.

[00:15:01] Uh, and then after that statement comes out, the author goes on to say, one of the top, and now I’m reading again, one of the top ad executives for Australia calls me late one night to complain. Why are we putting out statements like this, he wants to know. This is the business, Sarah. We’re proud of this. We shout this from the rooftops. This is what puts money in all our pockets, and these statements make it look like it’s something nefarious. So now all of a sudden somebody is getting mad, somebody else at Facebook is getting mad at her for distancing the company from what he’s selling. It’s like, it’s outrageous. 

[00:15:43] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. I think that I, it’s a form of rationalization that I feel like happens a lot in, in tech in particular, which is we, there’s a tendency to look at the potential of something to like be very good. And to weigh that much more heavily than the actual harm that the thing is doing right now. 

[00:16:07] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:16:08] Jason Rosoff: Uh, like that, that is, that is a thing that gets repeated over and over and over again. It’s sort of the history of all technological advancements is we, we, we oversell the good. And, and I think part of what we’re saying, uh, uh, like, is that, why does it have to be one or the other? It’s a false dichotomy. Like, why can’t we address the harm that the thing is doing and, you know, uh, realize the upside potential. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. And when you create an environment that makes it seem like it’s one or the other, then you wind up with a, you know, a harm perpetuating machine. 

[00:16:42] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:16:42] Jason Rosoff: Uh, because there’s nothing, there’s no breaks on the, on the thing. You know what I’m saying? There’s nothing to actually slow it down and stop it from doing the harm until, and that’s why we wind up with a book like this, which is many years later, a set of well-documented allegations of like all of this wrongdoing over and over and over again. This repeated pattern of wrongdoing. And, and I feel like you’re, what you say in Radical Respect, Kim, which is like the reason why this seems so expensive to deal with and why, I mean, who knows what Meta’s reasons are for trying to enforce this particular non-disclosure agreement are, uh, what their precise reasons are, but like the problem is the system is set up wrong. It was impossible to talk about these things and to deal with them and to say, hey, wait a second, actually, this is really harmful. Like, can we, why don’t we have a conversation. Like that wasn’t possible. 

[00:17:35] Kim Scott: Yeah. There, there was a, there was a culture of institutional betrayal, not institutional courage. 

[00:17:40] Amy Sandler: And also Kim, what’s coming up is, you know, when we’ve had some conversations about this when we were in business school and everything that mattered, the only thing that mattered was was, was, was the shareholder and maximizing, you know, wealth for the shareholder. So it goes back to your measurement problem because the, the passage that you are reading from to continue this person, this top ad executive says, you know, he’s out there every day promoting the precision of these tools that hoover up so much data and insight on and off Facebook so it can deliver the right ad at the right time to the right user.

[00:18:12] And this is what headquarters is saying to the public. Quote, how do I explain this, he asks. And 13 to 17 year olds, quote, that’s a very important audience. Advertisers really wanna reach them, and we have them. We’re pretending we don’t do this. And so for me, when I read that, that’s basically about you’re being, you’re optimizing just for those metrics, but you’re not measuring harm, which I think is what Jason is, like there’s no metric of harm caused and that’s why the incentives I think, are so misaligned. 

[00:18:44] Kim Scott: Yeah, totally agree with that. It’s such an important, like I did write this novel called The Measurement Problem, The Measurement Problem, which is all about like, you know, capitalism is really good at rewarding what I can measure and very bad at rewarding what it values, like our teenagers, our children. You know, like how do we, how do we bake that into the metrics? Also, Jason, going back to what you’re saying about optimism, so careless people is a quote from The Great Gatsby and it, it just so happens my son just read The Great Gatsby and is writing a paper about it. I was reading his paper yesterday and I’m like, oh my god, it’s, and the paper he is writing is about how we have this sort of rosy view of the past as Americans and that then sort of pushes us to have this glorious view of the future and to ignore the present reality that we’re in. I’m like that, that is what is happening here. That is exactly what is happening here, is, is a refusal, you know, to admit, oh, Daisy loves Tom and married him. Therefore I cannot be married to her. Uh, now I’m referring back to Great Gatsby.

[00:19:57] Jason Rosoff: Great Gatsby, yeah. I, I think there’s just like so many problems. It feels like to me, so many problems in, in human, in, in a, in a group of humans is the unwillingness to, to, to talk precisely about what is really happening. 

[00:20:13] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:20:15] Jason Rosoff: To, to put real, clear, unambiguous words to like, what, what is actually happening? Like the, so many problems are, are rooted in, in either an unwillingness or a fear of, of, uh, of doing exactly that. And I think this is a great example of it was literally not okay to say the word, you know what I’m saying? Like the, the, there was a, the complaint that was being raised by the executive that we were just quoting from the book was basically like, like, no, the, you are saying this is bad. And I’m saying it’s not even okay to say that this is bad. This is so good that you can’t disparage it. You cannot say that there’s something wrong with this because this is what puts all the money in our pockets. It’s, it’s literally, I don’t know, like that, that sort of like the, the, 

[00:21:07] Kim Scott: It was, I mean, it, it was, I’m sure that the executive who said that to her was in a hard place. He’s like, I’m out here selling this, and you’re out there telling the press I’m not selling this. Like, what are my customers gonna think? 

[00:21:18] Jason Rosoff: Yeah, yeah. And I guess what I’m saying is like the, the, the temptation to basically like squash disagreements, like any sort of disagreement. And, and I, I know we’re talking about the public statement versus what was privately actually happening, but like that, that effort to squash disagreement in order to preserve harmony. You know what I’m saying? 

[00:21:36] Kim Scott: Yeah. Only good news. The conference room. 

[00:21:37] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. Only good news for me, only good news for the customers. Like we only wanna talk about the good that this thing can do, is, is like the source of a lot of not intention, unintentional, evil in, in, in the world, right? Because you’re not thinking about the consequences of the actions. You’re making it impossible. 

[00:21:54] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:03] So let’s talk a little bit, let’s, let’s take a step back away from the book and, and talk about like hopefully these kinds of things are not happening at your company. 

[00:22:14] Amy Sandler: Well, and Kim, before we, before we do, ’cause I, I do wanna get there. I just wanna ask something that’s, that’s, that’s on my mind. So I imagine it might be on some other folks mind. Before we sort of shift off from Facebook slash Meta, which is that, you know, obviously when you first wrote Radical Candor, uh, one of the stories, you know, you’ve, you’ve worked closely with Sheryl Sandberg, so I just wanted to give you a chance to kind of reflect on that relationship and how that might inform, you know, what you’re sharing now.

[00:22:41] Kim Scott: Yes, uh, uh, Bob Sutton asked me this on, on LinkedIn over the, over the weekend, Bob Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule. And you know, my response is it’s, there’s part of me that’s tempted, uh, to remain silent about how important I think this book is out of loyalty to Sheryl, but I don’t think that’s actually loyal to Sheryl. I mean, I will say for the record, Sheryl was a great boss. She hired me at a time when I was desperate actually in my, uh, in my career. And, uh, and I’m, I’ll be forever grateful to her for the, for the things I learned from her and for the role that she played in my career. Um, so there’s that. Uh, but I don’t think it does her any good, I don’t think it’s an act of loyalty to ignore, uh, that that Meta, where she no longer works is, is doing this to this author and trying to cover up the harm that they’re doing, not only to the author, but to each and every one of us. Uh, and so, so it’s in that spirit that I wanna talk about this book. There’s all kinds of, um, sort of, uh, I don’t know how to even characterize them. There’s all kinds of negative, uh, comments about her in the book, but, but I, I think, I think that that’s not a reason not to read the book. 

[00:24:09] Amy Sandler: I really appreciate your thoughtfulness and you know, if you’re open to it, just because I can imagine we’re gonna get into some stories where you felt like you, you know, you didn’t step up and you might have done things a little differently, but also extending yourself some, some compassion for choices you made. Do you think part of what motivates you to speak up is because of moments when you maybe have been more reluctant to, to share your voice or, I just wanna acknowledge that you said it might have been easier not to to say something right now. 

[00:24:39] Kim Scott: I mean, I, look, I, there have been a bunch of times in my career and I write about many of them in Radical Respect, where I didn’t speak up and in retrospect, I wish I had spoken up. And very often the reason I didn’t speak up was, was that there might be a cost to me of not speaking up, uh, um, I mean of speaking up. And I think it’s important to decide, and to try to decide before you’re in the heat of the moment, when you’re gonna, where your line is. When you’re gonna speak up, even if it does cost you something. Because, you know, the cost to me of not speaking up, like in one instance that I’m thinking of was probably a few million dollars, you know? Uh, and, and in retrospect, I, I should have said something and risk getting fired and not getting, but, you know, the, the temptation not to say like, it, it gets bigger. 

[00:25:43] Like how many of us would walk away from billions of dollars. You know, it’s harder. I, I wanna, I wanna acknowledge that there is some, that, that there’s some very human difficulty and that, you know, I don’t know what I would do if, if something bad was happening and my, you know, my silence was gonna buy me a billion dollars. I like to think I would walk away and say the thing. I, I, I believe I would. But can I say I am sure? No, I mean, I don’t think any of us are sure what we would do in, in that moment. And I, and I, and I also wanna say that our economic system, like rewards people for like the measurement problem is a big problem. 

[00:26:29] Amy Sandler: Yeah. Well, it’s a great, you know, and heartfelt reflection, I think, for all of us. I, I love that guidance of like, really thinking for yourself in this moment, like, where are my lines so that I can kind of hold myself accountable. I think it might be interesting too, just to have almost a, a buddy in that process to kind of help, help you hold yourself accountable. And I know you had your own story, Kim, around NDAs, around non-disclosure agreements. So did you wanna, um, bring, bring that one up. 

[00:26:58] Kim Scott: So I will, I will, I believe NDAs are wrong. I’m enormously grateful, uh, to Ifeoma Ozoma and others who worked on the Silence No More act, which we’ll talk more about in a second. But I will also acknowledge that I one time asked an employee to sign an NDA, and this was one of the, this was like one of those moments in my career that I think about all the time. So I had become a, I had started a company and I was the co-founder and CEO. This is not Radical Candor, this was many years ago. And I did, I sort of believed in this moment, and we’ve talked about this before, I believed in this moment, like all this other BS that happened at all these other terrible companies where I worked will not happen when I’m in charge because I have good intentions.

[00:27:51] You know, and of course it did happen. Uh, and there was an, there was an employee who felt that she was experiencing a hostile work environment. And, and she was gonna sue the company for the experiences that she had had at the company. You know, and I did not think any company where I was in charge would create a hostile work environment for, for any, uh, anyone. Um, uh, you know, most especially for a woman that, that was, gender was the thing that I was most focused on having experienced, uh, myself. Rather than stopping and saying, you know, I should really look at what’s going wrong here at this company that I’ve started, I dismissed her claims out of hand, paid her some amount of money, and made her sign an NDA, which was the advice that my lawyer, who was also a woman by the way, gave.

[00:28:51] Uh, and so I wanna say like power corrupts. Power had corrupted me, power had corrupted the attorney. Like we were all doing, um, we were all doing the wrong thing. And it’s easy when you are in a, if, when you’re in a position of power and you can silence other people, um, it’s tempting to do it, especially if they’re saying something about you and your company that you would rather not be true. And so that was me, you know, not be, not, not, uh, sort of being courageous, not creating an organization that exemplified institutional courage, but instead succumbing to institutional betrayal. And I’m afraid I’m not the only leader who has done that. 

[00:29:37] Jason Rosoff: I, I’m, yeah. I’m, I’m certain, I’m certain, I’m absolutely certain that you’re, you’re not. I, I think going back to what you said at the very top of the podcast, which is like, that the, these things are being used for, well, I, I, I’m, I’m sure that there’s a long history of using NDAs for not disclosing things other than technological secrets, um, uh, that I’m ignorant of. But I will say like that the, the idea that you can hide harm behind an NDA, like, essentially, that someone can trade their rights to, to like address a wrong that was done to them for some, in some cases for nothing. Like, literally, like they, they, they just bully people into signing these agreements and there’s no, 

[00:30:24] Kim Scott: Yeah, you can’t, you can’t quit until, I had one person come to me and her, his, it was actually a man, his employer was saying, um, you can’t quit until you sign this NDA. I’m like, that is a pile of merde.

[00:30:41] Jason Rosoff: Uh, I, I, I think like any time we’re, we’re leaning on the law to take away someone’s right to, to, you know, ameliorate harm, that like even if it’s legal, as you say, Kim, the, it just, that doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s just some, sometimes the law is an ass. 

[00:31:00] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:31:00] Jason Rosoff: Just because it, like, just because it’s possible.

[00:31:02] Kim Scott: That may be our title. The law is an ass. 

[00:31:05] Jason Rosoff: Just because it’s possible doesn’t, doesn’t make, doesn’t make it right. And I think to your point, it’s often in reaction. So it the, the reason why it’s easy to imagine yourself in the situation that you described finding yourself in, and that many other leaders have found themselves in over time is because you didn’t plan for the possibility that under your, you know, uh, guidance and organization could create a hostile work environment for, for somebody. You didn’t plan for that possibility because you didn’t plan for it, then you were forced to react to what was happening as opposed to thoughtfully respond to the, the situation. And, and in, in those moments, it can be very easy to sort of like try to defend, you know what I’m saying? To try, try to carve out some defensible space as opposed to like doing the right thing at large.

[00:31:58] Kim Scott: Yeah. I was unwilling to believe it. I was un unwilling to notice it, uh, because I was so convinced that I’m a good person. Like there are few, well, there’s all kinds of dangerous words, but I am a good person, like, as opposed to I’m trying to be good and sometimes I do bad things. Like we, we really need to question ourselves anytime we’re, we say I’m a good person, like, yes, I hope you are, but that doesn’t mean you’re doing a good thing. You know, you as my son’s baseball coach said, you can’t do right if you dunno what you’re doing wrong. And if you’re so convinced that you are so good that you could never do anything wrong, you’re gonna do some really bad things. 

[00:32:40] Amy Sandler: One of the things, Kim, is you’re bringing that up and what Jason was saying just around kind of checks and balances. So for folks who are listening, like if you were to have kind of, could have a reset and obviously time has changed. Laws have changed. So, you know, maybe first of all, just paint a picture of where are we in the legal landscape. You mentioned the Silence No More act in 2022, but what are, what are some things that leaders should be aware of, of like where the landscape is and how can they kind of intentionally create more checks and balances so that you know, they can be more intentional?

[00:33:10] Kim Scott: If I could go back in time, one of the things I would’ve done is made it very clear that if, if you have a problem with the way that Kim has responded to something, it is, uh, it is expected that you’ll go to Kim’s co-founder and talk to him about it. And if both Kim and her co-founder are not doing the right thing, it is expected and okay for you to go and talk to the board about what is going wrong. And it, I think in a, in a ideal world, the board, like the board holds the CEO of the company accountable. But somebody needs to be holding the board accountable and figuring that out I think is also really important for, for leaders to do. Uh, and, and one creative idea that some companies have done is they’ll have a representative of the employees, rank and file employees, on the board, uh, who, who is holding the chair of the board accountable for representing the interest of, of individual employees at the company. So you want, I, I just, I really, I think that one of the things, one of the design principles of our country is checks and balances. And I think that’s important not only in a political system, but also in a, in a corporate environment. 

[00:34:32] Amy Sandler: And then just for, you know, folks who maybe aren’t as aware, you had talked about the Silence No More act in 2022. There’s obviously a bunch of books that have come out on this topic. We’ve had Susan Fowler Rigetti, the Uber whistleblower and author of Whistleblower, um, on this podcast. But whether it’s books like  She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, if I hopefully got that right. Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow, just really bringing up how NDAs can actually enable repeat offenders. So just from your own, both research and also I know you’ve talked to so many folks as you put together Radical Respect and have been putting it out in the world, um, what do you wanna share about the kind of current legal landscape?

[00:35:12] Kim Scott: Well, I think there’s, there’s increasingly, there’s an acknowledgement that NDAs are used to cover up crimes. Uh, and, and that that’s not acceptable. And there are the, it’s been the Silence No More act was, was passed in California, but there’s a, a national version of that that is being considered. I mean, who knows what’s happening in this environment, uh, with, with that. But I, I think in increasingly people understand, there’s a common sense like this, this sort of, you can’t talk about what happened at this company, is, uh, is a way of, of silencing people about things that they should speak up about. 

[00:35:59] Jason Rosoff: There’s a, a series of like, sort almost feels like interlocking, uh, human challenges that make it really, really important to like grease the wheels of communication, uh, when it comes to wrongdoing. Because one, it’s hard enough just to criticize somebody for doing bad work.Like, like, that’s hard. We talk to leaders all the time where it’s like, I don’t, how do I tell this person that they didn’t, you know, that the presentation was awful. 

[00:36:24] Kim Scott: There’s typos in it, you know? Spinach in your teeth is one thing. 

[00:36:28] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. So that’s, that’s already hard. And then it’s like, in many situations, you’re like criticizing your, like that we’re describing here. You’re criticizing your, your, uh, your boss or the company for creating an environment that, that created the harm that, what, that was done that was done to you. So that’s like extra difficult, like to figure out how, how you would do that. Um, and, and since I, I, I think most people actually want to make a more efficient system. Right now, the perception is it’s much more efficient to sort of like silence everybody than it is to actually to, to solve the problem. But it, I, I feel like the, the case of, uh, of careless people is a good example of why that’s just not true. It, it is not more efficient. It would’ve been far more efficient to have a system where it was easy to actually have these conversations and address them.

[00:37:18] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah. 

[00:37:19] Jason Rosoff: Um, and, and so like the, the idea, uh, it is like it’s actually a win-win. You’re, you’re not doing this for employees, although it is a benefit to employees to have to remove any obstacles that might exist to them being able to report bad behavior. And you’re not just, uh, and it’s not just because you’re trying to be a good person. It’s because like, if you can actually do it, it’s a far more efficient system, uh, than the one that we have now, which is only reacting after the harm has already been done and productivity has already been lost. And that person, you know what I’m saying? Like all of the damage is done and now you’re silencing the, the person. We’re, we’re treating that like, that’s, as though that’s somehow more efficient. And simply making it easier to have, 

[00:38:02] Kim Scott: Fixing the problem. It’s like, imagine if it were, if instead of having a system where you identified in fixed bugs, you like buried them, like your product wouldn’t work very well and your company won’t work very well if you do that for the way the company works.

[00:38:17] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. I, I mean, I think that that’s actually a really good example since a, a lot of people can sort of imagine, like everybody’s experience frustration with like a product not working the way that, that we, that they want it to or that they expect it to. We just don’t talk about companies in the same way, which I think is a, is a failure of imagination to say like, this is a designed object, like this company and the culture that we’re operating in is designed. Uh, and it it, and we’re constantly communicating about how it should work. And either we’re meeting the, the user, in this case, the employees, uh, and customers expectations, or we’re not meeting their, their expectations. And wouldn’t it be better, wouldn’t it be more, wouldn’t, wouldn’t everybody be happier if we could more consistently actually meet the needs and expectations of, of not just our customers or our shareholders, but also our employees?

[00:39:04] Kim Scott: Yeah, I mean, the cover up is always worse for the crime, the worse, or, you know, exacerbates the crime in any, in any case. And, and if coverup is allowed to go on endlessly, it’s, in the end, it’s a disaster. I mean, institutional betrayal is bad for those who get betrayed, but it’s ultimately betrays the institution itself.

[00:39:27] Jason Rosoff: Yep. 

[00:39:28] Kim Scott: This is from Jennifer Freyd, who’s, uh, who’s one of my favorite people, a great and clear thinker about these things. 

[00:39:35] Amy Sandler: And, and Jennifer Freyd is the author of Institutional Courage. Is that correct? 

[00:39:39] Kim Scott: There’s an organization called Institutional Courage. 

[00:39:42] Amy Sandler: Okay. 

[00:39:42] Kim Scott: She, uh, she wrote a book, um, uh, she’s written several books, which we’ll put in the speaker’s notes.

[00:39:49] Amy Sandler: All right, great. We’ll put that in the, uh, the show notes. So now it is time for our checklist, and these are tips to put Radical Candor, Radical Respect and creating more just workplaces into practice right away. 

[00:40:04] Kim Scott: All right, tip number one, end the use of NDAs for covering up wrongdoing. NDAs should protect business secrets, not shield bad actors from accountability.

[00:40:16] Amy Sandler: Tip number two, eliminate forced arbitration. Allow employees access to fair legal processes instead of private company paid arbitrators. You can read a lots more about how to eliminate NDAs and forced arbitration in chapter seven of Radical Respect. Get it wherever books are sold. 

[00:40:36] Jason Rosoff: Tip number three, build a culture of transparency and accountability. Ensure there are multiple safe ways for employees to report misconduct and take action when issues arise. Build management systems that put checks and balances on the power of leaders. Ensure that they can be held accountable for their behavior and their results. Once again, you can learn how to do this in chapter seven of Radical Respect.

[00:40:57] Kim Scott: And tip number four, if you want to not only buy copies of this book, but send them to your senator, your representatives, your, your state and federal leader’s Best Bookstore. We’ll make that happen for you. We’ll drop a link into the show notes. 

[00:41:15] Amy Sandler: All right, so that is copies of Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. And it’s best as in BEST. 

[00:41:23] Kim Scott: Yes. Best Bookstore. 

[00:41:25] Amy Sandler: Best Bookstore. 

[00:41:26] Kim Scott: It is the best bookstore, one of the best bookstores. I love all independent bookstores. 

[00:41:30] Jason Rosoff: Truth in marketing. 

[00:41:30] Amy Sandler: Yes. Yes. Uh, all right, well, if you wanna see the show notes, go to Radical Candor.com/podcast. Praise in public and criticize in private. So if you like what you hear, please do rate and review us wherever you listen to your podcast. And of course, if you’ve got feedback for us, including, especially criticism, email us podcast@RadicalCandor.com. Bye for now.

[00:41:57] Kim Scott: Thanks everyone. 

[00:41:58] Amy Sandler: The Radical Candor Podcast is based on the book Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott. Episodes are written and produced by Brandi Neal, with script editing by me, Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co-founders Kim Scott and Jason Rosoff, and is hosted by me still, Amy Sandler. Nick Carissimi is our audio engineer. The Radical Candor podcast theme music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Follow us on LinkedIn, Radical Candor the company, and visit us @RadicalCandor.com.

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The Radical Candor Podcast is based on the book Radical Candor: Be A Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott.

Radical Candor podcast

Episodes are written and produced by Brandi Neal with script editing by Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co-founders Kim Scott and Jason Rosoff and is hosted by Amy Sandler. Nick Carissimi is our audio engineer.

The Radical Candor Podcast theme music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Order his book: The Reason For The Rhymes: Mastering the Seven Essential Skills of Innovation by Learning to Write Songs.

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