The business phrasebook

REED HASTINGS HAS built the culture at Netflix around it. Ray Dalio made it a founding principle at Bridgewater, a successful investment fund. “Radical candour” is the idea that bracing honesty is the best way to run a business: no one dances around the truth, and swifter feedback improves performance.

Most firms rely on a messier doctrine. People rarely say what they mean, but hope that their meaning is nonetheless clear. Think Britain, but with paycheques. To navigate this kind of workplace, you need a phrasebook.

Ostensible meaning: You’re making a legitimate point
Actual meaning: Be quiet

Ostensible meaning: We shouldn’t waste other people’s valuable time
Actual meaning: Let’s never speak of this again (see also: “Let’s put a pin in it”)

Ostensible meaning: Shared understanding results in better outcomes
Actual meaning: I need you to know that my job is a living hell

Ostensible meaning: I’d like to know why you think that...
Actual meaning: ...because it makes no sense to anyone else

Ostensible meaning: We’ve raised an important issue here
Actual meaning: We’ve made absolutely no progress

Ostensible meaning: I am informing you of something minor
Actual meaning: I should have told you this weeks ago

Ostensible meaning: I have something trivial to say
Actual meaning: You are in deep, deep trouble

Ostensible meaning: We’ll each work on this task in our own time
Actual meaning: I have to go to my Pilates class now

Ostensible meaning: It’ll be done soon
Actual meaning: It won’t be done soon

Ostensible meaning: We will work iteratively in response to user feedback
Actual meaning: We’re literally planning to go round in circles

Ostensible meaning: It’s a rat’s nest of old and incompatible systems
Actual meaning: None of this is our fault

Ostensible meaning: We provide an ecosystem in which others can interact
Actual meaning: Let’s pretend we are a tech firm and see what happens to our valuation (see also: “as a service”, “network effects” and “flywheels”)

Ostensible meaning: We are ready for a shared, immersive digital world
Actual meaning: Ooh, look! A bandwagon! (see also: “Web3”)

Ostensible meaning: Be authentic and don’t be afraid to show vulnerability
Actual meaning: But not those bits of your whole self, obviously

In a world of radical candour, there would be less need for translating. Most managers and colleagues could indeed be better at giving unvarnished feedback. Some words and phrases are so opaque they absorb all visible meaning.

But there is an awful lot to be said for coded communication. Work is where people learn to manage social interactions, not define them out of existence. Transparency doesn’t necessarily travel well across borders. And perpetual bluntness is draining; humans constantly finesse and massage the messages they send in order to avoid open conflict. Radical candour is associated with firms that pay very well. That may be because this approach leads to greater success. It may be because otherwise most people wouldn’t put up with it.