A Coach's Diary

Kim Scott is a leadership coach and former executive at companies like Google and Apple. She is best known for her book Radical Candor, which focuses on how great teams communicate and give feedback. Scott argues that strong cultures are built on two simple behaviors: caring personally and challenging directly . Caring personally means people know you value them as a person, not just as a performer. It means building relationships, listening, and showing genuine respect. Challenging directly means being honest when something needs to improve. Instead of avoiding difficult conversations, strong teammates address issues clearly and quickly. When one of these behaviors is missing, teams struggle. If people challenge directly without caring personally, feedback feels harsh or disrespectful. If people care personally but avoid challenging directly, problems go unaddressed and performance suffers. Scott summarizes this balance with a simple definition: “Radical Candor is caring personally w...

Jim Taylor is a well-known sports psychologist who has worked with athletes across Olympic, collegiate, and professional sports. His work focuses on helping performers develop the mental habits that lead to consistent performance under pressure. One of Taylor’s core ideas is simple but powerful: “Focus on the process, not the outcome.” Athletes often become distracted by results — winning, rankings, statistics, or what other people expect. When attention shifts to the outcome, anxiety increases and performance usually drops. Taylor teaches athletes to bring their attention back to controllable actions — preparation, effort, focus, and execution. When athletes concentrate on doing the next thing well — the next swing, the next play, the next possession — they stay present and perform closer to their ability. The best performers don’t ignore goals. They just understand that goals are achieved by winning the small moments that lead to them. For teams, this mindset is powerful. Instead of ...

Do you consider yourself a “bad” communicator, a “better” communicator, or the “best” kind of communicator — someone author Charles Duhigg calls a “Supercommunicator”? Charles is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of books about habits, productivity, and communication. In his best-selling book, “Supercommunicators,” Charles defines a Supercommunicator as someone who is exceptionally skilled at connecting with others — not because they talk more, but because they understand how conversations really work. He believes most conversations don’t break down because people are bad communicators, but because people are having different conversations at the same time . Duhigg says there are three types of conversations happening in most interactions: Practical – What are we doing? What’s the plan? Emotional – How do we feel about this? Social – Who are we? What does this say about me or us? If someone is sharing feelings and we respond with solutions, we miss them, and...