AUTHENTICITY & CANDOR - SAY WHAT YOU MEAN

by Aaron B. Bath, CEDS, RP®

In October of 2021, I was tasked with giving a presentation at the NFPA’s National Convention on the topic of local association leadership as I was President of the Dallas Area Paralegal Association (DAPA) at the time. My goal was to convey important and actionable lessons I’ve learned and adopted in the areas of diversity considerations and effective communication during my time working in high-level legal management; both of which are paramount to success.

This article is a summary of that communication section to address the inauthentic communication that is rampant within our profession, and developed into one of my top pet-peeves both professionally and personally.

Raise your hand if you have had one of these phrases recited to you: • “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” • “There’s no such thing as a bad idea.” • “Just be positive”, or “let’s focus on being positive”, or “positive vibes only” or some other variation of meaningless noise.

WHAT ABOUT FEEDBACK AND CRITICISM? What about feedback and criticism? Both are essential to making progress and developing as a skilled legal professional and human being in general.

And YES there is such a thing as a bad idea. I know because I have both had them and heard them. When someone rationalizes an action by saying “this is how we have always done it” or “this is our policy”, those are not good responses. It is ok and reasonable to expect more than that from the people you work or interact with.

Another one is the stern expectation to always “be professional”. Or in other words, leave your humanity and personality at home (which just so happens to be the very best part of yourself). Why would you not bring your personality, your style, and your authentic self to the table when communicating with others? We are not robots.

Of course you don’t want to streak naked through your office or blurt cuss words during a meeting; we don’t need to be told that. But the constant messaging and expectation to act a specific way devoid of what makes you unique is counterproductive to growth, development, and the formation of meaningful professional relationships.

My wife often asks me if the people I work with know how ridiculous I am when I’m being silly at home. Yes. They do. In fact, I attribute them knowing who I am as an authentic human being, including my big personality, quirks, and eccentricities, as an integral part of my career success and long lasting supportive professional friendships.

There is this very strange culture of toxic positivity that many of us have been exposed to growing up that absolutely cripples our ability to effectively and authentically communicate with others. We focus on being nice, not honest. At least not to someone’s face. How do we fix this? What are the right things to say?

HOW DO WE FIX THIS? WHAT ARE THE RIGHT THINGS TO SAY? Many of the ideas I’m discussing in this article are not my own. They come from a book called Radical Candor written by Kim Scott. Kim worked as a senior executive at Google overseeing YouTube and AdSense, and has worked as a CEO coach at Twitter and Dropbox, among other roles.

At its core, this book promotes thinking of communication along these two axes. The X axis is to challenge directly, with silence being on the other end of the spectrum. The y axis is to care personally. The ideal quadrant from which to communicate is when you care personally AND challenge someone directly. The author calls this Radical Candor. Let me give you an example: I once had to give a presentation to the Department of Justice explaining how our law firm was able to find and prove an involved party was hiding electronic evidence. My managing partner, who I had a very close mentoring relationship with, told me afterwards that I said “um” too often. I shrugged it off and changed the topic. He stopped me, looked me square in the eyes, and said to me:

I CAN TELL THAT DID NOT SINK IN, AND I NEED YOU TO HEAR ME AND TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY AS YOU REPRESENT MY LAW FIRM. WHEN YOU SAY “UM” TOO MUCH, IT MAKES YOU SOUND DUMB AND UNPREPARED. AND I KNOW YOU ARE NOT. WILL YOU ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE YOU TO A SPEAKING COACH TO HELP YOU CORRECT THAT? I was gutted. How humiliating! But ultimately I worked with the speaking coach and no longer say “um” when I present or speak publicly.

That partner’s directness made me a better speaker, and now I’m perfectly at home as a board member or President of a paralegal association, law professor, and global Director of a Fortune 100 company. His direct challenge helped me.

The reason this partner was able to say this, and I was able to take it constructively, was because I knew he cared for me personally. We had established a trusting relationship. Because of that, I corrected the problem and am a better speaker today as a result. But what happens when someone challenges you directly but fails to care personally? The book calls them Obnoxious Aggressors. I call them jerks. Working in the legal field, we all know this type well. Don’t we?

Most people unfortunately fall into the quadrant of what the book labels as Ruinous Empathy. This is when someone cares personally about the other person, but never takes the risk of challenging them directly or telling them how they really feel. This is a common and clear result of that toxic positivity training so many of us have received our entire lives.

As an example, I’ll share a story from around mid-career just before I moved in-house. I was working for a prestigious litigation firm in New York and managed a smaller team of 10 or so paralegals. One paralegal, a woman in her 50s, had challenges with technology. She was always asking others for help with software and scanning documents. She would often complain that she felt she was letting down the team by not being better with technology, and I would comfort her by saying something kind and positive.

The associates on her cases complained to me behind her back and I’d nod in agreement. One day the managing partner told me I had to fire her and explain that her technology skills were not up to par. As I sat there in my office and delivered the news, she erupted into tears. She looked at me angrily and said…”why didn’t you say anything?”, and “I had no idea my job was

in jeopardy.” I had let down a colleague that I genuinely cared about and learned a hard but valuable lesson about the cause and effect of authentic communication. That’s Ruinous Empathy - don’t let it happen to you.

If you have not practiced delivering criticism, feedback, or praise, it can be an awkward experience at first. Sometimes it helps to use an acronym to remember a best practice. Try this one: Radical Candor is HHIPPP (pronounced as “hip”). Feedback should be ... • Humble • Helpful • Immediate • Private (if criticism) • Public (if praise) • Don’t personalize, or don’t make it about the person (e.g. the work product is bad, not the person).

I’m now going to say something controversial. One of the worst pieces of “communication” advice I hear often is called the sandwich method. You know the one: say something nice, followed by the criticism, then say something nice again.

PRO TIP: People know what you are doing. People are smart. We can decode this complicated plot to trick us into doing better - I promise.

If you have to trick someone into receiving feedback by insincerely complimenting them first, they do not trust you. You do not have an authentic relationship that can support direct constructive feedback. Work on developing the relationship first, rather than trying to form an awkward word sandwich. Ironically, I have heard the sandwich method offered up as a best practice at numerous paralegal events as part of communication CLEs, often given by people that have never been in managerial or leadership positions themselves. But following this contrived formulaic advice is centering your own personal comfort over the other person’s progress. It does not help the person you are addressing, and does nothing to build or develop an authentic relationship that includes trust and mutual respect.

Lastly, I’ll state that not everyone is open to or receptive to this communication approach/style. That’s ok. Some people get and stay defensive and never take the mutual risk of responding honestly, candidly, and saying what they really feel, … or maybe they rightfully don’t feel safe doing so based on power dynamics and positionality.

They may be unable to reciprocate for reasons beyond your control. Although it is human nature to want everyone to like you, at the end of the day what would happen if they don’t? Trying to control someone else’s reactions and emotions is always a losing battle that rarely ends well, but you can always control your own... and seek out others that share your goals.

With that I’ll leave you with controversial thought number 2: If someone is unable to speak honestly about their feelings, ideas, viewpoints, and ideologies; or in the alternative, if they are unable to constructively receive yours when you step out on the ledge to be honest/ authentic with them - are they really someone you want to work for you, work with, be on your team, or be in your life? BE AUTHENTIC.

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN.

BE WILLING TO BE HONEST.

PUT WORK INTO THE RELATIONSHIP.

AARON B. BATH, CEDS, RP® , Aaron is the Global Director of Litigation & Legal Operations for Balfour Beatty, a $14 Billion marketcap multinational infrastructure group. Contemporaneous to his day job, Aaron is an adjunct professor of legal technology, eDiscovery, and litigation management at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Aaron served as President of the Dallas Area Paralegal Association (DAPA) in 2021 and previously served on the national Board of Directors for the Association of Certified eDiscovery Specialists (ACEDS) as VP of Education.