Charlie HR: The company that encourages staff to be brutally honest

Being brutally honest to a colleague is akin to a nightmare for most Brits: but that’s exactly what is starting to happen at Charlie HR.

The concept is called ‘radical candour’. It was invented by Kim Scott, a former employee at Google and Apple. She describes it to BuzzFeed: “You have to care personally and challenge directly.”

Being direct and not caring personally is “obnoxious aggression”. Scott explains: “If someone says: ‘I’m going to be honest with you’, they’re often about to be obnoxiously aggressive.”

But this isn’t the problem. The problem is “ruinous empathy”; failing to have the required courage to say what you think. Scott says: “Ruinous empathy is almost always the problem, everywhere. In every country in the world!”