Culture and candour: why direct turns damaging when insight is missing
On a Tuesday at Pixar, the director’s cut of a new film played to a room of filmmakers. When the lights came up, feedback started. It was plain, sometimes blunt, yet never personal. People pointed to observable moments on screen, explained the impact, and proposed alternatives. No one pulled rank. No one sugar-coated. This was the braintrust in action, the forum Ed Catmull designed to make candour safe and useful. Pixar credits this practice with rescuing films and raising the bar project after project. The trick is not “more honesty at any cost”, it is high candour with high insight: specific, situational and humane. (1)
Candour–Insight Matrix
The risk of being direct without insight
Many middle managers pride themselves on being straight shooters. Yet intent is not impact. Without insight into self, others and context, candour can land like criticism, trigger defensiveness and quietly corrode team culture.
I firmly disagree with using the statement, “To be brutally honest.”!
Use the Candour-Insight Matrix to locate your last tough conversation:
Blunt Force: high candour, low insight. Truth bombs, eye-rolls and fear.
Clear Candour: high candour, high insight. Specific, situational, humane, and standards-raising.
Polite Fog: low candour, high insight. Empathetic hints that change nothing.
Hidden Landmines: low candour, low insight. Silence, side-channels and culture-of-surprise.
Why insight matters
Start with self-awareness. Most of us think we have it; few do. Organisational psychologist and executive coach Tasha Eurich’s research (2) shows that although the majority believe they are self-aware, only 10 to 15 percent truly are. That gap degrades decisions, relationships and communication. Then consider psychological safety, the foundation of effective teams. Google’s Project Aristotle identified it as the strongest predictor of team performance. When people believe they will not be embarrassed or punished for speaking up, performance improves.
Context matters across cultures. Both the Netherlands and Australia value relatively direct communication, though the norms differ. In the Netherlands, frankness is generally read as openness and respect for the other person’s time and autonomy, provided it stays focused on the issue rather than the individual. (3) In Australia, people also tend to speak plainly to get to the point, yet may soften criticism to preserve rapport and avoid unnecessary conflict. (4) Neither approach is bette”; they are different defaults. Without audience awareness and shared norms in either context, being direct can still misfire, so calibrating candour to culture is the leadership move.
If candour is the burger, the ingredients keep it balanced:
Moves that Shift you to Clear Candour
Two-minute prep with the Ladder of Inference. Before you speak, write: Facts → Meanings → Assumptions → Conclusion. Cross out anything you cannot evidence. This trims mind-reading and tightens your message. (5)
Use SBI-D in the room. Situation, Behaviour, Impact, Decision.
“In yesterday’s handover (S), the client brief was missing the risk summary (B), which meant sales flagged late and the pitch changed at the last minute (I). Let us agree who owns the risk summary and when it is due going forward (D).”Name the learning zone. “I might be missing context. What is your view?” This keeps standards high while signalling safety.
Agree the experiment. One specific change, an owner and a check-back date.
Debrief the culture effect. Ask colleagues what felt clear or clumsy. You are tuning your burger build together.
If you do the opposite
Blunt Force buys short-term compliance at the cost of long-term silence. People stop surfacing risks. Errors go underground. Innovation stalls.
Polite Fog can lead to multiple [unnecessary and unproductive] meetings, rework and frustration. A-players disengage while underperformance linger.
Bringing it back to the Pixar room
The braintrust is not radical bluntness. It is Clear Candour by design: candour aimed at the work, delivered with insight, inside a psychologically safe container. That is why people can be specific without being cynical, and honest without humiliating.
Your next conversation
Pick one upcoming conversation and prepare the burger:
Link to a value.
Check your self-awareness
State facts, impact and next step.
Make a decision together and schedule a check-back.
Ask what made your candour feel clear. Bottle that.
Clear candour lifts standards and lifts people. It is the secret sauce of cultures where work gets better because conversations get braver, not louder.
