創業公司對內該不該信息透明?
媒體泄露的風險很容易被使員工產生遭到欺瞞的感覺的風險所壓倒。只要前因后果清楚,業績不佳并不一定對士氣產生太大傷害。簡言之,只要建立起足夠強大的企業內部文化,你就能夠經受風暴。
今年早些時候,移動安全新創企業Good Technology以不到最新私人估值一半的價格賣給了黑莓,《紐約時報》刊登了一篇關于該公司員工的遭遇的詳實報道。尤其有意思的是,Good Technology的首席執行官在全體員工會議期,刻意淡化了她的公司的財務困境,暗示現金流良好,公司有很多誘人的選擇。 那篇報道登出來后,我和幾位企業家和風險資本討論了新創企業如何處理對其員工的透明度的問題。 Good Technology作法的辯護者專利稱,分享太多負面信息會預言的自我實現,致使員工士氣低落甚至辭職,進而給公司造成傷害。此外,在內部保持財務透明為媒體泄露敞開了大門,如果信息是負面的,就可能殃及公司爭取新業務的能力。 不過,我更經常聽到企業家支持內部透明。Gusto首席執行官約書亞·里夫斯說,他的公司定期向員工提供營業收入、現金流等財務數據。Pinterest首席執行官本·希伯爾曼說過同樣的話,他的員工還能定期獲取有助于他們了解手中股票期權價值的信息。 里夫斯和希伯爾曼都說,媒體泄露的風險很容易被使員工產生遭到欺瞞的感覺的風險所壓倒。只要前因后果清楚,業績不佳并不一定對士氣產生太大傷害。簡言之,只要建立起足夠強大的企業內部文化,你就能夠經受風暴。 來聽聽Hubspot創始人和技術總監達米什·沙阿的相關犀利講述:“只有共同創始人和我時,披露顯然不是問題。后來,我們雇用了第一位員工,我們必須決定:‘我們要和這位新人分享些什么?’我們決定分享一切,因為我們想不出什么好的理由不這樣做。我們用不著確定該和別人分享什么,不該和別人分享什么,這是一個很有成效的做法。少做些決定,少些政治,少些復雜的機制,就能做出更好的決策(所有人都擁有同樣的數據)。” 譯者:天文 |
Earlier this year, The New York Times published a detailed piece about what happened to employees of Good Technology, when the mobile security startup was sold to Blackberry BBRY -0.50% for less than half of its most recent private valuation. Of particular interest was how Good Technology CEO reportedly downplayed her company’s financial struggles during all-hands meetings, suggesting that cash-flow was fine and that Good had plenty of attractive options. Since that story came out, I’ve spoken with several entrepreneurs and venture capitalists about the transparency dance between startups and their employees. Defenders of the Good Technology model argue that sharing too much negative information becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy ― causing employees to become dispirited or even resign, thus further hurting the company. Moreover, internal financial transparency can open the door for media leaks that, if negative, could damage the company’s ability to win new business. But, more often, I’ve heard from entrepreneurs who favor internal transparency. Gusto CEO Joshua Reeves, for example, says that his company regularly provides revenue, cash-flow and other financial data to employees. Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann has said the same, with his employees also able to regularly access information that helps them better understand the value of their own stock options. Both Reeves and Silbermann say that the risk of media leaks is easily overwhelmed by the risk of employees feeling bamboozled, and that poor performance needn’t hurt morale too much so long as it is contextualized. In short, if you build a strong enough internal culture, you can weather storms. Here’s a quick related anecdote from Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO of Hubspot HUBS -1.31% : “When it was just my co-founder and I, clearly disclosure wasn’t an issue. Then, when we hired our first employee, we had to make the decision: ‘What do we share with this new person.’ We decided ‘everything’ because couldn’t come up with a good reason not to. Not having to decide what to share with people and what not to is a pretty efficient process. Fewer decisions to make, fewer politics, fewer complex systems, better decisions (everyone has the same data).” |
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