創(chuàng)業(yè)的頭等大事是什么？
Christy Johnson
2018-09-03
女人會(huì)永遠(yuǎn)袖手旁觀嗎? Photograph by Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images?
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我的團(tuán)隊(duì)每一天都會(huì)遇到錯(cuò)失潛在員工的公司。人才是，并且能夠成為一家公司的戰(zhàn)略性資產(chǎn)，然而在任何一家快速發(fā)展的初創(chuàng)公司，招聘、留任、培養(yǎng)和放棄人才都并非易事。組建和維護(hù)一支頂級(jí)團(tuán)隊(duì)，比任何人跟我說過的都要困難。我多么希望當(dāng)初能夠拿出與開發(fā)產(chǎn)品和市場(chǎng)定位同樣多的時(shí)間，有策略地解決公司的人事問題。 作為創(chuàng)業(yè)者，你要處理各種任務(wù)。安排好優(yōu)先順序是關(guān)鍵，而你的首要目標(biāo)應(yīng)該是為團(tuán)隊(duì)招聘最優(yōu)秀的成員。創(chuàng)業(yè)之初，要找到優(yōu)秀人才并不容易。多數(shù)有才華的潛在員工可能正忙于工作，或者并不擅長自我推銷。我從以往的慘痛教訓(xùn)中得知，擅長自我推銷的人往往不見得多么優(yōu)秀。一家擁有明確且大膽的愿景的公司，不僅可以吸引客戶，也可以吸引人才。 創(chuàng)業(yè)者的第二個(gè)目標(biāo)應(yīng)該是團(tuán)隊(duì)維護(hù)。爭(zhēng)論對(duì)團(tuán)隊(duì)維護(hù)至關(guān)重要，但我們需要的是富有成效的爭(zhēng)論。我們需要爭(zhēng)論，因?yàn)樗梢源龠M(jìn)更深程度的信息處理，鼓勵(lì)學(xué)習(xí)，激發(fā)創(chuàng)造力，并且可避免群體思維。高績(jī)效團(tuán)隊(duì)可以培養(yǎng)建設(shè)性的爭(zhēng)論，減少破壞性的爭(zhēng)論。當(dāng)你忙于應(yīng)對(duì)客戶并且有一支遠(yuǎn)程團(tuán)隊(duì)的時(shí)候，很難保持定期的一對(duì)一交談和接待訪問。我會(huì)預(yù)先做好這類安排，并保證一旦確定絕不更改——就像客戶和業(yè)務(wù)開發(fā)會(huì)議一樣。在缺少反饋的情況下，我們往往會(huì)設(shè)想最糟糕的情況。我不想成為公司的瓶頸，所以定期拿出時(shí)間保持團(tuán)隊(duì)的良好運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)，會(huì)大有幫助。 創(chuàng)業(yè)者需要牢記有的人并非合適人選，這一點(diǎn)非常重要。我曾在大公司領(lǐng)導(dǎo)過團(tuán)隊(duì)，但在我的初創(chuàng)公司，我遇到過更多的類似情況。一名經(jīng)驗(yàn)豐富的創(chuàng)業(yè)者曾經(jīng)解釋說，在創(chuàng)業(yè)初期，高人員流動(dòng)率非常普遍，因?yàn)槌鮿?chuàng)公司經(jīng)常要做出迅速的變化，而有些人并不能接受這種變化速度。通過一些微不足道的事情，你可以觀察到求職者在你的公司里會(huì)如何工作，比如在面試過程中明確表明公司變化的程度，或者給求職者留一份家庭作業(yè)等。我和我的團(tuán)隊(duì)正在編制一份關(guān)于“你是不是合適人選”的文件，使求職者可以提前進(jìn)行自我評(píng)估。 在人事決策方面，我的行動(dòng)一直太過遲緩。例如，曾經(jīng)有一位非常出色的職位候選人，我很想將她招入麾下，但她的薪酬很高，而且當(dāng)時(shí)還有一份不錯(cuò)的工作，結(jié)果我花了五個(gè)月時(shí)間才聘用了她。但她加入公司之后，我的生活馬上變得異常輕松，因?yàn)槲铱梢詫⒁恍┖茈y搞定的事務(wù)交給她來處理，而她卻能應(yīng)付自如。另一方面，需要解雇給團(tuán)隊(duì)造成破壞性影響的員工時(shí)，我也浪費(fèi)了太多時(shí)間。我還在為這個(gè)問題而猶豫不決時(shí)，公司在客戶身上犯了更多錯(cuò)誤，核心團(tuán)隊(duì)成員也遭到誹謗。六個(gè)月過去了，我依舊在解決這些問題。但每次我直接詢問新員工的表現(xiàn)，或者直接告訴某位求職者他并不適合這份工作時(shí)，公司和其他團(tuán)隊(duì)成員都能成功邁上新的臺(tái)階。 公司的文化會(huì)自然而然地形成，不論你是否關(guān)注它。對(duì)于公司文化和你看中的員工來說，設(shè)立一個(gè)遠(yuǎn)大且大膽的愿景，與產(chǎn)品同樣重要。你在最初構(gòu)建的流程越多越好。我們很快制定出了進(jìn)行人才篩選、面試、新員工培訓(xùn)和人才培養(yǎng)的清單，每當(dāng)犯錯(cuò)的時(shí)候，我們都會(huì)重新審視這些清單。 創(chuàng)業(yè)是一場(chǎng)馬拉松，而不是百米沖刺。只要我們將衡量指標(biāo)落實(shí)到位，并定期表明意向，便可以駕馭員工的感受。最后，我希望為人們打造一個(gè)網(wǎng)站，用來跟蹤可持續(xù)性等指標(biāo)——如同我為客戶所做的那樣。但一位高管曾告訴我，花時(shí)間與人進(jìn)行誠實(shí)的溝通，是數(shù)據(jù)永遠(yuǎn)無法取代的。要?jiǎng)?chuàng)造進(jìn)行對(duì)話的恰當(dāng)環(huán)境很難，但只要堅(jiān)持這樣做，便可以為你奠定基礎(chǔ)，對(duì)這個(gè)世界產(chǎn)生更廣泛的影響。有許多人想要幫助你的公司實(shí)現(xiàn)這一目標(biāo)。不妨尋求他們的幫助。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)） 本文作者克里斯蒂·約翰遜為Artemis Connection公司創(chuàng)始人。她有7年擔(dān)任高管的經(jīng)驗(yàn)，曾在麥肯錫公司擔(dān)任過近4年高管。克里斯蒂擁有斯坦福大學(xué)商學(xué)院MBA學(xué)位。 譯者：劉進(jìn)龍/汪皓 審校：任文科 ? |
Every day, my team comes across companies that miss opportunities with potential employees. Talent is and can be a strategic asset, but when you’re a fast-growing startup, it can be really hard to recruit, onboard, develop, and let go of people. Building and maintaining a world-class team is much harder than anyone told me, and I wish I knew to spend as much time getting tactical with the people side of things as I did with developing my offerings and positioning. As an entrepreneur, you’re always juggling multiple tasks. Prioritizing is key, and your first goal should be to hire world-class team members. In the early days, it takes a lot of work to find them. The most talented potential employees may be too busy working or not great at self-promotion. I’ve learned the hard way that those who are good at self-promotion are often inversely correlated with being talented hires. Having a clear and bold vision makes it easier to attract talent, just like it does customers. Your second goal should be to retain your team. Conflict is critical, but it needs to be productive. We need conflict, as it can promote deeper information processing, learning, and creativity, as well as prevent groupthink. High-performing teams cultivate constructive conflicts and mitigate destructive ones. When you’re busy with customers and you have a remote team, regular one-on-ones and check-ins can be hard to maintain. I schedule these and hold them sacred—just like customer and business development meetings. In the absence of feedback, we tend to assume the worst. I don’t want to be the bottleneck, so keeping my team moving with some regular time and strategizing goes a long way. It’s important to keep in mind that some people aren’t the right fit. This has actually happened more at my startup than when I’ve had teams at large corporations. A seasoned entrepreneur once explained that high turnover is quite common in the early days, as there are so many rapid changes, and many aren’t comfortable with the amount of ambiguity or the pace of change. Subtle things like being explicit about the amount of change or giving people homework as part of the interview will let you observe how candidates would work in your company. My team and I are working on a are-you-a-good-fit document so people can self-assess in advance. Many times I’ve been too slow to move on the people side of things. For example, there was an amazing candidate I wanted to bring on board, but she was expensive and leaving a good job, so it took me five months to hire her. But once she joined, my life became so much easier, as I could give her something I was juggling and she would own it. Other times, I’ve taken too long to ask someone destructive to leave. While I debated how to handle it, more customer mistakes were made and a few damaging comments said to core team members. I’m still fixing these problems six months after the fact. But every time I’ve directly asked a new hire how he or she was doing, or even directly stated to certain candidates that the job wasn’t the right fit, the company and remaining team has successfully moved to the next level. Culture happens whether you focus on it or not. Having a big and bold vision for the culture and employees you want is as important as the product. And the more process you can build from the beginning, the better. We quickly moved to checklists for screening, interviewing, on-boarding, and developing, and we revisit them every time we make a mistake. Building a company is a marathon, not a sprint. We’ve put metrics in place and send out regular pulses so we can stay on top of how our talent is feeling. Ultimately, I’d love to have a website for people— just like I do for customers—to track things like sustainability. However, as one executive said to me, the data will never substitute spending time with people and having honest conversations. Creating the right environment for doing so is hard, but it will give you the foundation to have a broader impact on the world. And there are a lot of people who want to help your company do it. So let them. Christy Johnson is the founder of Artemis connection. She has seven years of experience working with C-level executives, including almost four years at McKinsey & Company. Christy holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. |
