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The best bosses don't just load more and more work on; they subtract things.
最好的老板不止会加活儿，他们也会减负。（上）
Companies are used to celebrating addition. Profits, customers and share prices should go up rather than fall. Innovation is the adding of new products.
公司总是赞颂加法。利润、客户和股价应该上升，而非下降。创新就是源源不断地推出新产品。
Larger numbers are a measure of career success: managers climb the corporate ladder by taking on more reports, running heftier budgets and trousering bigger salaries.
数字增加是衡量职业是否成功的一个标准：经理们要在职场上想步步高升，就得做更多的报告、管理预算更高的项目、赚得更多的票子。
Genuine superstars don't just add. They multiply. The best software programmers are tagged as "10x developers", for supposedly being ten times more productive than their peers.
真正的牛人不只会做加法，他们还会做乘法。最优秀的软件程序员会被贴上"10倍开发者"的标签，据说他们的工作效率是一般程序员的10倍。
Firms are not always opposed to subtraction. There are good kinds of cuts: carbon emissions, most obviously. Reducing costs is a necessary part of management, though not a welcome one. But the value of doing less is underestimated.
公司也并不总是反对减法。有一些减法是可取的：最明显的就是碳排放。尽管不得人心，但降低成本是管理中必不可少的部分。不过，做减法的价值还是被低估了。
The best bosses are those who take things away as well as add them on. That means clearing time for employees to get work done. Meetings are almost always called by bosses. Some are useful; many of them have all the pizzazz and impact of a speed-awareness course.
最好的老板是那些既能做加法也能做减法的人。这意味着为员工腾出时间来完成工作。会议几乎总是由老板召集，有些会议是有用的，但许多会议的活跃程度和影响力与超速警示课程差不多。
Shopify, an e-commerce firm, began the year by deleting 12,000 recurring meetings from corporate calendars, and asking everyone to think carefully before reinstating them. The company reports a rise in productivity as a result of the cull.
今年年初，电商公司Shopify从公司日程表中删除了1.2万个定期会议，并要求所有人在恢复这些会议之前仔细考虑清楚。据公司报告，削减会议之后，员工的工作效率有所提高。
The only thing worse than having too many meetings is not being invited to them at all. So whenever meetings do take place, surprisingly large numbers of people can turn up.
唯一比参加太多会议更糟糕的是压根儿没有受邀。因此，无论何时开会，到场的人总会出人意料地多。
Minus-minded managers will give employees permission not to attend if they are not needed. By the same token, good bosses will send messages when necessary, not every time a bright idea pops into their head.
懂得做减法的管理者会允许员工不出席非必要会议。同理，好老板只会在必要时才向员工传达信息，而不是每次灵光乍现就赶紧召集大家开会。
They will reduce the tempo of work, by leaving employees time to concentrate. They will be clear if something is urgent or not.
这样的老板能够给员工时间集中精力，从而放缓工作节奏。他们应当明白事情的轻重缓急。
A recent study by Laura Giurge of London Business School and Vanessa Bohns of Cornell University found that receivers of an email routinely overestimate how quickly its sender expects a reply.
伦敦商学院的劳拉·吉奇和康奈尔大学的瓦妮莎·博恩斯最近的一项研究发现，每当收到电子邮件，人们总会高估发件人希望他们回复的速度。
Subtraction is not just about removing day-to-day distractions. It's also about taking decisions to kill off projects and products that are going nowhere, and to focus efforts on the most important bits of the business.
做减法不仅仅是消除日常生活中的干扰，同时也意味着决定放弃那些毫无进展的项目和产品，将精力集中在最重要的业务上。
