评论
打印
Business
商业版块
Bartleby
巴托比专栏
Prompts for bosses
给老板的提示词
Four questions for every manager to ask themselves.
每个管理者都应问自己的四个问题。
The one thing that managers reliably lack is time.
管理者们肯定缺少的一样东西就是时间。
They will often be doing their existing jobs as well as supervising others.
他们通常除了要对其他人进行监督，还要做好自己现有的工作。
They have bureaucracies to navigate—expenses to authorise, hiring requests to make—and mini-crises to solve.
他们需要应对官僚主义——费用需要审批，招聘请求需要提出——以及各种小危机需要解决。
It is all too easy for the weeks to whizz past; suddenly it is September and the northern-hemisphere nights are drawing in again.
一周又一周很容易就飞快地过去，转眼间就到了九月，北半球的夜晚又开始变长了。
But it is possible for even harried managers to ask themselves questions that force useful moments of reflection.
但即使是忙碌的管理者们也可以抽空问自己一些问题，这些问题会迫使他们进行有益的反思。
For example: “Would I hire this person again?”
例如：“（如果回到当初）我会再雇用这个人吗？”
There is a whole category of questions that executives should ask themselves which are basically about regret.
有一整个类别的问题，高管们都应该问问自己，这些问题基本上都是关于遗憾的。
Peter Drucker, a management guru, urged bosses to reallocate scarce resources to more useful pursuits by asking of various activities: “If we did not do this already, would we go into it now knowing what we now know?”
管理学大师彼得·德鲁克敦促老板们通过对各种活动提问来将稀缺资源重新分配给更有用的追求：“如果我们还没有这样做，那么在知道了我们现在所知道的情况后，我们还会这样做吗？”
To avoid meeting overload, it helps to routinely query whether get-togethers are really needed; some firms do a meeting detox by wiping calendars clean and forcing people to repopulate them.
为避免会议过多，定期询问开会是否真的有必要是有帮助的；一些公司通过清空日历并强制人们重新安排会议来进行会议排毒。
The version of the regret question that is useful to every manager is whether they would choose to hire each member of their team into the same position.
对每个管理者都有用的一种遗憾问题是，他们是否会选择雇佣团队中的每个成员并安排到与现在相同的职位。
If the answer is a genuine “yes”, pat yourself on the back and reflect on why these people are successful.
如果答案是真诚的“是的”，那么你可以赞赏地拍拍自己的背，思考一下为什么这样安排这些人是成功的。
If the answer is “no”, you don’t have to get the axe out and start swinging.
如果答案是“不会”，你也不用拿起裁员的斧头。
But you almost certainly owe them some awkward feedback, and should ask yourself why you hired them and whether there is a way to get more out of them.
但是你几乎肯定欠他们一些令人尴尬的反馈，并且应该问问自己为什么当初雇佣他们，以及是否有办法挖掘他们的更多潜力。
“How often am I hearing dissent?”
“我多久听到一次异议？”
This handy question comes from Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School best known for her work on psychological safety.
这个容易操作的问题来自艾米·埃德蒙森，她是哈佛商学院的教授，以在心理安全感方面的研究而闻名。
Most managers can recite the arguments for creating an environment in which team members feel comfortable disagreeing; some may even believe them.
要创造一个让团队成员能畅所欲言地提出不同意见的环境，对此大多数管理者都能背诵出支持这样做的论据；有些人甚至可能也相信这些论据。
If you do subscribe to this idea, Dr Edmondson’s question offers a useful way of working out whether the reality matches the ambition.
如果你确实认同这个想法，那么埃德蒙森博士的问题是确定现实是否符合你所希望创造的环境的有用办法。
If you say you want robust debate and cannot remember recent instances of people below you in the hierarchy saying why they think you are wrong, then it is possible you are actually a fan of psychological danger.
如果你说你想要激烈的辩论，却想不起来最近有下属说过为什么他们认为你错了，那么你可能实际上是一个喜欢心理危险（而非心理安全感）的人。
(Do not include the office contrarian in your answer: they are incapable of agreeing with people and do not count for the purposes of this exercise.)
（在回答中不要包括办公室里爱唱反调的人：他们无法与人达成一致，因此不包括在这个提问练习中。）
“What should we automate?”
“我们应该自动化什么？”
There is an obvious reason to ask this question now, when artificial intelligence offers new ways to rethink white-collar work.
现在人工智能提供了重新思考白领工作的新方法，提出这个问题就有了明显的理由。
But it is one that managers should be putting to their teams routinely.
但这是管理者应该定期向他们的团队提出的一个问题。
The amount of time that people spend on needlessly repetitive activities, from filling out holiday-request forms to juggling calendar invites, saps productivity and morale.
从填写请假申请到同时处理多个日程邀请，人们花费在不必要的重复活动上的时间会削弱效率和士气。
Spotting these sources of boredom and frustration can lead to more engaged staff and greater efficiency.
发现这些导致厌倦和沮丧情绪的来源，可以使员工更投入工作，并提高效率。
When different teams automate processes unilaterally and tech platforms proliferate within an organisation, overall workloads can rise rather than fall.
当不同的团队单方面自动化流程，并且技术平台在组织内激增时，总体工作量可能会增加而不是减少。
It is hard to argue that more toggling is a big step forward for mankind.
很难说更多的平台切换是人类向前迈出的一大步。
So if automation is needed, it should generally be done under the auspices of a central team.
因此如果需要自动化，通常应该在中央团队的支持下进行。
And even if you don’t end up handing things over to machines, you are likely to spot opportunities to improve the way things work.
即使你最终没有把事情交给机器，你也可能会发现改进工作方式的机会。
“How many people are leaving my team?”
“有多少人要离开我的团队？”
“Everyone, as soon as they can” is not the right answer to this question.
“所有人，只要他们有机会”并不是这个问题的正确答案。
But “none” is not necessarily a good one either.
但是“一个也没有”也不一定是一个好答案。
That’s because one of the more malign diseases afflicting organisations is managers who hoard talent for themselves.
这是因为困扰组织的更为恶性的痼疾之一是经理们为自己囤积人才。
Such behaviour is not just harmful to employees, whose opportunities for advancement are curtailed, and to firms, who may lose good people as a result.
这种行为不仅对员工有害，因为他们的晋升机会被削减了，而且对公司也有害，因为公司可能因此失去优秀的人才。
It also harms managers themselves.
这种行为也会伤害管理者自己。
A recent study by J. R. Keller of Cornell University and Kathryn Dlugos of Pennsylvania State University looked at almost 100,000 internal applications over a five-year period at a large American health-care organisation.
康奈尔大学的J. R. 凯勒和宾夕法尼亚州立大学的凯瑟琳·德卢戈斯最近的一项研究调查了一家美国大型医疗保健组织在五年内的近10万份内部申请。
They found that bosses whose subordinates were more likely to be promoted attracted more and higher-quality applicants for open positions on their teams.
他们发现，那些下属更有可能获得晋升的老板，会吸引更多、质量更高的求职者申请其团队的空缺职位。
This is not an exhaustive list; another obvious candidate is whether your team has clear goals.
本文并非详尽无遗的问题清单；另一个显而易见的可选问题是你的团队是否有明确的目标。
Some issues may not be in the gift of individual bosses to solve.
有些问题可能不是个别老板有权解决的。
But as a way for time-pressed managers to pause and take stock, questions like these are not a big ask.
但对于时间紧的管理者来说，作为一种停下来进行总结反思的方式，问一问自己类似这样的问题并不是太过分的要求。
