怎样在工作中应用“三振出局”的规则

《财富》500强内部网络是一个在线社区，在这里，《财富》500强企业的顶级高官会与全球的读者分享想法，提供关于领导力的建议。今天的问题是：怎样知道在何时放弃一个失败的项目？回答者是Conduent HR Services的人力资源咨询主管迪恩·阿洛伊斯。

由于其负面的含义，“失败”这个词得到了不公的评价。它指的是某事没有按照计划的方式进行。不过许多人都忘了，失败是成功之母。每次失败的尝试都会让人得到新的教训，并应用到之后的实践中。所以我鼓励每个人都去失败几次——要失败的话，就尽早失败，经常失败。

当你处理复杂任务时，可能很难知道什么时候应该继续。以下是一些建议，帮助你判断何时应当放弃失败的项目：

三振出局

如果你在做一个项目，但是它的进展与预计不同，我建议你在三次失败之后就放弃它。每次尝试失败后，你都要总结经验教训，应用到下一次尝试中——并确保自己使用了新颖和创新的方法。在大型机构中，这一点可能很难做到，因为新奇和冒险的计划容易受到官僚作风的阻碍。不过，这些复杂的机构之所以能够获得全公司的成功，正是由于它们的领导者强大勇敢、愿意发声，甘冒个人危险，也从不害怕失败。

我把这种观念应用到了自己的整个职业生涯。放弃一些自己重视的事情可能会感觉很不自在，但是从大局着眼能帮我意识到，整个公司的成功比一个小项目的失败更加重要。

不断重新评估

在专业服务或咨询领域，拥有合适的高层人才是公司成功的必备条件，也是发展公司并不断招募其他顶尖人才的关键。然而，这件事情本身也具有风险，因为能改变局势的高级人才往往需要很高的薪酬。你一定不希望所托非人，因为他们的薪水和其他相关费用让你无法摆脱，却不会给你带来回报。

为了避免这样的情况，要给新员工设立明确的期望。如果前六个月的局势脱离了预期，要主动介入，表明彼此可能不够合适。确保你有合适的绩效管理流程。如果事情没有迅速进入正轨，就解约并寻找新的人选。在这方面失败很正常，只要你早早发现错误，并迅速尝试新的候选人。

我还把这种理念应用到了创新产品的开发中。能够流行起来并取得长期成功的想法或概念只是很小的一部分。所以，当我们试图在业内的新兴领域寻找新的收入来源时，应当在我们的客户或整体市场透露出感兴趣的内容之初就予以关注。如果我们在四处奔走宣传新产品的六个月内，都没有收获稳定的买家，就该把它封存，试试其他想法了。

我可以回想起10种过去几年中我的团队构思、打造并向潜在顾客展现的新产品。其中有两种推销得很成功，为我们赢得了新的客户，建立了收入来源。在我看来，20%的成功率相当不错。如果我们不愿意去承担其他八次尝试的失败，也就绝对没有机会找到那两次成功的方案。（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

The Fortune 500 Insiders Network is an online community where top executives from the Fortune 500 share ideas and offer leadership advice with Fortune’s global audience. Today’s answer to the question, “How do you know when to give up on a failing project?” is written by Dean Aloise, global HR consulting leader at Conduent HR Services.

The word “fail” has earned a bad rap because of its negative connotation; it implies that something didn’t work out the way it was planned. But what many people forget is that success is often achieved through failure. With every failed attempt, a new lesson can be learned and applied. So I encourage everyone to fail sometimes—and when you do, do it early and do it often.

When you’re dealing with a complex task, it can be difficult to know when to move on. Here is some advice on how to know when it’s time to jump ship on a failing project:

Three strikes and you’re out

If you’re working on a project and it’s not turning out as expected, I suggest failing three times before giving up on it. For every missed attempt, apply your lessons learned to the next try—and make sure you are using new and innovative techniques. This can be a hard practice to follow in a large organization, since attempts to try new and risky ideas tend to get clogged up in bureaucracy. It's precisely these complex organizations that achieve company-wide success through strong, gutsy leaders that make noise, put themselves at personal risk, and are not afraid to fail.

I’ve applied this thinking throughout my entire career. It can feel unnatural to give up on something I care about, but looking at the bigger picture helps me realize that my company’s success is more important than a pet project that isn’t working out.

Reevaluate constantly

In a professional services or consulting environment, having the right senior-level talent is necessary to run a successful business—and the key to growing that business is to keep hiring additional top talent. However, this can be a risky venture in itself, since senior level game-changers usually come with very high price tags. If you hire the wrong person, you don’t want to be stuck with the cost of their salary and other related expenses, which will never pay off.

To avoid such a situation, set clear expectations up front with the new hire, and if things are going off the rails in the first six months, proactively intervene and explain that this might not be a good fit. Make sure you go through proper performance management processes. If things don’t shape up quickly, cut ties and move on. This is an area in which it’s okay to fail, as long as you own up to it early and try again with a new candidate soon afterward.

I’ve also applied this thinking to innovative product offerings. Only a small percentage of new ideas or concepts are going to catch on and be successful in the long run. So when we’ve tried to capture new revenue streams in emerging areas in our industry, we pay attention to early signs of interest from our clients and the market in general. If we don’t see a pipeline of buyers within the first six months of pounding the pavement to get the word out about the new offering, we put it on the shelf and pivot to something different.

I can think of 10 new offerings my team dreamed up, built, and showed to potential buyers in the last few years. Two of those offerings are selling successfully, winning us new clients and building revenue streams. Twenty percent is a decent success rate in my book; if we weren’t willing to fail on the other eight attempts, we never would have found two solutions that worked.