经理人应该避免跟员工说这两个词

企业家内幕网络是美国的一个在线社区，美国创业界最睿智和最有影响力的一些大咖会在这里及时分享与创业和职业有关的问题。今天为大家分享的是GumGum公司总裁兼首席运营官菲尔·施雷德在“当公司陷入困境时如何保持乐观”这一问题下的回答。

如果你的公司正处在快速增长阶段，那么各种困难和挑战随时都有可能出现。对于一家需要创新和承担风险的公司来说，这几乎是不可避免的。

我所在的GumGum公司是一家位于圣莫尼卡的计算机视觉创业公司。我们认为，如果你不偶尔遇到一些挑战的话，那你的公司肯定是出了问题。不过有时候，一次所谓的“失败”（无论是原型设计上的，产品上的，还是企业关系上的），很可能会让你的团队陷入消沉。

这种情形当然不是我们所希望的，所以我们的目标是如何从这些失败中学到教训，然后迅速迈上新的征程。

那么怎样才能最好地达到这个目的呢？我认为要做到以下几点：

庆祝小的胜利

企业的管理层往往只重视比较大的、明显的和全公司范围的成功——比如如果某一年或某一季度的业绩比较抢眼，公司就会召开一次“全体员工大会”，某个来自销售、运营或是公关部门的家伙会做一个总结性的PPT，给大家看一些貌似光鲜的数据。会开完了，大家回到自己的办公桌，心想：“这样看来，我们公司现在还是不错的吧？”

然而你需要做的并非仅此而已。有些事情放在大格局里可能微不足道，但它对于个别的项目和团队可能非常重要，所以你要经常地认可这些成就，这样才能提高团队成员的积极性和主观能动性。如果你能在大家面前认可这些小的成功，这样当一些难以避免的“失败”发生时，大家也就会更容易理解和接受了。

不要总是灌输“狼来了”的危机心态

有些公司总是喜欢把每件事都搞得仿佛火烧眉毛一样，我和我的一些朋友、同事都曾在这样的公司里工作过。公司之所以到处都是问题，每件事都是急事，就是因为它的企业文化是被动应付式的。这种公司喜欢一惊一乍地大叫“狼来了！”然后通过恐惧激发员工的行动。

这种方法在短期可能是有效果的，然而“狼来了”喊得多了，大家也就懈怠了。等到狼真的来了，员工反而会变得不知所措。“狼来了”文化也会营造一种公司在不断挣扎并且离失败不远了的氛围，使团队成员永远处于提心吊胆的状态。

有没有办法能让员工积极地看待消极的事情呢？我认为当然是可以的。作为一名经理人，如果你能营造一种积极合作解决问题的环境，那你的团队就更容易团结起来。

营造一种能够及早发现问题的文化

只要企业里没有那种出了问题就推诿卸责、相互攻讦的文化，那么负责具体项目的员工就会更倾向于及时提出潜在的问题。这样一来，问题就更不容易演变成“狼来了”的危机。

因此，公司的领导团队应该坚持与员工进行开放的对话，在公司的各个层面建立协商式的工作关系。

让大家都认识到公司面临的挑战

要解决一个问题，你首先要理解它。你能从各个团队拉来越多的人帮你理解眼下的问题，你对问题的了解也就会越透彻。

比如说，一家公司要进入新市场总是很难的，尤其是进军国际市场。你必须要对当地市场的属性有很深的了解。

因此，每当我们要进入一个新的国外市场时，我们都会针对这个国家建立一个新的任务团队。团队成员有的有推广经验，有的有运营经验，有的懂当地的文化习俗和禁忌。在解决挑战以及最终成功地扩展全球市场的过程中，每个人对公司都会油然产生一种主人翁精神。

给“问题”二字换个说法

我不建议经理人粉饰问题甚至是危机，但我认为，面临问题时，经理人确有必要保持镇静，尤其重要的是要避免向员工传递不必要的负面信息。

我个人会尽量必免“问题”或者“糟糕”这样的字眼（或是一些色彩化更重的词）。“问题”是一个比较沉重的词，它总是跟很多负担联系在一块。而“挑战”这种词则会让人不禁去想：“我们怎样才能解决它？”

作为公司的管理层，向下级传达的信息永远应该是：“我们是很聪明的，我们能够解决眼前的问题，我们有信心”。这才是我们应该做的——应该重点强调的是“我们”。

我们要直面挑战，而且最终，我们能够团结地获得胜利。（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

The Entrepreneur Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in America’s startup scene contribute answers to timely questions about entrepreneurship and careers. Today’s answer to the question, “How do you stay optimistic when your company is struggling?” is written by Phil Schraeder, president and chief operating officer of GumGum.

When you're part of a company that’s growing rapidly, obstacles and challenges come up all of the time. That’s just a part of life at organizations that innovate and take risks.

The way we see it at GumGum, the Santa Monica-based computer vision startup where I work, if you’re not stumbling at least occasionally, you’re probably not doing it right. But sometimes a “fail”—of a project, a prototype, a product, or a relationship—leaves team members feeling demoralized.

Which, of course, is counterproductive; the goal is to learn from stumbles and move past them.

What's the best way to do that? Here's how I see it:

Don’t forget to celebrate small victories and small wins

It’s easy for management to only call attention to big, obvious, company-wide successes—like a great quarter or a great year. Someone in sales or operations or PR generates some nice slides with impressive stats that get shown off at the occasional “all-hands” meeting, and then everybody goes back to their desks thinking, “So I guess we’re doing okay?”

You want to do more than that—you need to do more than that. Consistently acknowledging accomplishments that may be minor in the grand scheme of things, but are critical to individual projects and groups, helps team members to feel motivated and empowered. And acknowledging these successes in front of everyone helps buffer and contextualize the inevitable “fails.”

Avoid constant “fire drills” and a nonstop crisis mentality

I've been part of organizations in the past, and I have friends and colleagues who are currently part of organizations, where everything is a fire drill. Everything is a problem and everything is urgent because the corporate culture is fundamentally reactionary. It’s about yelling, “Fire!” and attempting to motivate people through fear.

That might work in the short term, but ultimately, it wears everyone down and creates confusion about when something really needs to be escalated. Fire-drill culture also creates an atmosphere of struggle and constant near-failure, which leaves team members feeling like they just can't catch a break.

Is it possible to be positive about negatives? I say yes, absolutely. As a manager, when you create a positive environment and you're a partner in the collaborative process of solving a problem together, your team members are much more likely to rally.

Create a culture where problems can be identified early

When there's no atmosphere of blame or recrimination around problems, the people who are on the front lines of a particular project are more likely to want to bring potential issues to the forefront a lot sooner—hopefully before those issues become actual fire-drill-worthy crises.

That means leadership teams should constantly encourage an open dialogue and a consultative, working relationship across all layers of the company.

Foster company-wide transparency surrounding challenges

To solve a problem, you first need to understand it. The more qualified people you can pull in across teams to help understand the problem at hand, the better.

As an example, it's always tough when we go into new markets—particularly international markets. You have to really understand the nature of that local market.

So now, every time we enter a new international market, we create a task force for that specific territory. People with launch experience, operations experience, and knowledge of local cultural customs and sensitivities, all come together and learn from each other. Everybody gets a sense of ownership in not only tackling the challenge but, ultimately, successfully expanding our global footprint.

Reframe the “problem”

I’m not suggesting that managers sugarcoat problems (or even crises), but I do think that maintaining composure and avoiding needlessly negative messaging is profoundly important.

Personally, I avoid using language like “problem” or “screw-up” (or even more colorful variations thereof). “Problem” is loaded; it’s a term that comes with lots of baggage, whereas “challenge” makes you think, “How are we going to solve for this?”

The implicit message from management on down should always be: We're smart; we can figure this out; we’ve got this. This is what we do—with an emphasis on “we.”

We take on challenges and, in the end, we triumph—together.