如何提升业务？不妨从童话书里找答案

令人惊奇的是，我们可以从儿童书或经典童话故事里学习领导力。例如，玛格丽特·怀丝·布朗的经典绘本《晚安，月亮》里，一只小兔子向卧室里的每一件小东西说晚安，甚至会对着“不在这里的人”真诚地说晚安。故事非常简单，许多人把它作为孩子睡觉前的必读故事，但我认为它传达出一条明确的信息——承认小事物的重要性，即使它们看起来很不起眼或者毫无价值。这条信息也完美体现了我今年学到的领导力经验：只要你能发现和了解受你影响的所有人的需求，你便可以为组织做出最明智的决定。

因此，在我的公司Room to Read，我们会根据计划的结果对其进行评估，以确定哪些需求是重中之重，以及我们可以在哪些方面产生最大的影响力。我们会通过调查研究来确认这些小事情，例如，我们会弄清楚对于我们出版的图书，孩子们到底喜欢它们的哪些方面，或者有哪些具体的风险表明一个女孩可能无法完成学业。我们发现，孩子们喜欢上我们的本地语言图书，是因为彩色的插图，以及这些图书的字体、字号和每页的字数都易于阅读。

通过调研和与孩子们的交流，我们最终确定了需要在哪些方面投入时间和资源。更多适合儿童的图书，将吸引越来越多的孩子从图书馆里借书，最终养成终生受益的阅读习惯。此外，凭借我们的早期预警系统，我们掌握了如何发现最有可能无法完成学业的女孩，这让我们可以为有需要的女孩提供针对性的额外支持。我认为，只要有的放矢地了解消费者或自己的客户，积极响应客户的反馈，任何人都可以创造更多发展业务的机会。

作为一家全球性非营利组织的领导人，过去一年充满了挑战，但也让我收获颇丰。尼泊尔地震之后，我们的工作重点是帮助尼泊尔和其他亚非国家重建教育基础设施，并且实现了影响1000万儿童的目标。如果没有拿出时间确认那些能够推动我们事业发展的小事情，我们可能很难应对各种挑战，更遑论取得这一里程碑式的成就。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

审校：任文科

It’s amazing what one can learn about leadership from a children’s book or classic fairytale. Take, for example, Margaret Wise Brown’s classic Goodnight Moon in which a rabbit says goodnight to every little thing in his bedroom, and even says a sincere goodnight to “Nobody.” The story is simple and often thought of as a bedtime ritual, but I think it sends a clear message about the importance of recognizing the little things, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. It also perfectly highlights what I’ve learned about leadership this year: You can make the most informed decisions for your organization when you recognize and understand the needs of those you are affecting.

For this reason, at Room to Read we assess our programs by their outcomes in order to determine what needs are high priority and where we can provide the most impact. We recognize the little things by dedicating research to figuring out, for instance, what exactly children like about the books we publish, or what specific risks indicate a girl may not complete her education. We learned that children enjoyed our local language books on account of their colorful illustrations, and the fact that their fonts, letter sizes, and number of words per page make them easier to read.

All of our research efforts and conversations with children ultimately clarified where we should invest our time and resources. With more kid-friendly books on the shelves, more children will check out books from their libraries and develop a lifelong habit of reading. We also now understand how to identify girls who are most at risk of not completing their education thanks to our early-warning system that enables us to provide additional targeted support to girls in need. I think anyone who takes a targeted approach to understanding their consumer or client base, and responding to feedback, will create many more opportunities for the growth of their business.

It has been a challenging, but rewarding year to be a leader of a global nonprofit organization — following the earthquakes in Nepal, we are focused on rebuilding the educational infrastructure in that country and across Asia and Africa, and have reached our goal of impacting 10 million children.We would not have worked through these challenges or reached this milestone had we not taken the time to acknowledge the little things that drive our business forward.