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一个CEO的自我修养

一个CEO的自我修养

Ben Horowitz 2012年10月22日
CEO是一项不符合人们天性的工作。CEO不是天生的,全凭后天造就。下面就是打造CEO的秘籍。

高频率反馈

    一旦掌握了这些关键点,就应时时刻刻练习。作为CEO,你应当对几乎每件事都有一个观点。你应当对每项预测、每个产品计划、每次演示,甚至每项评论都有一个观点。让人们知道你的想法。如果你喜欢某个人的评论,就反馈给她。如果你不同意,也反馈给她。说出你的想法。充分表达自己。

    这样做会带来两大积极效应:

    • 在你的公司里,反馈对事不对人。如果CEO不断给出反馈,那么与之互动的每个人都会习惯这一点。没人会想:“天哪,他/她这么说到底是什么意思?他/她是不是不喜欢我?”每个人都会自然而然地关注事情本身,不会把它看成随机的表现评估。

    • 人们会习惯讨论坏消息。如果人们习惯了探讨每个人做错了什么,那么,探讨公司做错了什么就会变得非常容易。优秀的公司文化深谙“好事不出门,坏事传千里”的信息传播规则,而糟糕的公司文化则有绿野仙踪(The Wiz)中东方女巫的影子:“别告诉我坏消息。”

造就CEO

    做CEO还需要有更广泛的技能(对此,我在博客中已经写了很多),但要达到高级水平,获得你天生就是CEO的感觉,关键是要掌握这些有违天性的行为。

    如果你是创始人CEO,你在做这些事的时候感到有些别扭或不能胜任,但深知这不是当公司达到100人或1,000人时能一蹴而就,那么欢迎你加入我们的俱乐部。这正是我曾经的感受。我遇到过的每位CEO都是如此。这是一个过程。CEO就是这么炼成的。

    本文作者本•霍罗维茨是风险资本公司Andreessen Horowitz的联合创始人及合伙人。他曾是Opsware(前身为Loudcloud)的联合创始人兼首席执行官,该公司后来被惠普(HP)收购,他在网景(Netscape)负责过几个产品业务部门。如今,他也在移动支付公司Foursquare、蓝牙耳机制造商Jawbone、创新相机生产商Lytro、Magnet公司、云应用管理服务商Okta、众包网站Rap Genius和商用软件厂商Tidemark等公司的董事会任职。他的博客地址:http://bhorowitz.com/

High frequency feedback

    Once you've mastered the keys, you should practice what you've mastered all the time. As CEO, you should have an opinion on absolutely everything. You should have an opinion on every forecast, every product plan, every presentation and even every comment. Let people know what you think. If you like someone's comment, give her the feedback. If you disagree, give her the feedback. Say what you think. Express yourself.

    This will have two critically important positive effects:

    • Feedback won't be personal in your company. If the CEO constantly gives feedback, then everyone she interacts with will just get used to it. Nobody will think: "Gee, what did she really mean by that comment? Does she not like me?" Everybody will naturally focus on the issues, not an implicit random performance evaluation.

    • People will become comfortable discussing bad news. If people get comfortable talking about what each other are doing wrong, then it will be very easy to talk about what the company is doing wrong. High quality company cultures get their cue from data networking routing protocols: bad news travels fast and good news travels slowly. Low quality company cultures take on the personality of the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wiz: "Don't nobody bring me no bad news."

Making the CEO

    Being CEO requires also a broad set of more advanced skills—I've written about many in this blog—but the key to reaching the advanced level and feeling like you were born to be CEO is mastering the unnatural.

    If you are a founder CEO and you feel awkward or incompetent when doing some of these things and believe there is no way that you'll be able to do it when your company is 100 or 1,000 people, welcome to the club. That's exactly how I felt. So did every CEO that I've ever met. This is the process. This is how you get made.

    Ben Horowitz is co-founder and partner of Andreessen Horowitz. He was a co-founder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), which was acquired by HP, and he ran several product divisions at Netscape. He serves on the board of such companies as Foursquare, Jawbone, Lytro, Magnet, Okta, Rap Genius and Tidemark. He blogs at http://bhorowitz.com/.

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