团队升级实用指南

    在团队内部和团队之间创造共同的时间节奏

    随着组织不断壮大，这是一种无需诉诸于过分密切的监督和一系列冗长的规则就能够协调行动的有效方式。当一家组织的每个人都在相同时间执行相同的规律性活动，同时还拥有类似的目标和共同的截止期限时，大家就会明白需要做什么工作，如何跟其他人配合，什么时候应该加一把劲，这样就会显著减少行政“淤泥”存在的必要性。几个星期前，我参观了一家名为BuildDirect的加拿大创业公司。它专门为房主和承包商提供重型建材，拥有大约200名员工。每支BuildDirect团队（包括最高层团队）每天都会举行一个简短的站立式晨会（或者叫“私下碰头会”），旨在让团队成员专注于关键目标，确定并解决障碍。此外，全公司员工每隔60天会暂停手头工作，一起评估未来60天内5个最重要的目标——所谓的“五大岩石流程”。员工们在这个流程中要增添新目标，清除旧目标；目标的数量从来不会超过5个。CEO杰夫•布思报告说，每天的碰头会和60天节律可以帮助员工集中精力做好工作，同时了解如何跟BuildDirect公司的其他同事配合，而且通常不需要征询老板的意见。

    掌握奋勇抗争的方式和时机

    在最好的团队中，成员们“在他们似乎正确的时候，奋勇抗争；在他们似乎错的时候，悉心聆听。”皮克斯动画工作室(Pixar)的布拉德•伯德有一点很出名，他经常鼓励团队成员公开表达跟他和其他人的不同意见。这位曾经凭借电影《超人特攻队》( The Incredibles )和《料理鼠王》(Ratatouille)荣膺奥斯卡奖的著名导演希望每个人都能够毫无顾虑地“相互羞辱，互相鼓励”。英特尔公司(Intel)教导每位全职员工，“建设性对抗”的要点在于知道什么时候应该停止争斗，做出决定，同时着手开始实施——哪怕你并不认同这项决策。他们学习、践行“不同意，然后全身心投入”这个准则。

    增加更多的女性

    卡耐基梅隆大学(Carnegie Mellon)的安妮塔•威廉姆斯伍利和她的同事研究了669位身处2到5人小组的职场人士。他们发现，在从事一些被研究人员视为“集体智慧”指标的艰巨任务（比如“视觉谜题，谈判，头脑风暴，游戏，以及基于复杂规则的设计任务”）时，女性成员比例较高的小组往往表现得更好。出现这种结果的原因是，拥有更多女性的小组通常具备更高的社交敏感度，从而能够更好地协作，把团队成员的才能更有效地编织在一起。团队成员往往会更加仔细地聆听，更愿意让其他人轮流发言，合作氛围不会因一两个专横的成员而陷入沉寂——从而将增强团队执行复杂和困难任务的能力。具有社交敏感性的男性成员也可以提升团队的集体智慧。但如果你在组建一个小组或增添新成员之前无法测试这种特征，那么请记住，就平均而言，女性是一个更好的选择。

    总之，扩充一个组织常常被描述为“做加法”；毕竟，面临的挑战是增添更多的员工，网罗更多的客户，开办更多的店面，传播新的变革项目和技术，或者以其他方式拓展组织的足迹。但扩充也是“做减法”。最好的领导者和团队总是在不停地思考，什么是我们不需要的？哪些是现在应该停手的事情？当一支团队人员冗余，者繁文缛节层出不穷的时候；应该停止追求不太重要的旧目标，转而专注于更紧迫的新成就的时候；当团队成员应该停止争论，作出决策的时候；当团队中的男性成员人数太多，不利于团队自身利益的时候，就是需要做减法的时候。(财富中文网)

    本文作者罗伯特•萨顿是斯坦福大学教授，与哈吉•拉奥合作著有《从卓越迈向卓越：企业如何以小博大》一书，本文的主要观点正是源于这部由皇冠出版社2014年发行的著作。

    译者：叶寒

    Create shared time rhythms within and across teams

    This is an effective approach for coordinating action without resorting to overly close supervision or long lists of rules as an organization expands. When everyone in an organization practices the same rituals at the same times and has similar goals and shared deadlines, they understand what to work on, how their work fits with others, and when to put forth extra effort -- so there is less need for administrative "muck." A few weeks back, I visited a Canadian startup called BuildDirect, which has about 200 employees and specializes in delivering heavy building materials to homeowners and contractors. Each BuildDirect team (including the top team) has a brief stand-up meeting (or "huddle") every morning to keep people focused on key goals and to identify and resolve obstacles. In addition, every 60 days, people throughout the company pause and evaluate the five most important goals for the next 60 days, called "the five rocks process." New goals are added and old ones removed; there are never more than five. CEO Jeff Booth reports that the daily huddles and 60-day rhythm help employees focus efforts and understand how their work fits with colleagues throughout BuildDirect -- usually without asking their bosses.

    Learn how and when to have a good fight.

    In the best teams, members "fight as if they are right and listen as if they are wrong." Pixar's Brad Bird, who won Academy Awards for directing The Incredibles and Ratatouille, is renowned for encouraging his teams to disagree openly with him and others. His goal is to make it safe for everyone to be "humiliated and encouraged together." As Intel (INTC) teaches every full-time employee, a big part of "constructive confrontation" is knowing when to stop fighting, make the decision, and start implementing it -- even if you disagree with it. They learn and live by the mantra "disagree and then commit."

    Add more women

    Carnegie Mellon's Anita Williams Woolley and her colleagues studied 669 people in two- to five-member groups. Groups with higher percentages of women performed better on difficult tasks such as "visual puzzles to negotiations, brainstorming, games, and complex rule-based design assignments" -- which the researchers deemed "collective intelligence" indicators. This happened because groups with more women usually had superior social sensitivity and thus cooperated and wove together their talents more effectively. Members listened more carefully, allowed others to take turns speaking, and weren't stifled by one or two overbearing members -- which increased their capacity to perform complex and difficult tasks. Socially sensitive men also help make teams smarter. But if you can't test for this trait before forming a group or adding new members, remember that women, on average, are a better choice.

    In short, scaling up an organization is often portrayed as a "problem of more"; after all, the challenge is to add more employees, land more customers, open more locations, spread new change programs and technologies, or otherwise expand a footprint. But scaling is also a problem of less. The best leaders and teams keep thinking about what they don't need and ought to stop doing. When a team has too many members or too much red tape. When it is time to stop pursuing older, less important goals and focus on new and more pressing achievements. When it is time to stop arguing and make a decision. And when a team has too many men for its own good.

    Robert Sutton is a Stanford professor and co-author (with Huggy Rao) of Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More without Settling for Less (Crown, 2014) which is the source of the main ideas in this piece.