创业公司管理的秘诀：把小事情做好

原文来自AZ16的创始合伙人Ben Horowitz. 创业公司的CEO都是目标导向，但是专注于大事情经常欲速则不达，把小事情做好，大事情自然会照顾自己。

“I have seen far too many people who upon recognizing today’s gap try very hard to determine what decision has to be made to close it. But today’s gap represents a failure of planning some time in the past.”

- Andy Grove

“我见过太多的人试图识别今天的差距，然后努力思考什么样的决定可以弥补差距。但是，今天的差距代表的是一段时间以前的计划的失败。“

- 安迪·格鲁夫（注：Intel CEO）

When you run a company, big things stay on your mind. Will we make the quarter? Did we hire the right engineers? Will the release be on time? Do we have a quality problem? Do we have enough money in the bank?

当你运行一个公司，大的事情总是徘徊在你的脑海。我们这个季度是否能达到目标？我们能否招到合适的工程师？产品的发布能否按时？我们是否有质量上的问题？我们在银行的钱还够不够？

The Catch 22 is that if you attempt to act on those “big things,” you will usually do big damage. In order to move big things in a positive direction, it’s generally best to focus on little things.

第22条军规（注：一本小说的名字）是，如果你试图采取行动解决这些大事情，你通常会造成大的伤害。为了让大事情向积极的方向进展，一般最好把重点放在小事情上。

If you are worried about the quarter, you might think that it’s a good idea to call your head of sales twice a day to get the status. By doing so, you might think you are creating the appropriate sense of urgency. In reality, you are just distracting her from closing the quarter twice a day. In fact, by radically overemphasizing the quarter, you will likely cause your sales leader to begin focusing on the cover up — the byzantine set of excuses that she will deploy in the case that she actually misses her number.

如果你担心的这个季度的目标，你可能会认为一天两次给销售主管打电话获得最新情况是一个好主意。这么做，你可能会认为你创造了一定的紧迫感。现实是，你只是一天两次让她从目标上分心。事实上，如果过分强调本季度的目标达成，你可能会导致你的销售主管开始注重掩盖 —她会寻找达不到目标的时候需要的种种借口。

These excuses will then cause a new set of problems. She might say, 'Why did we miss the quarter? We really did not get the right support from the product organization.' So now you go over to the head of products to harass her. She’s responds: “What? If the VP of Sales wasn’t getting enough support, then why didn’t she say something to me?” Do you see what you did there? Not only did you fail to make progress on the sales issue, but you created a new political issue which will contribute to you missing the next quarter.

然后这些借口会引起一系列新的问题。她会说：“为什么我们错过季度目标？我们真的没有从产品部门得到适当的支持。”所以，现在你去到产品的头那里骚扰她。她回应说：“什么？如果销售副总裁没有得到足够的支持，那么她为什么不早点对我说？” 你明白你在做什么了吧？你不仅未能在销售问题上取得进展，还创造了新的政治问题，这将会让你错过下个季度的目标。

While it’s correct to worry about the big issues, you must resist the urge to act on them directly. Before acting, you should first translate the big thing into a related set of little things. For example, if you are worried about making the quarter, then you should go on a few sales calls and see if you are selling your product in the most effective way possible. Are your sales people properly trained? Do they run a process that puts your product in the very best light and sets appropriate traps for your competitors? Are you selling at the right level in the organization? Is your product truly competitive? As you get the answers to these questions, you will develop more constructive little things to take action on. These little things might not help you make this quarter, but they will certainly help you make next quarter.

虽然担心大事情是正确的，你必须抵制直接着手解决他们的冲动。行动前，你应该把大的事情化解成一组相关的小事情。例如，如果你担心季度目标的达成，那么你应该打几个销售电话，看看你是不是在以最有效的方式销售你的产品。你的销售人员有没有获得适当的培训？他们有没有一个流程，把你的产品最佳的呈现而给竞争对手设置了相应的陷阱？你是不是在向合适的管理层级销售？你的产品是否真正具有竞争力？当你得到这些问题的答案，你会开发出更多有建设性的小事情并相应采取行动。这些小事情可能不会帮你达成这个季度，但他们肯定会帮你做到下个季度。

Similarly, if you are deeply worried about engineering throughput, lamenting that your engineers don’t work as hard as other companies that you’ve heard about will achieve very little other than making your engineers think they are the “B” team. On the other hand, spending time going through their day and really understanding what’s slowing them down in the code base, where their build environment is working against them and how the communication overhead between groups slows them down might help a great deal.

同样，如果你对工程部门的产出深感忧虑，感叹你的工程师们并不像你听说过其他公司那样努力， 你除了使你的工程师感觉自己是“B级”团队外于事无补。而反过来，你花时间去和他们呆一天，真正了解代码库里的什么东西让他们减缓下来，他们的编译环境什么地方不高效、团队之间的沟通开销是不是导致缓慢，这些会帮助很大。

This is true for almost anything in your company. You should set high-level goals, but those goals will or will not be achieved by the organization that you assigned them to. If you want to help them reach their goals, do so by focusing on the little things.

公司里的事情大部分都是这样。你应该设置高层次的目标，但接受了任务的组织可能实现也可能实现不了这些目标。如果你想帮助他们实现目标，那么就集中精力在小事情上。

My old boss Jim Barksdale used to say that all of the knowledge was with the individual contributors and the customers. As CEO, you need to hire the right people and set a clear direction. Once you do that, you should fly low and fast rather than high and slow. Focus on the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.

我的老上司吉姆·巴克斯代尔曾经说过，所有的知识都在个人贡献者和客户那里。作为CEO，你需要招到合适的人才，并设置一个明确的方向。一旦你这样做了，接下来你应该飞的又低又快，而不是又高又慢。专注于小事情，大事情会照顾自己。

译者：戴汨 愉悦资本创始合伙人（[e-mail])

愉悦资本是新一代的VC基金，由刘二海、李潇、戴汨创立，我们是创始人也是投资经理；愉悦资本，创始人和创始人对话。