Chapter 4 4

Effective managers know how to give full play to all human strengths.He knows that nothing can be done if he clings to his flaws and shortcomings.In order to achieve the goal, managers must know how to make full use of all existing power, including the power of colleagues around them, the power of superiors and their own power.Harnessing these powers can lead to real opportunities for you.Making full use of its strengths is the sole purpose of an institution's existence.Playing to our strengths certainly doesn't help us overcome the flaws and weaknesses that we all have, but it can make them seem irrelevant.The main purpose of giving full play to the advantages is to fully mobilize everyone's strength to complete the task together.

On this issue, one of the first challenges managers encounter is how to staff themselves.Effective managers consider what that person can do when they hire and promote them.When he makes such personnel decisions, he considers how to make the most of their strengths, not their weaknesses. When President Lincoln was told that his newly appointed commander-in-chief, General Grant, had a drinking problem, Lincoln replied, "If I knew what brand of wine General Grant drank, I would tell the rest of you The general also sent a barrel of each." Lincoln, who grew up on the Kentucky-Illinois border, could not have been ignorant of the dangers of drinking.Yet he also knew that, of all the Confederacy generals, only Grant had proven capable of strategizing and winning decisively from thousands of miles away.Facts have also proved that the appointment of General Grant as the commander-in-chief of the Union Army has become a turning point in the Civil War.This was a very successful appointment. Lincoln's employment policy was to seek his expertise, rather than consider that he must be a "perfect man".

However, Lincoln also learned this way of employing people after a lot of twists and turns.Before the appointment of Grant, he had appointed three or four generals in succession, and the most outstanding thing they had in common was that they had no major shortcomings.As a result, for a full three years from 1861 to 1864, the North made no progress on the battlefield despite its enormous superiority in manpower and material resources.In contrast, General Lee, who commanded the Southern Allied Forces, used his strengths.Every general under Lee, including General "Stone Wall" Jackson, had obvious shortcomings, large and small.But General Lee was, of course, quite right that these inadequacies were irrelevant.These generals under him each have specialties in certain fields, and Lee just used their advantages fully and effectively.As a result, the "perfect" generals appointed by Lincoln were defeated time and time again by those who had only "one skill" under General Lee.

Whoever appoints a person or staffs a team with the intention of avoiding weaknesses will end up leading a mediocre organization.It is unrealistic to find people who have only strengths and no shortcomings, and have various talents (whether they are called "perfect people", "mature people" or "people who can adapt to various environments", or generalists), With this kind of thinking, if the result is not incompetent or incompetent, it will at least lead to mediocre work performance.The stronger a person's ability, the more shortcomings, just like the higher the mountain, the deeper the canyon.It is impossible for a person to stand out in all aspects.Even the greatest genius cannot be said to have achieved success when compared with the knowledge, experience, and capabilities of the entire human race.There is no "all-powerful" person in the world, and "capability" can only be manifested in a certain aspect.

If the manager cares more about what his subordinates can't do than what they can do, so they will deliberately avoid their shortcomings and don't consider how to give full play to their strengths. Such a manager himself is a weak person. Will see the strengths of others as a threat to themselves.Yet no manager has ever done himself a disservice by making his subordinates competent and effective.Regarding the competence and effectiveness of managers, there is nothing better than a sentence on the epitaph of Andrew Carnegie, the ancestor of the American steel industry: "The person lying here knows how to make people who are more capable than himself play a full role under his hands."

Then again, those people are capable because Carnegie was able to discover their strengths and make them useful.These steel industry managers have their own specialties, their abilities, and their duties, and Carnegie is just their effective manager. There is another story that illustrates how General Robert E. Lee made the best of others.It was not the first time that one of his generals had disrupted Lee's entire plan by disobeying orders.General Li, who is better at controlling his temper under normal circumstances, lost his temper this time.After he calmed down a bit, an assistant asked him respectfully, "Why didn't you dismiss him?" Li turned around in surprise.Looking at his assistant, he said, "What a ridiculous question! If you withdraw him, who will you call to fight?"

Effective managers understand that employees get paid because they get things done, not because they please their bosses.They also learned that as long as the heroine captivates the audience, it doesn't matter how she loses her temper.If her temper was the reason for her success, the manager of the opera house had to swallow it, or he wouldn't be here.As long as someone is a first-rate teacher or scholar, it doesn't matter whether he is in the favor of the dean from time to time, or whether he is affable in department meetings.Department chairs are paid to ensure that top-notch teachers and scholars are effectively doing their jobs.If managers have to experience some unpleasantness for this purpose, the price does not seem too high.

Effective managers never ask the question, "How is his relationship with me?" Instead they ask, "What can he contribute7" and "What can he do exceptionally well?" They don't ask, "What can't he do?" When staffing their teams, they look for someone who is great at one thing, not someone who is good at everything. It can be said that it is a kind of human nature to look for people's strengths and try to make use of them. can.In fact, behind all the expressions of "perfect man" and "mature man", there is a kind of contempt for the most special nature of man, who instinctively devotes all his resources to a certain activity or a certain areas in order to achieve success in a certain area.And the statement about "perfect man" is actually a contempt for excellence and excellence.Because excellence and excellence can only be manifested in a certain aspect, or at best can only be manifested in a few individual aspects.

There are people with a wide range of interests, which are probably what people call "all-rounders", but there are no people who can make outstanding achievements in many aspects.Even Leonardo Da Vinci, although he has various interests, the real achievement is in painting.If Goethe's poetry had been lost and all that remained were his dabbles in optics and philosophy, he might not even have the place of a footnote in an encyclopedia.This is true of some great men, let alone us ordinary people.In other words, unless the manager can deliberately discover the strengths of his subordinates and try to use them in his work, he will face a kind of "this can't be done, and that can't be done, there are shortcomings everywhere, and neither can be done." Tasks, but lack of work efficiency" situation.When employing people, if you always insist on standards that are objectively impossible to meet, or if you overemphasize the shortcomings of others, the result will inevitably be a waste of time and money.If it is not abuse, it is at least a misuse of human resources.

Focus on a person's strengths.That is to ask for his job performance.Before employing people, managers must first ask themselves: "What can this gentleman do?" Otherwise, they will underestimate the actual ability of others, which is tantamount to adopting a tolerant attitude towards other people's incompetent performance in advance.It would be imprudent, unrealistic, and destructive for managers to adopt this attitude toward others.A truly "strict" boss (generally speaking, a boss who can cultivate people is always strict) can always see someone's strengths clearly from the beginning, understand what he should do well, and then be strict Ask him to get things done.

Too much consideration of the shortcomings of people will hinder the achievement of the organization's goals.Organizations have a special means, which can not only make the best use of human strengths, but also minimize the impact of human weaknesses.Extraordinarily capable people neither need institutions nor want to be constrained by them.They feel they do best alone.And most other people, due to various limitations.It is impossible to have such outstanding strengths, so it is necessary to rely on institutions to give full play to its effectiveness.There is a common saying among those who do personnel work: "You can't just hire people's 'hands'. If an employee wants to come, he must come with his whole body." It comes along with the strengths. But that doesn't matter, we can set up institutions so that personal shortcomings are just private little shortcomings that have nothing to do with work and grades.We can set up the organization to make the best use of the strengths of our employees.If a tax accountant who is proficient in business works in a private practice firm, and he is not good at dealing with people, it will inevitably affect his business development.Working in an institution allows him to shut himself in his office without having direct contact with other people, and so working in an institution can help him develop his strengths and make his weaknesses seem irrelevant.A small business owner who is good at finance but not sales is likely to be in trouble.But in a slightly larger enterprise, a person who only has expertise in financial matters can be very useful. The effective manager is not blind to his shortcomings. He understands that John Jones was hired to use his expertise in tax accounting, and he has no illusions about his ability to get along with others, because he would never appoint Jones. Go be a manager. To deal with people, you can find others, and first-class tax accountants are rare talents.What he can do is exactly what the organization urgently needs, and what he can't do is just a certain limitation of his own, which will not affect the effectiveness of the organization at all. This is easy to say, but why is it more difficult to do? Why are there so few managers who are good at making use of their strengths, especially those around them? Three appointments of an incompetent commander-in-chief? The main reason is that managers believe that their immediate priority is to fill job openings, not to place a person.So, it's usually the case that there are job openings and then people are found to fill those vacancies.Under such circumstances, it is very easy to be misled into finding the "person with the least faults," that is, the person who is good at everything.It is precisely this approach that inevitably leads to mediocre work and mediocre performance. It is said that there is a way to "cure" this disease, and that is to reorganize the positions to arrange existing personnel.But this "cure" is actually more harmful than the disease itself, especially in large institutions.In a large organization, positions are set according to objective needs and determined by tasks, rather than setting positions based on people and things. One reason why this method does not work is that any change in the determination and setting of job positions within the organization will immediately trigger a series of chain reactions within the organization.Positions within an organization are interconnected and interdependent, and it is not possible to place one without changing everyone else's jobs and responsibilities.If you want to set positions according to the situation of talents, in the end there will be a greater contradiction between the requirements of the position and the talents of the people.The result is that, to relocate one person, a dozen others will have to be relocated to work and run around. The above situation is not limited to bureaucratic institutions such as government agencies or large companies, but also exists in other institutions.A university needs a teacher to teach an introductory course in biochemistry.He must be a good teacher, an expert.The course is the general principles and basic knowledge of the subject, and the professionalism is not too strong.Although the teacher's own interests and hobbies are not on it, the teaching content is determined by the needs of the students, which is an objective reality that every teacher has to accept.If the conductor of a symphony orchestra wanted to replace the principal cellist, he would never fill the position with someone who was very good on the oboe but not very good on the cello, even though he was far more famous on the oboe than on the cello. The other cellists came louder.The reason is simple, the conductor will never rewrite the score for this person.Although the salaried opera house manager knew how to hold back the tempers of the actresses, he would not agree to change the content of the festival once the program of "Tosca" had been announced to the audience on the festival list. Still will ask her to do the play. Insist on setting positions based on objective needs.Instead of setting positions based on people, we have a more subtle reason for doing so.Because only in this way can the institution obtain the variety of talents it needs, and can tolerate and even encourage different tempers and different personalities among the staff.In order to tolerate differences, interpersonal relationships in an organization must be based on a task-focused basis and must never be based on a person's personality.There must be objective standards for measuring work performance and contributions.However, objective criteria are only possible if the work is not set at the center of the human being.otherwise.What will often be heard will be "Who is right?" instead of "Which thing is right?" If this situation continues, it will not be long before personnel decisions are often considered "I like Is this guy?" or "Will he be acceptable to me?" instead of "Is there a chance he will do a great job?" When a person sets a position, there will inevitably be a tendency of obedience and preference, and the organization must not be infected with this kind of problem.The organization's personnel decision-making must reflect fairness and reasonableness, without personal factors, otherwise.Competent talents will be lost, or their enthusiasm for work will be dampened.Institutions need people of all types, otherwise they lack resilience and lose the ability to express dissent.And this ability to express dissent is precisely an indispensable factor in decision-making (discussed in Chapter 7). You can often hear such an undertone: managers who can build a first-class management team usually do not maintain an overly close relationship with their colleagues and subordinates around them.We should not choose talents according to personal likes and dislikes, but should look at what they can do, look at their work performance, and never look at whether they obey themselves.In order to select good talent, managers need to maintain a certain distance from their closer colleagues. Lincoln is said to have kept at arm's length some of his closest associates, such as Secretary of War Stanton, and thus became an effective top administrator.Franklin? D.President Roosevelt had no "friends" in the cabinet, even keeping a certain distance from his treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, although they were still very close friends in the field of non-governmental affairs.General Marshall, Alfred P. Smith, kept their relationship at arm's length for the same reason.They are warm-hearted, craving for intimacy, good at making friends, but they understand that their friendship must be kept outside the confines of "business."They believe that it doesn't matter if you like someone or agree with him or her, as long as you don't cause conflict and discord.As long as they don't get too close to some people, they can build a strong, diverse management team. Of course, there are always exceptions to things, and in some special cases it is indeed necessary to tailor things to people.Even a manager like Mr. Sloan who has never advocated setting things up according to people, when he faced the genius inventor Charles? F? General Motors' early engineering division.Roosevelt also broke all kinds of conventions, allowing Harry Repkins, who was in extremely poor health, to make his unique contribution.But such an exception is always extremely rare, and it only applies to those who have extraordinary talents, do extraordinary work, and achieve outstanding achievements. So, how should an effective manager select talents without falling into the quagmire of setting things up for people? In general, there are four rules to follow: 1.First, they know that jobs are not created by God or by nature, but by very fallible human beings.Therefore, when designing positions, we must be very careful not to create some "impossible" positions, and never to set up positions that ordinary people cannot do well. This sort of thing happens from time to time.There are some positions that make sense on paper, but are difficult to fill in practice.One talented person after another tried for the position, but none succeeded.After a year and a half, all attempts failed. Such a position, I can say with certainty, was originally made for some extraordinary individual, and it suited only one's peculiar temperaments.To be qualified for this position, you must have a variety of temperaments, and such people are difficult to find in real life.People may acquire all kinds of knowledge and all kinds of high skills, but it is not easy for them to change their temperament.So often a position that requires several different temperaments to do well becomes an incompetent job, a deadly job. In conclusion, the first principle is this: If a job has been found incompetent by two or three people in a row, and those people have performed well in the past, then it is reasonable to assume that the job is impossible. Well, such jobs have to be redesigned. Just about every textbook on marketing says this: Sales is linked to advertising and promotion, and the same sales executive is responsible for all three activities.However, the experience of some well-known consumer goods manufacturers shows that it is not feasible for a manager to be fully responsible for marketing.This work requires not only high efficiency in field sales (transportation of products).And there must be high efficiency in advertising and promotion (how to employ people).This requires people who do this work to have various personality traits, and it is difficult for these personality traits to appear on the same person. It is also a very difficult job to be the president of a very large university in the United States.Experience tells us that although they all did a good job before becoming principals, there are only a very small number of them who can do well after becoming principals. How to be a vice president in charge of international business of a large multinational company is probably also a very difficult job.Especially when the production and sales of some branches or subsidiaries grow to a certain extent, for example, when it grows to one-fifth of the company's total production and sales, how to coordinate the relationship between the parent company and the subsidiaries becomes very difficult , even a daunting task.In this case, either a global realignment by product category (as Philips in the Netherlands did) or a reorganization of production and sales forces in accordance with the different social and economic characteristics of global markets.For example, this task can be divided into three parts: one responsible for managing production and sales in developed countries (USA, Canada, Western Europe and Japan); one responsible for developing countries (most countries in Latin America, Australia, India and the Near East); another Responsible for the remaining underdeveloped countries.Several large multinational companies have taken this path. Ambassadors of major countries are facing such a dilemma today.Today's embassies have become so large, so inflexible, and their activities so dispersed, that any ambassador feels he has neither the time nor the mood to do his first job: to understand the conditions of the country in which he is stationed; Get to know the government of the host country and its policies; get to know the people of that country, and let them know and trust themselves.Despite McNamara doing his best at the Pentagon, I would say that the job of Secretary of Defense is hard to do well (and certainly not without one, I admit). Therefore, the first task of an effective manager is to set up the positions under his control reasonably.If experience proves that the position is not properly set, there should be no need to look for some genius to do the impossible job.Instead, managers should redesign the position.You can't test your organization with genius, and managers must understand this truth.Only by enabling ordinary people to make extraordinary achievements is the key to testing the quality of an institution. 2.The second rule of merit is to make sure that each position is both demanding and broad.It should be challenging and allow you to develop your strengths and strengths.It must also have enough wiggle room to allow you to turn mission-related strengths into significant results. Yet the vast majority of large institutions do not do this.They always like to set the positions to be very narrow. Since the staff are only required to complete specific tasks at a specific time, it doesn't matter how narrow the positions are designed.However.The job of a manager is not just to place people in a certain position. The requirements of any complex position are always changing. Sometimes this change will come suddenly, so some staff who were "fully adaptable" —Suddenly became uncomfortable again.Therefore, only when the scope of positions is set larger and the requirements are higher, can the staff adapt to new needs when the situation changes. This rule applies especially to first-time knowledge workers.Knowledge workers who have just joined the work should pay more attention to giving full play to their own advantages.Because as soon as he starts working, the standard has already been set.These standards will not only provide guidance for their future work, but also be a measure of their ability and contribution.Only after officially embarking on the job.They have the opportunity to display their talents, but in school they can only show their talents.To realize your ambitions, you can only do it after you actually start working, such as doing research in a laboratory, teaching in a school, working in a company, or working in a government agency.Whether it is for the knowledge worker who is just starting out, or for other colleagues or superiors in the organization, what he can do is a top priority that must be clearly understood. It is also important to find out as early as possible whether this position is suitable for you, or whether the work you are doing is suitable for you.For manual labor, it is convenient and reliable to test whether someone is fit for a job.We can test out in advance whether someone is suitable as a carpenter or a machinist.But for knowledge workers, there is no similar testing method.What mental work requires is not this or that particular skill, but a general quality which can be fully revealed only in practical trials. A carpenter's or machinist's job is defined by craft requirements, so there is little variation in the job from one shop to another.However, to ensure that knowledge workers actually make a difference in the organization, the organization's values ​​and goals are at least as important as their own professional knowledge and skills.A young man who feels useful in one institution may find himself incapable of doing so in another, even though the two institutions appear to be not very different to the outsider.A man's first job, therefore, should serve him both to test himself and to test the institution. This principle applies not only to various types of institutions, such as government agencies, universities, and commercial institutions, but also applies to institutions of the same type.I've never seen two large corporations whose values ​​and emphasis on contributions are the same.The administrative leader of an academic unit is well aware of the fact that a faculty member is happy and productive at a university.But when transferred to another university, he may experience a sense of loss and become morose.Although the Civil Service Committee (ctvHservMe commtssion) in Congress tries to make all government departments abide by the same rules and regulations and measure them with the same yardstick, once these departments have been in operation for a few years, they will inevitably bring various problems. self-evident personality traits.Each department places different demands on the conduct of its employees to help these professionals be effective and contribute. When a person is young, it is not difficult to transfer jobs, which is at least a normal phenomenon in Western countries.However, when someone has been in an organization for 10 years or more, moving can become difficult, especially for those whose work has been ineffective.Therefore, young knowledge workers should ask themselves early on, "Will my position and the work I am doing take full advantage of my strengths?" If someone starts out with a job that is too narrow and difficult, focus only on how to offset their inexperience.If he does not pay attention to how to use his strengths, then he will not be able to ask the above question, let alone answer it. The results were the same every time young knowledge workers were surveyed, whether they were doctors in the military, researchers in chemical laboratories, accountants or engineers in factories, or nurses in hospitals.Those who are passionate about their work and are achieving are precisely those whose abilities are being challenged and who feel they have a place to use.And some people who often suffer setbacks often complain in different ways: "My abilities cannot be fully utilized." Some young knowledge workers have jobs that are too narrow to be challenged.therefore.They either walk away, or they fail to achieve anything at work, and quickly become cynical and old.Managers can be heard everywhere complaining that many enthusiastic young people quickly become unenthusiastic.In fact, they are themselves to blame for narrowing the scope of work for these young people so that they cannot use their strengths.Thus becoming depressed. 3.When an effective manager employs people, he will never only see the requirements of the position, he will first consider the strengths of the person being employed.In other words, before deciding to place someone in a certain position, managers have already fully considered the conditions of the person, and they will never be limited to this position when considering. That's why the assessment process used today is widely used to identify talent, especially knowledge workers.The purpose of this is to allow managers to have a correct evaluation of this person before making a decision on whether to let this person take on an important position. Although almost all large organizations have their own procedures for assessing and evaluating talents, unfortunately, these methods are rarely actually used.Managers keep saying that they must conduct evaluations and assessments of their subordinates at least once a year.However, as far as I know, they themselves have never been assessed by their superiors.The situation is usually like this: the assessment forms are kept in the file, and when personnel decisions need to be made, no one will look through the file specifically for this purpose, and everyone thinks it is just a pile of waste paper.Especially superiors, they almost never conduct face-to-face assessments on subordinates.In fact, this kind of face-to-face assessment is the key to the whole system.In an advertisement for a new book on management issues, we identified the problem.The slogan described the face-to-face assessment of subordinates as the most "embarrassing job" for superiors. The set of assessments currently being used by most institutions was originally intended for diagnostic purposes only by clinical psychologists or psychologists who study abnormalities.A clinician is an expert in treating diseases. What he cares about is the patient's problems, not the patient's health.He knew that patients came to him because there was something wrong with them.It is natural for him to regard the evaluation of the visitor as a process of diagnosing the disease. I only started to realize this after my first encounter with Japanese management.At the time, I was giving them a class on executive training, and I was amazed to find that although the class was attended by senior leaders of large organizations, none of them had done any evaluations.I curiously asked why they didn't conduct evaluations, and one of them replied: "Your evaluations only focus on exposing someone's faults and shortcomings. Since our system can neither dismiss a person casually nor deprive him of the opportunity to improve and promote , so why are we doing that kind of evaluation? On the contrary, the less we know about the weaknesses of employees, the better the situation may be. What we need to know is a person's strengths and what he can do, and your evaluation Not interested in that." Western psychologists may not agree with this analysis, but that is indeed the traditional way that every manager (whether he is Japanese, American, or German) looks at evaluation. In general, the achievements of the Japanese may be worthy of our Westerners' reflection and aftertaste.Everyone knows that the Japanese implement the "employment system of lifetime employment".Once someone is on the list of an agency, he can move up the ranks of his job according to his age and length of service.For example, starting out as a worker, then as a white-collar employee or professional, and then as an administrator, his salary can double every 15 years.He cannot resign, nor can he be fired.This situation will continue until the age of 45, after which there will be slight differences among the staff-very few people, for outstanding ability and contribution, will be selected for senior executive positions.How can such a system be reconciled with the enormous economic achievements that Japan has achieved? The answer is simple: Japan's system forces them to consciously ignore the shortcomings of others.Because they can't fire employees, Japanese managers are always looking for someone who can do a certain task.That is to say, they always focus on the strengths of others when they look at people. I don't want to recommend the Japanese system, which is far from perfect.In that system, a very small percentage—some who have proven themselves—are doing all kinds of important work, while the vast majority of the rest are institutionalized.If we really want to obtain greater benefits from our traditional flexibility, then the Japanese approach of "seeing people's strengths and employing people's strengths" is worth learning from. If superiors take their subordinates' inadequacies seriously, as our appraisal work does, it will certainly destroy the more genuine part of the supervisor-subordinate relationship.Many managers are actually obsessive about the assessments that are imposed on them, instead following their gut instincts.Under these circumstances, it is quite understandable that they should regard as a nuisance the kind of assessment that looks for faults and inadequacies in people.It is the doctor's duty to discuss his ailment with the person who comes for help.But everyone knows that the relationship between patients and doctors is a special professional relationship, which is completely different from the authoritative relationship between superiors and subordinates.This practice of discussing other people's faults can make it difficult to work together.It is not surprising, therefore, that the vast majority of managers do not want to adopt this rigid approach to evaluation.It was just a wrong way of working for the wrong purpose in the wrong place. Evaluation and the guiding philosophy behind it are also suspected of overemphasizing "potential".有经验的人都知道：不可能提前去评估某人的潜力，也不可能脱离他正在做的事情去评估另一种完全不同的潜力。 “潜力”只是“有希望”的一个代名词罢了。即使希望继续存在，它也可能无法实现；而另一些人尽管从未显示出过什么希望(如果仅仅是因为不曾有这种机会)，但他们实际上却做出了成绩。 真正可以评估的倒是工作成效，真正应该去评倍的也是工作成效。这也是必须将职位设置得面较宽而有挑战性的另一条理由，另外，这也是为什么个人必须认真考虑自己对机构的效益作出什么贡献的理由，因为只有在机构希望工作人员作出具体成绩的背景之下，才能恰当地去衡量某个人的工作成绩。 但总还是需要某种形式的评估办法．否则当一个职务需要某人来承担时，就没法对某人作出正确的评价。因此，卓有成效的管理者往往需要自己来拟订一种完全不同的表格。表格一开始便是此人的一段记录：在当前和过去不同阶段，机构希望他所能做出的贡献以及他在各阶段中的实际工作成绩。接着，表格便提出以下四个问题： (1)“哪方面的工作他(或她)确实做得比较好?” (2)“因此，哪方面的工作他有可能完成得较好?” (3)“若想充分发挥他的长处，他还需要学习或获得哪些知识？ （4）如果我有个儿子或女子，我愿不愿他或她在此人手下工作?” (a)“如果愿意，理由是什么?” (b)“如果不愿意，原因是什么7” 实际上，这种评估要比以往的评估严格得多，而且评估的重点又是放在人的长处上。它是以某人能干什么开始的，而他的短处只是作为完成任务和充分发挥其长处的某种局限性的面目出现的。 与其长处无关的问题只有一个，那就是(b)。下属(特别是那些聪明、年轻、有进取心的下属)总是会以某个强有力的上级作为塑造自己的榜样，所以，如果机构里的某个管理者很有魄力但也十分腐败的话，那么他将会给机构带来很大的破坏性。这样的人若是自己单干，或许会很有成绩，就是到机构里来干，只要不给他任何支配别人的权力，那他也许还可以混得下去。倘若有权在手，那他就会有破坏性。这就是管理者的缺点会产生重要影响的唯一一个方面。 正直的品格本身并不能创造价值，但如果缺乏正直和诚恳那就有可能会搞糟其他一切事情。所以在这种情况下，缺点就不再是发挥长处和做出成绩的——种局限，它完全可以成为某人失去资格的一个原因。 4.用人之长的第四条规则是：卓有成效的管理者必须懂 得，若想利用某人的长处，那你也得容忍他的短处。 历史上绝大多数伟大的军事统帅都是自以为是、自我欣赏和以“我”为中心的。当然，把这句话倒过来说是不成立的：在现实生活中也确实有不少将军自以为非常了不起，但他们却从未被作为伟人而载入史册。在其他领域也是一样，比如一个政治家若不胸怀大志、立志要当首相或总统的话，那他很快就会被人们所遗忘，充不允其量也只能是个有用的、或者非常熟练的政治家而已。自信世界或国家需要他的人是小会满足于只当一名普普通通的政治家的。如果形势危急、需要帅才的话，那么人们肯定会接受诸如迪斯累里或富兰克林?D?罗斯福这样的领导人，而不会在乎他们的态度是否谦恭。在贴身仆从的眼中大概是没有伟人可言的。不过产生这种看法的问题却出在仆从的身上。因为他们所看到的主人性格特点实际上都是一些无关的因素，这些因素与他们在历史舞台上所要完成的具体任务是毫不相干的。 于是卓有成效的管理者常常会问道：“此人是否在某个重要方面有所特长?此特长与他所要完成的任务有没有关联?如果他能在这一方面取得杰出的成就，那会不会给机构带来重大的变化？”假如答案是肯定的，那么他就会用此人。 有一种错觉，似乎认为两个平庸之辈加在一起就可以达到一个能人的工作效果。而卓有成效的管理者很少会受此错觉的影响。他们知道，按通常情况来说，两个平庸之辈若在一块工作，其效果还可能不及一个平庸之辈来得好，因为有两个人就会产生内耗。他们觉得，要说人的能力，就必须具体到能不能完成任务。他们不喜欢笼统地说某人是个“能人”，而只会说某人在完成某项任务方面是个“能人”。这些管理者总是结合具体任务来寻找别人的长处，以达用人之长的目的。 这也意味着这些管理者在用人时必须重视机会，而不能只抓存在的问题。 卓有成效的管理者对以下这些论调尤其不敢苟同：“我不能放弃此人；没有他，我便会有麻烦。”他们知道，出现“此人不可缺少”的论调大概有三种解释：其一，此人实际上很无能，只有在受到仔细照顾的情况下才能生存下来；其二，他的长处被误用来支撑一个自己很难站得住脚的上司；其三，或者是他的长处被误用来延缓某个重要问题的解决，如果还不是有意要掩盖这一严重问题的存在的话。 不管是哪种情况，这位“不可缺少的人”应该立即调走才好，否则，这种误用别人长处的做法将会毁掉此人可能具有的任何长处。 在第三章里，我们曾提到过一位采用非常规手段有效地培养一家大连锁店的基层管理人员的总经理，而他恰恰就是这样的一个人。只要他听到别人说起手上有个不可缺少的人，他就会将此人调离原来的岗位。“因为这意味着，”他这样说道：“要么他的—上司无能，要么这位下属不行，也可能是两个都不行。至于到底是哪一种可能性，当然越早弄清楚越好。” 总的看来，只有通过对工作成绩的检验，才能选拔出最适合做某项工作的人才，应该把这一条作为坚定不移的制度。其他一切反对论调，诸如“他是不可缺少的……“那里的人不会要他的…… '他还太年轻……”，或者“我们从来不派没有实际经验的人到那儿去”等等，你都可以不必加以理会。不仅工作需要最棒的人，工作有成绩者也以自己的行动赢得了机会。因此，用人要着眼于机会，而不要去考虑存在的问题，这样不但会有利于创建一个有效的机构，而且可以激发工作人员的热情和献身精神。 倒过来说，管理者有责任将一贯完不成任务的人(特别是经理)调离其岗位。否则，他们势必会腐蚀其他人，而且对整个机构来说也不太公平，甚至对其下属来讲也不太公平，因为那些下属由于他的无能而失去了许多可以取得成就的机会。最重要的是，如果留在原来岗位上，对他本人来说也是够残忍的，因为不管他承认与否，他自己也知道无法做好这项工作。他会在压力和极度紧张的情绪之中逐渐走向自我毁灭，因此，说不定他自己就在不断地祈盼着能早日离开这一岗位。不管是日本人的“终身任职制”，还是西方各种类型的文官制度，它们都不主张撤换已被证实的不胜任者，这的确是个严重的问题，我们没有必要再去犯这样的错误。 第二次世界大战期间，马歇尔将军曾坚决主张立即撤换没有杰出表现的将军们。他认为．如果让这些人来指挥，那是与军队和国家赋予军人的责职背道而驰的。马歇尔坚决反对如下这种论调：“我们找不出人来接替他。”他指出，“最关键的问题是此人无法胜任工作，至于如何去找可以接替他的人，则是下一个问题。” 马歇尔还认为，要撤掉某人的指挥权，这与其说是反映了对某人的看法，倒不如说是对任命他的人的一种看法。“我们只知道此职务不适合他，”马歇尔解释道：“但这并不意味着他干别的事也不行。任命他担任此职务是我的过错，现在还得由我来给他再找个合适的工作。” 总之，马歇尔将军在如何才能用人之长方面为我们提供了一个样板。他在30年代中期担任陆军要职时，陆军中根本没有年轻的现役将官担任要职。(马歇尔自己被任命时，离最高年限也只差四个月了。1939年12月31日正好是他的60岁生日，到那时就不可能再被任命了。幸好他是在同年9月1日被任命为陆军参谋长的。)当时，那些未来二战中的将军们还都是些初出茅庐的年轻军官，根本想不到自己会有当将军的一天。而马歇尔将他们挑选出来，对他们进行了培养和训练。艾森豪威尔是这些人中年龄稍大的一个，但在30年代中期，他还只是个少校。可是到1942年，马歇尔已经培训出——大批美国历史上最为能干的将军群。在这批人中，没有一个是不成功的，而且他们都是第一流的。 这是美国军事史上最伟大的教育奇迹之一，而创造这个奇迹的恰恰就是这么一位外表上缺乏“领导素质”的人，他没有蒙哥马利、戴高乐或麦克阿瑟那样的自信，也不像他们那样富于不可抗拒的魅力。马歇尔有的却是原则。“这个人可以干什么?”这是他常常留在嘴边的一个问题。假如某人能干出些什么，那么他的不足之处就成为次要的了。 例如，乔治，巴顿将军是—位抱负很大、自视甚高、强硬骠悍的战事指挥官。但在和平时期，内于缺乏职业军人和参谋官员必须具备的成功素质，他便频频遇到麻烦。尽管马歇尔将军本人并不喜欢巴顿那种颇为潇洒的炫耀作风，但他还是一次又一次地帮助巴顿解脱了闲境。 只有当某人的缺点或短处妨碍了他充分发挥其优点和长处时，马歇尔才会关心起这些缺点和短处来。他通常是通过给某人以合适的工作或职业机会来帮助他们克服这些缺点和短处。 30年代中期，年轻的艾森豪威尔才是个少校，可是马歇尔却有意将他安置在作战计划部门工作，以帮助他获得系统的战略知识。这种知识对一位高级军事领导人来说是不可缺少的。艾森豪威尔虽然没有成为一位战略家、但他却因此懂得了战略的重要性，并对战略计划工作产生了某种敬意。这一经历使他克服了某种严重的局限性，使他在做组织和策划工作时能充分发挥自己的长处。 马歇尔喜欢提拔最有才干的人，尽管原单位也十分需要这些人。当原单位的人——通常都是高级领导人一请求他不要调走他们，因为他们在那里是“不可缺少”的人才时，马歇尔总是这样回答：“这是工作之需要……是此人发展之需要……也是军队建设之需要。” 在他的一生中，只有过一次例外，那就是当罗斯福总统觉得实在离不开马歇尔，恳求他留在自己的身边时，他毅然决定将欧洲最高统帅的职位让给了艾森豪威尔，自己却留在了罗斯福的身边，从而放弃了实现毕生最伟大的理想的一次机会。 后来，马歇尔终于意识到(别人也可从他的经历中学到这一点)，每做一次人事决定，就好比是下一次赌注。然而，只要能抓住某人有什么长处这—条，那么至少可以说：你的赌注下得有些道理。 对于下级的工作，做上级的应有一种责任感，因为他们掌握着下属的前程。确保下属的长处能得以充分地发挥，不仅是为了把工作做得卓有成效，那也是道义上的一种需要，是管理者必须承担的责任。管理者如果只注重下属的缺点和短处，那不仅是愚蠢的，也是一种不负责任的态度。尽量发挥下属的长处，这不但是管理者必须对机构承担的义务，更重要的是，这也是管理者必须向其下属承担的一种义务。机构也应该为发挥个人的长处提供方便，尽管个人总会有这样或那样的短处和局限性。 充分发挥人的长处显得越来越重要了，它几乎已成了机构成败之关键。脑力劳动的分工在二三十年前还是很有限的。在德国或北欧国家里，要想当一名政府机关公务员，就必须要有一张读法律的文凭，如果是数学家，根本就不会被聘用。当时的年轻人，若想以脑力劳动来谋生，其可选择的范围十分有限，最多只有三四种选择。而今天面对令人眼花缭乱的各式各样的职位和工作，知识工作者已有了充分挑选的余地。在1900年前后，脑力劳动主要还是局限在一些传统的领域，诸如法律、医学、教育和神学。而现在几乎有好几百种不同的学科。另外，各门知识领域也被用到生产实践中去．特别是企业和政府部门，情况更是如此。 ? 因此，今天人们就有可能找到最适合自己能力的工作领域，而不再需要像过去那样削足适履。而从另一方面来看，年轻人要选择适合自己的工作岗位也显得越来越困难了，因为他不一定能得到有关自己和有关工作机会的各种信息。 在这种情况下，如何对个人加强引导，帮助他们发挥其长处就显得越加重要了。同时，如何使机构里的管理者重视自己及下属人员的长处，努力地去发挥这些长处也显得特别重要。 所以，用人之长是卓有成效的管理者所必须具备的一种素质，它也是一个单位工作是否有效的关键。这种素质对知识界里的个人和社会来说，也同样是不可缺少的。 卓有成效的管理者还必须注意充分发挥其上司的长处，这也是非常重要的。 我所见过的管理者，不管是企业界的、政府部门的，还是其他机构里的，都会这么说：“在管理下属时，我并没有遇到太大的麻烦。但是，我怎样才能处理好与上司的关系?”其实，处理好与上司的关系是极容易的，不过只有卓有成效的管理者才懂得其中的奥秘。其诀窍就在于他们懂待如何去发挥上司的优点和长处。 在具体做法上当然应该谨慎小心才是。实践与传说是不同的，在实践中下属一般不太可能从职位或声望上超过其不称职的上司。假如上司没有得到提升，那么其下属往往也只能被埋没在他的下面。如果这位上司因不称职或干不好工作而被解除职务，那么继承该职务的也不大可能是其年轻、精明的副手。新上司通常总是从外部调进来的，而且还会带来他自己熟悉的年轻有为的副手。相反，如果上司工作很成功，并迅速得到提升的话，那么其下属也就比较容易取得成功。 暂且不谈谨慎小心，如何使上司的长处得到充分发挥，这也是下属工作卓有成效的关键。若能做到这一点，那就仿佛是拿到了一张通行证，它有助于下属将精力集中在自身的贡献上，并可帮助自己完成想去做的工作．取得希望取得的成就。 采取拍上级马屁的做法是无助于发挥上司的长处的。想发挥上司的长处，就得从正确的事情着手，并以上司能够接受的形式向其提出建议。 卓有成效的管理者相信：上司也是通情达理的，而年轻精明的下属往往体会不到这一点。既然上司是普普通通的人，那么他也会有其长处；当然，他同时也会有局限性。若能在他的长处上下功夫，协助他做好想做的工作，帮助他提高工作效率，那么下属实际上也就提高了自己的工作效率。如果把功夫下在上司的短处上，那么其结果就会令你感到沮丧。因此，卓有成效的管理者会提出这样的问题：“我的上司有什么擅长7”哪些事情他曾经做得持别好?”为了让他充分发挥自己的长处，他还需要了解哪些情况?“我可以为上司作出些什么贡献?”至于上司有哪些事情干不了，你根本不需要操心。 下属有时总想“改变”他们的上司。精明资深的公务员总想将自己看成是刚被任命为该机构政治领导人的导师。他总想让上司从其局限性中摆脱出来。他会向自己提出这样的问题：“新上司有什么擅长?”如果答案是“他擅长与国会、白宫和公众搞好关系”的话，那么他就会设法能让他的上司发挥这方面的能力。要知道，如果没有很好的政治技巧来阐述自己的想法，那么再好的管理和决策也等于零。一旦这位政治领导人知道他的手下支持他，他就会在管理和决策上更愿意听取他们的意见。 卓有成效的管理者也懂得，既然他的上司也是人，那么就会有自己有效的方面。他就会设法去发现这些有效的方面。这些方法也许只是些处事的习惯和方式，但它们却是客观存在着的。 我认为，只要注意观察，就不难发现：人大致上可以分为“听者”或“读者”。只有极少数人是例外、他们通过与别人谈话来获取想要的信息，通过自己持有的心理感应来观察谈话对象的反应。富兰克林?罗斯福总统就属于这一类人，丘吉尔也明显地有此特点。有些人既喜欢听取意见，又喜欢阅读材料——时常需要出庭的律师不得不两者兼而有之一一—这样的人也算是个例外。—般来说，对喜欢当读者的上司，你谈得再多也只是浪费时间。他只有在读过材料之后，才能听取你所提出的问题。同样，如果你向喜欢听取口头汇报的上司提交一份长篇报告的话，那也只能是浪费时间，因为他只有在听取口头汇报时才能抓住要点。 有些上司习惯于让你将事情的主要内容摘要在一页纸上，艾森豪威尔总统就特别习惯于这种方式。有些上司则能在下级提出建议时追随其思路，因此需要下级作出详细的介绍，否则效果就不会理想。也有一些上司愿意阅读厚厚的报告及大串数字。还有的则愿意在一开始便参与进来，这样在最终需要决策时就不会显得太突然。还有的上司不愿听取别人的建议，除非下级能拿出较为“成熟的”想法。 研究上司有哪些长处以及如何发挥这些长处的作用，这需要有一个过程。它所涉及到的，与其说是“提什么建议”的问题．倒不如说是“如何提出这一建议”的问题。这就是说，在向上司提出建议时，要特别注意的不光是内容．更重要的倒是陈述一连串有关事项时所采用的先后次序。假如上司在政治方面有优势，而且此优势恰恰与这项工作有关联，那么在向他陈述建议时首先就应从政治方面入手。这样会有利于他抓住问题的要害，并在制订新政策时能有效地发挥他的优势。 观察别人，我们都很“在行”，可谓是旁观者清。因此，要让上司发挥有效的作用其实并不难。关键是要抓住上司的长处，了解他们可以起什么作用。它要求人们把注意力放到上司的优势和长处上，这样就不会在意上司那些与工作无关的缺点和短处。—个人如果想当一名卓有成效的管理者，那么没有什么其他事情比这件事情显得更为重要了。 如果管理者想把工作做得卓有成效，就必须从自己的优势和长处出发，注意充分发挥这些优势和长处。 我所认识的绝大部分管理者，不管是政府部门的，还是医院里的，或是企业界的，他们对自己干不了的事情都十分清楚。对那些上司不让干、公司政策不允许干以及政府禁止干的事情，他们有时过分敏感。因此，常常满腹牢骚，把自己的时间和才能都浪费在抱怨声中了。 卓有成效的管理者当然也会关心自己所面临的局限性，不过他们总能发现，能做的事、值得去做的事还是比想像中的要多得多。就在别人不断抱怨这不能干、那不能做的同时，他们却敢于去进行大胆的实践。结果是，那些把其他“兄弟们”压得喘不过气来的所谓限制，在他们面前竟然迎刃而解了。 一家美国铁路运输公司正面临着政府对公司的种种限制，公司管理层似乎觉得什么事都干不了。后来公司里新来了一位主管财务的副总裁，他对这些“告诫”一无所知。因此，他竟跑到华盛顿，造访了“州际商业委员会”，要求他们批准他采取几项颇为激进的改革措施。“你措施中的绝大部分内容，”委员会的先生们对他这样说：“并没有违反我们的有关规定。至于还有一些内容，我们得要先试行一下，如果效果可以的话，那我们也会乐意支持你这样做的。” “某人不让我干任何事情．”这种说法的确值得怀疑，因为它常常被用来掩盖自己的情性。就算是在有种种限制的地方(其实人们都是在相当严格的限制下工作和生活的)，总还是有不少重要的、有意义的、相关的事情可做。而卓有成效的管理者就会主动去寻找这种事情来做。假如他一开始就向自己提出“我能做些什么?”这样的问题，那么他几乎可以肯定地发现：实际上会有很多事情可做，就怕时间和资源有限。 如何使自己的长处发挥效应，这对培养人的工作能力和习惯也是极为重要的。 想了解如何工作才能取得效果并不难。人活到成年，对到底是上午工作效果好还是夜里工作效果好，心中当然是一清二楚的。如果要撰写一篇文稿，是先快速拟出一份稿后再修改好呢，还是逐字逐句反复推敲直到成稿为好，他的心中也是十分明白的。若要向公众发表演说，是事先准备个演讲稿好，还是准备一个提纲为好，还是即兴演讲为好，他心中当然也是有数的。他也知道，自己到底是参加委员会工作好呢，还是自己单枪匹马干更好。 有些人只要手头有份详细的提纲．这也就是说事先经过周密的思考，他干起活来就特别有效；另一些人却只需要几条粗略的提示就可以了。有的人在压力下工作就特别来劲；另一些人则只能在时间较为宽余的情况下才能有效地工作，说不定还能提前完成任务。有些偏爱“阅读材料”，另一些则喜欢“听”口头汇报。自己有些什么特点，自己最清楚，这就好比是要了解自己是左撇子还是惯用右手一样容易。 有人会说，这些都是表面现象，不过这种说法不一定正确。不少特点和习惯可以反映出一个人个性的基本持点，比如他对世界、对自己的看法。尽管这些东西是表面性的，但这些工作习惯也是提高工作效率的一种因素。大多数工作习惯都可以与各种工作相适应的。卓有成效的管理者懂得这一点，因此就会按照需要采取行动。 总之，卓有成效的管理者会努力地去保持自己的个性特点，不会轻易地改变自己的形象，他会细心地观察自己的表现及工作效果，并试图从中发现一些带有规律性的东西。“哪些事情别人做起来要花九牛二虎之力，而我做起来却得心应手?”他会这样问自己。草拟一份报告对有些人来说只是举手之劳，而对另一些人来讲却会是难上加难。有些人觉得起草报告容易，但分析报告的内容，并在最后作出决定却十分困难。换句话说，他比较擅长当一名参谋，因为参谋只要把材料综合起来，把问题罗列出来。他不擅长当一名决策者，因为决策要负指挥的责任。 有人知道自己善于独立工作，从项目开始直至结束喜欢一个人自己干，而且还干得很好。也有人知道自己善于谈判，特别是进行情绪激烈的谈判，比如工会与雇主之间的谈判。当然，在每次谈判前他会对工会将会提出的要求进行预测，而对这些预测的准与不准，他的心中也是有数的。 当人们在讨论一个人的长处和短处时，他们很少会考虑到上述这些情况。他们想到的只是某门学科知识或某种艺术天赋。不过人的脾气也是影响事业成功的一个重要因素。成年人通常都十分了解自己的脾气。若想做到卓有成效，那么他就必须要将精力花在自己能做成的事上，并以自己最有效的方式来做好这些事情。 如何对待用人之长不仅有个态度问题，而且也有个敢不敢去实践的问题。只要我们敢于去实践，用人之长就能越做越好。假如我们面对自己的同事、下属及上司能学会多问几个“此人有什么擅长?”少问几个“他有哪些事情于不了?”的话，那么我们很快就可以树立起正确的态度，就能发现别人的长处，就能很好地运用别人的长处。只要坚持下去，总有一天我们也能向自己提出同样的问题。 若想让机构工作有效，我们就应该采取“创立机会，扼制问题”的态度。而这种态度首先必须表现在人事问题上。卓有成效的管理者总是将人(包括他自己)看成是可以开发的。他懂得只有抓住长处，才能产生效果。而抓住短处不放，那只会带来令人头痛的问题。因为如果没有短处，其他一切也都不存在了。 再说，他也知道人们总是把领导人的行事标准作为自己的样板来对待的。因此，他就会将自己的表率作用建立在充分发挥长处上面。 我们都知道，体育比赛中一旦创立了一个新纪录，全世界的运动员就有了一个新的奋斗目标。有好长一段时间，一英里跑的速度一直未能突破4分钟。可是，突然间罗杰．斑尼斯特打破了4分钟这个者纪录。不久，世界上每个田径俱乐部里的一般短跑运动员的成绩都接近了4分钟那个纪录，而新的领头羊们便纷纷开始突破4分钟的界限。 在人类的活动中，领导人与一般人之间总存在着一个差距。如果领导人的表现十分突出，那么一般人的表现也会越来越好。卓有成效的管理者都懂得这样一个道理：提高一位领导人的绩效要比提高全体员工的绩效容易得多。所以，他必须设法将有条件作出贡献和能起带头作用的人安置到领导岗位上去，安置到制订标准并能创造成绩的位置上去。这就要求管理者能将注意力集中到人的长处上去，而对其弱点则采取不予理会的态度，除非这些弱点影响了其现有长处的充分发挥。 管理者的任务不是去改变人。正如《圣经》中的“塔兰特寓言”所说的那样，管理者的任务就是要让各人的聪明才智、健康体魄以及业务灵感能得到充分的发挥，从而使机构的总体效益能得到成倍的增长。