职场人士也要操练业务

    音乐家需要练习。运动员也需要练习。他们练习的目的是为了让自己更加精于业务。而身为职场人士，同样也想让自己对工作更加精通。但是，如果你所在的公司和其他大部分公司一样的话，那么，肯定极少有人在公司内提及“练习”这个词。对大部分人来说，做“练习”应该是学校里孩子们的事情吧！

    杰出学校（Uncommon Schools）常务董事道格·赖莫夫说：“在大多数公司，人们极少能对各种工作不断精进。每天重复一项任务，算不上练习，除非你在做这项任务的过程中加入了目的性。”杰出学校是一个由32家特许学校组成的网络。道格·赖莫夫与艾丽卡·沃雷、凯蒂·耶兹合著有《完美练习：渐入佳境的42条规则》(Perfect Practice: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better)一书，三人曾培训过10,000名学校领导人和教师。赖莫夫认为，练习在公司中有重要的作用。“它是竞争优势的源泉。”教师打磨出色的教授技巧，可以提高学生的成绩。同样，职场人士练习谈判或其他商务技巧，也将比其他人拥有更卓越的表现。

    那么，在职场中又该如何开始练习呢？首先，要改变对练习含义的看法。曾在茱莉亚音乐学院接受过培训的钢琴师和教师、《练习的艺术》（The Art of Practicing）一书的作者玛德琳妮·布鲁瑟尔说：“长期以来，练习这个词一直名声不佳。人们认为，练习是件苦差事，没有任何乐趣可言，反而是造成压力、挣扎、负担、紧张的源头。”最好将练习想象成某种形式的游戏——就像音乐家弹奏乐器一样。在这种游戏中，你能学会“更好地表达自己，使自己的创造性智慧获得成功。你会日益擅长解决问题。”而要这么做，可以尝试以下四个步骤：

    赖莫夫和他的共同作者们建议，可以向团队成员了解人们最应该练习哪三项技能。比如口头陈述、回答客户的问题、进行绩效评估、给出反馈，在销售电话中将自己公司的产品与竞争对手进行对比、无约电话、各种形式的文案写作（PowerPoint幻灯片、备忘录、电子邮件、白皮书、官方信函等）、编辑和发表编辑内容、主持会议、数据分析、谈判、估算、采访等。

    1. 明确值得提高的技能

    赖莫夫建议：“练习一切真实发生的事。一旦它们不按预期发展，就没有机会再来一次。我们一直在练习高难度谈话。”利用团队成员的答案，创建一个自己希望练习的技能列表，目标则是精通这些技能。

    2. 创建（和命名）常规演练

    运动员会进行两种练习：训练赛和常规演练。训练赛会模仿比赛条件，这是显而易见的练习方式。如果你教某人如何主持会议，难道你不会为他们安排一次模仿会议吗？

    Musicians practice. Athletes practice. They practice because they want to get better at what they do. You'd like to get better at what you do, too. But if your organization is like most, the word "practice" seldom comes up in anything beyond a discussion of kids' after school schedules.

    "Most business is full of tasks that people rarely get better at," says Doug Lemov, a managing director of Uncommon Schools, a network of 32 charter schools, and author, with Erica Woolway and Katie Yezzi, of Perfect Practice: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better. "Repeating a task daily isn't practicing unless you add intentionality."

    Practice has a role in business, says Lemov, who with Woolway and Yezzi has trained 10,000 school leaders and teachers. "It's a source of competitive advantage." Just as teachers who practice good teaching techniques get better results from their students, people who practice negotiating or other business skills will perform better than those who don't.

    So how do you go about practicing in your career? First, change your idea about what practice means. "The word practicing has had a rather bad name for a long time," says Madeline Bruser, a Juilliard-trained pianist and teacher, and author of The Art of Practicing. "People think of it as this chore. There's no joy in it. It's a source of stress, struggle and strain and tension." Better to think of practice as a form of play -- just as musicians "play" their instruments -- in which you learn to "better express yourself so your creative intelligence comes through. You get better at solving problems." To do that, try these four steps:

    1. Identify skills worth improving

    Lemov and his co-authors suggest asking team members for lists of the top three skills people in your organization should practice. Examples include giving presentations, answering client questions, giving performance reviews, giving feedback in general, comparing your product to a competitor's during sales calls, cold calling, writing in its various forms (PowerPoint slides, memos, emails, white papers, official letters), editing and delivering edits, running a meeting, data analysis, negotiation, estimating, interviewing, and so forth.

    Lemov suggests practicing "anything that happens live that you can't do it over again if it doesn't go the way you want it to. We practice difficult conversations all the time." Use your team members' answers to create a short list of the skills you'd like to practice with the goal of mastery.

    2. Create (and name) drills

    Athletes do two main kinds of practice: scrimmage and drills. Scrimmages mimic game conditions, and seem like the obvious way to practice. If you're teaching someone how to run a meeting, for instance, wouldn't you have them run a mock meeting?