联席CEO模式行得通吗？
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通常在中小型公司中，多位创始人会拥有相同的最高头衔。或许他们起步时是夫妻档，又或许他们是在同一间宿舍里写过代码的两个好朋友。在专业服务公司中，共同领导现象也很普遍。出于业务考虑，所有合伙人都需要拥有看上去同等的头衔。
我并不迷信于人们的头衔。真正重要的是共同领导者对于公司拥有相同的长期愿景(特别是他们希望公司要做到多大——这个问题随着时间的推移可能成为共同创始人之间的一个重大分歧)，团队里的每个人对于谁拥有最终决定权都非常清楚。 不管每个人的头衔是什么，一家公司只能有一个真正的头。如果员工们不清楚最后是谁来拍板，就会造成犹豫不决和焦虑不安。 全食公司（Whole Foods）是一家蓬勃发展的采用联席CEO模式公司。创始人约翰•梅克与公司元老级人物沃尔特•罗博共同掌舵。罗博最初于1991年加入公司，曾在加州管理一家门店。但全食公司是一个罕见的例外。 大多数时候，这种格局都难以持续。权力很难分享。通常，联席CEO们都不会明确谁负责什么。需要做决定时，员工们可能会左右为难。这就会在团队中造成混乱，在联席CEO之间引发冲突。 那么，如果你希望延续联席CEO模式，怎么才能防止出现这种情况呢？有些公司会作出这样的选择：一个主外，应对外部事物；一个主内，负责内部决策。另外一些公司行之有效的方式是让一位联席CEO负责销售，另一位负责营运。 专业服务公司的情况会复杂一些，这里通常会有一堆合伙人。我建议挑选一位合伙人减少在法律、会计或建筑等业务领域的时间投入，而把更多时间花在考虑如何发展公司这个问题上。这个人的主要工作是什么呢？正如我们在公司内部的研讨会上所言，他的工作是“确保让正确的人做好正确的事。”通常，所有人都很清楚，这个合伙人应该是谁。 我拜访过一家拥有5个合伙人的专业服务公司，当我问到，谁能确保雇佣最好的人员、负责兑现具体目标以及关键业绩指标时，他们都指向了同一个人。他们就是这样解决了谁领导这家公司的问题，与此同时又继续保持5个人享有相同的股权和头衔。 一旦职责明确，联席领导者需要自律，不干涉他人的领域，但私下仍能合作。一个很好的例子就是：如果一位员工要求外当家介入一件内当家的职权范围内的事，外当家这时候要说：“这事你去找内当家谈吧”，反之亦然。就算是出于好心，也绝不应提供任何建议或想法。应该强调一点，最终决定权在另一位领导者的手中。不管公司是联席CEO模式，还是传统结构的领导团队，这个办法都非常有用（财富中文网） |
Often at small and midsize companies, founders will have the same top title. Maybe they started out as a husband and wife team or as two friends writing code in a dorm room. Shared leadership is also common at professional services firms, where partners all need to be seen as equals for business reasons. I'm not hung up on people's titles. What matters is that co-leaders share the same long-term vision for the company (particularly how big they want the company to become -- which can become a major source of disagreement between co-founders over time) -- and that everyone on the team is crystal clear about where the buck stops. There can only be one real head of the company, no matter what title each person has. If employees aren't clear about who's going to make key final decisions, it creates indecision and anxiety. One company that has thrived with co-CEOs is Whole Foods (WFM). John Mackey, the founder, shares the helm with Walter Robb, a company veteran who first came on board in 1991 and ran one of the company's stores in California. But Whole Foods is a rare exception. Most of the time, these situations blow up. It's hard to share power. Often, the co-CEOs never make it clear who is accountable for what. Then employees may literally play mom against dad when decisions need to be made. This leads to confusion among the team and tension between the co-CEOs. So how can you prevent this if you want to stick with the co-CEO model? Some companies pick a Mr. or Ms. Outside who acts as the public face of the firm -- and a counterpart inside, who handles internal decisions. At other companies, what works best is having one co-leader run sales while the other handles operations. It gets trickier at professional services firms, where it's common to have a bunch of principals. I recommend picking one partner who spends less time practicing law, accounting, or architecture and more on growing the company. And what is that person's primary job? As we say in workshops at my firm, it is "making sure the right people are doing the right things right." It's usually evident to everyone who this partner should be. When I visited one professional services firm with five principals and asked who was capable of making sure the best people were being hired and held accountable to concrete goals and key performance indicators, they all pointed to one person. That's how they sorted out who would lead the company while they continued to share the same ownership stakes and titles. Once clear on accountabilities, co-leaders need to have the discipline to stay out of each other's turf, though they can still collaborate privately. Case in point: If an employee asks Mr. Outside to weigh in on an issue that's in Ms. Inside's bailiwick, he needs to say, "Go talk to Ms. Inside" -- and vice versa. Refrain from sharing even an innocent suggestion or thought without reinforcing that it's the final decision of the other leader. This approach is useful whether there are co-CEOs or a traditionally structured leadership team. |
