CEO教训：小麻烦如何拖成大烂摊

“胜负不重要，重要的是你怎样比赛”，这是美国最著名体育记者格兰特兰德•赖斯的座右铭。在我们的童年中，如果自己一方属掉了重大比赛，一定会有人用这句话安慰你。

而今，许多公司高层都相信这句话只能属于童年。现实世界的人们都说，结果才是真正重要的，别的什么都不重要。

虽然大家确实都关心结果，但执着于结果，往往会妨碍我们关注实现结果的具体手段。而且，不同的手段之间差别非常大，在追求最终结果的过程中，哪怕是细小的差别，也会极大地影响到别人的看法。

举个例子，推特给全体员工发了一份备忘录宣布裁员，CEO在其中表示，裁员时“将尽可能地尊重每位员工”，被裁员工将得到“高额离职补偿，而且公司会尽力帮助他们找到新工作”。

高额离职补偿可能会让被裁员工略感安慰，但尽量尊重员工这条承诺并未兑现，主要是因为推特的处理方式太糟糕。比如，推特的软件工程师巴特•提外兹，他就是要在手机上查邮件时，因为无法正常登陆，这才发现自己被裁了。按规定，员工一旦被裁，他的办公邮件账户立刻就会被锁定。如果推特能严格遵守承诺，通知员工离职的方式就完全可以体面一点。不过，在执行过程处理失当的也不只推特一个。

我们研究的一家公司在客户服务方面一直做得很差，而且员工流动率很高。因此，他们决定尝试改善。新员工入职时，该公司高层多花了一个小时，让其中一组人描述自己的性格优势，以及如何在工作中发挥这些优势。

性格外向又好为人师的人也许会表示，有机会指导别人是件不错的事。让新员工描述优点不光带来了积极的自我评价，还增强了员工的认同感。这项一小时训练带来了巨大回报——在随后的六个月中，这组新员工的客户满意度和组织归属感都远高于其他新员工。

看来，管理者在处理工作时的细小差别会产生巨大影响。有鉴于此，多多追究进展不顺利的原因就显得很重要。有时可能是因为缺乏相应知识；有时则是因为过程中细小改变的重要性并不明显。不过，我经常听公司管理者说，做决策时主要是没时间考虑怎样让员工感到获得充分授权，得到尊重并加强认同感。

但管理者应该考虑到，如果做决策时不花工夫思考各种细节，实施时就有可能给自己和公司带来大麻烦，而且解决麻烦的过程中很可能制造出更多麻烦。换句话说就是，要么早点解决小麻烦，要么最后收拾大烂摊。

这就有现成的例子，推特前员工巴特•提外兹之所以会愤怒地发布推文吐槽，就是因为他发现自己被裁的实际和推特CEO“尊重每个人”的承诺相差太大。教训很明显，那就是不仅输赢重要，怎样比赛也很重要。（财富中文网）

乔尔•布罗克纳是哥伦比亚商学院Phillip Hettleman讲席教授，他撰写的《过程很重要》一书已于2015年12月出版。

译者：Charlie

校对：夏林

“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” That maxim from Grantland Rice, one of America’s most famous sportswriters, was undoubtedly trotted out at some point during your childhood to console you after the team lost a big game.

And today, many executives believe that’s exactly where it should stay. In the real world, we’re told, it is results, and only results, that really matter.

Yet, while of course we care about outcomes, our obsession with results tends to blind us to the reality that how people get to the results they seek also makes a big difference; and, that even small differences in how a process is managed can have a big impact on how well the results are perceived by others.

Twitter TWTR -1.36% shared a memo to all employees announcing that there would be layoffs at the company, but in the note the CEO promised layoffs would be handled “with the utmost respect for each and every person,” and that those being laid off would receive “generous exit packages and assistance in finding a new job.”

While the generous exit package may have been well-intended, the message of utmost respect fell by the wayside because the approach Twitter took was a process disaster. Bart Teeuwisse was a software engineer at Twitter who discovered he had been laid off when he tried to access email on his cell phone. Twitter had blocked his e-mail account. Given Twitter’s professed intentions, it seems that they could have found a more dignified way to tell people that they were being let go. But Twitter isn’t alone in process dysfunction.

One company we’ve studied had been plagued by shoddy customer service and high levels of employee turnover, so they decided to experiment a bit to improve results. When bringing on new employees, company executives took an additional 60 minutes with one group to describe their “signature strengths” and how such assets could be used on the job.

Extroverts, with a knack for teaching, might indicate that they would welcome the opportunity to play a mentoring role. Asking new hires to pinpoint their strengths not only fostered positive self-evaluations, it also enabled employees to affirm their sense of identity. The payoff for this 60-minute exercise was huge: over the next six months, customer satisfaction and employees’ organizational commitment was significantly higher for the “signature strength” group of employees than it was for other new hires not subjected to the same exercise.

Given that seemingly small differences in how managers handle processes can have such big impact, it is important to ask why the process isn’t executed well more often. It may come down to a lack of knowledge; sometimes, it just isn’t obvious how a small shift in process can matter so much. Frequently, however, what I hear from executives is that they don’t have time to handle decisions in ways that would allow employees to experience a sense of control, positive self-esteem, and a reinforcing sense of identity.

But, here’s something executives need to consider: if you don’t invest the time needed to consider the howof your decisions, you’re likely to create an even bigger mess for yourself and your organization down the road—and that means more of a mess to clean up. Put differently, pay now or pay (a lot more) later.

Look at the outrage expressed on Bart Teeuwisse’s Twitter feed on the disconnect between how he found out he was being laid off, and the CEO’s words about treating people with respect. The lesson is clear: It’s not only whether you win or lose, butalso how you play the game.

Joel Brockner is the Phillip Hettleman Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School. He is the author of the book, The Process Matters, which published this month.