硅谷是个研究上司和直属下级关系的好地方。20年前，硅谷的人们不关心、也不是很赞同管理技能。而今，硅谷企业却对此痴迷不已。但个中原因并非如大家所想，比如说经营者是不断寻找某种理论的新纪元精神导师，或者这些公司的员工和别处的完全不一样。这也不是因为硅谷公司有大笔培训预算，或者研究大数据后对人性有一些根本认知。

不，硅谷之所以适合研究上下级关系，是因为人才争夺战很激烈。在硅谷，不断成长并且招兵买马的出色企业太多，感到不快乐或者怀才不遇的人不会被留下来。当然也没有理由去支付“混蛋税”。不喜欢老板就辞职，反正会有10家公司排着队请你。因此，硅谷的公司在理顺上下级关系方面压力很大。

即使身处硅谷，交际圈也不会扩大多少。谷歌联合创始人拉里•佩奇手机里真正的联系人不会比你多几个。但你和几名直属下级的关系会对团队业绩产生巨大影响。如果你领导的是一家大公司，你肯定无法和所有人联系上。你和直属下级的关系将影响他们和直属下级的关系。连锁反应的影响很大，既能建立优秀的企业文化，也能毁掉企业文化。交际圈的规模没那么容易扩散，但公司文化影响广泛。

用“关系”这个词真的恰当吗？是的。2001-2011年担任谷歌CEO的埃里克•施密特和拉里•佩奇的关系是商业史上一段比较有趣的故事。时任苹果公司首席运营官、如今的CEO蒂姆•库克提出愿意把部分肝脏移植给史蒂夫•乔布斯，后来乔布斯拒绝了，这都是私交深厚的表现。

怎样才能准确描述这些关系的本质？管理资本主义是个比较新的现象，古代哲人没有描述过这样的人际关系。尽管当今世界几乎每个人都会不可避免有老板，但哲学、文学、电影以及探究生活中种种关系的努力都忽视了上下级关系的处理。我想改变现况，因为无论是在苹果、谷歌还是地球上的任何地方，成为好上司的核心都是维持好关系。

我发现，描述理想上下级关系的最佳词语就是开诚布公。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

本文节选自Kim Scott的作品《开诚布公：成为厉害又不失人情味的老板》，未经编辑。该书于2017年3月14日出版，版权由Kim Scott所有。摘录已获圣马丁出版社的许可。

Silicon Valley was an ideal setting in which to explore the relationships between bosses and the people who report directly to them. Twenty years ago, management skills were neither taught nor rewarded in Silicon Valley, but today its companies are obsessed with it. This isn’t for the reasons you might think—that they are run by new-age gurus ever in search of a theory, or because the people there are fundamentally different from people anywhere else. Nor is it because the companies there have huge budgets for training, or have some fundamental insight into human nature unleashed by access to all that big data.

No, the reason why Silicon Valley turned out to be a good place to study the relationships between bosses and the people who report to them is that the war for “talent” there is intense. So many great companies in the Valley are growing and hiring that there’s no reason to stay with a company if you are unhappy or think your potential is being wasted. And there’s certainly no reason to pay the “asshole tax.” If you don’t like your boss, you quit, knowing that ten other companies will be lining up to hire you. So the pressure on companies to get these relationships right is enormous.

Even in Silicon Valley, relationships don’t scale. Larry Page can’t have a real relationship with more than a handful of people any more than you can. But the relationships you have with the handful of people who report directly to you will have an enormous impact on the results your team achieves. If you lead a big organization, you can’t have a relationship with everybody. But the relationships you have with your direct reports will impact the relationships they have with their direct reports. The ripple effect will go a long way toward creating—or destroying— a positive culture. Relationships may not scale, but culture does.

Is “relationship” really the right word? Yes. The relationship between Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO from 2001–2011, and Larry Page was one of business history’s more interesting dances. And the willingness of Tim Cook, then COO and now CEO of Apple, to give part of his liver to Steve Jobs, and Jobs’ refusal to accept the sacrifice, exemplifies a profoundly personal relationship.

What is the proper nature of this relationship? Managerial capitalism is a relatively new phenomenon, so this human bond was not described by ancient philosophers. Even though almost everybody today has a boss at some point, the nature of this connection has gotten short shrift in philosophy, literature, movies, and all the other ways we explore the relationships that govern our lives. I want to fix that, because at the very heart of being a good boss—at Apple, at Google, or anywhere else on earth—is a good relationship.

The term I found that best describes this relationship is Radical Candor.

This is an unedited excerpt from Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, by Kim Scott published March 14, 2017 Copyright © 2017 by Kim Scott. Reprinted with permission from St. Martin's Press.