什么铸就了高效领导者

    微软成为一家成功的公司后，在他的宏大理念：“人人桌上都有电脑”的指引下，盖茨扩大了他的目标。随后，盖茨和他的妻子创立了盖茨夫妇基金会（Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation）。他们有着远大的目标，比如在地球上根除疟疾。正如他在2007年哈佛的毕业典礼上所言：“梅琳达（盖茨的妻子——译注）和我面临着共同的问题：我们如何利用手上的资源，为最多的人们做出最大的贡献。”（习惯2：以终为始）。

    真正的法则意味着要用我们最好的时间来做最重要的事情，也意味着不要在“最好”这个概念上墨守成规。“每个人”可能都会说完成哈佛的学业对年轻的比尔•盖茨来说是最重要的事。然而，他为自己的使命倾注了全部努力，不在乎好心人投来的反对目光。建立微软后，他将全部经历投入了两件首要的事情：招揽最好的人才，努力开发几款大型软件；除此之外的其他任何事情都是次要的。盖茨第一次在晚餐遇见沃伦•巴菲特时，主人邀请所有在座者给出自己心目中的人生中最重要的品质。如爱丽丝•施罗德在她的《滚雪球》（The Snowball）中所说，盖茨和巴菲特都给出了同一个词作为答案：“专注。”（习惯3：要事第一）。

    盖茨与第四个习惯（习惯4：双赢思维）的关系有一些复杂。乍看之下，盖茨似乎是想赢怕输的性格，一个凶猛的斗士，无比害怕公司垮掉，以至于还撰写了一份“梦魇”备忘录记下微软垮掉的情形。行业标准的竞争中只能有极少部分大赢家和大量输家，而盖茨从来没想过让微软脱离赢家的行列。不过更仔细地观察之后，你会发现他很善于让互补的各派结成同盟。为了达成雄心壮志，盖茨明白微软需要与其他巨头优势互补：善于制造微处理器的英特尔（Intel），还有个人电脑制造商IBM和戴尔（Dell）。他还共享了股权，如此一来，微软取得成功时，微软的员工同样取得了成功。他还展现了将自己个人的优势与其他人的优势互补的非凡能力，尤其是与他的长期商业伙伴史蒂夫•鲍尔默。盖茨和鲍尔默通过合作所作出的贡献远大于他们各自单独能做出的贡献。1+1远大于2。（习惯6：统合综效。）

    盖茨转向慈善基金追求社会影响后，他并未走向前台说：“我已经在商界取得了成功，所以我已经知道如何获得社会影响了。”完全相反，他带来了强烈的好奇心，不断努力着增长知识。他一直提问，试着掌握知识和方法，去解决一些最棘手的问题，用一句“我需要了解更多关于磷酸盐的知识”结束了与他朋友的交谈。（习惯5：知彼解己。）最后，我还惊讶于盖茨自我恢复的方式。即便是在创立微软的最紧张的那几年，他也会定期抽出一整周时间用于阅读和反思，这是个“思考周”。他还培养了阅读人物传记的爱好。有一次他对《财富》的布伦特•施伦德说：“一些人的人生成长轨迹令人惊奇”——盖茨学到的这一堂课已经成为了他自己的人生写照（习惯7：不断更新。）

    盖茨是一个很好的案例，不过我同样也可以用其他人的经历来举例子。比如温蒂•柯普。她是“为美国而教”（Teach For America）的创立者，希望借此鼓励成千上万的大学毕业生去美国服务水平最低下的学校，为孩子们担任至少两年的教师。它的最终目的是创造一股顽强的社会力量，从根本上促进美国的K-12教育（积极主动、以终为始）。我也可以举例说史蒂夫•乔布斯住在一间没有家具的房子里，忙于创造疯狂而伟大的产品，没空考虑购买餐桌或沙发这类似乎无关紧要的事情（要事第一）。或者举西南航空公司（Southwest Airlines）赫伯•凯勒尔的例子，他创造了管理层和员工的双赢文化。911事件后，所有人都联合起来，保证公司连续三十年实现了盈利，每一个职位都得以保全（双赢思维）。甚至是温斯顿•丘吉尔，他在第二次世界大战期间常常打盹，这让他每天有了“两个早晨”（不断更新）。

    As Microsoft grew into a successful company, Gates expanded his objectives, guided by a very big idea: a computer on every desk. Later, Gates and his wife created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with huge goals, such as eradicating malaria from the face of the Earth. As he put it in his 2007 Harvard commencement speech, "For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have" (Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind).

    True discipline means channeling our best hours into first-order objectives, and that means being a nonconformist in the best sense. "Everyone" might say finishing Harvard should be the most important task for a young Bill Gates. Instead, he aligned his efforts with his mission, despite any disapproving glances from well-meaning people. As he built Microsoft, he poured his energies into two overriding objectives: getting the best people and executing on a few big software bets; everything else was secondary. When Gates first met Warren Buffett at a dinner, the host asked all those at the table what they saw as the single most important factor in their journey through life. As Alice Schroeder related in her book The Snowball, both Gates and Buffett gave the same one-word answer: "Focus." (Habit 3: Put First Things First).

    Gates's relationship to the fourth habit (Habit 4: Think Win/Win) is a bit more complicated. At first glance, Gates would appear to be a win/lose character, a fierce combatant who so feared how easily a company's flanks could be turned that he wrote a "nightmare" memo laying out scenarios of how Microsoft could lose. In the race for industry standards, there would be only a small set of big winners, and a lot of losers, and Gates had no intention of Microsoft's being anything less than one of the big winners. But a closer look reveals that he was masterful at assembling complementary forces into a coalition. To achieve his big dream, Gates understood that Microsoft would need to complement its strengths with the strengths of others: Intel (INTC) with its microprocessors, and personal computer manufacturers such as IBM and Dell (DELL). He also shared equity, so that when Microsoft won, Microsoft people would win as well. And he displayed a remarkable ability to complement his personal strengths with the strengths of others, especially his longtime business alter ego, Steve Ballmer; Gates and Ballmer accomplished much more by working together than they ever could alone; 1 + 1 is much larger than 2. (Habit 6: Synergize).

    As Gates moved to social impact with the Foundation, he did not step forth saying, "I've been successful in business, so I already know how to achieve social impact." Quite the opposite; he brought a relentless curiosity, a quest to gain understanding. He pushed with questions, trying to get a handle on the science and methods needed to solve some of the most intractable problems, ending one exchange with a friend with a comment along the lines of "I need to learn more about phosphates." (Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood.) And, finally, I'm struck by how Gates renewed. Even during the most intense years building Microsoft, he periodically set aside an entire week to unplug for reading and reflection, a Think Week. He also developed a penchant for reading biographies; at one point he told Brent Schlender of Fortune, "It's amazing how some people develop during their lives" -- a lesson Gates looks to have taken as a mantra for his own life (Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw.)

    Gates is a fabulous case, but I could have used others. I could have highlighted Wendy Kopp, who founded Teach For America with the idea to inspire hundreds of thousands of college graduates to serve at least two years teaching children in our most underserved schools, with the ultimate aim to create an indomitable social force to radically improve K-12 education (Be Proactive; Begin with the End in Mind). Or I could have used Steve Jobs living in a house without furniture, too busy creating insanely great products to get around to seemingly unimportant activities like buying a kitchen table or a sofa (Put First Things First). Or Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines (LUV), who created a win/win culture between management and labor, with everyone uniting together after 9/11 to keep its thirty years of consecutive profitability intact while also keeping intact every single job (Think Win/Win). Or even Winston Churchill, who took naps throughout the Second World War, thereby giving himself "two mornings" every day (Sharpen the Saw).