建立一个团队惠特尼·约翰逊

Play to Their Strengths andLead Them Up the Learning Curve WHITNEY JOHNSON H A R VA R D B U S I N E S S R E V I E W P R E S S CONTENTS Introduction:Being the Kind of Boss People Love to Work For1 1.The S Curve of Learning132.The Seven Accelerants of Learning and Growth313.Recruiting and Hiring574.Managing the Hungry New Hire875.Playing to Their Strengths1096.Managing Masters1297.Helping People Leap to New Learning Curves147 Conclusion:Getting Started 167 Notes173Index183Acknowledgments191About the Author193 THE S CURVE OF LEARNING To boldly go where no man has gone before. —Star Trek’s Captain James Kirk Captain James Cook was one of the greatest explorers andcartographers in history. He was the first European to visitwhat is now Sydney, Australia. He discovered the HawaiianIslands and skirted Antarctica, sailing a total of well over twohundred thousand miles—essentially the distance from theearth to the moon. One-third of the globe was unmappedwhen he was born; when he died in 1779, he had exploredmost of it and drawn maps so accurate that they were still inuse two hundred years later.1 It’s unlikely Cook would have accomplished any of this hadhe not been willing to jump to new learning curves and beensponsored by people who recognized and invested in his talent.Cook was born in 1728 to an impoverished laboring family in Yorkshire, England, and raised in a tiny hovel where only one of his five siblings lived to adulthood. Thelord of the local manor, Thomas Scottowe, recognizedJames as gifted and paid for him to be educated at the localschool. At seventeen, Cook moved to the coast of the NorthSea, and thanks to his patron’s recommendation, he secureda job as anassistant shopkeeper.When the sea called to him, Cook found a mentor in James Walker, a ship owner and coal merchant, who tookCook on as his apprentice. Under Walker’s tutelage, heworked his way up the ranks of the merchant navy, whilestudying mathematics, navigation, and astronomy.In 1755, Walker offered Cook the position of ship’s master. Instead, he chose to join the Royal Navy where he began as acommon sailor. (With a war in France looming, he believedthis step back would lead to opportunities for promotion.)Here he found another patron in Hugh Palliser, an aspiringofficer who was impressed with Cook’s talents and broughthim along as he ascended within the naval establishment. Cook’s mapmaking skills and his leadership during theSeven Years’ War eventually earned him the command ofthe HMSEndeavor, the Royal Navy research vessel he wouldcaptain on his legendary voyages. Cook’ssuccess depended on three men—Scottowe,Walker, and Palliser—who recognized his gifts and helpeddevelopthem.Without these talent-spotting sponsors,instead of becoming a revered adventurer, he might havewasted away in obscure poverty.Captain James Cook wrote in his journal that he had “sailed farther than any other man before me.” Captain James T. Kirk, the pop culture icon ofStar Trek, is modeledon Cook, and his motto “to boldly go where no man hasgone before” could easily have belonged to Cook. This is what people want on the job: to boldly gowhere they haven’t gone before. To venture into unchartedterritory. To take themselves and their company wherethey’ve never been. And yet, we humans also like a certain amount ofpredictability. If given the chance to see our future in acrystal ball, most of us would peek. We like to flip a switchand the light goes on. When we can forecast the future, weelevate our sense of security. When we believe we controlour circumstances, we feel more confident. Evenmillennials,who often hummingbird from one opportunity to the next,believe that sticking with one company and climbing thecorporate ladder is a safer bet for salary growth than switch-ing jobs or entrepreneurship.2But, control is an illusion.None of us knows what the future will bring. It’s a conundrum. Disruption fosters innovation. It alsochallenges current, and often dearly held, practices withoutproviding clear alternatives. It’s especially murky when itcomes to finding the best way to manage your employees.This is where the S curve model comes in. At the Disruptive Innovation Fund we employed an S curve model,popularized by sociologist E. M. Rogers, in our investmentdecision making. In investing, the S curve model is used togauge how quickly an innovation will be adopted and howrapidly it will penetrate a market. The S curve helps makethe unpredictable predictable. At the base of the S, progress is relatively slow until a tipping point is reached—the kneeof the curve. This is followed by hypergrowth up the steepback of the curve until slow growth occurs again, as marketsaturation leads to a flattening top of the S. (See figure 1-1,“The S curve of learning,” for a visual representation.)The S curve model also helps us understand the development of and shifts in individual careers. S curve math tells us that theearly days of a role, at the low end of the S, c