An effective executive does not need to be a leader in the sense that the term is now most commonly used. Harry Truman did not have one ounce of charisma, for example, yet he was among the most effective chief executives in U.S. history. Similarly, some of the best business and nonprofit CEOs I’ve worked with over a 65-year consulting career were not stereotypical leaders. They were all over the map in terms of their personalities, attitudes, values, strengths, and weaknesses. They ranged from extroverted to nearly reclusive, from easygoing to controlling, from generous to parsimonious.
一个有效的高管不需要成为领导者，因为这个词现在是最常用的。例如，哈里·杜鲁门（Harry Truman）没有一丝魅力，但他是美国历史上最有效的首席执行官之一。同样，在65年的咨询生涯中，我共事过的一些最优秀的企业和非营利性CEO都不是刻板的领导者。他们的个性、态度、价值观、长处和短处都遍布整个地图。他们从外向到近乎隐居，从随和到控制，从慷慨到吝啬。

What made them all effective is that they followed the same eight practices:
使它们都有效的是它们遵循相同的八种做法：

• They asked, “What needs to be done?”
  他们问：“需要做什么？

• They asked, “What is right for the enterprise?”
  他们问：“什么对企业来说是正确的？

• They developed action plans.
  他们制定了行动计划。

• They took responsibility for decisions.
  他们负责决策。

• They took responsibility for communicating.
  他们负责沟通。

• They were focused on opportunities rather than problems.
  他们关注的是机会而不是问题。

• They ran productive meetings.
  他们召开了富有成效的会议。

• They thought and said “we” rather than “I.”
  他们想了想，说了“我们”而不是“我”。

The first two practices gave them the knowledge they needed. The next four helped them convert this knowledge into effective action. The last two ensured that the whole organization felt responsible and accountable.
前两种做法为他们提供了所需的知识。接下来的四个帮助他们将这些知识转化为有效的行动。最后两项确保了整个组织感到有责任和义务。

Get the Knowledge You Need
获取您需要的知识

The first practice is to ask what needs to be done. Note that the question is not “What do I want to do?” Asking what has to be done, and taking the question seriously, is crucial for managerial success. Failure to ask this question will render even the ablest executive ineffectual.
第一个练习是问需要做什么。请注意，问题不是“我想做什么？问必须做什么，并认真对待这个问题，对于管理的成功至关重要。如果不问这个问题，即使是最有能力的执行者也会变得无能为力。

When Truman became president in 1945, he knew exactly what he wanted to do: complete the economic and social reforms of Roosevelt’s New Deal, which had been deferred by World War II. As soon as he asked what needed to be done, though, Truman realized that foreign affairs had absolute priority. He organized his working day so that it began with tutorials on foreign policy by the secretaries of state and defense. As a result, he became the most effective president in foreign affairs the United States has ever known. He contained Communism in both Europe and Asia and, with the Marshall Plan, triggered 50 years of worldwide economic growth.
当杜鲁门在1945年成为总统时，他确切地知道自己想做什么：完成罗斯福新政的经济和社会改革，这些改革因第二次世界大战而推迟。然而，当他问到需要做什么时，杜鲁门意识到外交事务是绝对优先的。他安排了自己的工作日，以便从国务卿和国防部长的外交政策教程开始。结果，他成为美国有史以来最有效的外交事务总统。他遏制了欧洲和亚洲的共产主义，并通过马歇尔计划引发了 50 年的全球经济增长。

Similarly, Jack Welch realized that what needed to be done at General Electric when he took over as chief executive was not the overseas expansion he wanted to launch. It was getting rid of GE businesses that, no matter how profitable, could not be number one or number two in their industries.
同样，杰克·韦尔奇（Jack Welch）意识到，当他接任首席执行官时，通用电气需要做的不是他想要启动的海外扩张。它正在摆脱通用电气的业务，这些业务无论多么有利可图，都不可能成为其行业的第一或第二。

The answer to the question “What needs to be done?” almost always contains more than one urgent task. But effective executives do not splinter themselves. They concentrate on one task if at all possible. If they are among those people—a sizable minority—who work best with a change of pace in their working day, they pick two tasks. I have never encountered an executive who remains effective while tackling more than two tasks at a time. Hence, after asking what needs to be done, the effective executive sets priorities and sticks to them. For a CEO, the priority task might be redefining the company’s mission. For a unit head, it might be redefining the unit’s relationship with headquarters. Other tasks, no matter how important or appealing, are postponed. However, after completing the original top-priority task, the executive resets priorities rather than moving on to number two from the original list. He asks, “What must be done now?” This generally results in new and different priorities.
“需要做什么？”这个问题的答案几乎总是包含不止一项紧迫的任务。但有效的高管不会分裂自己。如果可能的话，他们专注于一项任务。如果他们是那些在工作日改变节奏的情况下工作最好的人（相当大的少数），他们会选择两项任务。我从未遇到过一位高管在同时处理两项以上任务时仍然保持高效。因此，在询问需要做什么之后，有效的执行者会设定优先事项并坚持下去。对于CEO来说，首要任务可能是重新定义公司的使命。对于单位负责人来说，它可能正在重新定义单位与总部的关系。其他任务，无论多么重要或吸引人，都会被推迟。但是，在完成原始最高优先级任务后，执行官会重新设置优先级，而不是从原始列表中转到第二位。他问：“现在必须做什么？这通常会导致新的和不同的优先级。

To refer again to America’s best-known CEO: Every five years, according to his autobiography, Jack Welch asked himself, “What needs to be done now?” And every time, he came up with a new and different priority.
再说一遍美国最知名的CEO：根据杰克·韦尔奇（Jack Welch）的自传，杰克·韦尔奇（Jack Welch）每隔五年就会问自己：“现在需要做什么？每一次，他都会提出一个新的、不同的优先事项。

But Welch also thought through another issue before deciding where to concentrate his efforts for the next five years. He asked himself which of the two or three tasks at the top of the list he himself was best suited to undertake. Then he concentrated on that task; the others he delegated. Effective executives try to focus on jobs they’ll do especially well. They know that enterprises perform if top management performs—and don’t if it doesn’t.
但韦尔奇在决定未来五年将精力集中在哪里之前，还考虑了另一个问题。他扪心自问，在清单上的两三项任务中，哪一项最适合他自己承担。然后他专注于这项任务;他委派的其他人。有效的高管会努力专注于他们做得特别好的工作。他们知道，如果高层管理人员表现出色，企业就会表现出色，如果表现不佳，企业就不会表现出色。

Effective executives’ second practice—fully as important as the first—is to ask, “Is this the right thing for the enterprise?” They do not ask if it’s right for the owners, the stock price, the employees, or the executives. Of course they know that shareholders, employees, and executives are important constituencies who have to support a decision, or at least acquiesce in it, if the choice is to be effective. They know that the share price is important not only for the shareholders but also for the enterprise, since the price/earnings ratio sets the cost of capital. But they also know that a decision that isn’t right for the enterprise will ultimately not be right for any of the stakeholders.
有效的高管的第二种做法——与第一种做法同样重要——是问：“这对企业来说是正确的吗？他们不会问它是否适合所有者、股价、员工或高管。当然，他们知道股东、员工和高管是重要的支持者，如果选择要有效，他们必须支持或至少默许决策。他们知道股价不仅对股东很重要，而且对企业也很重要，因为市盈率决定了资本成本。但他们也知道，一个不适合企业的决定最终将不适合任何利益相关者。

This second practice is especially important for executives at family owned or family run businesses—the majority of businesses in every country—particularly when they’re making decisions about people. In the successful family company, a relative is promoted only if he or she is measurably superior to all nonrelatives on the same level. At DuPont, for instance, all top managers (except the controller and lawyer) were family members in the early years when the firm was run as a family business. All male descendants of the founders were entitled to entry-level jobs at the company. Beyond the entrance level, a family member got a promotion only if a panel composed primarily of nonfamily managers judged the person to be superior in ability and performance to all other employees at the same level. The same rule was observed for a century in the highly successful British family business J. Lyons & Company (now part of a major conglomerate) when it dominated the British food-service and hotel industries.
第二种做法对于家族企业或家族企业（每个国家/地区的大多数企业）的高管尤为重要，尤其是在他们做出有关人员的决策时。在成功的家族企业中，只有当亲戚明显优于同级别的所有非亲戚时，他或她才能得到晋升。例如，在杜邦公司，所有高层管理人员（财务总监和律师除外）在公司作为家族企业运营的早期都是家庭成员。创始人的所有男性后裔都有权在公司担任入门级工作。在入门级之后，只有当主要由非家族经理组成的小组认为该成员在能力和表现上优于同级别的所有其他员工时，该家庭成员才能获得晋升。一个非常成功的英国家族企业J. Lyons & Company（现在是大型企业集团的一部分）在主导英国食品服务和酒店业时，也遵循了同样的规则一个世纪。

Asking “What is right for the enterprise?” does not guarantee that the right decision will be made. Even the most brilliant executive is human and thus prone to mistakes and prejudices. But failure to ask the question virtually guarantees the wrong decision.
问“什么对企业来说是正确的？”并不能保证会做出正确的决定。即使是最杰出的高管也是人，因此容易犯错误和偏见。但是，如果不提出这个问题，实际上就注定了错误的决定。

Write an Action Plan
制定行动计划

Executives are doers; they execute. Knowledge is useless to executives until it has been translated into deeds. But before springing into action, the executive needs to plan his course. He needs to think about desired results, probable restraints, future revisions, check-in points, and implications for how he’ll spend his time.
高管是实干家;他们执行。知识在转化为行动之前对高管来说毫无用处。但在采取行动之前，高管需要计划他的路线。他需要考虑预期的结果、可能的限制、未来的修订、签到点以及对他将如何度过时间的影响。

First, the executive defines desired results by asking: “What contributions should the enterprise expect from me over the next 18 months to two years? What results will I commit to? With what deadlines?” Then he considers the restraints on action: “Is this course of action ethical? Is it acceptable within the organization? Is it legal? Is it compatible with the mission, values, and policies of the organization?” Affirmative answers don’t guarantee that the action will be effective. But violating these restraints is certain to make it both wrong and ineffectual.
首先，高管通过询问来定义期望的结果：“在未来 18 个月到两年内，企业应该期望我做出哪些贡献？我将承诺什么结果？在什么期限内？然后，他考虑了对行动的限制：“这种行为是否合乎道德？在组织内可以接受吗？合法吗？它是否与组织的使命、价值观和政策兼容？肯定的答案并不能保证该行动会有效。但是，违反这些限制肯定会使它既错误又无效。

The action plan is a statement of intentions rather than a commitment. It must not become a straitjacket. It should be revised often, because every success creates new opportunities. So does every failure. The same is true for changes in the business environment, in the market, and especially in people within the enterprise—all these changes demand that the plan be revised. A written plan should anticipate the need for flexibility.
行动计划是意向声明，而不是承诺。它绝不能成为束缚。它应该经常修改，因为每一次成功都会创造新的机会。每一次失败也是如此。商业环境、市场的变化，尤其是企业内部人员的变化也是如此——所有这些变化都要求修改计划。书面计划应预见到灵活性的需要。

In addition, the action plan needs to create a system for checking the results against the expectations. Effective executives usually build two such checks into their action plans. The first check comes halfway through the plan’s time period; for example, at nine months. The second occurs at the end, before the next action plan is drawn up.
此外，行动计划需要创建一个系统，以便根据预期检查结果。有效的高管通常会在他们的行动计划中建立两项这样的检查。第一次检查是在计划时间段的中途进行的;例如，在九个月时。第二次发生在最后，在制定下一个行动计划之前。

Finally, the action plan has to become the basis for the executive’s time management. Time is an executive’s scarcest and most precious resource. And organizations—whether government agencies, businesses, or nonprofits—are inherently time wasters. The action plan will prove useless unless it’s allowed to determine how the executive spends his or her time.
最后，行动计划必须成为高管时间管理的基础。时间是高管最稀缺、最宝贵的资源。组织——无论是政府机构、企业还是非营利组织——本质上都是浪费时间的。行动计划将被证明是无用的，除非它被允许决定高管如何度过他或她的时间。

Napoleon allegedly said that no successful battle ever followed its plan. Yet Napoleon also planned every one of his battles, far more meticulously than any earlier general had done. Without an action plan, the executive becomes a prisoner of events. And without check-ins to reexamine the plan as events unfold, the executive has no way of knowing which events really matter and which are only noise.
据称，拿破仑说过，没有一场成功的战斗遵循其计划。然而，拿破仑也计划了他的每一场战斗，比任何早期的将军都要细致得多。没有行动计划，行政人员就会成为事件的俘虏。如果不签到以随着事件的发展重新检查计划，高管就无法知道哪些事件真正重要，哪些只是噪音。

Act

When they translate plans into action, executives need to pay particular attention to decision making, communication, opportunities (as opposed to problems), and meetings. I’ll consider these one at a time.
当他们将计划转化为行动时，高管们需要特别注意决策、沟通、机会（而不是问题）和会议。我会一次考虑一个。

Take responsibility for decisions.
对决策负责。

A decision has not been made until people know:
在人们知道之前，还没有做出决定：

• the name of the person accountable for carrying it out;
  负责执行该任务的人的姓名;

• the deadline; 截止日期;

• the names of the people who will be affected by the decision and therefore have to know about, understand, and approve it—or at least not be strongly opposed to it—and
  将受到该决定影响并因此必须了解、理解和批准该决定（或至少不强烈反对该决定）的人的姓名，以及

• the names of the people who have to be informed of the decision, even if they are not directly affected by it.
  必须被告知该决定的人的姓名，即使他们没有直接受到该决定的影响。

An extraordinary number of organizational decisions run into trouble because these bases aren’t covered. One of my clients, 30 years ago, lost its leadership position in the fast-growing Japanese market because the company, after deciding to enter into a joint venture with a new Japanese partner, never made clear who was to inform the purchasing agents that the partner defined its specifications in meters and kilograms rather than feet and pounds—and nobody ever did relay that information.
由于这些基础没有被覆盖，大量的组织决策遇到了麻烦。30年前，我的一位客户在快速增长的日本市场失去了领导地位，因为该公司在决定与新的日本合作伙伴建立合资企业后，从未明确告知采购代理，合作伙伴以米和公斤而不是英尺和磅来定义其规格，而且没有人传达过这些信息。

It’s just as important to review decisions periodically—at a time that’s been agreed on in advance—as it is to make them carefully in the first place. That way, a poor decision can be corrected before it does real damage. These reviews can cover anything from the results to the assumptions underlying the decision.
定期审查决策（在事先商定的时间）与首先仔细制定决策同样重要。这样一来，一个糟糕的决定就可以在造成真正的损害之前得到纠正。这些审查可以涵盖从结果到决策所依据的假设的任何内容。

Such a review is especially important for the most crucial and most difficult of all decisions, the ones about hiring or promoting people. Studies of decisions about people show that only one-third of such choices turn out to be truly successful. One-third are likely to be draws—neither successes nor outright failures. And one-third are failures, pure and simple. Effective executives know this and check up (six to nine months later) on the results of their people decisions. If they find that a decision has not had the desired results, they don’t conclude that the person has not performed. They conclude, instead, that they themselves made a mistake. In a well-managed enterprise, it is understood that people who fail in a new job, especially after a promotion, may not be the ones to blame.
这样的审查对于所有决定中最关键和最困难的决定尤为重要，即关于雇用或晋升人员的决定。对人的决定的研究表明，只有三分之一的这种选择是真正成功的。三分之一可能是平局——既不是成功也不是彻底失败。三分之一是失败，纯粹而简单。有效的高管知道这一点，并在六到九个月后检查他们的人事决策结果。如果他们发现一个决定没有达到预期的结果，他们不会得出这个人没有执行的结论。相反，他们得出的结论是，他们自己犯了一个错误。在一个管理良好的企业中，可以理解的是，在新工作中失败的人，尤其是在晋升之后，可能不是罪魁祸首。

Executives also owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs. It may not be the employees’ fault that they are underperforming, but even so, they have to be removed. People who have failed in a new job should be given the choice to go back to a job at their former level and salary. This option is rarely exercised; such people, as a rule, leave voluntarily, at least when their employers are U.S. firms. But the very existence of the option can have a powerful effect, encouraging people to leave safe, comfortable jobs and take risky new assignments. The organization’s performance depends on employees’ willingness to take such chances.
高管们也对组织和他们的同事负有责任，不能容忍在重要岗位上表现不佳的人。表现不佳可能不是员工的错，但即便如此，他们也必须被解雇。那些在新工作中失败的人应该可以选择回到他们以前的水平和薪水的工作。这种选择很少被行使;这些人通常是自愿离开的，至少当他们的雇主是美国公司时。但是，这种选择的存在本身可以产生强大的影响，鼓励人们离开安全、舒适的工作，接受有风险的新任务。组织的绩效取决于员工是否愿意抓住这样的机会。

A systematic decision review can be a powerful tool for self-development, too. Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information. It shows them their biases. Very often it shows them that their decisions didn’t produce results because they didn’t put the right people on the job. Allocating the best people to the right positions is a crucial, tough job that many executives slight, in part because the best people are already too busy. Systematic decision review also shows executives their own weaknesses, particularly the areas in which they are simply incompetent. In these areas, smart executives don’t make decisions or take actions. They delegate. Everyone has such areas; there’s no such thing as a universal executive genius.
系统的决策审查也可以成为自我发展的有力工具。根据其预期检查决策结果，可以向高管展示他们的优势是什么，他们需要改进的地方，以及他们缺乏知识或信息的地方。它向他们展示了他们的偏见。很多时候，它向他们表明，他们的决定没有产生结果，因为他们没有把合适的人放在工作上。将最优秀的人才分配到合适的职位是一项至关重要的艰巨工作，许多高管都轻视了，部分原因是最优秀的人才已经太忙了。系统的决策审查也向高管们展示了他们自己的弱点，特别是他们根本无法胜任的领域。在这些领域，聪明的高管不会做出决定或采取行动。他们委派。每个人都有这样的领域;世上没有万能的执行天才。

Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake. Decisions are made at every level of the organization, beginning with individual professional contributors and frontline supervisors. These apparently low-level decisions are extremely important in a knowledge-based organization. Knowledge workers are supposed to know more about their areas of specialization—for example, tax accounting—than anybody else, so their decisions are likely to have an impact throughout the company. Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level. It needs to be taught explicitly to everyone in organizations that are based on knowledge.
大多数关于决策的讨论都假设只有高级管理人员才能做出决定，或者只有高级管理人员的决策才有意义。这是一个危险的错误。决策是在组织的各个层面做出的，从个人专业贡献者和一线主管开始。这些看似低级的决策在知识型组织中极为重要。知识工作者应该比其他人更了解他们的专业领域（例如税务会计），因此他们的决策可能会对整个公司产生影响。做出正确的决定是每个层面的一项关键技能。它需要明确地传授给基于知识的组织中的每个人。

Take responsibility for communicating.
负责沟通。

Effective executives make sure that both their action plans and their information needs are understood. Specifically, this means that they share their plans with and ask for comments from all their colleagues—superiors, subordinates, and peers. At the same time, they let each person know what information they’ll need to get the job done. The information flow from subordinate to boss is usually what gets the most attention. But executives need to pay equal attention to peers’ and superiors’ information needs.
有效的高管会确保他们的行动计划和信息需求都得到理解。具体来说，这意味着他们与所有同事（上级、下属和同事）分享他们的计划并征求他们的意见。同时，他们让每个人都知道他们完成工作需要哪些信息。从下属到老板的信息流通常是最受关注的。但高管们需要同等关注同事和上级的信息需求。

We all know, thanks to Chester Barnard’s 1938 classic The Functions of the Executive, that organizations are held together by information rather than by ownership or command. Still, far too many executives behave as if information and its flow were the job of the information specialist—for example, the accountant. As a result, they get an enormous amount of data they do not need and cannot use, but little of the information they do need. The best way around this problem is for each executive to identify the information he needs, ask for it, and keep pushing until he gets it.
由于切斯特·巴纳德（Chester Barnard）1938年的经典著作《行政职能》（The Functions of the Executive），我们都知道，组织是通过信息而不是所有权或命令来维系在一起的。尽管如此，还是有太多的高管表现得好像信息及其流动是信息专家的工作，例如会计师。结果，他们获得了大量他们不需要也无法使用的数据，但他们真正需要的信息却很少。解决这个问题的最好方法是让每个高管确定他需要的信息，要求它，并继续推动，直到他得到它。

Focus on opportunities. 关注机会。

Good executives focus on opportunities rather than problems. Problems have to be taken care of, of course; they must not be swept under the rug. But problem solving, however necessary, does not produce results. It prevents damage. Exploiting opportunities produces results.
优秀的高管关注的是机会而不是问题。当然，问题必须得到解决;他们绝不能被扫地出门。但是，解决问题，无论多么必要，都不会产生结果。它可以防止损坏。利用机会会产生结果。

Above all, effective executives treat change as an opportunity rather than a threat. They systematically look at changes, inside and outside the corporation, and ask, “How can we exploit this change as an opportunity for our enterprise?” Specifically, executives scan these seven situations for opportunities:
最重要的是，有效的高管将变革视为机遇而不是威胁。他们系统地审视公司内部和外部的变化，并提出问题：“我们如何利用这种变化作为我们企业的机会？具体来说，高管们会扫描以下七种情况来寻找机会：

• an unexpected success or failure in their own enterprise, in a competing enterprise, or in the industry;
  在自己的企业、竞争企业或行业中意外的成功或失败;

• a gap between what is and what could be in a market, process, product, or service (for example, in the nineteenth century, the paper industry concentrated on the 10% of each tree that became wood pulp and totally neglected the possibilities in the remaining 90%, which became waste);
  市场、工艺、产品或服务中存在的东西和可能的东西之间的差距（例如，在 19 世纪，造纸业专注于每棵树的 10% 成为木浆，而完全忽视了剩余 90% 的可能性，这些树变成了废物）;

• innovation in a process, product, or service, whether inside or outside the enterprise or its industry;
  流程、产品或服务的创新，无论是在企业内部还是外部或其行业;

• changes in industry structure and market structure;
  产业结构和市场结构的变化;

• demographics; 人口;

• changes in mind-set, values, perception, mood, or meaning; and
  心态、价值观、感知、情绪或意义的变化;和

• new knowledge or a new technology.
  新知识或新技术。

Effective executives also make sure that problems do not overwhelm opportunities. In most companies, the first page of the monthly management report lists key problems. It’s far wiser to list opportunities on the first page and leave problems for the second page. Unless there is a true catastrophe, problems are not discussed in management meetings until opportunities have been analyzed and properly dealt with.
有效的高管还确保问题不会压倒机会。在大多数公司中，月度管理报告的第一页列出了关键问题。在第一页列出机会，将问题留给第二页要明智得多。除非发生真正的灾难，否则在分析和妥善处理机会之前，不会在管理会议上讨论问题。

Staffing is another important aspect of being opportunity focused. Effective executives put their best people on opportunities rather than on problems. One way to staff for opportunities is to ask each member of the management group to prepare two lists every six months—a list of opportunities for the entire enterprise and a list of the best-performing people throughout the enterprise. These are discussed, then melded into two master lists, and the best people are matched with the best opportunities. In Japan, by the way, this matchup is considered a major HR task in a big corporation or government department; that practice is one of the key strengths of Japanese business.
人员配备是以机会为重点的另一个重要方面。有效的高管会把最优秀的员工放在机会上，而不是放在问题上。为员工提供机会的一种方法是要求管理小组的每个成员每六个月准备两份清单——一份是整个企业的机会清单，另一份是整个企业中表现最好的人员的清单。这些都会被讨论，然后合并成两个主列表，最好的人与最好的机会相匹配。顺便说一句，在日本，这种对决被认为是大公司或政府部门的一项重大人力资源任务;这种做法是日本企业的主要优势之一。

Make meetings productive.
让会议富有成效。

The most visible, powerful, and, arguably, effective nongovernmental executive in the America of World War II and the years thereafter was not a businessman. It was Francis Cardinal Spellman, the head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and adviser to several U.S. presidents. When Spellman took over, the diocese was bankrupt and totally demoralized. His successor inherited the leadership position in the American Catholic church. Spellman often said that during his waking hours he was alone only twice each day, for 25 minutes each time: when he said Mass in his private chapel after getting up in the morning and when he said his evening prayers before going to bed. Otherwise he was always with people in a meeting, starting at breakfast with one Catholic organization and ending at dinner with another.
在二战期间及之后的几年里，美国最引人注目、最有权势、可以说是最有效的非政府行政人员并不是商人。弗朗西斯·斯佩尔曼（Francis Cardinal Spellman）是纽约罗马天主教大主教管区的负责人，也是几位美国总统的顾问。当斯派曼接手时，教区已经破产，士气低落。他的继任者继承了美国天主教会的领导地位。斯派曼经常说，在他醒着的时候，他每天只有两次独处，每次25分钟：早上起床后在他的私人教堂里做弥撒，睡觉前做晚祷。否则，他总是和人们一起开会，从一个天主教组织的早餐开始，到另一个天主教组织的晚餐结束。

Top executives aren’t quite as imprisoned as the archbishop of a major Catholic diocese. But every study of the executive workday has found that even junior executives and professionals are with other people—that is, in a meeting of some sort—more than half of every business day. The only exceptions are a few senior researchers. Even a conversation with only one other person is a meeting. Hence, if they are to be effective, executives must make meetings productive. They must make sure that meetings are work sessions rather than bull sessions.
高层管理人员并不像主要天主教教区的大主教那样被监禁。但是，每一项关于高管工作日的研究发现，即使是初级管理人员和专业人士，每个工作日也有一半以上的时间与其他人在一起——也就是说，在某种会议上。唯一的例外是少数高级研究人员。即使只与另一个人交谈也是一次会议。因此，如果会议要有效，高管们必须使会议富有成效。他们必须确保会议是工作会议，而不是公牛会议。

The key to running an effective meeting is to decide in advance what kind of meeting it will be. Different kinds of meetings require different forms of preparation and different results:
召开有效会议的关键是提前决定会议是什么样的会议。不同类型的会议需要不同形式的准备和不同的结果：

A meeting to prepare a statement, an announcement, or a press release.
准备声明、公告或新闻稿的会议。

For this to be productive, one member has to prepare a draft beforehand. At the meeting’s end, a preappointed member has to take responsibility for disseminating the final text.
为了使这项工作富有成效，一名成员必须事先准备一份草案。在会议结束时，一名预先任命的成员必须负责分发最后文本。

A meeting to make an announcement—for example, an organizational change.
发布公告的会议，例如组织变更。

This meeting should be confined to the announcement and a discussion about it.
本次会议应限于公告和讨论。

A meeting in which one member reports.
一名成员报告的会议。

Nothing but the report should be discussed.
除了报告之外，什么都不应该讨论。

A meeting in which several or all members report.
由多个或所有成员报告的会议。

Either there should be no discussion at all or the discussion should be limited to questions for clarification. Alternatively, for each report there could be a short discussion in which all participants may ask questions. If this is the format, the reports should be distributed to all participants well before the meeting. At this kind of meeting, each report should be limited to a preset time—for example, 15 minutes.
要么根本不应该进行讨论，要么讨论应该仅限于需要澄清的问题。或者，对于每份报告，可以进行简短的讨论，所有参与者都可以提出问题。如果采用这种格式，则应在会议开始前将报告分发给所有与会者。在这种会议中，每个报告都应限制在预设时间内，例如 15 分钟。

A meeting to inform the convening executive.
通知召集执行官的会议。

The executive should listen and ask questions. He or she should sum up but not make a presentation.
行政人员应该倾听并提出问题。他或她应该总结，但不要做演讲。

A meeting whose only function is to allow the participants to be in the executive’s presence.
会议的唯一功能是让参与者在高管面前。

Cardinal Spellman’s breakfast and dinner meetings were of that kind. There is no way to make these meetings productive. They are the penalties of rank. Senior executives are effective to the extent to which they can prevent such meetings from encroaching on their workdays. Spellman, for instance, was effective in large part because he confined such meetings to breakfast and dinner and kept the rest of his working day free of them.
斯佩尔曼枢机的早餐和晚餐会议就是这样。没有办法使这些会议富有成效。它们是等级的惩罚。高级管理人员在能够防止此类会议侵占其工作日的范围内是有效的。例如，斯派曼之所以有效，很大程度上是因为他将此类会议限制在早餐和晚餐上，而其余工作日则不参加这些会议。

Making a meeting productive takes a good deal of self-discipline. It requires that executives determine what kind of meeting is appropriate and then stick to that format. It’s also necessary to terminate the meeting as soon as its specific purpose has been accomplished. Good executives don’t raise another matter for discussion. They sum up and adjourn.
要使会议富有成效，需要大量的自律。它要求高管们确定什么样的会议是合适的，然后坚持这种形式。一旦会议的特定目的实现，也有必要立即终止会议。优秀的高管不会提出另一个问题来讨论。他们总结并休会。

Good follow-up is just as important as the meeting itself. The great master of follow-up was Alfred Sloan, the most effective business executive I have ever known. Sloan, who headed General Motors from the 1920s until the 1950s, spent most of his six working days a week in meetings—three days a week in formal committee meetings with a set membership, the other three days in ad hoc meetings with individual GM executives or with a small group of executives. At the beginning of a formal meeting, Sloan announced the meeting’s purpose. He then listened. He never took notes and he rarely spoke except to clarify a confusing point. At the end he summed up, thanked the participants, and left. Then he immediately wrote a short memo addressed to one attendee of the meeting. In that note, he summarized the discussion and its conclusions and spelled out any work assignment decided upon in the meeting (including a decision to hold another meeting on the subject or to study an issue). He specified the deadline and the executive who was to be accountable for the assignment. He sent a copy of the memo to everyone who’d been present at the meeting. It was through these memos—each a small masterpiece—that Sloan made himself into an outstandingly effective executive.
良好的后续行动与会议本身同样重要。跟进大师是阿尔弗雷德·斯隆（Alfred Sloan），他是我所认识的最有效的业务主管。斯隆从1920年代到1950年代一直领导通用汽车公司，他每周六个工作日的大部分时间都在开会——每周三天参加正式的委员会会议，其他三天与通用汽车的个别高管或一小群高管举行临时会议。在正式会议开始时，斯隆宣布了会议的目的。然后他听了。他从不做笔记，也很少说话，只是为了澄清一个令人困惑的问题。最后，他总结了一下，感谢了参与者，然后离开了。然后，他立即写了一份简短的备忘录，写给会议的一位与会者。在该说明中，他总结了讨论情况及其结论，并详细说明了会议中决定的任何工作任务（包括决定就该主题举行另一次会议或研究一个问题）。他具体规定了最后期限和负责这项任务的执行官。他把备忘录的副本发给了所有参加会议的人。正是通过这些备忘录——每一份备忘录都是小小的杰作——斯隆使自己成为一名非常有效的高管。

Effective executives know that any given meeting is either productive or a total waste of time.
有效的高管知道，任何给定的会议要么是富有成效的，要么完全是浪费时间。

Think and Say “We”
思考并说出“我们”

The final practice is this: Don’t think or say “I.” Think and say “we.” Effective executives know that they have ultimate responsibility, which can be neither shared nor delegated. But they have authority only because they have the trust of the organization. This means that they think of the needs and the opportunities of the organization before they think of their own needs and opportunities. This one may sound simple; it isn’t, but it needs to be strictly observed.
最後的練習是：不要想或說「我」。思考并说出“我们”。有效的高管知道他们有最终的责任，这种责任既不能分担也不能委派。但他们之所以有权威，只是因为他们得到了组织的信任。这意味着他们在考虑自己的需求和机会之前会考虑组织的需求和机会。这听起来可能很简单;它不是，但需要严格遵守。

We’ve just reviewed eight practices of effective executives. I’m going to throw in one final, bonus practice. This one’s so important that I’ll elevate it to the level of a rule: Listen first, speak last.
我们刚刚回顾了高效高管的八种实践。我要进行最后的奖励练习。这一点非常重要，我将把它提升到一个规则的水平：先听，后说。

Effective executives differ widely in their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, values, and beliefs. All they have in common is that they get the right things done. Some are born effective. But the demand is much too great to be satisfied by extraordinary talent. Effectiveness is a discipline. And, like every discipline, effectiveness can be learned and must be earned.
有效的高管在个性、优势、劣势、价值观和信仰方面差异很大。他们的共同点是他们把正确的事情做好。有些天生有效。但需求太大了，非凡的人才无法满足。有效性是一门学科。而且，就像每门学科一样，有效性是可以学习的，而且必须获得。