一只乌鸦口渴了

中文是我翻译的，可能有很多翻译的不到位的地方。

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Secrets of an HR Superstar
一个HR超级明星的秘密

On the eve of retiring, GE's Bill Conaty offers tips on nurturing leaders in your organization.
在退休的那个晚上，GE的Bill Conaty提供了如何在你的组织中培养领导者的小技巧。

General Electric Co.'s (GE ) legendary reputation in talent management owes much to one man: William J. Conaty. In his 40 years at GE, including 13 as head of human resources, he helped to shape the modern face of HR. "The guy is spectacular," says former Chief Executive and Businessweek columnist Jack Welch. "He has enormous trust at every level. The union guys respect him as much as the senior managers."
GE在人才管理方面传奇般的名声很大程度上归功于一个人：William J. Conaty. 在他40年在GE（其中13年是人力资源的负责人）的历史，他帮助建立了现代HR的新面孔。“这个家伙是个人物”，前CEO及Busnessweek专栏作家Jack Welch说。“每个层级的人都很信任他，整个联邦对他有着对高层管理者所有的最大尊重”

Conaty took a department that's often treated as a support function and turned it into a high-level business partner, fostering a deep bench of talent and focusing attention on the need for continuous leadership development. Among other things, he helped manage the seamless transition from Welch to Jeffrey R. Immelt in 2001 and was critical in shaping a new vision of global leadership that emphasizes such traits as imagination and inclusiveness. At 61, Conaty is now easing into retirement, having passed the top job over to longtime HR colleague John Lynch earlier this year while agreeing to stay on to handle GE's labor union negotiations this summer. As he winds up affairs at GE, Conaty shared his advice for nurturing leaders.
Conaty接受一个经常被认为只是支持职能的部门，并将其转换成了一个高级别的生意伙伴（的角色），这个角色培养大批的后备人才，并关注领导力的持续发展。另外，他帮助管理了2001年从Welch到Jeffrey.R.Immelt的完美过渡，并且在建立强调想象力和包容性特征的领导力方面表现的无可挑剔。61岁的时候，Conaty即将退休，今年年初即将把自己的工作交给长期的HR伙伴John Lynch，不过他同意留下来处理GE今年的夏天的工会协商。在即将结束在GE的事务的时候，Cnaty分享了他关于培养领导者的建议。

DARE TO DIFFERENTIATE

Relentlessly assessing and grading employees build organizational vitality and foster a true meritocracy, in Conaty's view. Employees must be constantly judged, ranked, and rewarded or punished for their performance. Welch famously talked about cutting the bottom 10% of employees. Immelt doesn't like to fixate on hard targets. But Conaty insists that differentiation "is what still drives this company." There's nothing like a bit of anxiety and the knowledge that you're being measured against peers to boost performance. "We want to create angst in the system," he says. "We have evolved from being anal about what percent have to fall into each category. But you have to know who are the least effective people on your team — and then you have to do something about them."
敢于做出区分
在Conaty看来，对员工做出的“无情的”评价和评分能够建立组织的活力，并培养一种真正的能者居之的制度，员工必须被持续的评价和排名，并对其绩效给予奖励或者惩罚。如众人所知，Welch曾经谈起过关于砍掉最差的10％的话题。Immelt却不愿意关注这些艰巨的任务。然而，Conaty坚持认为这种（对员工）的区分“仍旧是公司（成长）的驱动力”。没有什么能够像让员工有一点压力并知道自己正在跟其他同事一起被评估更能促进（他们的）绩效。“我们想在这个体系中建立焦虑”，他说：“我们已经发展到对于每一个种类占有多少百分比非常严谨苛刻的程度”。但是你必须了解谁是你的团队中最没有效率的人，——并对他们采取点什么行动。

CONSTANTLY RAISE THE BAR
Leaders continually seek to improve performance, both their own and their team members'. "The one reason executives fail at GE is they stop learning," says Conaty. "The job grows, the accountability grows, and the people don't grow with it." Continuous learning is so valued that GE training courses are considered high-profile rewards. Getting tapped to go to Crotonville, the 53-acre executive training center in New York's Hudson River Valley, is a signal that someone is poised to go to the next level. "Crotonville is one of the best tools we have in our arsenal," says Conaty. The company's extensive training programs are a powerful recruitment tool and help to stimulate midcareer employees. Moreover, GE uses Crotonville and other training centers worldwide as a way to recognize valued customers and business partners.
不断提高对自己的要求
领导者持续的提高自己绩效，包括他们自己的，也包括他们的团队成员的。“主管人员在GE失败的一个原因是：停止学习。”Conaty说：“工作在发展，职责在发展，但是人却没有同步发展”持之以恒的学习在GE如此的受到重视以至于培训课程被视为受人注目的奖励。被选中去Crotoville，位于纽约哈德逊河河谷的培训中心，是一个即将升入下一个级别的信号。“Crotoville是我们的‘兵工厂’中最重要的工具之一”，Conaty说：“公司的强化训练体系是一种强有力的招聘工具，并对鼓励处于职业中期的员工有所帮助”。此外，GE把Crotonville以及全世界范围的培训中心当成一种途径去认可有价值的客户和商业合作伙伴。

DON'T BE FRIENDS WITH THE BOSS
Too often, says Conaty, HR executives make the mistake of focusing on the priorities and needs of the CEO. That diminishes the powerful role of being an employee advocate. "If you just get closer to the CEO, you're dead," says Conaty. "The HR leader locks in with the CEO, and the rest of the organization thinks the HR leader isn't trustworthy and can't be a confidant." Conaty tries to counteract that risk by distancing himself from Immelt in public settings. While few people spend more time with Immelt than Conaty, he deliberately socializes with other colleagues at functions. Moreover, Conaty says he is the one to "purposely throw the daggers at Jeff that the other guys don't dare do. He knows what I'm doing. I need to be independent. I need to be credible." He also makes a point of being candid with leaders in private. As Immelt recently remarked: "I call Bill the 'first friend'...the guy that could walk in my office and kick my butt when it needed to be."

不要和老板成为朋友
Conaty说，HR主管经常犯（过多）关注CEO的优先考虑的事情以及需求的错误，这样就削减了作为强有力的员工拥护者的角色。“如果你只跟CEO靠的很近，你就完了”，Conaty说：“HR领导者跟CEO绑在一起，那么组织中的其他人就会认为HR领导者不值得信任，不能成为自己的知己。”Conaty刻意通过在公共场合与Immelt保持距离来减少这种风险，他有意交际其他职能的同事。另外，Conaty说他是那个“故意向Jeff提出提出挑战的人，而其他人则不敢这么做。他知道我在做什么，我需要独立，我需要成为可靠的人”。他同时认为，在私下里他对其他的领导者也应该坦诚。近期Immelt谈及：“我把Bill称作‘第一朋友’，他可以在我需要的时候走进我的办公室踢我的屁股。”

BECOME EASY TO REPLACE
Great leaders develop great succession plans. Insecure leaders are intimidated by them. "I can go business by business and tell you where we're strongest and weakest on succession. It all comes down to having an executive who doesn't want to admit someone else could do their job," says Conaty. "If they kill two or three viable successors along the way, you have to start looking at the person who's doing the killing." At GE, leaders are judged on the strength of their team and are rewarded for mentoring people throughout the organization. Conaty, for one, takes pride in the fact that his own successor is someone that he helped develop within the HR function at GE.

变得容易被替代
好的领导者发展好的继任者计划。而没有安全感的领导者却害怕做这个。“我可以做到大公无私，并且告诉你我们在继任方面做得最好或者最差，主管们如果不想承认别人可以做他们的工作，那是非常差劲的。”Conaty说，“如果他们一路扼杀了两个或者三个可以培养的继任者，那么你必须关注那个扼杀别人的人。”

在GE，领导者在团队力量以及在整个组织内指导他人方面被评估。举个例子来讲，Canoty以他自己的继任者就是他帮助其在GE的HR职能方面发展的人而感到自豪。

BE INCLUSIVE
Within every organization, there's a tendency to favor people you know. That can undermine success. Conaty winces at the memory of GE's acquisition of Borg-Warner's chemical business in 1988. "We figured that their sales force didn't look quite as spiffy and energized as our GE team," he says. The top management jobs went to GE folks, marginalizing the existing team. "We ended up losing most of their sales force, and lost the business with it."

Now, GE rigorously assesses the talent within companies before they're even acquired. It's a critical form of due diligence. "We find there are generally half a dozen people that we've got to have on the team of that company, and we need them there for a few years," he says. "Now we make special provisions to make them feel financially welcome--as well as emotionally welcome. Our GE people can't be the victors in these deals."
包容
在任何组织内，都有一种趋向去给你认识的人好处。这个会破坏成功。Conaty不敢回忆1998年GE收购Borg-Warner的化学生意的事。“我们预测他们的销售团队看起来不想我们GE的团队团队一样出色和活跃”，他说。高层管理者从而由GE自己的人担任，而将原来的团队排斥在外。“我们以失去他们大部门的销售人员而告终，最终我们失去了这个生意”。
现在，GE在收购之前严格评估那些公司内原有的人才。这是一种挑剔的严格评估的形式。“我们发现通常有半打的人我们留了他们在那个公司的团队里面，而且，我们在很多年内都需要他们在那儿，”他说。“现在我们制定特殊的规定，让他们无论在经济上还是在感情上都觉得自己受欢迎”。我们GE的人在这些生意上不能成为成功者。

FREE UP OTHERS TO DO THEIR JOBS
When it comes to the CEO, says Conaty, "one of my jobs is to take things off his desk, not put things on his desk." Ram Charan, a management consultant who has worked with GE executives, says Conaty "has the intensity to look at the nuances of issues and take these things off the CEO plate. He solves things and goes forward." That attitude extends to giving people the tools and permission to work on their own terms, and even GE has become much better about letting people step off the track for a while. "That used to be the kiss of death," says Conaty. He points to someone like Sharon R. Daley, a senior HR executive who turned down a promotion to spend more time with her kids. GE kept her in a part-time job until she was ready to take on new challenges.

Today she's a company officer and the top HR person in the energy business.

Conaty does draw limits. "I'm still cynical about seeing 'WFH' [working from home] on a calendar, especially on a Friday," he notes. "But we're much more open and flexible because you see the payoff."
放手让别人去做他们的工作
当谈到CEO的时候，Conaty说，“我的工作是帮他做工作，不是给他制造工作。”Ram Charan，一个曾经跟GE的主管们一起工作的管理顾问，说Conaty“有着一种可以看到事情的细微差别并且将这些事情帮助CEO解决。他解决问题并向前进。”这种态度扩展到给予人们工具和许可去按照自己的规程工作，甚至于，GE在允许人们短时间内误入歧途方面做到更加出色。“这在过去就是死亡的亲吻”，Canoty说。他提到Sharon R. Daley，一个高级HR主管，为了有更多的时间跟孩子在一起，她拒绝了一次升职。GE留了她做一份兼职工作，直到她准备好接受新的挑战。

现在她是一家公司的高级职员，在能源业务方面的高层HR人员。

Conaty仍然有他自己的局限，“我到现在仍然看不太惯按照日历在家工作，尤其是在星期五，”他解释说。“但是，因为看到了成果，我们变得开放灵活多了。”

KEEP IT SIMPLE
Most organizations require simple, focused, and disciplined communications. "You can't move 325,000 people with mixed messaging and thousands of initiatives," notes Conaty. Leaders succeed by being consistent and straight forward about a handful of core messages. And the best don't get derailed when times turn tough. "I'd say 70% of our leaders handle adversity well, and 30% let it overwhelm them," says Conaty. "If you can't take a punch and you don't have a sense of humor, you don't belong in this company. Everyone experiences failure now and then. It's how you handle it that matters."
保持简单
大部分组织需要简单的、集中的、有纪律的沟通。“你不可能通过混杂的信息和数以千计的行动方案调动32500个人，”Canoty说。领导者通过在少数的关键信息方面保持始终如一、毫不含糊而获得成功。而且最好的领导者在时间紧急的时候也不会偏离方向。“我想说70%的我们的领导者能够很好的处理逆境，而30％会被逆境战胜，”Canoty说。“如果你不能承受打击，你没有幽默感，那么你不属于这个公司。每个人都会不时经历失败。关键是你如何面对它”