应对困难对话的话术 | Alisa Cohn(高管教练)
Scripts for navigating difficult conversations | Alisa Cohn (executive coach)
The Nature of Difficult Conversations
Lenny Rachitsky: I want to dive right into talking about your advice on having difficult conversations, where like in performance review season, what do you suggest when someone’s being told they’re not going to get the promotion?
Alisa Cohn: Hope for the future is so important. I know this is going to be challenging for you to hear, not going to promote you, but I want you to know this. It’s really important to me that you’re able to succeed in your career here, and so I want to continue to help you find opportunities to build your skills and to advance.
Common Types of Difficult Conversations
Lenny Rachitsky: You’re big on helping leaders understand that their job is not to make employees happy.
Mental Preparation for Difficult Conversations
Alisa Cohn: They’re trying now to be the leader who everyone loves, but what really needs to happen very often is, we need to drive towards results. This employee continuing to not really do a great job at their job, you don’t want to push them because you don’t want to upset them. You don’t want to give them difficult feedback, so you’re just going to keep hoping it works out. Ultimately, that leads to the demise of your company.
Scripts for Performance Feedback
Lenny Rachitsky: You have some cool advice on just how to make meetings more effective and how to especially end the meeting.
Performance Feedback Scripts (Continued)
Alisa Cohn: My three questions to end the meeting are…
How to Open the Conversation
Lenny Rachitsky: Today my guest is Alisa Cohn. Alisa is an executive coach who has worked with C-suite execs at both startups like Etsy, Wirecutter, Venmo, and DraftKings, along with Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, Google, Pfizer, and the New York Times. She was named one of the top 50 coaches in the world by Thinkers50 and the number one startup coach for the past four years by Global Gurus. What I love about Alisa is that she gives her clients very specific and actionable advice. In her conversation, Alisa shares specific language and phrases that you can use when having a difficult conversation with your reports to make these conversations go much smoother and be less difficult. Also, three questions you should ask at the end of every meeting to make the most possible forward progress after each meeting. Plus, why your job as a leader isn’t to make people happy and what you should be focused on instead, and a set of questions that she calls the founder prenup that you should talk through with potential founders to make sure that these are the people that you want to be working with for a long, long time.
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Making Scripts Your Own
Alisa Cohn: Lenny, it’s so great to be here and thanks for having me.
Scripts for Personal Observations
Lenny Rachitsky: I want to dive right into talking about your advice on having difficult conversations. I personally dread difficult conversations. I feel like I practice ahead of these things. I’m like, “I’m going to say these things. It’s going to go like this,” and it never goes as well as I hope. I always say the wrong thing. I feel like this is very relatable. They’re called difficult conversations for a reason.
Feedback Based on Observable Facts
Alisa Cohn: Totally.
Lenny Rachitsky: I know you work with a lot of execs on this specifically, and what I love is you’ve actually come up with a bunch of scripts that help people make these conversations less difficult. So how about we talk through some of these scripts that people can actually start applying?
When They Get Defensive
Alisa Cohn: Let’s do that. I love that idea. And also Lenny, as you just said, very relatable and also, so you’re not alone. If I could ask you a question, if you’re picturing a difficult conversation that you have had, should have, might have, and you’re nervous about, it’s hard for you, can you sum it up? What’s hard about it? Because it’s helpful to clarify what is hard about it?
Conversations About Denied Promotions
Lenny Rachitsky: Great question. I just don’t want to make people sad and upset, and I worry about their reaction, how to deal with that, and them just getting really upset and mad and just like, “Oh, man. This really made things worse.” So I worry about the reaction, I guess.
Alisa Cohn: Okay, about making things worse or about their reaction?
Leadership That Shows You Care
Lenny Rachitsky: The reaction, just making someone upset and sad. I don’t want to do that.
Conversations About Firing Someone
Alisa Cohn: Making someone upset. Okay, good. And again, you’re not alone about that. Just one more question on that. What’s the problem if they’re sad and upset? What does that mean to you?
Specific Scripts for Firing
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh, I love this life coaching we’re doing. Yeah, so it’s like what happens if they get sad and upset?
Specific and Clear Positive Feedback
Alisa Cohn: Yeah.
A Leader’s Job Isn’t Making Employees Happy
Lenny Rachitsky: I feel like it’s stuff that I’m going to have to deal with. It’s like this drama all of a sudden, this new fire I have to think about. And yeah, it’s like the additional work it creates and also just, I don’t know. Yeah, it’s a good question.
The Avocado Toast Story
Alisa Cohn: You can think about it some more, right? I’m not going to put you on the spot right now, but just to say for all of us, the reason they’re difficult, to your point, they’re difficult. But we’re putting meaning on things all the time, every day, all the time, and I think it’s important, it’s actually helpful in motivating you to have difficult conversations, but also in helping them go well. If you can get to the bottom of what you’re putting on top of it, what you’re weighting it with, because I can understand that again, you are not alone. I don’t want to make people upset. Totally.
And also, I would just say on the other hand, when you’re enlightening someone or you’re working out a situation with someone and it’s difficult, if you don’t give them the opportunity to hear what you have to say, if you don’t bring this up, then you’re never going to have the opportunity to help them see something differently or help them improve or help you improve the relationship or whatever it is you’re trying to do. And so, I can understand it’s a natural thing. I don’t want to make them upset.
No one wants to make anybody upset, but through that upset on the other side of that, can often be a whole new possibility and a whole new revelation, and actually a lot of joy and freedom. I think that we forget about all the other possibilities that come out of difficult conversations and we just land on these really uncomfortable parts about like, “oh, it’s going to be a lot of extra work” or like, “They’re going to get uncomfortable or even maybe cry.” And I think it’s just really helpful to tap into what you make it mean and then also what other possibilities it could mean.
The Leader’s Perception Gap
Lenny Rachitsky: I love that. And it’s one thing to hear that and say that, it’s another to actually feel that deeply and feel like I shouldn’t be as worried as I am. I think part of it is doing these enough times where you’re like, “Okay, it’s actually not so hard.” And the other is having some of this support. To make this even more real, let’s give some examples of what we say when we say difficult conversations. There’s like, “You’re not getting a promotion that you thought you would, we’re going to let you go.” What other examples or common difficult conversations that you run across?
Making Meetings More Effective
Alisa Cohn: Those are two very common ones. And then of course, the most common one is just difficult performance feedback. Or [inaudible 00:08:56] what we say, quote unquote, “constructive performance feedback,” which we never made positive. It only is the sort of things that you’re not doing well. I think there are two flavors of that. One is, “You’re screwing up” and the other is, “Developmentally, I’d like to see you add something or change something.”
Implementing the Three Questions Process
Lenny Rachitsky: Yes. And as you say that, one of the other fears I have is them just disagreeing and me feeling like maybe it’s not right, maybe I’m wrong and feeling shit maybe. I didn’t see something and then just looking worse after the whole thing.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah. And so then I think what’s also really helpful to, and part of the process that we can talk about this for sure is getting a difficult conversation is number one, tapping into what’s uncomfortable for it, for you, about it. And then number two, also getting your mindset right. So to say the obvious, are you doing this to hurt someone’s feelings? No, never, right?
Founder Prenuptial Agreements
Lenny Rachitsky: The opposite.
Founder Values Alignment
Alisa Cohn: That’s not the reason that anyone’s doing it. Sometimes people are giving the performance feedback or talking about something that’s been bothering them in order to express themselves and vent. And actually, that is very helpful to identify for yourself, that’s why I’m doing it. And then, maybe not do it then, until you can transform your reasoning. But at the end of the day, the hope is as a manager, the reason that you’re giving someone this so-called constructive feedback is because you’re helping them get better. You need them to change the behavior. They’ll never get promoted if they keep doing that. They’ll never be successful if they keep doing that. And so, it’s your job as a leader and as a manager, to help them out of that problem and help them do something different.
Lenny Rachitsky: The best story I’ve heard to make that really real for me, I think it was Kim Scott when she came on the podcast. She told a story of, I think it was Bob, where everyone just knew he was terrible and it was like, everyone’s was just like knew he was not good and eventually, the boss had a conversation with him eight months into it and told him, “It’s not going to work out. You’re just doing a bad job.” And he’s like, “Why didn’t anyone tell me? I didn’t realize that. If you told me, I would’ve changed.” And everyone assumed he knew. And so I think to your point, this is to help the person. It’s not not to hurt them.
The Weekend Slack Story
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, a hundred percent. One of my clients, he was running a division and one of his people was not doing it right, not doing it right, not getting the right kind of data, not having to do the right kind of analysis, whatever it was. We were talking about it and I said, “Well, how come you have another feedback with her?” And he said, “You know, she’s just going to cry. She’s just going to cry. She’s older, whatever, she’s just going to cry. It’s going to be too uncomfortable, whatever.” So we worked, we talked and talked and talked. I gave him a script. We really worked it out and he agreed that he would go in and have that conversation with her, which he did.
And he reported back to me and he was shaken. She cried. Of course she did. She cried. That’s what he knew she was going to do. And so she was upset and she went home early and the whole thing. The next day she came in and she said, “Thank you so much for telling me that. I wish someone had told me that 15 years ago. I think I could have had a different career.” And I think that is so meaningful for all leaders and people who are responsible for other people to understand that you’re uncomfortable when they start crying, of course, or they have this difficult reaction or whatever. But honestly, the only way you’re going to be able to help someone grow in their career and become the best person they can be is by leaning into these tough conversations.
Framework for Values Clarification
Lenny Rachitsky: What I love about the scripts we’re going to talk about, which we probably should transition to, is it’s again, one thing to hear that and be like, “Yes, okay, I need to do this. I need to get better at typical conversations. I need to have that talk without someone that we should let go.” It’s another when it’s like tomorrow is the meeting and you’re like, “Oh, my God. I have to have this conversation now.” And so, I love that you actually give people a really simple approach to how to lay this stuff out in various different contexts. So let’s talk through some of these approaches and scripts you’ve come up with. What do you think would be a good one to start with?
Defining the Company Vision
Alisa Cohn: Well, we can start with performance feedback and we can just sort of take a typical example. So first of all, once you’ve done your work to get your mindset right to kind of know what you’re doing it, and then you just really want to really be able to wrap your mouth around the words. So what that looks like is practicing, and the script could be, “You know, Matilda, I want to chat with you about the way you’re interacting with your peers. So what I’m hearing from them is that you’re missing deadlines on a regular basis and not letting them know you’re missing the deadlines, and that also you’re not fully keeping your team up to speed.
And so they’re kind of confused running around. Now, we both know that the most important way you can be successful here and also achieve your goals is to make sure that you are working with your peers in a way that’s consistent and that they can count on you and you can count on them. So I wanted to let you know about this. I want to certainly hear what you have to say, but the most important thing is that we leave this discussion knowing how you’re going to make sure that you’re keeping your peers in the loop and also your team in the loop.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, there’s so many elements there that are really interesting. Just focusing on what I’m hearing versus just coming from you or something you’ve done wrong. It’s, here’s what I’m hearing from multiple sources. I think that helps people. Okay, it’s not just you and just like, “Oh, my manager hates me.”
How to Handle Conflict
Alisa Cohn: Right.
Lenny Rachitsky: It’s like, “Okay, other people are saying this.” And then I love this phrase of, we both know where it’s not just me telling you this. It’s like, “You also know this. I know you’re smart and you also know that this is, something is wrong here.” And then this goal of, here’s what we need to [inaudible 00:14:31]. You’re like very clear call to action, almost action item, like leave this meeting with, “Let’s just be aligned on this thing.”
How to Decide During Disagreements
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, thanks for calling those out. I hope, and again, what I’m trying to convey in my tone is also, “You know what? It’s Tuesday. We got to have this conversation. I’m sure it’s going to end well. I’m not mad.” The whole point about my manager hates me, right? “I’m not yelling at you.” The more even keeled and even matter of fact you can be about something that’s kind of just run-of-the-mill feedback, the better. And I think it’s just also what I didn’t say before, and I think it’s also important is that, as you are recognizing that one of your jobs is to give this feedback, is that you have to build a relationship with people so they can hear you through the lens of, “Oh, Alisa wants to help me.” Not, “Oh, Alisa hates me. It’s always a problem.”
Lenny Rachitsky: How did you start that phrase again? Because the starting is always the hardest part for me. How do you kick off the conversation? What was the couple sentences used?
The Importance of Company Culture
Alisa Cohn: I wanted to have a conversation with you about some things I’ve been hearing from your peers about the way that you all are interacting together.
Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome. So there’s an element of, don’t make it feel like a huge deal. Just like, “I want to have this conversation with you about something.” And it’s just like, “Let’s have this conversation and here’s what we want to leave this conversation with.”
The Failure Corner
Alisa Cohn: Yes. And I can’t stress enough that it’s actually really helpful to also have spent some time with Matilda or whoever saying, “Great job on the way that project landed.” Or, “Hey, launches, when they happen on time and they’re smooth, sometimes we don’t notice anything. I want you to notice, we didn’t notice anything. That’s fantastic. You did a good job in that launch,” or whatever it is. Because then, you’ve had the conversation with them to give them positive feedback and point out what’s working, that builds the relationship so that you have the lens of, “Oh, yeah. When something’s working, they tell me. When something’s not working, they tell me, too.” That’s how you build trust as well.
Lenny Rachitsky: They want to be criticizing them [inaudible 00:16:25]. We need to have another conversation what we’re hearing about, problems [inaudible 00:16:28].
Dig Deep Into Problems Instead
Alisa Cohn: Yep.
Lenny Rachitsky: Obviously, if you say it the same way every single time, they’re going to feel like this is weird. Do you recommend it’s this kind of Mad Libs approach or is it make it your own as much as you can? What are kind of the key? Or is it like, here’s actually how you want to say it every time?
The Personal User Manual
Alisa Cohn: In my book and when I work with my clients, I give specific scripts and what I will regularly say when I’m working with my clients is, “Okay, so this is how I would do it,” and then I’ll land it for them. But they have to make it their own. You always have to make it your own and I don’t think it’s a problem of doing it the same way every time. It’s not like people are going to notice you because you’re talking about different topics, theoretically. If you have a formula that can work for you, that’s going to motivate you to do it, that is what’s important. And what’s important is that it’s neutral, not loading on or not venting on someone and not unloading on someone.
Lightning Round Q&A
Lenny Rachitsky: I love that we started with this one because it feels like the most common one of just your employee is underperforming and you want to make sure they understand and adjust. What if you’re not hearing something from a bunch of people? What if it’s just your perception of their writing? You need to work on your writing skills or you’re coming in late. Is there another way you phrase it where it’s not, “I’m hearing it from other people?”
Alisa Cohn: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So I’ll talk about writing. I think it would be something like, okay, “Matilda, part of your job is to be able to create these documents and I appreciate that you do them on time. What I’ve observed is that they can often be not as structured as I’d like them to be and they also lack a conclusion. So what I’d love you to do is look at these three or four examples of some folks who are doing them really well and see if you can model your writing on theirs. If you need to take additional classes or if you need help in any way, let me know. But ultimately, I want to get your writing to the level where everybody is appreciating what you bring to the table because the level of your writing really reflects the level of your thinking.”
Advice for Aspiring Coaches
Lenny Rachitsky: Mm-hmm. Wow, I like that. I’d want to follow your advice if I got that. So the way you started that is what I’ve observed, which also is not like, “Here’s what I think” or “Here’s what you just need to do.” It’s more like, “Here’s what I’ve noticed, here’s what I’ve seen, here’s what I’ve observed about what you’re doing.” And then it reminds me of, what is it, nonviolent communication, that whole framework of just focus on what you see, not what is wrong with them, not what they’ve done. I guess, is there anything there you want to say of just the importance of focusing on what you’ve heard from people or what you’ve observed versus maybe what people often do instead?
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, I mean you just really said it and I think it’s such an important point, observable facts. The idea that this is not a judgment. This is not… Sort of as less judgy as possible is also very helpful. It makes it neutral. It’s observable facts and it’s also sort of based on expectations, right? So the writing is, we expect it to be at a certain level and it’s not that way. And here are the reasons it’s not, the specific reasons, it’s not.
The way you interact with your peers, it’s important to be at a certain standard, and here’s why. Because when we all work together, we’re going to be able to execute and when we don’t, unfortunately we won’t be able to. So you staying in sync with them is important and the observation is that they don’t feel fully in sync with you.
And so every time we talk about this, it doesn’t become this, “Oh, I don’t know. I just feel…” By the way, some things you have to give feedback on and they are kind of a feeling and those are more difficult, but so many things if you do the work to really think about what is the observable data, I always ask my clients, what’s my evidence that this is happening? And you have to spend some time thinking about it, but it’s really worth it because it makes the feedback easier for you to give and easier for them to hear.
Lenny Rachitsky: Is there anything else along the lines of this specific type of feedback that is worth sharing before we move on to a different type of feedback?
Alisa Cohn: Well, I think just that the reason, one of the many reasons that people have gone uncomfortable giving feedback is that somebody might get defensive or they might start crying as we talked about. And so I have a script also, which is if someone gets defensive, which is it’s like I’m giving you this feedback and you’re getting defensive and I say, “Well, let’s pause for a second. First of all, I want you to know that I’m telling you this actually, just to make you better because I know how important your career is to you. I know how important the success is to you and it’s important to me too as your leader. The second thing is, my observation is that you’re getting a little bit emotional. I want to know if we can continue having this conversation now or if we need to kind of pause it. At the end of the day, we really have to have this conversation and I really want to see you make changes, but I understand you might need a few moments to digest it.”
The importance of that for you is not even what you say, but that you have prepared and you are prepared for if someone has that kind of reaction and that you don’t have to, yourself, react to it. You know, “No, I’m not doing that. No, no, no, no, whatever.” And you can say, “Yes, you are.” Now we’re in a fight and that is not cool for anybody. It’s certainly not cool for you as a leader. So it gives you the opportunity to recognize that you have another tool in your toolkit rather than just react.
Lenny Rachitsky: So if you find yourself feeling defensive or they are just not hearing and just fighting back, the tool is just pause. Let’s just pause for a moment and it feels like there’s kind of two parts to which you just shared. One is, remind them why this is important to them and why you’re talking about this. And then two is, if there’s just emotions kind of taking over, give them a chance to like, “Let’s just pause and maybe come back to this because maybe you’re not in the right state right now to listen.”
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, exactly.
Lenny Rachitsky: Sometimes people get upset when you mention like, “You’re getting emotional,” or I don’t know. Is that a thing that you deal with of just like, “How dare you say I’m feeling emotional?” I’m just…
Alisa Cohn: I’m not emotional. Why do you think [inaudible 00:22:31] emotional? Right, exactly. Yes, of course. Now, when someone’s crying, they’re obviously getting emotional. When they’re defensive, it’s possible that you might want to use a different word. I can see that this is really upsetting you or this is really triggering you, or I can see that the temperature between us has just changed. You could say something like that. I do think also it’s helpful to know your people because sometimes you could realize that actually they can deal with that, but then sometimes you have to really [inaudible 00:23:00] the delicate words that you need to use to pause the conversation.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. And I find, to your point, it’s helpful to you too as the person giving it. And I feel like sometimes, you may be feeling like I should just pull back and maybe I’m wrong, maybe they’re right, maybe I should stop and instead this gives you a chance to know I’m actually, I can’t. I need to stay strong about what I believe because I… You put so much thought and effort into this already, it’s unlikely you’re just like, oh, totally wrong about what you’re saying.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, exactly. There’s something going on. There’s something going on. And then also, the whole point about it being a conversation is that actually it’s a conversation. Actually, Lenny, if you have a different point of view, I would like to hear it. Let’s talk about it, but we can’t keep going on like this, where I don’t feel I can count on you for whatever it is that we’re talking about. So we need to have this conversation and recreate a set of expectations between ourselves. Ultimately, that kind of conversation has the potential to really build the relationship and build trust, and that’s another reason I encourage everybody to get over their discomfort and to lean into having these conversations because on the other side of that, is a much better, stronger connection.
Lenny Rachitsky: And especially if you do them well.
Alisa Cohn: Yes.
Lenny Rachitsky: Following this advice. So okay, so again, if somebody’s feeling defensive, can you again say how you start that, if you notice that? And then I’ll highlight the two elements again of the…
Alisa Cohn: So the way to pause is to actually say, “Let’s just pause for a second because I’m feeling the energy has changed and I can see that you’re getting a little bit heated by what I’m saying and I want you to know that I have no intention of upsetting you. I just want to be able to talk to you about the things that are going to help you in your career.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome. And I love, again, just the reminder of here’s why this is important to you, here’s the benefit to you and why this will help you. And then it’s like, “Okay, let’s just maybe take a pause and come back to this conversation if you’re feeling like this isn’t the best time.” Awesome. Anything else along that line before we go to another type of a hard conversation?
Alisa Cohn: I mean, I can talk all day about this [inaudible 00:25:06], but I’m happy to move on.
Lenny Rachitsky: Well, let’s pick another topic. I know you have kind of five buckets and types of conversation. Maybe the promotion one. That feels like I think we’re in performance review season. It feels like these are happening a bunch. What do you suggest when someone’s being told they’re not going to get the promotion they expected or wanted?
Alisa Cohn: Of course that’s challenging. So again, getting your mindset right, recognizing they’re disappointed, they’re going to be disappointed, recognizing how you felt, the time that when you didn’t get a promotion or whatever. And so kind of coming to it with some compassion. And also, you have to get your reasoning right. So sometimes people think they should get a promotion because they were here for a year or whatever. Sometimes people think they should get a promotion because they’re the only internal candidate who’s qualified for this or they might have a sense of themselves succeeding or achieving that is more inflated maybe than you see them. So trying to think about where they’re coming from.
And then the conversation is just, “Matilda, I know this is going to be challenging for you to hear. I know you were hoping to get that promotion, but I want to let you know that we are going to actually be looking for an external candidate. I want to give you a few thoughts about why. First of all, in discussing this with my peers, I’m realizing that we need someone who has done this role multiple times in the past and has that experience. Number two, I think it’s really important that they have an expertise in a specific realm that we’ve identified as really important. So for those reasons, we’re going to bring someone in from the outside, not going to promote you, but I want you to know this. Number one, it’s really important to me that you’re able to succeed in your career here. And so I want to continue to help you find opportunities to build your skills and to advance. And then number two, when we bring this person in, I’m committed to finding someone who’s a great people leader, who is going to help you build those skills.”
Lenny Rachitsky: So a few elements there that stood out to me. One is just being very upfront and not bearing the lead. Telling them very early, “Here’s what I’ve decided.” As you said it, I could see my heart sinking immediately when I feel that. So at least that’s over and then it’s, here’s why. And that starts to help you feel like, “Okay, I get it. I understand at least how you thought about this.” And then there’s the hope for the future, your painting of, here’s how I can get there eventually.
Alisa Cohn: Yes, that hope for the future is so important and I think sometimes we’re such in a rush to kind of deliver the bad news that we forget there’s a human being over there who needs hope for the future. And hopefully. If they’re a good employee, hopefully they have hope for the future.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love that. Is there anything else to that script that you think is really highlighting or do you think I touched on the key elements?
Alisa Cohn: I think you touched on the key elements.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay. And again, the way you started is, I have some bad news for you or I have some disappointing news for you.
Alisa Cohn: Yes, because it’s just [inaudible 00:27:50].
Lenny Rachitsky: Just get right into it. Yeah.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, just get right into it. Yeah. By the way, the other piece on that might be, if it’s appropriate, I’d love you to digest this information and then let’s talk about it again next week to see what you’ve come up with or see how you feel about it because you want to send, this is not the script, this is for me to you. You want to send the, I care about you message because that’s the other thing. In the workplace, people, they’re going through all their feelings, all their emotions, disappointments. They’re going to go home and tell their spouse, didn’t get the promotion or whatever. It’s going to loom large. It’s going to be demoralizing.
When you, as a leader signal a lot, I care about you, I care about your feelings, I care that you’re disappointed, I care about your career, you are always going to be able to help people stay resilient in the face of setbacks and ultimately, do extra work, do the right work for you and be engaged in your company because you’ve spent the time and energy making sure they know that even when things are not going their way, they have an ally in you.
Lenny Rachitsky: What do you do if they just disagree, if they’re just like, “But I do have those skills and I don’t think this is fair.” Thoughts on responding to that sort of feedback? I guess, that’s the defensiveness stuff.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, that’s the defensiveness stuff. And again, I hope you’ve done your homework to identify that actually that person doesn’t have those skills and if there is a [inaudible 00:29:16] for example, but I do have those skills or sometimes people, I think more, even more often, they don’t respond to what you just said. They will instead explain to you that they’ve been here for a year or they’re the only internal candidate or their peer got promoted.
Right, they’ll sort of explain to you things which are not part of your decision-making process and then it’s helpful for you to say something like, “Yeah, listen, Matilda, I really understand that you were thinking that after a year, you’d get promoted around here. And in the past, I do think because of the stage of our company, probably people have been promoted at that period. That’s not the place we’re at right now. As we scale, we really need to think about not just what we need for today and tomorrow, but for the future. And that’s why I want these specialized skills in here. I think it’s going to help the entire company.”
So that’s an example of a discussion that you could have. I do have the skills. That’s kind of interesting. I’d love to hear what you see as those skills. And it’s not a problem to have the conversation right there then, but if there’s a “Yes, I do, no, I don’t, yes, I do, no, you don’t,” that pushback is never productive. And so, that’s where you want to probably again take a pause and say, “Listen, I totally hear you. You and I have a different point of view about this. I’m not sure if it’s productive to continue to discussing right now. Let’s talk about it again in a week. But I also want you to know this is a decision that I’ve made.”
Lenny Rachitsky: I love though, when they come back to you and like, “But here’s X, Y, Z.” And you’re like, “That’s not what I was saying necessarily.” I love that you basically mirror back. I hear what, I understand you believe, I understand you’ve been here for a year. I understand you’re the only internal candidate,” like making them feel very heard. That’s a really powerful mechanic there. That is a good tool. Is there another script that you think might be helpful to talk through that is a common hard conversation people have?
Alisa Cohn: Well, the hardest conversation is firing someone.
Lenny Rachitsky: Let’s do it. Let’s get into it.
Alisa Cohn: [inaudible 00:31:13]. I’m willing to get into it. I just want to say two things about that. First of all, when you’re firing someone, the hope is that it’s not a surprise to them. You’ve had multiple conversations with them that they’re not living up to your expectations. It’s essential because the truth is, you want to create a culture where people are not surprised by being fired. And that’s not even true for this one person you’re dealing with. That’s true for the entire company. So just kind of getting in the mindset of recognizing that if you shied away from those conversations, kind of like, “You’re the problem here and you have some catch up to do.”
The second thing is that before you fire someone, I think it’s helpful to have the conversation before the firing conversation because something you said Lenny is like, “Oh, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m not sure.” And that bleeds into, “Maybe I haven’t been clear with this person.” Regularly with my clients, I’ll say, “Okay, have you been crystal clear about what you need from this person?” And what they always do is the hand motion like well, sort of, but well, maybe. Which means no, which means no. You’ve not been crystal clear or you don’t perceive even crystal clear. The way to make sure that you’re crystal clear is by having the conversation before it comes to that.
What that looks like is, “Listen, Matilda, we have to have a difficult conversation right now. I’ve talked to you multiple times about coordinating with your peers and not having them surprised about missed deadlines, and I’ve talked to you multiple times about keeping your team in the loop on different things. After six months of these conversations, I want you to know that the peers continue to feel like that you’re operating on your own without coordinating with them. And I continue to hear from your team that they’re not fully on the same page. I need you to know that this is very important. I need you to fix this within the next 30 days. Otherwise, I’m sorry to say, we’re going to have to find a way to part ways because I can’t keep this going with you. I know you have it in you to change. I value all you bring to the table, but if you don’t fix these things, we’re not going to have a future together.”
Lenny Rachitsky: That is very crystal clear.
Alisa Cohn: Yes, crystal clear.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. Okay.
Alisa Cohn: What do you think of that?
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, that was great. So it starts with being upfront. This is a difficult conversation, just to set expectations. They’re like, “Oh, shit.” And then it seems like you come back to, again, multiple times this happened, observing here’s what’s happening. It’s happened multiple times. I keep hearing from multiple people, [inaudible 00:33:44] be a problem. And so it’s just like, “I need you to know,” and you’re just very clear. “Here’s what will happen if this doesn’t change.”
Alisa Cohn: Yes.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. And I love that you also give them a little, there’s always that hope for who they are and how you see them as. They’re not worthless. It’s just like, “You are great at a lot of things. You have these skills. You’re great at blah, blah, blah, but still this is a big problem.” And it’s communicating how critical this is. [inaudible 00:34:08].
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, and it’s a deal breaker. It’s a deal breaker. Right?
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah.
Alisa Cohn: If you have so many talents, but if you can’t do these two things, then it’s a deal breaker for all of us.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah.
Alisa Cohn: And I think it’s important to really sort of see that both. Sometimes people think, “Well, but I’m so talented.” Yeah, but your talents are not going to make up for these two deal breakers.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. And I feel like I know we were going to talk about the firing conversation, but I think this is even more important than that because hopefully, this addresses the problem and you don’t need to fire them, which is more valuable.
Alisa Cohn: Yes. Yeah, hopefully. But even if you do, it’s actually easier because you’ve already had the conversation. Right? They’re not surprised. It’s clear. We’ve had the discussion.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. So basically the script is like, “There’s going to be a difficult conversation. I’ve seen multiple times this thing and we’ve talked multiple times and it’s still not fixed and here’s what I just want to be very clear about.” Is there also a script you have for just actually doing the firing or is that less scriptable?
Alisa Cohn: Well, the script for doing the firing is again, please everybody, talk to your HR professional. Talk to your lawyer. Okay, I’m not a lawyer, I’m afraid. So you have to make sure that you’re all buttoned up on what you’re going to do. But the conversation is actually very simple, which is just, “Matilda, we talked about this multiple times. The last time we had this conversation, I told you I needed you to make these changes. You haven’t made these changes and we’re going to part ways. So I have here, Sarah from HR or whatever, and we’re going to talk through the logistics of that. I’m happy to have a longer conversation with you, but I want you to know we’ve made the decision to terminate you.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Feels very reasonable to me. Is there anything else along these lines?
Alisa Cohn: I think what I want to say is that the conversations you need to have at work are not just difficult conversations. What I call them is sort of delicate conversations because what I think people also shy away from is just simple praise, specific praise. And I think it’s really important to get in the habit of pointing out what your people are doing well as carefully as you need to prepare for pointing out what they need to improve. And sometimes leaders feel like, “Yeah, it’s all working. It’s all working. I don’t have to tell you.” Or if I do tell you, it’s kind of like “Good job.” Right? One time a leader or a manager I was doing in a training program, she said, “I don’t like getting positive feedback. I only like getting negative feedback.” And I said, “How come?” And she said, “Oh, positive feedback is just like, oh, good job. Negative feedback, you can learn something. You get something from it.”
So the positive feedback should have the same standard, which is, “I saw the way you ran that launch, it was fantastic. All these different benefits came from it. You’re so organized, keep doing that.” Or “The way you’re keeping your peers in the loop, considering you’ve only been here three months is extraordinary. I’ve never seen someone so communicative. It’s fantastic. Keep doing that. That’s really working for you.” If you do that often enough, you do get in the… First of all, it’s positive, obviously. You become in the habit of getting better at positive feedback, which is extremely motivating to people at work. It helps them see their progress because that person I just mentioned, she’s barely keeping her head above water and she’s having trouble fitting in or whatever, but you come around and point out the things that are working. Again, it’s very morale boosting. She knows where she stands, and then one day, if you have to give her these difficult messages, you’ve already sort of laid the reservoir of goodwill.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love giving positive feedback. It’s obviously so much easier, but to your point, it’s like you have to really think about how to do it well. It’s not just a, it’s not that easy if you do it well, which is a really good point. And [inaudible 00:37:49] needs scripts for how to give really good positive feedback and have great conversations.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s interesting. There’s less demand for that. How do I have better great conversations or compliments?
Alisa Cohn: Right, right. True.
Lenny Rachitsky:
Companies from all kinds of industries and stages count on Liveblocks to drive engagement and growth in their products. Join them today and give your users an experience that turns them into daily active users. Sign up for a free account today at liveblocks.io/lenny. I want to go on a little bit of a tangent, something that it’s kind of touches on all the things we’ve been talking about, which is, you’re big on helping leaders understand that their job is not to make employees happy. What is your job instead? Why do people think this is their job to make their employees happy and what should they be thinking instead is their job as a leader?
Alisa Cohn: [inaudible 00:39:09], I work with a lot of founders and so, don’t forget that the entry-level position for a founder is leader, and they have it, they often not had a lot of other experiences being a leader or a manager, and so they’re just doing the best they can. It makes sense, right? And they kind of get all this information from other people and their HR leader wants to have a happy engaged workforce and they don’t want to upset people for all the reasons we talked about, why you don’t want to upset people. Nobody wants to upset people.
And so there’s this idea of, they’re trying to now be now be the leader who everyone loves and makes people happy. So they would often bend over backwards to make people happy, to keep people, their morale up. But what really needs to happen very often is, we need to drive towards results. And the way this system is working is not going to drive us towards results or this employee continuing to not really do a great job at their job and not really pushing themselves. And you don’t want to push them because you don’t want to upset them, you don’t want to give them difficult feedback, so you’re just going to keep hoping it works out.
Ultimately, that leads to the demise of your company. I mean, ultimately right, as you’re a startup? If you’re not in a startup and you’re a large company, it still is very subpar performance, obviously. And you’re dancing around hoping and praying they’re going to get there and they don’t really know there’s a problem. And so, I think it’s very misguided for leaders to have this notion that their most important role is to keep people happy, is to create this high engagement workforce. High engagement workforce is great.
I think what that comes from is winning culture, which means we’re set up for success. We’ve got the structure for success, we have the culture for success, everyone understands their role, they know the impact of their role. So doing the work to figure out and help them figure out the impact of their role and that when they work together and achieve these milestones, they win and then we celebrate the wins and then we do it all over again. And when you create that kind of a workforce, I think it’s much more dynamic, even though sometimes in doing that, you have to redirect people and ruffle their feathers.
Lenny Rachitsky: Essentially, the way I think about it is you think making people happy is not having hard conversations, not pushing them, when really, it’s almost working backwards from, if we win and are killing it, people will be happy and what does it take to do that?
Alisa Cohn: A hundred percent. And then the right people are going to want to join your team, people who like to win and like to get results.
Lenny Rachitsky: Is there a story, an example of a founder you worked with or that comes to mind of this kind of where they thought this was their approach and then they shifted? Or is there kind of a pattern you see often?
Alisa Cohn: One company comes to mind. One leader I worked with. Sometimes I think to myself, if I’m writing a book, the book would start with, “It all started with the avocado toast,” because he wants to do right by his workforce. And so they have avocado toast at 10 AM, like tea time kind of a thing. And it became this great ritual where people would kind of hang out together and that was great. And then that turned into other longer periods of just hanging out together. Again, these are good things. And that turned into evening socials and everybody was enjoying spending time together, but they continued to be not fully clear on what they were actually supposed to do. And there began to be kind of a cliquey, gossipy culture of who’s in and who’s out. And that would take up a lot of the socialization time discussions. So rather than talk about expectations about the work and about results, and again, the results were not showing. So it wasn’t a lot to celebrate.
They started at a culture committee. So they had a culture committee to talk about how we can make people happier around here. And you can imagine there’s now layers and layers of things where we’re trying to focus on engagement and we’re trying to focus on the employees having a great experience. And the leader I’m working with is completely sincere. It actually want to have a great workplace. But I think the misguidedness was that he hadn’t done a great job setting expectations. He had not done a great job of quote unquote “codifying their culture” because culture is not just avocado toast and working together and having socials, culture is things like, we go the extra mile or culture is we make sure, or it could be, we measure twice and cut once. Those are kinds of things that are really about the way we get work done around here. And certainly, a focus on results is like, are we following the process to then get the revenue and to then build a profitable company or are we just kind of hanging out together?
So he had to come to terms with his own discomfort of addressing this with employees and his own discomfort in being a corporate drone of, “Oh, expectations and in the workplace and how we do things.” And it turned out that’s the whole thing with coaching and with working with people is that you kind of see what their underlying assumptions and beliefs are and there’s a reason everyone does what they do. So there’s a reason he’s doing what he’s doing. We had to come to terms with that and then he had to really courageously make some changes about the way he was operating. And ultimately, they had to part ways with one or two really toxic people who were creating this gossipy culture and making people feel not included and not focused on results. And then when they all got on the same page, they were able to gain a lot more traction.
Lenny Rachitsky: I feel like a lot of leaders and founders can relate to this, of wanting to create a great culture and keep it nice and friendly and everyone’s a family and then things don’t quite work out often in those cases. And there’s a shift to, “Okay, we actually need to make a business that works.”
Alisa Cohn: Right.
Lenny Rachitsky: It always reminds me, Sheryl Sandberg came to talk at Airbnb once and people are asking, “What do you do with all this…? We’re just constantly in chaos. Things are always reorging or changing, just never… I’m on different teams every six months. Our goals are shifting. What do you do with all this… Our culture’s changing as we grow.” And she’s like, “That is a sign of hyper growth and success. And the opposite is even worse when you are not growing and you don’t want that. And so you should be happy this is the challenge you’re running into.”
Alisa Cohn: I love that. It’s so true.
Lenny Rachitsky: So along these lines, you talk about how a lot of founders have to come to terms, and it’s not just founders, it’s just execs and leaders you work with, have to come to terms with, “Here’s what I thought leadership was going to be and how to be a great leader, and here’s what it really is.” Is there anything more there that you find is commonly what they’re wrong about or what they miss and what they have to realize?
Alisa Cohn: Yeah. And I think as we grow as leaders, we all have to realize our own blind spots and the difference between what we thought and what is actually going on. So I worked with a founder who she wanted to be was a visionary leader, which is fantastic. I would love that. And she was an incredibly visionary person, very inspirational. But what she didn’t see is that what her company needed was somebody to structure and hold people accountable and help them create goals and achieve milestones and course correct when they got off course. And she’d be very frustrated when all those things happened. People got off course, people didn’t have goals, people weren’t structured to work together. But what she didn’t realize was that was, in one way or the other, her job to make that happen.
Now, maybe she needed to have, and I would talk to her a lot about this, a partner, like a COO or somebody else who could be the person who would be sort of managing the internal while she got to be more visionary, inspirational, but ultimately, it was her job to make sure that that was in place. And she didn’t sort of see that and she did not adjust her style. And so there’s a lot of wheel spinning that happens from that. Even though, by the way, she was an incredibly inspirational person and incredibly inspirational leader and she meant so well. There was nothing malicious about it. It’s just that she didn’t see the situation for what it was and then adjust.
Lenny Rachitsky: It reminds me, we had this coach on the podcast, Joe Hudson, and he had this phrase that I think a lot of people use, but it just stuck with me. What you resist, persists. So if you hate confrontation, you’re going to have much more confrontation. If you hate structure… Actually, this reminds me, Joe Gebbia at Airbnb. He was very anti-process at the beginning of Airbnb. He’s like, “We’re not going to have a process. I hate process. We’re going to run… That’s the big company stuff.” And then it just chaos constantly. And then eventually it’s like, “Okay, we need to have some process to how we build things.”
Alisa Cohn: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: And so it’s interesting. A lot of people have to realize the thing they think was bad is actually, I see why people do it this way.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, totally. Actually, I’d like to say something about that because so many… Founders are kind of mavericks and they come into a situation or they start at this company and they want to do things their own way and that’s fantastic. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be a founder. That’s actually fantastic. And so many of the founders I’ve worked with want to reinvent leadership. Right? They want to have it with no process, they want to have no hierarchy, they want to have autonomy, whatever it is.
And my feeling is like, “God bless. You should absolutely try to do that.” But at the end of the day, what happens is, they kind of invent for themselves the understanding that they need to have process, hierarchy, roles and responsibilities, goals, OKRs, whatever it is. And I think it’s helpful sometimes to go through that fire of thinking we can do it a different way. But ultimately, I think that the ways to structure a group of people and get them organized so that they can win, are kind of well trod. And I would say that it’s helpful to get through that stage quickly so that you don’t have to constantly reinvent the wheels of leadership.
Lenny Rachitsky: Such an important context. Obviously, one of the… The most successful founders come up with, have first principles thinking into how to do stuff, and oftentimes they find something no one has ever thought about. So it’s always this balance of try a bunch of stuff, a lot of it won’t [inaudible 00:49:34]. Some of it was, what will help you win. And I think that’s a really good point. I want to get into a couple more tactical things that you often work on with founders. One is, running meetings. Meetings come up a lot on this podcast. People hate them, people love them. There’s some are great, some are bad, most are bad. You have some cool advice on just how to make meetings more effective and how to especially end a meeting to help you move forward. Talk about what your advice is there and just generally any advice for better meetings.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah. I’m one of the few people that loves meetings. Or I should say I don’t love meetings. I love the potential for meetings. We have all this smart people in the room. We have the potential to talk about these great things and make decisions. And unfortunately, they don’t go that way. So what happens often, I mean there’s so many downfalls with meetings, but one thing that happens is, we keep meeting. Either we make decisions or we don’t make decisions, but then we come back to meet again and we don’t have any continuity from the last. So then we re-meet, we re-decide, and that is a big problem. So my three questions to end the meeting are, what did we decide here? Who needs to do what by when? And who else needs to know? And if you can capture those, articulate those as deliverables, I promise you, you’re going to have better meetings.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay, so it’s, what did we decide here? Who’s going to do what by when? So basically, action items with dates. And then, who needs to know about what we decided here? Is that how you put it?
Alisa Cohn: Yes. Who else needs to know? There’s so many executive teams that I’ve worked with and at first, they go into their room, they have their meeting, they make their decisions and then they leave and they don’t tell anyone. “I made this promise for my team that you guys need to kind of go do.” Or, “We decided on a policy of some sort and we forgot to tell everybody.” And again, no, absolutely no maliciousness, just that they forget or they’re too busy and there’s not part of the protocol and the process inside of the company that encourages and really insists that people share important information, so cascading that down.
But even the first question, what did we decide here? If you really go around the room at the end of a meeting or six people in the meeting, let’s say, and you say to everybody, “What did we decide here?” And they all write it down, you will get six different answers, even though we’re in the same meeting. I love that it’s so powerful, but also, so helpful to really raise that up, to surface that and then to figure out what to do about it.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love that you highlighted that. I was going to say exactly the same thing, that everyone in their head has the thought of, “Here, oh yeah. Here’s what we decided.” And to your point, it’s often not the same. So is the advice here, is this like a template or something you fill out at the end of a meeting or is it someone’s job to make sure these three things happen or how do you operationalize these three questions?
Alisa Cohn: I like it that it’s someone’s job, the person that I sort of think of as the meetings are. And typically, that’s somebody who enjoys follow-up, who enjoys putting lists together and putting things into boxes and whatnot, and there’s usually someone like that on the team. And so then it’s kind of exciting for them to be the follower upper. But one way or the other, so you could use a template. I think that actually baking it in as a ritual to the meeting, because the other thing about meetings is that we never have enough time. We go right to the end and we don’t leave the five or 10 minutes at the end to make sure that we ask these three questions and make sure that we have an understanding of what the follow through is on these meetings.
Lenny Rachitsky: What I’m imagining is, say it’s the product managers. Put this doc on the screen in the meeting as the meeting’s ending and just have it filled out basically, and just confirm, “Does this look good to everyone?”
Alisa Cohn: Love that. That’s a great way to do it. By the way, with… Well, I just would say what’s interesting about that is that if we ask people what did we decide here, I think there’s value in just asking that question in particular because somebody might say, “We decided,” I don’t know, “Something.” And other people would say, “No, we didn’t. But that’s actually a good idea. It sort of crystallizes what we did talk about in a more comprehensive way.” I think there’s value in raising the differences and I think there’s value in stitching those together. So just putting it up on the board is good, especially if you’re running short of time. I worry that somebody might not weigh in and say, “Actually, I have a very different point of view of what we decided here.” So maybe it’s also about building the culture to break in and say, “No, that’s not what I see. Let’s spend some time on that.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Let’s actually spend more time on this because this is really, I think, really this specific detail I think could be really powerful if you do it right. So say you’re the PM in the meeting, who do you ask? Do you say to the room, “What did we decide here?” Or do you look at the most senior person? Otherwise, it feels like it could just lead to a whole discussion the last couple of minutes, which I guess could be valuable, but who do you point this question to?
Alisa Cohn: Yeah. So I picture this for let’s say, a six-person executive team meeting, which means everyone go around quickly and say, “What did we decide here?” Now, if you’re in a meeting with a large executive team, which I do work with sometimes or non-executive team, like a group of some sort, then you probably want to get a few people just to… I would just even say as a facilitator, two or three people, “Okay, two or three people, what do we decide here?” And if you can kind of get common, great. That’s fantastic.
Lenny Rachitsky: Got it. Okay. So if it’s a small meeting, go around the room and everyone just shares, here’s what we decided here. And they could just be like, “Yep, he’s got it or she’s got it.” Awesome. Okay. This is great. So the advice here is, next time you have a meeting, especially an exec meeting, just at the end of the meeting, you, the listener of this podcast, just ask, “Okay, everyone. Let’s just make sure we’re on the same page. What did you decide here? Who needs to do what by when?” And then everyone chimes in and you’re writing this in this doc, and then what else? Who needs to know about what we decided here?
Alisa Cohn: Yeah. Lenny, I love that because also, do you have to be the leader of the meeting to do that? No. You could just be the person in the meeting and just chime in and just start it yourself. And if you do that and everyone kind of picks it up, it can become a ritual just by virtue of your own agency. So I love that you just encouraged everyone to do that.
Lenny Rachitsky: And this is how you become a leader, is you just start doing these things and people are like, “Oh, Alisa is so helpful. She’s just on top of it. Every time she’s in a meeting, the meetings go better. We get things done.” So I think just doing the thing that is useful to everyone is how you move up.
Alisa Cohn: Exactly.
Lenny Rachitsky: Amazing. Okay. Another topic that I know you spend a lot of time on is something you call the founder prenup. And what I love about this is, a lot of the problems that a company trickle down from the founders having their challenges with each other. And I started a company in the past and I don’t think people realize how significant this decision is in your life. It’s basically, you are marrying someone in a business context and you’re stuck with this person for a long time and you basically came up with a prenup, which is a set of questions of just things you need to talk about to make sure you’re aligned before you start this company. Is there any context around this thing before we talk through actually the questions that you recommend people talk through?
Alisa Cohn: Well, I just want to reiterate what you just said. Exactly right. And it turns out that according to Noam, Noam Wasserstein, 65% of startups fail because of conflict with founders or the founding team. So it’s really essential to get this right, and I agree that people step into this relationship with a lot less care than they should. And bad things can happen because you haven’t done the work of getting to know each other before you decide to co-found.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. It’s so easy just to like, “Yeah, I’ll start a company. We have this cool idea. Let’s just do it. It’s going to be so awesome.” And then you don’t realize how much you’re committing to and how often things don’t work out because of that quick decision. And oftentimes, it’s like friends and then it becomes even more challenging because I want to be friends, but we’re in business together. So yeah. Let’s talk about what you recommend folks talk through as much as we can on this podcast.
Alisa Cohn: So I do have kind of an extensive questionnaire, so we just touch on a few things, but one thing I think first and foremost is, what are your values? And I think it’s really essential to do some sort of values clarification exercise. You can find a ton of them online. You can find a list of values and just pull out your core values and just compare them with each other because when you are aligned, it’s great. Or when you’re adjacent, it’s also great.
I might care a lot about excellence, Lenny, you might care a lot about learning. Fantastic. Those are great values that we can kind of, go together. I might care about excellence and you might care about work-life balance. Wow, let’s talk about that because I think it’s going to be really important as we go through our startup journey that we understand both of us, what does work-life balance mean and what does excellence mean? Because those two things can at times be at odds with each other, just as kind of an example.
So talking through those core values in advance and updating them regularly, even as you go down the path together is so essential. Just so you know where the other person’s coming from. Because the other problem is, someone acts in a certain way, you don’t know them that well maybe, or maybe you’ve known them as an eighth grader. A lot of founders do know each other from their youth and they’ve matured into different kinds of people. And so you think they’re acting strangely, but actually, they’re acting in accordance with their values. And so getting a handle on that upfront can solve, I would just say, solve a lot of problems before they start.
Lenny Rachitsky: So signs that your values don’t align. It’s basically you both can’t be true is almost the way I think about it as we talk. It’s hard to be the excellent, focus on excellence and also not work long hours, which it’s possible, but it’s hard. Those are challenging and worth the conversation.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, worth the conversation because in fact, as you say that, I’m like, “Well, I guess you can do that. Right. You can do that.” And so therefore, that’s where the conversation has to figure out how you’re going to marry these two values, which might be at odds or might be aligned, but let’s talk through what work-life balance means to you and let’s talk through what excellence means to me, and let’s see if we can have a meeting of the minds about it or at least I know where you stand.
One of the founders I worked with, he would text or Slack his co-founder on weekends and the co-founder wouldn’t respond. And that was extremely frustrating to the person, to the co-founder I was talking to. And it turned out, after they finally addressed it, it really was about wanting to have some downtime and some, quote unquote, “Balance.” Nothing wrong with that, but because they didn’t talk about it, both sides made [inaudible 01:00:20] big assumption about it and then it caused this conflict that didn’t have to happen if they’d had the conversation in advance.
Lenny Rachitsky: Comes back to where we started of having these conversations is necessary and almost helps the other person because this small issue could become a huge issue over time, if you just start assuming and it keeps happening and it keeps scratching and scratching at you. And letting that person’s [inaudible 01:00:45] is screwed up because you’re, “I can’t do this with you anymore.” Right? So it’s just another reminder of how it’s good for the other person for you to engage in a difficult conversation.
Alisa Cohn: Yes, very true.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay, what else? So values. By the way, is there a values framework you most love that you can point people to or there just a bunch and don’t worry too much about which one you go [inaudible 01:01:05]?
Alisa Cohn: I mean, the one I use is super simple, which is on the thing called the internet. There’s a lot of lists of values and I think when you see a list of values, you can pull out the ones that are most meaningful to you, and that’s a very simple and helpful and free tool.
Lenny Rachitsky: Got it. So you just Google list of values, there’s a PDF, and just circle the ones that are most and pick whatever small number, don’t… Half of [inaudible 01:01:27]-
Alisa Cohn: Actually, well, just to give you the process, right? It’s helpful to pick 20, for example. Great. And then you winnow them down to, let’s say, 10. And then you do the difficult work of winnowing them down to three to five that you feel are core to you. And that’s a good exercise for everyone to do actually, every year because things can change. It also forces you to make the difficult decisions about when it comes down to it, what are the things that really are important to me? The more you know your values, the more you can operate in the world with just more clarity for yourself.
Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome. All right. So values. What else?
Alisa Cohn: Yeah. So another one is, vision of the company. So when this company is successful, what does that look like? And what that might look like is, we’re in control of our destiny and we are able to operate this business independently and we have a lot of freedom. What that might look like is a big venture outcome that we all read about. And if you are both assuming that you both think the same thing but aren’t talking about it explicitly or talking about the trade-offs you need to make inherent in that, then what often happens if you have differences is they come home to roost while it’s too late or when it’s too late.
So an example is the two co-founders I worked with, one of them would said to me wistfully, this is like five or six years into the company, and the company was going well, but it was challenging and they had all their growing pains and like you mentioned about Sheryl said all the chaos. And he said to me, “Gosh, I don’t see why we have to grow. I just wish we could actually have fewer employees. And I used to love it when I knew everybody’s name and I would just much prefer an environment where we didn’t have to grow.” Well, unfortunately, they were already venture backed and also, the other co-founder had a very lofty ambition for a very big company. And since they hadn’t talked about that, it was way too late to even have that conversation and it was a very painful reckoning for both of them to realize they were not on the same page.
Lenny Rachitsky: Totally, see the value of this one. I could totally see how people would have different goals. I imagine it also changes over time, so there’s probably an element of, if something has shifted for you, you should probably also have that conversation. I don’t want to build an IPO venture scale business, I just want to build something chill. So basically, a line on what is… How would you phrase that? What does winning look like to you?
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, what does success look like?
Lenny Rachitsky: What does success look like to you?
Alisa Cohn: Or what’s the vision for the company when it reaches its full potential?
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay. Great. What else?
Alisa Cohn: Another one is, it’s sort of a two part question. How do you handle conflict? So how do you handle conflict? But then, you might want to ask your spouse, someone close to you, “How do I handle conflict?” Because you might think, “Oh, I handle conflict with such an enlightened person. I’m so neutral about it. I’m so great at bringing things up.” But the person who’s close to you might say, “You seethe until you’re ready to bring something up and it’s really uncomfortable in the seething period.” So it just gives you a little more self-awareness about how you actually handle conflict.
And that’s really important because I might be the kind of person who wants to bring up conflict and talk about it immediately. The other person might be a person who totally wants to talk about the conflict but wants to let it settle first and wants to also go through their own thinking process about what’s important to them and might actually feel like they’ve resolved it themselves without having to have a conversation with you. And if you’re the person who’s like, “Let’s talk about it, let’s talk about it, let’s talk about it.” And they’re like, “I’m working through it myself.” Now you have conflict over the conflict and it just turns into dynamic that’s not necessary.
Lenny Rachitsky: As you go through these questions, it’s absurd to imagine people don’t do this when they find a co-founder and work through stuff, and I know nobody does. The percentage of people that do this sort of work ahead of time, it’s very low. And so I love that we’re helping this percentage go up, but it also reminds me of just how crazy it is people don’t have these conversations and how it explains why so many founder relationships don’t work out. So these are awesome. What else? I know you have a whole list and we’ll link to it, right? There’s a PDF we can link to?
Alisa Cohn: Yes.
Lenny Rachitsky: With the questions or-
Alisa Cohn: For sure.
Lenny Rachitsky: [inaudible 01:05:55] post. Awesome. Let’s do a few more.
Alisa Cohn: Another one is, how do we decide when we disagree? And that is a very good thing to explore because there’s actually a lot of different ways to decide when you disagree and they’re all good. And if you have it sort of upfront and it’s just for an ongoing discussion, but if you have it up front like when we disagree, because that’s definitely going to happen, let’s assume that the person who cares the most can win that argument. That would be a great way to do it. It might be, the person who’s got the best perspective and the most expertise can win that argument. It might be, we’ll go back and forth when we really disagree. First you win and then I win, like that, back and forth.
There’s so many different ways to handle it and if you talk about it upfront, you’ll be much more likely to be able to actually put that into practice when you do disagree because you will definitely disagree. There’s no way around that. And that’s not even a bad thing. You’re smart people. You have this dynamic tension in the relationship. You bring different things to the table. You’ve got different perspectives. Disagreeing is normal. Working through it and having a practice and a process of working through it, will help it be a good conversation rather than this sort of sulky difficult conversation.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love it. Maybe one more?
Alisa Cohn: Yeah. So another one is, what kind of company culture do I think is important? People definitely don’t talk about this before they found the company and they assume they’re on the same page. So one founder might be, “I want to have this great company where everyone loves it and we’re all loving together and working hard together. And it feels like a…” To use your word before, “It feels like a family.” By the way, that’s great. That’s fantastic. “I want to have a get it done, results-focused culture where we’re just executing the hell out of everything and that we’re just focused on winning.”
By the way, those two can actually exist together. But if you’re pushing in one direction without the other and your co-founder is pushing the other direction without yours, it really can feel like two different companies. And that’s… When I go into a situation at one of my client sites, often I will hear from the employees, “It feels like we have two different companies and two different cultures depending on whose team you’re on.” And that, of course, leads to lack of coherent working together and certainly even just lack of different standards and expectations.
Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome. Okay. To kind of start to wrap our conversation, I want to take us to a recurring segment of this podcast that I call, Fail Corner. We’ve talked a lot about failure at this point and just all the ways people fail. I’m curious if, in your career or life, there’s a story that might be helpful for folks to hear when things didn’t go great and you’ve failed, and if you learn something from that experience. And the reason this is something I do is I feel like people listening to this podcast, everyone’s like, “Sounds so amazing, everything’s always going great. They’re killing it.” When in reality, that’s not actually how things go. So these end up being really helpful for people like, “Oh, wow. Even Alisa had a really hard time sometime.” Is there a story that you could share?
Alisa Cohn: Absolutely. I mean, so many examples. I’m going to give two quick examples. One is, when I first started my coaching practice, I just kind of started and so I just did everything I could to get clients, to build a business, to build a practice, to build my brand, all the things. And I was working so hard and I think I’d had this conversation with somebody that didn’t go very well. And I just thought, in my mind’s eye, I thought, “Well, what will become of me?” That was my voice in my head for quite a long time, “What will become of me?” And I was living in Boston at the time. I got onto the floor, my hardwood floors in my Brookline condo, and I just balled in the fetal position. I just balled and balled and balled for an hour. It wasn’t 10 minutes, it was an hour.
And I was so frightened and just upset. Am I going to be able to make this work? And it was a while and I got into the couch and took a little stress nap. And then I got up from my stress nap and I just started making more calls and doing more things. And that was definitely a rock bottom moment for me. And I think what I learned is, you have to literally pick yourself up from the ground and pull yourself forward. And when you keep taking action, action, action, win or lose, win or lose, you’ll get where you need to go. And that turned out to be true. But in those moments, I was not thinking that was going to turn out to be true.
Lenny Rachitsky: Wow. Amazing story. I imagine many people feel those moments and it’s empowering to hear that it can all turn out really well, even when you’re lying in the floor crying for an hour. An hour is a long time to cry on the floor.
Alisa Cohn: It is a long time to cry. It really… I thought about it because most people just cry for 10 or 15 minutes. I was crying for an hour. I’m positive. Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Great story. You said you had another story.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah. I’ll tell you a second story, which is more focused on actually my work life. So one thing that I do is I do coaching of course and I do off sites. And this was early, early days of my coaching career and I was doing this off site and it wasn’t going well. And I was debriefing with my client during the breaks and at one point she said something like, “I just think we should end this offsite. I just think we should just decide it’s over and it’s not working.” And I felt horrible, obviously, humiliated, certainly, and just like that’s a failure. That’s like, “Oh, fail.” And I know that what I took away from it was that I can improve my skills in every aspect of running an offsite.
So getting aligned with the client in advance, making sure that I had the right activities getting us to our goal, being very goal-oriented and focused, and making sure that I had kind of understood the rhythm of what it takes to bring people together. So I took some training on that. I worked my mentor on that, and I got so great at offsites after that experience. I’ll tell you that was a real low because in the moment, in that moment, I’m not thinking, “I’m going to get great at offsites.” In that moment I’m thinking, “Oh, my God. I’m going to get… What will become of me?” But I turned it into, in my mind’s eye, or I should say, I turned it into the ability to build my skills. And I just want to tell everybody, even at your lowest moments, anything that you’re learning from that, can then be turned into fuel to build your skills to get great at the thing that you’re not great at.
Lenny Rachitsky: What I also love about this is there’s this feeling of imposter syndrome, is specifically this fear that I do something wrong and it’ll all crumble and everyone will see I suck and I never… I don’t know anything and everyone will see it. And I love both these stories are like, it doesn’t go well and doesn’t crumble. You build from there. And no one’s like, “Oh, Alisa’s terrible forever.” No, it’s like move on to the next thing. And then you use that as fuel to become really good at this thing that didn’t go great.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, that’s really well said.
Lenny Rachitsky: Amazing. Alisa, we covered a lot of stuff. Is there anything that you were hoping to cover or you think might be useful for folks to hear before we move to our very exciting lightning round?
Alisa Cohn: The only last thing I want to talk about, just sort of circling back to your role as a leader, I was one time working with the CEO who was handling the fact that this launch was not going well, as in the launch wasn’t happening. [inaudible 01:13:25] foot off, foot off, foot off. And his point of view was, you need to have patience with it as it goes. And my point of view is, because I’ve talked to a lot of the people around, was that there was a massive process problem going on that he was not kind of touching into and really investigating because the product manager wasn’t experienced, was kind of hiding it because he knew he didn’t have the skills, was fighting with engineering, it just wasn’t working.
And when the CEO was telling me, and we really had a long discussion about this where I kind of enlightened him about some of the issues that he needed to get involved and fix, he kept thinking, “I need to have patience.” So what I want to say to everybody is, sometimes you need to have patience and sometimes you need to look at the process. And I think you, as the leader, need to have the wisdom to know the difference, but also your finger on the pulse to recognize, is this an issue with patience or an issue with process?
Lenny Rachitsky: I guess, is there a sign that you’re like, it’s probably a process thing and you’re just ignoring a glaring problem that everyone else sees?
Alisa Cohn: I think the sign is when, if you search your mind, you don’t really know how this thing is going to come together. There’s no plan in your mind. You haven’t touched in with people or talked to people about what’s going on. You kind of hear this uncomfortable silence about it. Those are symptoms that you just need to dive deeper and just be a little more in touch with what’s going on and talk to some folks and look at some data. And by the way, it might not be a massive process problem. It might just be one little thing that needs to get unstuck but you, as the leader, need to recognize that and figure out a way to make that unstuck. And if there’s, of course, a big problem that needs to somehow be just surfaced.
Lenny Rachitsky: So if there’s this hope this’ll work out versus I see a path to this working out, it’s probably a problem. Awesome.
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, well said.
Lenny Rachitsky: Is there anything else that you wanted to share or touch on that you think might be helpful?
Alisa Cohn: We talked a little about the co-founders prenup, which I think people would think, “Well, I’m not a co-founder, I don’t need that.” I just want to invite everyone to also think about a different tool that I have, which is called the Personal Operating Manual. And it helps prompt you to talk about working style together because you may not be co-founders, of course, but you’re working on a team with a bunch of people and they all have their different working style.
So it’s kinds of questions like, what communication style do you like the best? How do you like to work? Do you like large uninterrupted blocks? Do you like meetings here and there? When I’m trying to get a hold of you for something important, what’s the best way to do that? What is one of your pet peeves or some of your pet peeves? How can I get a gold star with you? Also, this is my favorite. What’s your delegation style?
Do you want me to check in with you regularly, like once a week as I’m working down the path of a project? Or do you want me to just let you know when it’s done and just tell you at the end that it’s been complete? So lots of different ways people assume other people work because it’s like your style, but actually it’s just your style. So those kinds of conversations can be great for working together and also be a great team activity.
Lenny Rachitsky: So this kind of what goes into these READMEs people put together, here’s how to-
Alisa Cohn: Yes.
Lenny Rachitsky: … work with me. I really love the gold star concept because I feel like people want to know how do I be super awesome? How do I be really successful working for you? And I like that visual of the gold star and the pet peeves. I feel like a lot of people will identify that. What are my pet peeves so that people don’t do these things because they don’t know, right? They don’t know until you tell them.
Alisa Cohn: Nobody knows what’s your operating style until you tell them. And the more you can showcase, the more everybody will be able to do it right for you and you’ll be able to do it right for them. And then you’ll be able to have better workplace harmony and save your conflict with things that are really important. Not just because like, “Oh, you didn’t text me when I wanted you to text me.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Being clear. What do you know? Is there anything else that you think might be helpful to share before we get to a very exciting lightning round?
Alisa Cohn: No, just that.
Lenny Rachitsky: Well, with that, Alisa, we reached our very exciting lightning round. Are you ready?
Alisa Cohn: I can’t wait. I’m ready.
Lenny Rachitsky: Here we go. First question, are there two or three books that you find yourself most recommending to other people?
Alisa Cohn: So we already talked about Kim Scott, the wonderful, amazing Kim Scott and her book, Radical Candor, is one I recommend a lot to people. It’s fantastic. Working Backwards by gosh, Colin Bryar and Bill something, is about sort of the Amazon way of working backwards from the customer. Super geeky and tactical. I love it. I slurp it up like Harry Potter. It’s so good. And I definitely recommend to my clients about Amazon’s Management Science. And the third is Walt Disney by Neil Gabler because it really shows how Walt Disney, sort of it’s everything about his youth and how he turned into a very bad entrepreneur and ultimately into a fantastic inventive entrepreneur. And it shows all the origins of how he invented these different pieces that now make up the Walt Disney Company.
Lenny Rachitsky: The first two recommendations we’ve had on the podcast, Kim Scott and Bill Carr, is the other-
Alisa Cohn: Bill Carr.
Lenny Rachitsky: … co-author. He’s been on the podcast and people love that episode. I haven’t had Walt Disney on. I got to work on that.
Alisa Cohn: Or the writer, Neil Gabler
Lenny Rachitsky: Or the writer. Yeah, yeah. Good tip. Okay, next question. Is there a favorite recent movie or TV show you really enjoy?
Alisa Cohn: Yeah, I enjoyed Inside Out 2. I thought it was fantastic, the idea [inaudible 01:18:49].
Lenny Rachitsky: I could see why you love it. I feel like it’s for all coaches in the world.
Alisa Cohn: Totally. Just the idea that like, oh yeah, we’re all this complex stew of emotions and it’s okay.
Lenny Rachitsky: Mm-hmm. I also love that movie. Next question. Do you have a favorite product you recently discovered that you really love?
Alisa Cohn: Yes, the Ninja Creami. So good.
Lenny Rachitsky: Say more.
Alisa Cohn: The Ninja Creami turns anything into ice cream. So you can actually make ice cream. Good, God bless. But I take my protein shake, which is okay, and turn it into ice cream, which is delicious. And it takes 10 minutes and very little prep, and it’s simple to use and it works as expected, which so many things do not. The Ninja Creami, go get it.
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s the first for the Ninja Creami. And I love, the holidays are coming around, so this is going to be good for people. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often come back to you find useful in work or in life?
Alisa Cohn: This quote by Joseph Campbell animates my life, which is, “If you can see your path all the way through to the end, you are following someone else’s path. Your path only becomes clear moment by moment as each foot hits the ground.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Wow, that’s so good. It’s so empowering because it helps you realize if you don’t see where it’s all going, that’s normal and that’s good. Wow. Great one, good one. I need to do something with all these mottos. They’re so good. I need to create a poster or something.
Alisa Cohn: That’s a great idea. Or your newsletter.
Lenny Rachitsky: Here we go.
Alisa Cohn: Send them out.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, that’s the easy path. Okay. Last question. So I’m curious, and not to create more competition for you, but I feel like a lot of people think about becoming a coach of some kind, like a product coach, exec coach. If someone is thinking about going down that path, is there one piece of advice you could share to help them pursue this path, even explore if it’s right for them?
Alisa Cohn: If you think you want to become a coach and you immediately want to build up your coaching skills, listen to people more deeply and ask deeper questions, not just respond to what they just said, but why do you think that? Or where is that coming from? And you will see if you enjoy that process of really going deeper with people. I think that would be helpful for everyone to do. But certainly if you want to become a coach, I think that’s essential to be able to get really beneath the surface.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love how your energy just changed into coaching mode when you said that. I love that. That was such an interesting thing to see and that was great advice. That’s easier said than done. And it’s interesting, you could tell people are so good at that specific skill versus not. And so I love that that’s the thing to work on, is ask better questions, think deeper about the person and what they’re coming from. Alisa, this was incredible. Two final questions. Where can folks find you if they want to reach out, maybe work with you, what kind of people do you work with in case people are interested in that, and finally, how can listeners be useful to you?
Alisa Cohn: Oh, thank you. Well, I work with executives at startups and also at large public companies, so feel free to reach out if you want to have a conversation about coaching. And you can find me at alisacohn.com. And actually, I’m going to take some resources and put them at a special link, which is alisacohn.com/lenny. If you want to download the Co-Founder Prenup. I also have a Personal Operating Manual and a few other resources I will put there. So alisacohn.com/lenny and you can also join my newsletter from there.
And I think in terms of helping me, I guess there’s two things I want to say. My life’s work genuinely is to make a difference. When I became a coach, it was because the music in my head was to make a difference. And so I hope I’ve made a difference for all of you today and I would invite you to try one thing that makes you uncomfortable, this week. As soon as you hear this, this week, try something that makes you uncomfortable and feel free to let me know on LinkedIn or even send me an email and let me know what you did that made you uncomfortable.
So that would be very meaningful to me. And the second thing that would be very meaningful to me is if you would go find my podcast called, From Start-Up to Grown-Up and give it a listen. Maybe give it a rating and review because as you know, Lenny, the way people find your podcast is when other people are interested in your podcast.
Lenny Rachitsky: From Start-Up to Grown-Up. I love that title.
Alisa Cohn: Thank you.
Lenny Rachitsky: Alisa, thank you so much for being here. This was awesome.
Alisa Cohn: Thank you so much for having me, Lenny. It was great.
Lenny Rachitsky: Bye everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.
Glossary
| English | 中文 |
|---|---|
| codifying culture | 将文化成文/将文化准则化 |
| culture committee | 文化委员会 |
| deal breaker | 不可谈判的底线 |
| hyper growth | 高速增长 |
| Personal Operating Manual | 个人使用手册 |
| pet peeves | 最受不了的事 |
| prenup | prenup(婚前协议,此处指联合创始人之间的协议框架) |
| Radical Candor | 《Radical Candor》(彻底坦率) |
| traction | traction(业务牵引力) |
| Working Backwards | 《Working Backwards》(逆向工作法) |
Reformatted by reformat_english.py
应对困难对话的话术 | Alisa Cohn(高管教练)
文字记录
Lenny Rachitsky: 我想直接进入正题,聊聊你对进行困难对话的建议。比如在绩效评估季,当有人被告知无法获得晋升时,你有什么建议?
Alisa Cohn: 给予对未来的希望非常重要。“我知道接下来你要听的话可能不太好受——我不会晋升你,但我想让你知道,我很重视你在这里的职业发展,所以我会继续帮你寻找提升技能和前进的机会。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 你非常强调帮助领导者理解,他们的职责不是让员工开心。
Alisa Cohn: 他们现在都努力想做一个人人都喜欢的领导,但很多时候真正需要的是推动结果。这位员工持续在岗位上表现不佳,你不想给他压力,因为不想让他不高兴;你不想给他困难的反馈,所以就只能一直指望事情会自己好转。最终,这会导致你的公司走向衰败。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你关于如何让会议更高效,尤其是如何结束会议,有一些很棒的建议。
Alisa Cohn: 我用来结束会议的三个问题是……
Lenny Rachitsky: 今天的嘉宾是 Alisa Cohn。Alisa 是一位高管教练,曾与 Etsy、Wirecutter、Venmo、DraftKings 等初创公司的 C-suite 高管合作,也为 Microsoft、Google、Pfizer、《纽约时报》等世界 500 强公司提供服务。她被 Thinkers50 评为全球顶尖 50 位教练之一,并连续四年被 Global Gurus 评为排名第一的初创企业教练。我喜欢 Alisa 的地方在于,她给客户的建议非常具体、可操作。在这次对话中,Alisa 分享了在与下属进行困难对话时可以使用的具体措辞和话术,让这些对话更顺畅、不那么艰难。此外还有:每次会议结束时应该问的三个问题,以确保会议后取得最大程度的进展;为什么领导者的工作不是让人们开心,以及你应该关注什么;还有一套她称之为”创始人婚前协议”的问题清单,你应该和潜在联合创始人逐一讨论,确认对方是否真的适合长期共事。
还有更多建议。如果你是团队领导者或创始人,尤其是如果你害怕困难对话,这期节目就是为你准备的。如果你喜欢这个播客,别忘了在你喜欢的播客应用或 YouTube 上订阅和关注,这是避免错过未来节目的最佳方式,也能极大地帮助这个播客。好了,下面请出 Alisa Cohn。
(广告部分已跳过)
Lenny Rachitsky: Alisa,非常感谢你来做客,欢迎来到播客。
Alisa Cohn: Lenny,很高兴来到这里,谢谢你的邀请。
困难对话的本质
Lenny Rachitsky: 我想直接进入正题,聊聊你对进行困难对话的建议。我个人很害怕困难对话。我会在这些对话之前反复演练,心想”我要说这些话,事情会这样发展”,但结果从来不像我期望的那样顺利。我总是说错话。我觉得这很有共鸣——困难对话之所以叫困难对话是有原因的。
Alisa Cohn: 完全同意。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我知道你专门在这个方面和很多高管合作。我喜欢的是,你确实总结了一套话术,帮助人们让这些对话不再那么困难。我们来聊聊这些人们可以实际开始运用的话术怎么样?
Alisa Cohn: 好的,我喜欢这个想法。而且 Lenny,就像你刚才说的,这非常有共鸣,你不是一个人。如果我可以问你一个问题:想象一场你已经进行过、本该进行或可能要进行的一场困难对话,你为此紧张,觉得很难——你能总结一下,难在哪里吗?因为把困难之处说清楚是很有帮助的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好问题。我就是不想让人难过和不安,我担心他们的反应,不知道怎么应对,担心他们变得非常激动和愤怒,就像”天啊,这下把事情弄得更糟了”。所以我担心的是反应,大概是这样。
Alisa Cohn: 好的,是担心把事情弄得更糟,还是担心他们的反应?
Lenny Rachitsky: 是反应,就是让人变得不安和难过。我不想这样做。
Alisa Cohn: 让人不安。好,而且再强调一下,你不是一个人。关于这个问题再多问一句:如果他们难过和不安,问题在哪?这对你意味着什么?
Lenny Rachitsky: 哦,我很喜欢我们正在做的这个人生教练环节。对,就是如果他们变得难过和不安会怎样?
Alisa Cohn: 对。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我觉得那就是我不得不去处理的事情。突然出现了这种戏剧性的状况,一桩新的麻烦事要我操心。对,就是它带来的额外工作量,而且……我不知道,确实是个好问题。
Alisa Cohn: 你可以再想想,对吧?我现在不是要当场逼你给出答案,但我想对所有人说,这些对话之所以困难——正如你所说,它们确实困难——但与此同时,我们每天都在不断地给事情赋予意义。我认为这一点很重要,它实际上既能激励你去进行困难的对话,也能帮助对话顺利进行。如果你能弄清楚你给它附加了什么意义、加了什么分量——因为我很理解,再说一次,你不是一个人。我不想让别人难过。完全可以理解。
另一方面,我只想说,当你启发某人,或者与某人一起解决一个棘手的局面时,如果你不给他们机会听到你要说的话,如果你不把这件事提出来,那你永远不可能帮助他们换个角度看问题,帮助他们改进,或者改善你们之间的关系,或者任何你试图达成的目标。所以我理解这是一种自然的反应——我不想让他们难过。
没有人想让别人难过,但穿越那种难过之后,往往会出现全新的可能性和全新的启发,甚至还有很多的喜悦和自由。我觉得我们忘记了困难对话所能带来的所有其他可能性,而只盯住那些让人不舒服的部分——“哦,这会带来一大堆额外的工作”,或者”他们会不自在,甚至可能会哭”。我认为真正有帮助的是去触及你赋予它的意义,以及它还可能意味着什么其他可能性。
困难对话的常见类型
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很喜欢这个观点。听到是一回事,说出来也是一回事,真正从心底感受到并且意识到”我不应该像现在这样担心”又是另一回事。我觉得部分原因是你得经历过足够多次,才会觉得”好吧,其实也没那么难”。另一个原因是需要一些支持。为了让这更具体,我们举些例子来说说什么是困难对话。比如”你不会得到你期望的晋升”,“我们要让你走人”。还有哪些你常见的困难对话?
Alisa Cohn: 这两个是非常常见的。当然,最常见的就是困难的绩效反馈。或者我们说的——所谓”建设性绩效反馈”——它从来就不是正面的,只是指出你做得不好的那些方面。我觉得这有两种类型。一种是”你搞砸了”,另一种是”从发展的角度,我希望你能增加或改变某些东西”。
Lenny Rachitsky: 对。说到这个,我还有另一个担忧——就是对方可能会不同意,然后我会觉得自己可能是错的,可能我没看清某些事情,结果整件事之后我反而显得更糟糕。
进行困难对话的心态准备
Alisa Cohn: 对。所以我觉得同样非常有帮助的——这也是我们可以展开聊聊的流程的一部分——进行一场困难对话,第一步是弄清楚这件事对你来说为什么让你不舒服。第二步是调整好你的心态。说句显而易见的话——你做这件事是为了伤害某人的感情吗?从来不是,对吧?
Lenny Rachitsky: 正相反。
Alisa Cohn: 这不是任何人做这件事的原因。有时候人们给出绩效反馈或谈论困扰自己的事情,是为了表达自己、发泄情绪。实际上,识别出这一点对你自己也很有帮助——原来这就是我做这件事的原因。然后也许先不要做,等你转变了自己的动机再去做。但归根结底,作为管理者,你给出这些所谓建设性反馈的原因是你在帮助他们变得更好。你需要他们改变行为。如果他们继续那样做,就永远得不到晋升;如果继续那样做,就永远不会成功。所以,作为领导者和管理者,帮助他人走出困境、做出不同的改变,是你的职责所在。
Lenny Rachitsky: 让我真正理解这一点的最好的故事,我想是 Kim Scott 上我播客的时候讲的。她讲了一个人的故事,好像叫 Bob,所有人都知道他表现很差,大家心里都清楚他不行。结果八个月后,老板终于找他谈了,告诉他”这样不行,你做得很差”。他说:“为什么之前没有人告诉我?我不知道啊。如果你早点告诉我,我会改的。“所有人都以为他知道。所以我觉得正如你所说,这是为了帮助这个人,而不是为了伤害他们。
Alisa Cohn: 没错,百分之百。我的一个客户,他管理一个部门,他的一个下属一直做得不对——拿到的数据不对,分析做得不对,诸如此类。我们聊起这件事,我说:“那你为什么不跟她再反馈一次?“他说:“她肯定会哭的,她肯定会哭。她年纪也比较大了,总之就是会哭,场面会很不舒服。“于是我们一起讨论了很久,我给了他一份话术脚本,我们反复推敲,他同意去跟她谈。他确实去了。
他回来跟我反馈时,整个人都动摇了。她哭了。当然哭了。她哭了——他早就知道她会这样。她很难过,提前回了家,整个场面如他所料。第二天她来了,说:“非常感谢你告诉我这些。我真希望十五年前就有人告诉我。我觉得我本可以有一条不同的职业道路。“我认为这对所有领导者和负责管理他人的人来说都非常有意义——当他们开始哭的时候你会不舒服,当然,或者他们有那种困难的反应。但说实话,你能帮助一个人在职业上成长、成为最好的自己的唯一方式,就是直面这些艰难的对话。
绩效反馈的话术脚本
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很喜欢我们接下来要聊的话术脚本——我们大概应该转到这个话题了——因为同样,听到”是的,我需要这样做,我需要更好地进行困难对话,我需要跟那个应该被辞退的人谈谈”是一回事,但当明天就是会议,你心想”天哪,我现在就得进行这场对话了”,又是另一回事。所以我很喜欢你确实给了人们一套非常简单的方法,来在不同场景下组织这些内容。让我们来聊聊你设计的这些方法和话术脚本。你觉得从哪个开始比较好?
Alisa Cohn: 我们可以从绩效反馈开始,就一个典型的例子。首先,当你已经做好了心态调整,明确了自己的目的,接下来你要做的就是真正能把话说出口。这意味着要练习。话术脚本可以是这样的:“Matilda,我想跟你聊聊你与同事互动的方式。我从他们那里了解到,你经常错过截止日期并且不通知他们,而且你也没有充分让你的团队了解最新进展。“
绩效反馈话术脚本(续)
Alisa Cohn: 结果他们有点晕头转向,到处救火。我们都知道,你在这里取得成功、实现目标最重要的方式,就是确保你与同事的协作方式稳定可靠——他们能指望你,你也能指望他们。所以我想让你了解这个情况。我当然也想听听你的说法,但最重要的是,我们结束这次谈话时,要明确你将如何确保让同事和团队都及时了解进展。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 这里面有太多值得玩味的要素了。聚焦于”我听到的情况”,而不是仅仅来自你个人或者你做错了什么——而是”这是我从多个渠道听到的反馈”。我觉得这很有帮助——好吧,这不是你一个人的看法,不会让人产生”哦,我上司就是看我不顺眼”的感觉。
Alisa Cohn: 对。
Lenny Rachitsky: 而是”好的,其他人也在这样说。“然后我很喜欢那个表述——“我们都知道”,不是单方面我在告诉你,而是”你也清楚这一点。我知道你很聪明,你也知道这里确实有问题。“然后是那个目标——我们需要达成什么。一个非常明确的行动号召,几乎是行动项——离开这场会议时,“让我们在这件事上对齐。”
Alisa Cohn: 是的,谢谢你指出这些。我希望——再说一次,我在语调中想传达的也是——“你知道吗?今天是周二,我们得进行这场对话。我相信结果会是好的,我没有生气。“就是为了化解”我上司讨厌我”那种想法,“我不是在对你吼。“你越是能以一种平稳、就事论事的态度来处理这种日常反馈,效果就越好。另外还有一点我之前没提到,但我觉得同样重要——当你意识到给予反馈是你的职责之一时,你同时需要与团队建立关系,这样他们才能透过”哦,Alisa 是想帮助我”这个视角来听你的话,而不是”哦,Alisa 讨厌我,总是找我的茬。“
如何开启对话
Lenny Rachitsky: 你刚才那句开场白是怎么说的来着?因为开头永远是我觉得最难的部分。你怎么启动这场对话?刚才那几句话是什么?
Alisa Cohn: “我想跟你聊聊,我从你的同事那里听到了一些关于你们之间互动方式的反馈。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 很好。这里面有一个要点——别让它感觉像是件天大的事。就是”我想跟你聊聊一件事”,然后很自然地——“我们来谈谈,这是我们希望谈完之后达成的。”
Alisa Cohn: 是的。而且我必须强调,平时花时间跟 Matilda 或者其他人说”那个项目做得漂亮”,或者”嘿,上线如果准时顺利的话,大家反而注意不到。我想让你知道,这次我们什么问题都没遇到——太棒了,你这次上线做得很好”——这些都非常有帮助。因为你事先已经跟他们做过正面反馈的沟通,指出了哪些做得好,这就在建立关系。于是对方会形成这样一个认知:“哦,做得好的时候他们会告诉我,做得不好的时候他们也会告诉我。“信任就是这样建立的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 而不是让他们觉得每次找你都是来批评的——“我们又得来谈一下听到的问题了。”
Alisa Cohn: 没错。
Lenny Rachitsky: 当然,如果你每次都用同样的方式说,他们会觉得很奇怪。你推荐的是这种填空式的方法,还是尽量用自己的话来表达?关键点是什么?还是说,这里有每次都应该照着说的固定话术?
让话术成为自己的
Alisa Cohn: 在我的书里以及跟客户合作时,我会给出具体的话术脚本。我跟客户合作时经常说的是:“好,我会这样来做”,然后我会帮他们落地。但他们必须把它变成自己的话。你一定要让它变成自己的话。我觉得每次用同样的方式并不是问题——因为理论上你每次谈的是不同的话题,对方不会在意你是不是用了相似的句式。如果你有一个对自己有效的套路,能够激励你去进行这些对话,这才是最重要的。关键在于语调要中立——不要把情绪倾泻到对方身上,不要把怨气撒在对方身上。
针对个人观察的反馈话术
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很高兴我们从那个场景开始,因为它感觉是最常见的——你的员工表现不佳,你想让他们理解并做出调整。但如果你不是从很多人那里听到反馈呢?如果只是你个人对他们写作水平的观察呢?你需要提升你的写作能力,或者你经常迟到。有没有另一种表达方式,不是”我从其他人那里听说的”?
Alisa Cohn: 当然有,当然有。我拿写作来举例。我觉得可以这样说——“Matilda,你的工作职责之一是撰写这些文档,我很感谢你每次都能按时完成。但我观察到的是,它们在结构上往往没有达到我希望的水准,而且缺少结论。所以我想请你看看这三四个做得很好的范例,看看能不能以此为模板来改进你的写作。如果你需要参加额外的培训,或者需要任何帮助,请告诉我。但归根结底,我希望你的写作能达到让所有人都认可你所贡献的内容的水平,因为你写作的水平真正反映了你思考的水平。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 嗯。哇,我很喜欢。如果我收到这样的反馈,我会愿意照做的。你开场的方式是”我观察到的是”,而不是”我是这么想的”或者”你需要这样做”。更像是”这是我注意到的,这是我看到的,这是我观察到的关于你工作的情况。“这让我想到——叫什么来着——非暴力沟通(Nonviolent Communication),那整套框架——聚焦于你看到的事实,而不是对方哪里不对、做错了什么。我想问的是,聚焦于你从别人那里听到的或者你观察到的事实,而不是人们通常做的那些做法——这方面你还有什么想补充的吗?
基于可观察事实的反馈
Alisa Cohn: 是的,你刚才真的说到位了,我觉得这是非常重要的一点——可观察的事实。这不是一个评判。尽可能减少评判色彩也很有帮助,这会让对话保持中立。它是可观察的事实,同时也是基于期望的——对吧?比如写作,我们期望它达到一定水准,但目前没有达到。而这里是它没达到的具体原因——具体的、明确的原因。
关于你与同事互动的方式,达到一定的标准是重要的,原因如下:当我们所有人都协同工作时,才能高效执行,而如果我们不这样做,很遗憾,就无法做到。所以你与他们保持同步很重要,而我观察到的是,他们并没有感到与你完全同步。
所以每次我们谈论这件事时,就不会变成那种”哦,我也不知道,我就是觉得……”的情况。顺便说一句,有些反馈你确实不得不给,而且它确实更多是一种感觉,这类情况会更难处理。但很多事情,如果你真的花功夫去想清楚可观察的数据是什么——我总是问我的客户:我有什么证据表明这件事正在发生?你需要花一些时间去思考,但这真的很值得,因为它让反馈对你来说更容易给出,对他们来说也更容易接受。
Lenny Rachitsky: 在我们转向另一种类型的反馈之前,关于这种具体的反馈方式,还有什么值得分享的吗?
当对方产生防御反应时
Alisa Cohn: 嗯,我觉得人们之所以对给予反馈感到不自在,原因之一——也是众多原因之一——是对方可能会产生防御心理,或者像我们讨论过的那样可能会哭。所以我也有一个话术,就是当有人产生防御心理时——比如我在给你反馈,而你在变得有防御性——我会说:“好,我们先暂停一下。首先,我想让你知道,我告诉你这些,其实是为了让你变得更好,因为我知道你的职业对你有多重要,我知道成功对你有多重要,而作为你的领导,这对我来说也同样重要。第二,我的观察是你现在情绪有些激动。我想知道我们现在是否可以继续这段对话,还是需要先暂停一下。归根结底,我们确实需要进行这次对话,我真的希望看到你做出改变,但我理解你可能需要一些时间来消化。”
这段话的重要性不在于你具体说了什么,而在于你有所准备——你为对方可能出现这种反应做好了准备,这样你就不需要自己做出应激反应。你不需要说”不,我没有那样做。不不不不,随便吧。“然后对方说”是的,你就是。“现在你们就吵起来了,这对谁都没好处。对你作为领导者来说尤其没好处。所以这给了你一个机会,让你意识到你的工具箱里还有别的工具,而不是只能被动反应。
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以如果你发现自己感到防御,或者对方就是听不进去、只是在反驳,工具就是暂停——“让我们暂停一下。“你刚才分享的内容感觉有两部分:一是提醒他们这为什么对他们重要,你为什么要谈这件事;二是如果情绪正在占据上风,给他们一个机会——“我们先暂停一下,也许之后再回来谈,因为你现在可能不在适合倾听的状态。”
Alisa Cohn: 对,完全正确。
Lenny Rachitsky: 有时候当你提到”你变情绪化了”之类的话,对方会不高兴。或者我不知道,你会不会遇到那种情况,对方说”你怎么敢说我情绪化?“我只是……
Alisa Cohn: “我没有情绪化。你凭什么觉得我情绪化?“对,当然会。当一个人在哭的时候,显然是情绪化了。当他们产生防御心理时,你可能需要换一个措辞。你可以说”我能看出这件事真的让你很难受”,或者”这真的触发了你”,或者”我能感觉到我们之间的氛围刚才变了”。你可以用类似这样的话。我确实认为了解你的下属也很有帮助,因为有时候你会意识到他们其实能承受那种说法,但有时候你必须非常谨慎地选择用来暂停对话的措辞。
Lenny Rachitsky: 是的。而且我发现,正如你所说,这对作为反馈给予者的你自己也有帮助。有时候你可能会想”也许我应该退让,也许我错了,也许他们是对的,也许我应该停下来”——而这个方法给了你一个机会,让你知道实际上你不能退让。我需要坚持我的判断,因为你已经在这上面投入了那么多的思考和精力,不太可能你说的完全是错的。
Alisa Cohn: 对,确实如此。一定是有什么问题存在的。而且,这件事的本质是它应该是一次对话——它确实是一次对话。实际上,Lenny,如果你有不同的观点,我愿意听。我们来讨论,但我们不能继续这样下去——我感觉在我们要讨论的这件事上我无法依靠你。所以我们需要进行这次对话,在我们之间重新建立一套期望。最终,这样的对话有潜力真正加深关系、建立信任,这也是我鼓励每个人克服自己的不自在、主动投入这些对话的另一个原因——因为在这类对话的另一面,是更好、更牢固的连接。
Lenny Rachitsky: 尤其是如果你做得好的话。
Alisa Cohn: 是的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 也就是遵循这些建议。好,那么再来一次——如果有人产生防御心理,你能不能再说一下你怎么开头?然后我会再次强调你刚才分享的两个要素。
Alisa Cohn: 暂停的方式是直接说:“我们先暂停一下,因为我感觉到氛围变了,我能看出你对我说的内容有些激动。我想让你知道,我完全没有想要让你不高兴。我只是希望能和你谈一谈那些对你职业发展有帮助的事情。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 太好了。我再次很喜欢这个提醒——这对你为什么重要,这对你有什么好处,这为什么能帮到你。然后就是”好,也许我们先暂停一下,如果你觉得现在不是最佳时机的话,之后再回来谈。“很好。在进入下一种困难对话之前,关于这个方向还有什么要说的吗?
Alisa Cohn: 说实话,这个话题我可以聊一整天,但我很乐意继续往下谈。
关于晋升被拒的对话
Lenny Rachitsky: 好,让我们换一个话题。我知道你把对话分成了大概五个类别。也许聊聊晋升那个。感觉我们正处于绩效评估季,这类对话应该很频繁。当有人被告知他们不会得到期望中或想要的晋升时,你有什么建议?
Alisa Cohn: 这当然是一个有挑战性的场景。同样,首先要调整好心态,认识到他们会失望——他们一定会失望——也要回想你自己当初没得到晋升时的感受。所以带着一些同理心去面对。同时,你必须把你的理由理清楚。有时候人们认为自己应该晋升,是因为他们在这里待了一年,或者诸如此类。有时候人们认为自己应该晋升,是因为他们是唯一合格的内部候选人,或者他们对自己成功的认知、对自己成就感的认知,可能比你看到的要更膨胀。所以要试着去思考他们的出发点是什么。
Alisa Cohn: 然后对话就是这样:“Matilda,我知道这个消息对你来说很难接受。我知道你一直希望能得到晋升,但我想告诉你,我们实际上打算寻找一位外部候选人。我想跟你讲讲几个原因。首先,在和我的同级讨论之后,我意识到我们需要一位过去多次担任过这个角色、拥有相关经验的人。第二,我认为他们需要在某个我们已经认定为非常重要的领域具备专业能力。因此,我们决定从外部引进人才,不会晋升你。但我想让你知道两件事。第一,我非常希望你能在公司里取得职业上的成功,所以我会继续帮你寻找提升技能和发展的机会。第二,当我们引入这个人时,我承诺会找到一位优秀的团队领导者,能够帮助你培养这些技能。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 这段话里有几个让我印象深刻的要素。首先是非常坦率,不绕弯子,一开始就告诉对方”这是我的决定”。听你说的时候,我能立刻感受到心里一沉的感觉。但至少那一关过了,然后是原因的解释。这就让你开始觉得,“好吧,我理解了。至少我明白你是怎么考虑这件事的。“然后还有对未来的希望,你描绘了一条最终可以到达那里的路径。
Alisa Cohn: 是的,给未来的希望非常重要。我觉得有时候我们太急于传达坏消息,以至于忘了对面是一个需要未来希望的人。如果他们是好员工,他们就应该对未来抱有希望。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很喜欢这一点。这段话里还有其他你觉得特别值得强调的地方吗,还是说我已经涵盖了关键要素?
Alisa Cohn: 我觉得你已经涵盖了关键要素。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好的。再说一遍,你开头的方式是,“我有一个坏消息要告诉你”或者”我有一个令人失望的消息要告诉你”。
Alisa Cohn: 对,因为就是——
Lenny Rachitsky: 直接切入正题。对。
Alisa Cohn: 对,直接切入正题。另外,如果合适的话,还可以加一句——我希望你先消化一下这些信息,然后我们下周再谈,看看你有什么想法,或者你现在的感受如何。因为你想要传递的是”我关心你”这个信号,这也是很重要的一点。在职场中,人们会经历各种各样的情绪和感受,各种失望。他们会回家告诉配偶,没得到晋升之类的。这会在他们心里占据很大的分量,会让人沮丧。
传递关心的领导力
当你作为领导者发出强烈的信号——我关心你,我在意你的感受,我理解你的失望,我关心你的职业发展——你就总是能够帮助人们在遭遇挫折时保持韧性,最终愿意为你多做一些,做正确的事,并持续投入公司的建设中,因为你花了时间和精力让他们知道,即使事情不如他们所愿,你仍然是他们的盟友。
Lenny Rachitsky: 如果对方就是不同意呢,如果他们说”但我确实有那些技能,我觉得这不公平”?对于这种反馈你会怎么回应?我想这属于防御性反应的范畴。
Alisa Cohn: 对,这确实是防御性反应。同样,我希望你事先做好了功课,确认那个人确实不具备那些技能。如果对方说”我确实有那些技能”之类的,有时候——甚至更常见的情况是——他们并不会回应你刚才说的话,而是会跟你解释他们已经在这里待了一年,或者他们是唯一的内部候选人,或者他们的同事被晋升了。
他们会跟你讲一些并不是你决策依据的东西,这时候你可以这样说:“好的,Matilda,我完全理解你以为在这里待一年就能得到晋升。过去在公司当前的发展阶段,确实可能人们在那段时间就被晋升了。但我们现在的情况不同了。随着规模的扩大,我们不仅要考虑今天和明天需要什么,还要考虑未来需要什么。所以我希望引入这些专业技能,我认为这对整个公司都有帮助。”
这就是一个可以进行的对话的例子。如果对方说”我确实有那些技能”,这就比较有意思了。你可以说:“我很想听听你觉得你具备哪些技能。“当下进行这个对话本身没有问题,但如果变成”有,我有""不,你没有""有,我有""不,你没有”的来回拉锯,这种对抗永远不会产生好的结果。所以这时候你大概需要暂停一下,说:“我完全听到你的想法了。你我在这件事上有不同的看法。继续讨论下去可能不太有建设性。我们一周后再谈。但我也想让你知道,这是一个我已经做出的决定。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很喜欢的是,当对方回来说”但是这里有什么什么什么”的时候,你说”这不一定是我在说的”。我喜欢你基本上在做镜像回应——“我听到你了,我理解你认为怎样怎样,我理解你在这里待了一年,我理解你是唯一的内部候选人”,让对方感到被真正倾听了。这是一个非常有力量的话术技巧。这是一个好工具。你觉得还有没有其他常见的困难对话的脚本值得聊聊?
关于解雇的对话
Alisa Cohn: 最难的对话就是解雇人。
Lenny Rachitsky: 来聊聊吧,深入谈谈。
Alisa Cohn: 我愿意聊。关于这一点我想先说两件事。首先,当你解雇一个人的时候,希望这不是一个突然的消息。你应该已经和他们有过多次谈话,告诉他们没有达到你的期望。这一点至关重要,因为事实是,你想要创造一种人们不会因为被解雇而感到意外的文化。这不仅适用于你正在处理的这个人,也适用于整个公司。所以要调整好心态,认识到如果你回避了那些对话——类似”你这里有问题,你需要赶上”之类的——问题其实在你这边。
第二件事是,在解雇人之前,我认为在正式解雇谈话之前先进行一次对话是有帮助的。因为你刚才说了一种情况,Lenny,就是”也许我错了,也许我不确定”。这种心态会渗透成”也许我没有跟这个人说清楚”。我经常问我的客户:“你有没有非常清楚地向这个人说明你需要什么?“而他们总是做那个手势——嗯,算是吧,但是,嗯,也许吧。这就意味着没有,意味着没有。你没有说得非常清楚,甚至你自己都不觉得说得够清楚。要确保自己说得足够清楚的方法,就是在走到那一步之前先进行对话。
Alisa Cohn: 具体来说,是这样的:“听着,Matilda,我们现在需要进行一次艰难的对话。我已经多次跟你谈过要与同事协调,不要让他们对错过截止日期感到意外,我也多次跟你谈过要让你的团队了解各项进展。经过六个月的这些对话,我想让你知道,同事们仍然觉得你在各自为战,没有与他们协调。而我仍然不断从你的团队那里听到他们没有完全步调一致。我需要你知道这非常重要。我需要你在未来30天内改正这个问题。否则,我很抱歉地说,我们不得不找到一种方式分道扬镳,因为我无法继续这样下去了。我相信你有能力改变。我看重你带来的所有价值,但如果你不改正这些问题,我们不会有共同的未来。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 这段话说得非常清楚。
Alisa Cohn: 是的,非常清楚。
Lenny Rachitsky: 嗯,好的。
Alisa Cohn: 你觉得怎么样?
Lenny Rachitsky: 很好。首先是开门见山。这是一次艰难的对话,先把预期设定好。对方的反应就是”哦,糟了”。然后你似乎又回到——再次强调——这件事已经发生过多次了,观察到的情况是这样,而且发生了多次。我不断从多个人那里听到反馈,这会是个问题。所以就是”我需要你知道”,非常明确。“如果情况没有改变,就会发生这样的事。”
Alisa Cohn: 没错。
Lenny Rachitsky: 而且我很喜欢你还会给他们一点——总是会留有对他们本来的样子的期望,以及你如何看待他们。他们不是毫无价值的。而是”你在很多方面都很出色。你有这些技能。你在某某方面很棒,但这仍然是一个大问题。“而且传达了这有多么关键。
Alisa Cohn: 对,这是不可谈判的底线。是不可谈判的底线。对吧?
Lenny Rachitsky: 对。
Alisa Cohn: 如果你有那么多才华,但如果你做不了这两件事,那对我们所有人来说就是不可谈判的底线。
Lenny Rachitsky: 对。
Alisa Cohn: 我认为重要的是要同时看到这两面。有时候人们会想,“但是我这么有才华。” 是的,但你的才华无法弥补这两个不可谈判的底线。
Lenny Rachitsky: 对。而且我觉得——我知道我们本来要谈解雇的对话,但我认为这甚至比那更重要,因为希望这样就能解决问题,你不需要解雇他们,这更有价值。
Alisa Cohn: 是的,希望如此。但即使你最终还是要解雇,实际上也会更容易,因为你已经进行了那次对话。对吧?他们不会感到意外。一切都很清楚。我们已经讨论过了。
解雇谈话的具体话术
Lenny Rachitsky: 对。所以基本上话术就是,“接下来要进行一次艰难的对话。我已经多次看到这个问题,我们已经谈过多次,还是没有改正,这就是我想非常明确地说清楚的事情。“那你有没有真正执行解雇时的话术?还是说那个不太能写成话术?
Alisa Cohn: 嗯,执行解雇的话术——再次声明,请大家务必咨询你们的人力资源专业人士。咨询你们的律师。好的,我不是律师,这我可得说清楚。所以你必须确保一切都处理得当。但那个对话其实非常简单,就是:“Matilda,我们谈过这个问题多次了。上次我们谈话时,我告诉你需要做出这些改变。你没有做出这些改变,所以我们要分道扬镳了。HR 的 Sarah 也在这里,我们会一起谈一下相关的安排。我很愿意跟你进行更长的谈话,但我想让你知道,我们已经做出了终止你雇佣关系的决定。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 感觉非常合理。在这方面还有什么其他的吗?
具体而明确的正面反馈
Alisa Cohn: 我想说的是,在工作中需要进行的对话不仅仅是艰难的对话。我把它们称为微妙的对话,因为我觉得人们同样回避的是简单的表扬,具体的表扬。我认为养成指出下属做得好的地方的习惯非常重要,就像你需要认真准备指出他们需要改进的地方一样。有时候领导者会觉得,“嗯,一切都很顺利。一切都很顺利。我不需要告诉你。” 或者即使告诉了,也差不多就是一句”干得好”。有一次,一个正在参加培训项目的管理者对我说,“我不喜欢收到正面反馈。我只喜欢收到负面反馈。” 我问她为什么,她说,“哦,正面反馈就是’干得好’而已。负面反馈你能学到东西。你能从中获得一些收获。”
正面反馈也应该有同样的标准,比如:“我看到你主导那次产品发布的方式,非常出色。带来了这么多不同的好处。你组织得这么好,继续保持。” 或者”你让同事随时了解进展的方式,考虑到你才来三个月,真是非同寻常。我从未见过沟通能力这么强的人。太棒了。继续保持。这对你来说非常有效。” 如果你经常这样做,首先,这是积极的,显然如此。你会养成更好给出正面反馈的习惯,这对职场人士来说非常有激励作用。它能帮助他们看到自己的进步,因为刚才提到的那个人,她勉强在水面之上挣扎,融入团队也有困难之类的,但你过来指出那些奏效的地方。同样,这对士气非常有提升作用。她知道自己处于什么位置,然后有一天,如果你不得不给她传递那些艰难的消息,你已经积累了一座善意的水库。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很喜欢给正面反馈。显然这要容易得多,但正如你所说,你必须真正思考如何做好它。它不只是一个——如果你做得好的话,其实并不那么容易,这是一个非常好的观点。而且人们需要话术来学习如何给出真正好的正面反馈,进行出色的对话。
Alisa Cohn: 对。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这很有意思。这方面的需求反而更少。如何进行更好的出色对话或夸奖?
Alisa Cohn: 对,对。确实如此。
领导者的职责不是让员工开心
Lenny Rachitsky: 我想稍微跑个题,聊一个跟我们讨论过的所有话题都有点相关的事情。你非常强调帮助领导者理解,他们的工作不是让员工开心。那你的工作到底是什么?为什么人们认为让员工开心是他们的职责?作为领导者,他们应该怎么想自己的职责?
Alisa Cohn: 我和很多创始人合作过,别忘了,创始人的入门职位就是领导者,而他们往往没有太多担任领导者或管理者的经验,所以他们只是在尽力而为。这是可以理解的,对吧?他们从各方获取各种信息——HR 负责人希望拥有一支快乐、敬业的员工队伍,他们又不想让别人不高兴,原因就是我们之前谈到的那些——没有人想让别人不高兴。
于是就有了这样一种想法:他们要做一个人人都爱戴、能让大家开心的领导者。所以他们往往会竭尽全力去取悦员工、维持士气。但实际上,很多时候真正需要做的是推动结果达成。而当前的运作方式并不能推动我们达成结果,或者这个员工一直没有真正做好自己的工作,也没有真正逼自己一把。而你又不想推动他们,因为你不想让他们不高兴,不想给他们难以接受的反馈,于是你就只能一直希望情况会好转。
最终,这会导致你的公司走向衰亡。我的意思是,说到底,对吧——你是一家初创公司。即使你不是初创公司而是一家大企业,这也依然是极其低效的表现。你在那儿兜圈子,祈祷着他们能达标,而他们甚至根本不知道存在问题。所以我认为,领导者抱有”最重要的职责是让员工开心、打造高敬业度团队”这种观念是非常错误的。高敬业度的团队当然好。
我认为高敬业度来源于胜利的文化,也就是说我们为成功做好了准备。我们拥有成功的结构和成功文化,每个人都清楚自己的角色,知道自己角色的影响力。所以要花精力去弄清楚、帮助他们弄清楚自己角色的影响力——当他们协同合作,达成这些里程碑时,他们就是胜利者,然后我们一起庆祝胜利,然后再从头来过。当你打造出这样的团队时,我认为它会更有活力,尽管有时候在这样做的同时,你需要纠正他人、触及他们的逆鳞。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我基本上是这么理解的——你以为让员工开心就是不做艰难的对话、不给他们压力,但实际上应该反过来想:如果我们赢了、做得非常出色,人们自然就会开心,而要达到那个目标需要做什么?
Alisa Cohn: 完全正确。而且对的人会想加入你的团队——那些喜欢赢、喜欢拿结果的人。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你有没有什么故事或例子,比如你合作过的某位创始人,一开始是这种思路后来转变了?或者你经常看到的某种模式?
牛油果吐司的故事
Alisa Cohn: 我想到一家公司。想到一位我合作过的领导者。有时候我对自己说,如果我要写一本书,这本书的开头会是”一切始于一顿牛油果吐司”,因为他想善待自己的员工。于是他们在上午十点提供牛油果吐司,类似下午茶时间的那种。这变成了一个很好的仪式,大家会聚在一起,这挺好的。然后这演变成了更长的闲聚时间。再强调一下,这些都是好事。再后来又发展成了晚间社交活动,大家都享受在一起的时光,但他们始终不太清楚自己到底应该做什么。然后开始出现一种小圈子化、八卦化的文化——谁在里面、谁在外面。这些话题占据了大量社交讨论的时间。所以大家没有讨论对工作的期望和结果,而结果也确实没有体现出来,所以也没什么好庆祝的。
他们成立了一个文化委员会。所以他们有了文化委员会来讨论如何让员工在这里更开心。你可以想象,现在层层叠叠都是围绕提升敬业度的事情,都是围绕让员工有良好体验的努力。而我合作的那位领导者是完全真诚的——他是真的想打造一个很棒的工作场所。但我认为他的误区在于,他没有做好设定期望这件事。他也没有做好所谓的”将文化成文化准则”,因为文化不仅仅是牛油果吐司、一起协作和社交活动,文化是类似这样的东西:我们会多走一步;或者我们确保万无一失;或者也可以是,我们三思而后行。这些才是真正关于我们这里如何开展工作的东西。当然,对结果的关注就是——我们是否在遵循流程,从而获得收入,从而建立一家盈利的公司,还是我们只是在一起消磨时光?
所以他不得不直面自己在与员工沟通这些问题上的不适感,以及他对做一个”刻板的企业管理者”的不适——就是那种”哦,设定期望、规范职场行为、我们如何做事”的感觉。事实证明,这就是教练工作和与人合作的核心所在——你能看到他们潜在的假设和信念,而每个人做自己正在做的事都有其原因。所以他在做他正在做的事也是有原因的。我们必须正视这一点,然后他不得不非常勇敢地对自己的运作方式做出一些改变。最终,他们不得不与一两个制造八卦文化、让人感到被排斥、不专注于结果的极度有害的人分道扬镳。当大家终于达成共识后,他们获得了大得多的 traction。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我觉得很多领导者和创始人都能对此产生共鸣——想要打造一个很棒的文化,保持友善和谐,大家像一家人一样,但事情往往在这些情况下不太顺利。然后需要转变思路:“好吧,我们实际上需要建立一个能跑通的业务。”
Alisa Cohn: 没错。
领导者的认知落差
Lenny Rachitsky: 这总让我想起 Sheryl Sandberg 有一次来 Airbnb 演讲,大家问她:“我们该怎么应对这一切……我们一直处于混乱之中。总是在重组或变化,永远……我每六个月就在不同的团队。目标在不断变化。我们该怎么办……我们的文化在成长过程中不断变化。“她的回答是:“这正是高速增长的标志,是成功的标志。而相反的情况更糟——当你不在增长时,你不会想要那种状态。所以你应该为遇到这样的挑战而感到庆幸。”
Alisa Cohn: 我太喜欢这个说法了。非常正确。
Lenny Rachitsky: 顺着这个话题,你谈到很多创始人——其实不仅是创始人,也包括你合作的高管和领导者——都需要面对这样一个认知:“我以为领导力是这样的,我以为做一个好领导者应该是这样的,但实际上是这样的。“在这方面,你觉得他们通常错在哪里?他们忽略了什么?他们必须意识到什么?
Alisa Cohn: 是的。我认为随着我们作为领导者的成长,我们都必须认识到自己的盲区,以及我们以为的和实际情况之间的差距。我曾经合作过一位创始人,她想成为一位有远见的领导者,这很棒。我很欣赏这一点。她确实是一位非常有远见的人,极具感召力。但她没有看到的是,她的公司真正需要的是有人来建立结构、让人承担责任、帮助制定目标、达成里程碑,在偏离轨道时进行纠偏。当这一切没有发生时——人们偏离了方向、没有目标、缺乏协作的结构——她会非常沮丧。但她没有意识到的是,无论如何,确保这些事情发生正是她自己的职责。
也许她需要一个搭档,比如一位 COO 或其他人,来负责管理内部运营,而她可以继续做更有远见、更鼓舞人心的角色——我经常和她讨论这一点。但归根结底,确保这些机制到位是她的责任。她没有真正看清这一点,也没有调整自己的风格。因此导致了大量的原地打转。顺便说一句,她确实是一位极具感召力的人,一位极具感召力的领导者,她的出发点非常好,没有任何恶意。只是她没有看清局势的本来面目,然后做出相应的调整。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这让我想起我们播客上请过的一位教练 Joe Hudson,他有一个说法——我觉得很多人都用过,但这句话让我印象深刻:你抗拒什么,什么就持续存在。如果你讨厌冲突,你就会遇到更多的冲突。如果你讨厌结构……实际上这让我想起了 Airbnb 的 Joe Gebbia。在 Airbnb 早期,他非常反对流程。他说:“我们不要流程,我讨厌流程。我们要用……那是大公司才搞的东西。“结果就是持续不断的混乱。最后终于变成:“好吧,我们需要在如何构建产品这件事上有一些流程了。”
Alisa Cohn: 是的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以这很有意思。很多人必须意识到,他们曾经认为不好的东西,实际上——我能理解人们为什么那样做了。
Alisa Cohn: 完全同意。实际上我想就这一点多说几句,因为很多……创始人天生就是特立独行的人,他们进入一个情境或者创办一家公司,想按自己的方式做事,这很好。否则他们也不会成为创始人,这确实是一件好事。我合作过的很多创始人都想重新发明领导力。对吧?他们不要流程,不要层级,要完全的自主权,诸如此类。
我的态度是,“祝福你,你绝对应该去尝试。“但归根结底发生的事情是,他们最终靠自己摸索出这样一个认知——他们需要流程、层级、角色与职责、目标、OKR,等等。我觉得有时候经历一番”我们可以用不同方式做事”的历练是有益的。但最终,我认为组织一群人、让他们协同运转并取得胜利的方法,其实已经被反复验证过了。我想说的是,尽快渡过那个阶段是有益的,这样你就不必不断地重新发明领导力的轮子。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这是一个非常重要的背景。显然,最成功的创始人往往具备第一性原理思维来做事情,而且他们经常会发现别人从未想到的东西。所以这始终是一种平衡——尝试很多东西,其中很多行不通,但有些会帮你获胜。我觉得这是一个非常好的观点。我想接下来聊几个你经常和创始人一起做的更实操的话题。其中一个是开会。会议是本播客经常出现的话题——人们讨厌开会,也有人喜欢开会。有的会议很棒,有的很糟,大多数很糟。你有一些很棒的建议,关于如何让会议更高效,尤其是如何结束一场会议来推动事情向前推进。聊聊你在这方面的建议,以及关于更好开会的任何一般性建议。
让会议更有效
Alisa Cohn: 我是少数喜欢开会的人之一。或者我应该说,我喜欢的不是会议本身,而是会议的潜力。我们把这么多聪明的人聚在一起,有机会讨论重要的事情、做出决策。但遗憾的是,现实往往并非如此。会议有很多问题,其中一个常见的问题是:我们不断地开会。不管做了决策还是没做决策,下次再开会时,跟上一次没有任何延续性。于是我们重新讨论、重新决策,这是一个很大的问题。所以我建议在结束会议时问三个问题:我们在这里决定了什么?谁需要在什么时候之前做什么?还有谁需要知道?如果你能把这三点作为交付物记录下来、明确表述出来,我保证你的会议会变得更好。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好的,所以是:我们在这里决定了什么?谁需要在什么时候之前做什么?也就是说,带日期的行动项。然后,还有谁需要知道我们的决定?是这样说的吗?
Alisa Cohn: 是的。还有谁需要知道?我合作过很多高管团队,一开始他们进到会议室、开完会、做出决策,然后出来却不告诉任何人。“我替我的团队做了这个承诺,需要你们去执行。“或者,“我们决定了某项政策,但忘了告诉所有人。“再次强调,完全没有恶意,只是忘了,或者太忙了,而且公司内部没有一套机制和流程来鼓励、甚至要求人们分享重要信息——也就是说,把信息向下传达。
但即使是第一个问题,我们在这里决定了什么?如果你真的在会议结束时逐一问在场的人——假设会议有六个人——你对每个人说:“我们在这里决定了什么?“让他们各自写下来,你会得到六个不同的答案,哪怕他们在同一场会议里。我很喜欢这一点,它既令人惊叹,又非常有帮助——把这些差异摆到台面上,然后弄清楚该怎么处理。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很高兴你强调了这一点。我正想说完全一样的话——每个人心里都在想:“好的,这是我们决定的事情。“而正如你所说,大家的理解往往并不一致。所以这里的建议是什么?是像一个模板那样在会议结束时填写,还是某个人负责确保这三件事落实,还是怎么把这三个问题变成可操作的流程?
Alisa Cohn: 我倾向于让它成为某个人的职责——就是那个我认为的”会议负责人”。通常这个人喜欢跟进,喜欢列清单、把事情归类整理,团队里一般都会有这样的人。所以对他们来说,担任跟进者的角色其实挺令人兴奋的。但不管怎样,你可以用一个模板。我认为更有效的做法是把它变成会议的一个固定仪式,因为会议的另一个问题是我们永远觉得时间不够。我们一直开到最后一分钟,没有留出五到十分钟来确保我们问了这三个问题,确保我们对会议的后续行动有清晰的理解。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我想象的做法是这样的——比如你是产品经理,在会议快结束时把这份文档投到屏幕上,当场填写好,然后确认:“大家对这些内容有没有问题?”
Alisa Cohn: 很棒,这是个很好的做法。顺便说一下,嗯……我想说的是这件事有趣的地方在于:如果我们问大家”我们在这里决定了什么”,我认为单单问这个问题本身就有价值,因为有人可能会说:“我们决定了……”某个什么,而其他人会说:“不,我们没有决定那个。但那个想法其实不错。它把我们讨论过的内容用更完整的方式概括了出来。“我认为把差异摆出来是有价值的,把这些不同理解缝合起来也是有价值的。所以直接把它写在白板上就很好,尤其是在时间紧张的情况下。不过我担心有人可能不会站出来说:“实际上,我对我们在这里决定了什么有截然不同的看法。“所以也许还需要建立一种文化,鼓励大家打断并说:“不,我看到的不是这样,我们花点时间讨论一下。“
将”三个问题”落实为具体流程
Lenny Rachitsky: 我们在这上面再多花点时间吧,因为我觉得这个具体的细节如果做得好,真的可以非常有力量。假设你是会议中的产品经理,你问谁?是对着全场说”我们在这里决定了什么”,还是看向在场最资深的那个人?否则的话,最后几分钟可能会变成一场冗长的讨论——当然那可能也有价值——但这个问题你该指向谁?
Alisa Cohn: 对。我设想的是,比如一个六个人的高管团队会议,那就每个人快速轮流说一下”我们在这里决定了什么”。如果你参加的是一个比较大的高管团队会议——我有时候也会跟这样的团队合作——或者不是高管团队,而是某种类型的小组,那你可能只需要问几个人。作为引导者,我会直接点两三个人:“好,两三位,说说我们决定了什么?“如果大家的理解能对上,那就太好了,非常棒。
Lenny Rachitsky: 明白了。所以如果是小型会议,就逐一问每个人,大家各自说说”我们决定了什么”,然后可能有人说”对,他说得对”或者”她说得对”。好,很好。所以建议就是:下次你开会的时候,尤其是高管会议,在会议结束时——你,这个播客的听众——直接问一句:“好的各位,让我们确认一下大家是否在同一页上。我们在这里决定了什么?谁需要在什么时间之前做什么?“然后大家轮流发言,你把这些写在文档里,接着再问:还有谁需要知道我们做的这些决定?
Alisa Cohn: 对。Lenny,我很喜欢你这个说法,因为还有一点——你必须得是会议的领导者才能做这件事吗?不是的。你完全可以只是会议中的一个参与者,主动开口,自己启动这个流程。如果你这么做了,其他人也跟着这么做,它就能凭你自己的主动性变成一个固定仪式。所以我非常喜欢你鼓励所有人都这么做。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这也正是你成为领导者的方式——你开始做这些事情,人们会说:“哦,Alisa 真是太有帮助了。她总是井井有条。每次她在的会议,会议都开得更好,事情都能推进下去。“所以我认为,做对所有人有用的事情,就是你在组织中向上走的方式。
Alisa Cohn: 完全正确。
创始人婚前协议
Lenny Rachitsky: 太好了。好,另一个我知道你花了很多时间的话题,是你所说的”创始人婚前协议”(founder prenup)。我特别喜欢这个概念,因为公司的很多问题其实都追溯到创始人之间的矛盾。我过去也创办过公司,我觉得人们没有意识到这个决定在你人生中有多重大——基本上你就是在商业语境下与一个人”结婚”,你要和这个人绑在一起很长时间。你基本上设计了一份”婚前协议”,就是一套问题清单,让你们在创业之前确认彼此是否对齐。在我们逐一讨论你推荐大家讨论的那些问题之前,关于这个概念还有什么背景要补充的吗?
Alisa Cohn: 嗯,我想重申你刚才说的——完全正确。事实上,根据 Noam Wasserstein 的研究,65% 的创业公司失败是因为创始人或创始团队之间的冲突。所以把这件事做对真的至关重要。我也同意,人们踏入这段关系时,远没有给予应有的审慎。因为如果你在决定联合创业之前没有做互相了解的功课,坏事情就可能发生。
Lenny Rachitsky: 对。太容易就这样说了:“好,我来创业吧。我们有个不错的点子,干就完了,肯定特别棒。“然后你没有意识到自己承诺了多少,以及因为这种草率的决定,事情不成的频率有多高。而且很多时候是朋友之间一起创业,那情况就更棘手了——因为我想维持友谊,但我们又在做生意。所以,我们来聊聊你建议人们讨论哪些问题,能聊多少聊多少。
创始人价值观对齐
Alisa Cohn: 我确实有一份相当详细的问卷,所以我们只触及其中几项。但我觉得首先最重要的是:你的价值观是什么?我认为做一些价值观澄清练习是非常必要的。网上能找到大量这类资源。你可以找到一份价值观清单,从中选出你的核心价值观,然后跟合伙人互相比较,因为当你们对齐的时候,那很好;当你们相近的时候,也很好。
比如我可能非常看重”卓越”,Lenny 你可能非常看重”学习”,太好了,这两个价值观可以很好地互补。但如果我看重”卓越”,而你看重”工作与生活的平衡”——哇,我们得聊聊这个,因为在创业的过程中,理解彼此对”工作与生活的平衡”和”卓越”各自的含义会非常重要。因为这两件事有时候可能会相互冲突——这只是举一个例子。
所以提前讨论这些核心价值观,并且在你们一起前行的过程中定期更新,是非常必要的。这样你才知道对方从什么立场出发。因为另一个问题是:某人以某种方式行事,你对他可能不太了解,或者也许你只认识上八年级时候的他——很多创始人确实是从年轻时就认识彼此的,但他们已经成长为不同的人了。所以你觉得他行为古怪,但实际上他是在按照自己的价值观行事。提前搞清楚这一点,可以说能在问题发生之前就解决掉很多。
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以价值观不一致的信号,基本上就是你们两个无法同时忠于各自的价值观——这是我在我们聊天的过程中想到的。很难既追求卓越又不投入大量时间——虽然也不是不可能,但很难。这些矛盾值得认真讨论。
Alisa Cohn: 对,值得讨论,因为事实上,听你这么说,我在想,“嗯,其实也是可以做到的。对,你可以做到。“所以正因为如此,对话就必须解决你们如何把这两个可能冲突、也可能一致的价值观融合在一起——让我们聊聊”工作与生活的平衡”对你意味着什么,让我说说”卓越”对我意味着什么,看看我们能否达成共识,或者至少我知道你的立场在哪里。
周末 Slack 的故事
Alisa Cohn: 我合作过的一位创始人,他会在周末给联合创始人发短信或 Slack 消息,而对方不回复。这让和我谈话的那位联合创始人非常沮丧。后来他们终于谈开了,发现其实是因为对方想有一些属于自己的休息时间,想要所谓的”平衡”。这本身没问题,但因为之前没有谈过,双方都对这件事做了巨大的假设,结果引发了一场本可以避免的冲突——如果他们事先有过那次对话的话。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这又回到了我们最初说的——进行这些对话是必要的,而且其实也是在帮对方。因为这个小问题随着时间的推移可能变成大问题,如果你只是一味地假设,而这种事反复发生,一直像砂纸一样磨你、磨你、磨你。你心里对那个人就变成了”我没法再跟你一起干了”。对吧?所以这也再次提醒我们,主动进行一场困难的对话,对对方也是有好处的。
Alisa Cohn: 是的,非常正确。
价值观梳理框架
Lenny Rachitsky: 好的,还有什么呢?说到价值观,顺便问一下,有没有你最推荐的价值观框架可以推荐给大家?还是说有很多种,不用太纠结用哪一个?
Alisa Cohn: 我用的那个非常简单,在一个叫互联网的东西上就能找到。网上有很多价值观列表,我觉得当你看到一份价值观列表时,可以把对你最有意义的那些挑出来,这就是一个非常简单、有用而且免费的工具。
Lenny Rachitsky: 明白了。所以就是谷歌搜索”价值观列表”,找一个 PDF,把最重要的圈出来,挑一小部分,不要……
Alisa Cohn: 实际上,我可以介绍一下这个过程。先选 20 个,挺好的。然后缩减到大概 10 个。接着做那个困难的工作——把它们进一步精简到三到五个你认为对自己最核心的价值观。这个练习其实每个人都值得做,而且每年都做一次,因为事情是会变的。它也逼你做出艰难的决定——当必须取舍的时候,对我来说真正重要的是什么?你越了解自己的价值观,在这个世界上行动时就越清晰。
Lenny Rachitsky: 很好。好的,价值观说完了。还有什么?
公司愿景
Alisa Cohn: 还有一个是公司的愿景。当这家公司成功的时候,它是什么样的?那个画面可能是——我们掌控自己的命运,能够独立运营这个业务,拥有很大的自由度。也可能是——我们实现了一个大型的风险投资级别的退出,所有人都读到这条新闻。如果你们双方都以为对方想的跟自己一样,却没有明确地谈过,也没有谈过其中需要做出的取舍,那么当你们存在分歧时,问题往往会在为时已晚的时候才集中爆发。
我举个例子。我合作过两位联合创始人,公司已经做了五六年,发展得不错,但也充满挑战,经历了各种成长的阵痛,就像你之前提到的 Sheryl 说的那种混乱。其中一位很感慨地对我说:“天哪,我不明白我们为什么一定要增长。我真希望员工能少一些。我以前很喜欢那个每个人都认识的环境,我更想要一个不需要不断增长的氛围。“但遗憾的是,他们已经拿了风投的钱,而且另一位联合创始人对公司的期望是一家非常大的企业。由于他们从来没谈过这件事,等意识到的时候已经太晚了,这对他们俩来说都是一个很痛苦的认识——他们根本不在同一页上。
Lenny Rachitsky: 完全理解,这条真的很有价值。我完全能理解人们会有不同的目标。我猜这个也会随时间变化,所以大概还有一种情况是——如果你内心有了变化,你也应该把这件事拿出来谈。比如”我不想做一个 IPO 级别的大型创业公司了,我只想做一个安安静静的小生意”。所以基本上就是要明确——你怎么表述这个呢?对你来说”赢”意味着什么?
Alisa Cohn: 对,成功是什么样的?
Lenny Rachitsky: 对你来说成功是什么样的?
Alisa Cohn: 或者说,当这家公司达到其全部潜力时,它的愿景是什么?
Lenny Rachitsky: 好的。还有什么?
如何处理冲突
Alisa Cohn: 另一个是一个两部分的问题。你怎么处理冲突?所以,你怎么处理冲突?但接下来,你可能需要问你的配偶或亲近的人:“我是怎么处理冲突的?“因为你可能觉得,“哦,我是一个非常开明的人,处理冲突很冷静,很擅长把事情摆到桌面上。“但亲近你的人可能会说:“你会先闷着生闷气,直到你准备好了才开口,而在闷气的那个阶段,气氛非常不舒服。“所以这能让你对自己实际处理冲突的方式有更多自知之明。
这非常重要,因为我可能是那种想立刻把冲突拿出来谈的人。而另一个人可能也完全愿意谈这个冲突,但想先让它沉淀一下,也想先自己理清楚什么对自己是重要的,甚至可能觉得自己已经想通了,不需要跟你进行那次对话了。如果你是那种”我们来谈谈、来谈谈、来谈谈”的人,而对方说”我在自己消化”,那你们就因为”怎么处理冲突”这件事本身产生了冲突,最后变成一种完全没必要的动态。
Lenny Rachitsky: 听你一条一条列这些问题,真的很不可思议——人们找联合创始人、一起创业的时候居然不做这些,而我也知道确实几乎没人做。提前做这些功课的人比例非常低。所以我很高兴我们在帮这个比例提高,但同时也让我感叹人们不进行这些对话有多么疯狂,这也解释了为什么那么多创始人关系最终走不下去。这些问题真的很棒。还有呢?我知道你有一份完整的清单,我们也会附上链接,对吧?有一个 PDF 可以链接到?
Alisa Cohn: 有的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 里面有这些问题的……
Alisa Cohn: 当然。
Lenny Rachitsky: 帖子里会放。太好了,我们再聊几个。
分歧时如何决策
Alisa Cohn: 另一个是:我们意见不一致时怎么决定?这个问题非常值得探讨,因为意见不一致时的决策方式其实有很多种,每种都不错。如果你提前定好,并且保持持续讨论,会很有帮助。比如你们可以提前约定——当我们意见不一致时,因为这肯定会发生,就假设谁更在意这个问题,谁就可以赢得那个争论。这是一种很好的方式。也可以是——谁在这个问题上视角最好、专业度最高,谁就赢。也可以是——当我们真的意见不一致时,轮流来,这次你赢,下次我赢,这样交替。
处理分歧的方式有很多种,如果你们事先讨论过,等到真正产生分歧时,就更有可能将约定付诸实践,因为分歧一定会发生,这是无法避免的。但这甚至不是坏事。你们都是聪明人,关系中存在这种动态张力。你们各有所长,视角不同。意见不合很正常。建立一套应对分歧的练习和流程,把分歧化解为一次良好的对话,而不是那种赌气别扭的艰难对话。
Lenny Rachitsky: 说得太好了。再来最后一个?
公司文化的重要性
Alisa Cohn: 好。另一个问题是:我认为什么样的公司文化是重要的?人们在创办公司之前绝对不会聊这个,他们默认彼此想法一致。一个创始人可能想的是,“我想打造一家了不起的公司,人人都热爱这里,我们在一起其乐融融、一起拼搏。感觉就像……”借用你之前的说法,“感觉像一个家。“顺便说一句,这很好,非常棒。另一个人可能想的是,“我想要一种高效执行、以结果为导向的文化,我们就是拼命执行每件事,一心只想着赢。”
顺便说一句,这两种文化其实可以并存。但如果你往一个方向使劲而完全不顾另一个方向,你的联合创始人往另一个方向使劲而完全不顾你的方向,真的会让人觉得这是两家不同的公司。当我走进客户的现场时,我经常听到员工说,“感觉我们有两家不同的公司、两种不同的文化,取决于你在谁的团队里。“这当然会导致协作上的不协调,甚至仅仅是标准和期望的不一致。
Lenny Rachitsky: 很棒。好,我们的对话差不多该收尾了,我想带大家进入这个播客的一个固定环节,我称之为”失败角落”。我们已经聊了很多关于失败的话题,谈到了各种失败的方式。我很好奇,在你的职业生涯或生活中,是否有一个故事——事情进展不太顺利、你经历了失败——可能会对听众有所帮助,以及你是否从中学到了什么。我做这个环节的原因是,我觉得听这个播客的人可能会觉得,“听起来好厉害,一切都顺风顺水,他们太牛了。“但现实并非如此。所以这些故事往往对人们特别有帮助,“哇,原来 Alisa 也有非常艰难的时候。“有没有什么故事可以分享?
失败角落
Alisa Cohn: 当然有。这样的例子太多了。我讲两个简短的例子。一个是,我刚开始做教练业务的时候,我就是这么起步的,所以什么都做——想办法获取客户、建立业务、打造实践、建立个人品牌,所有事情都做。我工作得非常努力,有一次我跟一个人的对话不太顺利。我脑海中冒出一个念头,“我将来会怎样?“在很长一段时间里,那是我内心的声音,“我将来会怎样?“当时我住在波士顿。我坐在布鲁克林公寓的硬木地板上,蜷缩成胎儿的姿势,嚎啕大哭。我就那样哭了又哭,哭了一个小时。不是十分钟,是一个小时。
我当时害怕极了,沮丧极了。我到底能不能把这事儿做成?哭完之后过了一阵,我爬上沙发,小睡了一会儿缓解压力。然后我从压力小睡中醒来,又开始打电话、做各种事情。那绝对是我的一个谷底时刻。我想我学到的是,你真的得从地上把自己撑起来,把自己往前拽。当你不断采取行动、行动、行动,不管输赢、不管输赢,你最终会到达你需要去的地方。后来证明确实如此。但在那些时刻,我并没有觉得事情会好起来。
Lenny Rachitsky: 哇。很棒的故事。我猜很多人都有过那样的时刻,听说最后一切都能好转,真的很鼓舞人心,即便你曾在地上哭了一个小时。在地上哭一个小时确实挺长的。
Alisa Cohn: 哭一个小时确实很长。真的……我后来回想了一下,因为大多数人只哭十或十五分钟。我足足哭了一个小时。我确定。是的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 很好的故事。你说还有一个故事。
Alisa Cohn: 对。我再讲第二个故事,这个更侧重于我的工作经历。我做的事情之一是教练辅导,当然还有做 off-site 活动。那是在我教练生涯非常非常早期的时候,我在做一场 off-site,进展得不太顺利。在休息期间我和客户复盘,有一次她说了一句类似的话,“我觉得我们应该结束这次 off-site。我觉得我们应该直接宣布结束了,它不奏效。“我感觉糟透了,显然很受挫,当然还有羞愧,觉得这就是一次失败。那种感觉就是,“哦,失败了。“我从中得到的教训是,我可以在运营 off-site 的每个环节上提升自己的技能。
比如提前与客户对齐目标,确保我安排了正确的活动来达成目标,非常以目标为导向、保持聚焦,确保我真正理解了把一群人聚在一起所需要的节奏。所以我在这方面参加了一些培训,和我的导师一起在这个方向上精进,在这次经历之后,我变得非常擅长做 off-site。我想说那确实是一个真正的低谷,因为在那个当下,我没有在想”我以后会变得非常擅长做 off-site。“在那个当下我想的是,“天哪。我会……我将来会怎样?“但我把它转化了,在我的脑海中,或者说我应该说是,我把它转化为建设自身能力的动力。我只想告诉每个人,即使在最低谷的时刻,你从中学到的任何东西,都可以转化为燃料,帮你提升技能,让你在不擅长的领域变得出色。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我还特别喜欢的一点是,这里有一种冒名顶替综合征的感觉,具体来说就是那种恐惧——我做错了什么,一切都会崩塌,所有人都会看到我很差劲,我什么都不懂,所有人都会发现。我很喜欢这两个故事传达的信息:事情进展不好,但并不会崩塌。你从那里重建。没有人会说,“哦,Alisa 永远不行了。“不是的,翻篇就好。然后你把那次经历当燃料,在那个做得不好的事情上变得真正出色。
Alisa Cohn: 说得非常好。
Lenny Rachitsky: 太棒了。Alisa,我们聊了很多内容。在进入非常精彩的闪电问答环节之前,你还有什么想聊的,或者觉得对听众有用的内容吗?
面对问题要深入而非忍耐
Alisa Cohn: 最后我想说的只有一点,回到你作为领导者的角色上,我曾经和一位 CEO 合作过,他当时在处理一次产品发布不顺利的问题——确切地说是发布根本无法推进,一再拖延、一再拖延、一再拖延。他的态度是,你需要对此保持耐心,让事情慢慢来。而我的看法——因为我跟周围很多人聊过——是当时存在一个巨大的流程问题,而他并没有真正介入并深入调查,因为产品经理经验不足,某种程度上在隐瞒问题,因为他知道自己能力不够,又和工程团队发生冲突,整个事情就是不运作。
Alisa Cohn: 当这位 CEO 跟我聊起这件事的时候——我们就此进行了一次很长的讨论,我向他点明了一些他需要介入并解决的问题——他一直在想,“我需要保持耐心。“所以我想对所有人说的是,有时候你需要保持耐心,有时候你需要审视流程。而作为领导者,你需要有智慧去分辨两者的区别,同时还要保持对脉搏的感知,去判断这到底是一个需要耐心的问题,还是一个流程出了问题的情况。
Lenny Rachitsky: 那有没有什么信号能让你意识到——这可能是一个流程问题,而你其实正在忽视一个所有人都看得到的明显问题?
Alisa Cohn: 我觉得信号是,如果你扪心自问,其实并不清楚这件事到底怎么才能整合到一起。你脑海中没有计划。你没有跟进过相关人员,也没有跟人沟通过进展如何。你隐约感觉到一种令人不安的沉默。这些都是你需要深入了解更多细节、更贴近实际情况、跟一些人聊聊、看看一些数据的信号。而且话说回来,这可能不是什么巨大的流程问题,可能只是一个小环节被卡住了,但作为领导者,你需要认识到这一点,并找到办法让它重新运转起来。当然,如果确实存在一个需要被暴露出来的大问题,那也需要把它浮现出来。
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以如果你是在”希望事情能好起来”,而不是”我看到了一条可行的路径”,那多半是有问题的。太棒了。
Alisa Cohn: 是的,说得好。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你还有什么想分享的吗?觉得可能对听众有帮助的内容?
个人使用手册
Alisa Cohn: 我们之前聊过一点联合创始人 prenup(婚前协议),我想有些人会觉得,“我又不是联合创始人,我不需要那个。“我想邀请大家也去考虑另一个工具,叫做 Personal Operating Manual(个人使用手册)。它能引导你与同事讨论彼此的工作风格,因为当然你可能不是联合创始人,但你是和一个团队里的一群人一起工作,每个人都有不同的工作风格。
它包含的问题大概是:你最喜欢的沟通方式是什么?你喜欢怎样工作?你喜欢大段不被打扰的时间,还是零散安排一些会议?当我有重要的事需要联系你时,最好的方式是什么?你最受不了的事情是什么?怎么才能在你这里拿到”金星”?这也是我最喜欢的一个——你的授权风格是什么?
你希望我定期向你汇报,比如每周一次,在我推进项目的过程中?还是你希望我做完之后再告诉你结果就好?人们在很多时候会假设别人和自己的工作方式一样,因为那是你的风格,但其实那只是你自己的风格。所以这类对话对于协作非常有帮助,也可以作为一个很好的团队活动。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这有点像人们写的那些 README——“这是和我合作的方式”——
Alisa Cohn: 没错。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很喜欢”金星”这个概念,因为我觉得人们都想知道——怎么才能做得特别棒?怎么才能在为你工作时表现得非常出色?我喜欢”金星”这个视觉化表达,还有 pet peeves(最受不了的事)。我觉得很多人都会有共鸣——我最受不了的事情是什么,这样别人就不会去做这些事,因为他们不知道,对吧?在你告诉他们之前,他们是不知道的。
Alisa Cohn: 没人知道你的工作方式,直到你告诉他们。你展示得越多,大家就越能用适合你的方式和你合作,你也能用适合他们的方式和他们合作。这样你们就能拥有更好的职场和谐,把冲突留给真正重要的事情,而不是因为”你没在我希望你发短信的时候发短信”这种事。
Lenny Rachitsky: 把事情说清楚。你还有别的觉得对听众有帮助的内容想分享吗?在进入非常精彩的闪电问答之前。
Alisa Cohn: 没有了,就这些。
闪电问答
Lenny Rachitsky: 那么,Alisa,我们进入非常精彩的闪电问答环节了。准备好了吗?
Alisa Cohn: 迫不及待了,准备好了。
Lenny Rachitsky: 开始。第一个问题,有没有两三本你发现自己最常推荐给别人的书?
Alisa Cohn: 我们已经提到了 Kim Scott,非常出色、令人惊叹的 Kim Scott,她的书《Radical Candor》是我经常推荐给别人的。非常棒。然后是《Working Backwards》,作者是 Colin Bryar 和 Bill……什么的,讲的是亚马逊从客户出发倒推的工作方式。非常硬核、非常实操。我超喜欢,像读 Harry Potter 一样如饥似渴地读。我绝对会向客户推荐关于亚马逊管理科学的内容。第三本是 Neil Gabler 写的 Walt Disney 传记,因为它展示了 Walt Disney——从他的青少年时期讲起,他如何变成了一个非常糟糕的创业者,最终又成为了一个出色的、富有创造力的企业家。它展示了他发明的那些如今构成 Walt Disney 公司的各种要素的起源。
Lenny Rachitsky: 前两本书我们都在播客上推荐过——Kim Scott 和 Bill Carr,另一位——
Alisa Cohn: Bill Carr。
Lenny Rachitsky: ——合著者。他上过播客,那一期听众特别喜欢。Walt Disney 我还没请到,我得努力一下。
Alisa Cohn: 或者请作者 Neil Gabler。
Lenny Rachitsky: 或者请作者。对对对,好建议。好,下一个问题。最近有没有特别喜欢的电影或电视剧?
Alisa Cohn: 有,我很喜欢《头脑特工队2》(Inside Out 2)。我觉得太棒了,那个创意——
Lenny Rachitsky: 我完全能理解你为什么喜欢它。我觉得这是全世界所有教练都会喜欢的电影。
Alisa Cohn: 绝对的。就是那种——对,我们都是复杂情绪的混合体,这很正常。
Lenny Rachitsky: 嗯,我也很喜欢那部电影。下一个问题。你最近有没有发现一个特别喜欢的产品?
Alisa Cohn: 有,Ninja Creami。太好了。
Lenny Rachitsky: 展开说说。
Alisa Cohn: Ninja Creami 可以把任何东西变成冰淇淋。所以你可以真正做冰淇淋,感谢上帝。但我是把我的蛋白奶昔——本来味道还行——变成冰淇淋,那就太好吃了。而且只要十分钟,几乎不需要什么准备,操作简单,效果如预期——很多东西做不到这一点。Ninja Creami,去买一个吧。
Lenny Rachitsky: Ninja Creami 还是第一次被提到。而且假期快到了,这对听众来说会很实用。你有没有一个经常回想的、在工作或生活中觉得有用的人生格言?
Alisa Cohn: Joseph Campbell 有一句话贯穿了我的人生,那就是:“如果你能从头到尾看清自己的道路,那你走的就是别人的路。你自己的路只在你每一步落地的时候,才一步步变得清晰。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 哇,太好了。它让人感到充满力量,因为它帮你意识到——如果你看不到未来的方向,那是正常的,而且是好事。哇,这句太棒了。我需要用这些格言做点什么,它们都太好了。我得做张海报什么的。
Alisa Cohn: 好主意。或者放在你的 newsletter 里。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好主意。
Alisa Cohn: 发出去。
给想要成为教练的人的建议
Lenny Rachitsky: 好,这是条捷径。好,最后一个问题。我很好奇——不是为了给你制造更多竞争——但我感觉很多人都在考虑成为某种教练,比如产品教练、高管教练。如果有人想走这条路,你能不能分享一条建议,帮助他们 pursue 这条路,甚至探索这是否适合自己?
Alisa Cohn: 如果你觉得想成为教练,而你想要立刻提升自己的教练技能,那就练习更深入地倾听他人,提出更深层的问题——不只是回应他们刚才说的话,而是追问”你为什么这么想?“或者”这是从哪来的?“你会发现你是否真的享受与人深入挖掘的这个过程。我觉得这对所有人都有帮助。当然,如果你想成为教练,我认为能真正深入表面之下是必不可少的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我好喜欢你刚才说那段话时整个人的状态一下子切换到了教练模式。太有意思了,那个观察很棒,建议也很好。说起来容易做起来难。而且很有意思的是,你能看出来一个人到底擅不擅长这项技能。所以我很高兴你给出的修炼方向是——问更好的问题,更深入地思考这个人以及他们的来处。Alisa,今天太精彩了。最后两个问题。如果有人想联系你,也许想和你合作,去哪里找你?你和什么样的客户合作,方便感兴趣的听众了解?最后,听众能怎么帮到你?
Alisa Cohn: 哦,谢谢。我和初创公司以及大型上市公司的高管合作,所以如果你想做教练方面的交流,欢迎联系我。你可以在 alisacohn.com 找到我。另外,我会把一些资源放到一个专门的链接下,地址是 alisacohn.com/lenny。如果你想下载联合创始人 prenup,可以在那里找到。我还有一份 Personal Operating Manual 以及其他一些资源,都会放在那里。所以是 alisacohn.com/lenny,你也可以从那里订阅我的 newsletter。
关于怎么帮助我,我想说两件事。我毕生的使命就是去产生影响。当初成为教练,是因为我内心深处的声音就是要去产生影响。所以我希望今天我对你们每个人都产生了影响。我想邀请你,在本周内,尝试一件让你不舒服的事。听完这期节目这周就试,做一件让你不舒服的事,然后欢迎在 LinkedIn 上告诉我,或者给我发邮件,让我知道你做了什么让自己不舒服的事。
这对我会非常有意义。第二件对我很有意义的事是,如果你能去听听我的播客,叫《From Start-Up to Grown-Up》,给它一个评分和评论,因为你也知道,Lenny,别人发现你的播客的方式就是其他人对你的播客感兴趣。
Lenny Rachitsky: 《From Start-Up to Grown-Up》。我喜欢这个名字。
Alisa Cohn: 谢谢。
Lenny Rachitsky: Alisa,非常感谢你来做客。太棒了。
Alisa Cohn: 非常感谢你邀请我,Lenny。很开心。
Lenny Rachitsky: 大家再见。非常感谢收听。如果你觉得这期节目有价值,可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或你喜欢的播客应用上订阅。另外,也请考虑给我们评分或留下评论,因为这真的能帮助其他听众找到这个播客。你可以在 lennyspodcast.com 找到所有往期节目或了解更多关于这个节目的信息。下期见。
术语表
| 原文 | 中文 |
|---|---|
| codifying culture | 将文化成文/将文化准则化 |
| culture committee | 文化委员会 |
| deal breaker | 不可谈判的底线 |
| hyper growth | 高速增长 |
| Personal Operating Manual | 个人使用手册 |
| pet peeves | 最受不了的事 |
| prenup | prenup(婚前协议,此处指联合创始人之间的协议框架) |
| Radical Candor | 《Radical Candor》(彻底坦率) |
| traction | traction(业务牵引力) |
| Working Backwards | 《Working Backwards》(逆向工作法) |
此文档由 AI 分片翻译(translate_long_document)