Amp It Up
Amp It Up!
Frank Slootman
Chairman and CEO at Snowflake
As the former CEO of both Data Domain and ServiceNow, two successful tech companies in recent years, I am often confronted with questions: what did you guys do? What is the secret sauce? How did you do it? We never thought of ourselves as that different. We certainly didn’t think we had stumbled on a silver bullet. Did we just get incredibly lucky twice in a row? With hindsight and reflection, there are observations worth making that may benefit others.
Bottom line: There is room up in organizations to boost performance by amping up the pace and intensity. Considerable slack naturally exists in organizations to perform at much higher levels. The role of leadership is to convert that lingering potential into superlative results. The opportunity is right under our noses but for some reason it does not enter the consciousness. This notion is not limited to business enterprises. We see in professional sports all the time how teams go almost overnight from losing to winning with basically the same roster, but different leadership. Call it what you want, the X factor, whatever, it is real. Anybody can dial into this, but not many do.
It is not easy because you will drive people out of their comfort zones. There will be resistance. Change is hard. Some will vote with their feet. If you want to be popular as a leader, this may not be for you. The role of a leader is to change the status quo, step up the pace, and increase the intensity. Leaders are the energy bunnies and pacemakers of the organization. Some people drain energy from organizations; not leaders, they engulf organizations with energy.
Data Domain and ServiceNow
Data Domain and ServiceNow, the companies we ran between 2003 and 2017, had things in common. They were outliers on performance though they were quite different businesses in different markets and in different eras. They shared the same CEO and a good portion of the executive and extended management teams. Culturally, they hung together and were like-minded. Therein lies a clue.
Data Domain took in $28M of net capital and 6 years later returned $2.4B to shareholders. Revenue grew from zero to $600M annually. The company went public on Nasdaq in mid 2007. Post-acquisition by EMC in 2009, the business grew to multiple billion dollars in annual revenues a year. It was a storage business with software margins. We joined Data Domain pre-revenue, and it had typical cross-the-chasm challenges. I wrote about that episode in a 2009 book ‘Tape Sucks’: A Silicon Valley Growth Story.
ServiceNow on the other hand, a San Diego-founded cloud software company, was already on a tear when I joined as CEO in early 2011. The proverbial chasm had been scarcely a speed bump. But, ServiceNow was approaching $100M in revenues with the maturity of a popsicle stand. The operational challenges were epic, but we gradually reigned in the bucking bronco, and hit overdrive on growth. ServiceNow was also bootstrapped with no more than $6.5M in external funding.
Only the second cloud software company, after Salesforce, to hit a billion dollars in revenues, ServiceNow reached two billion dollars in revenue just two years later. High growth at scale that is continuing to this day. ServiceNow went public on the NYSE mid-2012, the stock price has increased tenfold since then, with a market cap exceeding $100B.
Amping It Up
Our companies were built and run for performance, full stop. We were singleminded in our pursuit of goals, and drove our people to become the best version of themselves. For the best people, it was an incredibly liberating experience. Most everybody subscribes to the notion of a so-called ‘performance culture’, even claim to have one, but few appreciate what that means, what that takes, and what you have to give up. Our companies were all Marine Corps, not much Peace Corps. We did not come in peace. Emerging companies like ours fought giant incumbents for their existence every single day. We were paranoid and felt constantly threatened with our survival. You could not escape the combat mentality at our companies. We were in a shit fight all the time.
Few things drive home a performance culture like the compensation philosophy. In our case, the company had to earn it first, so that the bonus pool could be funded. Each quarter we would fund the pool, depending how well we did that period. Then the process of allocation started. Managers were not allowed to ‘peanut-butter’ out the money with everybody getting the same share of the pool. We insisted on a bell shaped distribution. We did not always pay full bonuses and I would personally explain why in our quarterly all hands meetings.
It is not that we worried about bonuses for substandard performers, but that we were under-bonusing our A players. And to pay A players more, managers had to take that money from the other end of the performance spectrum. It allowed us to be informed of who the strong performers were as well as those not in good standing. Each employee had a money conversation each quarter with their manager relating to performance. These were in lieu of written performance reviews. When it came time to separate with a person, it was a lot easier, cheaper and quicker when there was a below-average bonus history.
It’s tough for a manager to have performance compensation conversations which each employee every quarter. It’s confrontational. Employees have grown up in companies where bonuses are not really earned, they are counted on so much they may as well be part of the base pay. Sure sign of an entitlement culture.
ServiceNow internally advocated employees being drivers, not passengers. Passengers end up in the same place as drivers but they are dead weight. If that was a subtle distinction, there would be work to do. Ask yourself at the end of a work week: did it really, really matter that I was there? At the end of the month? Tough questions many would rather avoid. It is a call to action to make sure you can answer that question to yourself and others with overwhelming conviction. Changes our sense of security, confidence and self-worth.
There are many other dimensions and aspects of a full-on performance culture. But, for the purpose of this discussion, I will outline three vectors that together make up a performance execution framework.
Our companies ran at higher velocity, with higher standards and a narrower focus than most. Going faster, maintaining higher standards and with a narrower aperture. Sounds simple? The question is how you go about amping up your organization. How much faster do you run? How much higher are your standards? How hard do you focus? It is a performance ‘triad’ because they amplify each other. The compound effect can be electrifying.
It is breathtaking how slow, substandard and unfocused many companies out there get through the day. And think nothing of it. The lack of energy is palatable. There is performance upside everywhere. As a leader, your opportunity is to reset in each of these dimensions. You do it in every single conversation, meeting, and encounter. You look for and exploit every single opportunity to step up the pace, expect a higher quality outcome, and narrow the plane of attack. Then, you relentlessly follow up and prosecute at every turn. Yes, it is confrontational. That is pretty much what CEOs do all the time: confront people, issues and situations.
It’s not a quick transformation. In fact, it never ends. The shock to the system will be profound, or you are perhaps not taking it far enough. People may squeal but consider that a sign you are bringing it on. A leader can ignite a culture, but the management ranks need to embrace it, or the energy will not reverberate through the org. You can go slow, ‘boil the frog’ so to speak, but how can we be a fan of slow? Not everybody will come along. The right people will rise to the occasion. Culture sorts like-minded people from the rest of the pack. You will find out who your keepers are, and some who are not.
Increasing velocity
Without leaders driving the tempo in an organization, it will naturally settle into a lethargic pace. If you have ever worked in or with government, you have seen extreme examples of this. There is no urgency about anything, other than quitting time. It’s suffocating being in such organizations, as if everybody is swimming in glue.
People get visible pep in their step. They exude energy. Somebody would ask me if he could get back to me about something next week, and I would reply ‘how about tomorrow morning? Might be completely unreasonable, did not matter. The point was to change people’s sense of urgency. We were always compressing cycle time on everything. Did we sometimes take it too far? Of course we did. You don’t know what’s possible until you try. Same thing applies in interactions with other stakeholders, especially customers who all have expectations about reasonable response times. It is easy to differentiate yourself by changing cycle times because few bother to do it.
Stepping up the pace doesn’t just cause people to do things faster. They start doing things differently. They become more demanding of others. This is precisely what we want in an organization. ServiceNow had a relentless ‘get shit done’ culture and they were proud of it. The culture enthusiastically embraced those who got things done, and it repelled those who did not.
The pace has to be profound, palatable, breathtaking, order-of-magnitude type change. You want to go 20% faster? It’s barely discernible, and you will be back in your old mode before long.
In the world of software, we often sit around tables talking about what we need in the product, and when we could expect to see it. Development teams tend to come back with unacceptable time frames because they are doing things linearly, and are not thinking with enough urgency. But with pressure applied, somebody all of a sudden figures out how to do things differently, and get things dramatically sooner. Pressure changes things.
Over time an organization settles into a tempo and pace that is theirs and generally understood inside. You don’t have to work at it as much anymore as everybody operates at a cadence the organization generally expects. Of course, in high growth companies new people show up all the time and they need to be properly ‘indoctrinated’.
It is not a trivial change. Organizations resist going faster than their natural, quite glacial pace. We had some new hires quit in a matter of weeks, confessing they could not handle the pace and intensity at ServiceNow. Too big a shock to their system.
You need an energetic cast that wants to let it rip. These were exactly the people we wanted to attract and retain. You don’t drive the pace, you start losing the people who need a fast-paced culture. And the best people do.
Quickening the pace also drives a narrower focus. You simply can’t move very fast when you are pushing on too many fronts at the same time. More about this further down.
Raising Standards
When stepping up the pace, inevitably excuses are made about quality. We can’t possibly move this fast, and maintain quality? We would agree, because we are going to move faster and raise quality. It has a compound effect on productivity. It’s not defying gravity, it’s beating reams of slack out of the system. Until the pressure is on, we don’t even know how much better and faster we can be.
One place where we stood out was our commitment to the customer. It was the highest standard of service and support we knew how to apply. There was nothing more important than making customers successful. Customers had to sing our praises, really feel we had their backs. We wanted them to not just like us, they had to love us! Our Net Promoter Scores were high, and that was no accident. It is hard to maintain such standards, but our culture had it deeply ingrained.
I enjoyed quoting the late Steve Jobs who had just two classifications: it’s either ‘insanely great’, or it’s ‘total shit’. There is no middle ground, Steve took it away. Our people easily related to this way of talking. Don’t we all want to be insanely great? The words started to creep into daily interactions when people judged somebody else’s work to not be ‘insanely great’. A polite way of saying that it was total shit.
Another way we would pursue this conversation was asking people whether they liked their work, or whether they loved it. Like it, yes, love it, no. So, let’s resolve to love what we produce, not just like it. Feel strongly, even passionate about what you are producing. It changes things perceptibly. Moving mental boundaries, that is what this is.
Mediocrity is the silent killer. Organizations are not getting killed by their C players. Everybody knows who they are, and performance eventually is addressed. The people who kill organizations are your B players. It’s the scourge of the enterprise because there are many and they are generally accepted. Often, they are seen as not bad enough to fire, but not good enough to keep. They are the ultimate passengers.
B players need to be pared: they either become A players, or they become C players and get flushed out. You can help by raising standards, by refusing mediocre outcomes. Channel your inner Steve Jobs.
Narrowing The Focus
The fastest way to move a dial is narrow the focus. People naturally resist focus because they can’t decide what is important. Therein lies a problem: people can typically tell you after some deliberation what their top three priorities are, but they struggle to decide on just one. They may also be incorrect about their priorities, so there is potential for misallocation of resources. What is too much and what is too little focus? Do you ever even discuss this? Most teams are not focused enough. I rarely encountered a team that employed too narrow an aperture. It goes against our human grain. People like to boil oceans. Just knowing that can be to your advantage.
When you narrow focus, you are increasing the resourcing on the remaining priority. It doesn’t have to time-slice and compete any more with a bunch of other stuff. And then things begin to move, stuff is getting done, and we move to the next thing. Many people and organizations are focused a mile wide and an inch deep. It can’t be a surprise when they progress at snails pace. Log jams get broken when you sift through the reams of activities and you create fewer and clearer objectives. Do less, at a time. I’ve often felt that providence moves, too, when you un-clutter priorities. Like an Invisible Hand, all of a sudden things are on the move.
It’s not just an effectiveness problem. We need to sort out what is truly important, and what isn’t, and when. We procrastinate on that by declaring multiple priorities. Makes us sound thoughtful and comprehensive, but it completely lacks punch and impact. Pointed, critical thinking is rare. I have been in board meetings where CEOs would declare as many as ten priorities. Reminds us of Mark Twain who wrote us a long letter because he had no time for a short one.
At the company level and as a CEO, I worked to create blinding clarity and singularity of purpose. My job as a CEO was to increase the value of the franchise. That’s because I was appointed to work for the investors (which included our employees). I only did things and applied resources that had a compelling line-of-sight relationship with that goal. In tech, value is a function of growth, so we ran our companies for growth, period. It was an easy call when spending proposals came forward that had no discernible relationship with the mission. Investors were obviously in violent agreement.
We compensated the ServiceNow exec team on just one metric. It was unquestionably the purest performance metric for a cloud software company. Our board fought me on this. They were convinced a grown up company had to have a balanced scorecard, arguably the worst idea to ever come out of academia. People say they want focus, but their actions do not bear it out, quite the opposite. Focus is hard once you understand what that means. What are you not going to do?
Similarly, we ran the companies for attracting and retaining talent, regardless of gender, race or ethnic origin. We valued people for their contribution to our goal, not because they had a preferred skin color, gender or ethnic background. Either you are completely focused on and aligned with your goals, or you let in all kinds of noise that dilutes your limited resources. I have nothing against ‘diversity and inclusion’ as long as it results from our goal-oriented modes of execution. We are not a university or a non-profit, this is a business. You lack focus at the top, it will be much more so at the bottom.
Data Domain and ServiceNow hired you on merit, not because you checked a box. Good people don’t want to be hired because they fit a demographic. We made a lot of money for our people, and we delivered more social justice this way than we ever could have, pursuing other people’s ideas of that. I also did not make public statements about anything that did not relate directly to what we do. Focus is a discipline. I avoided having high-minded societal ambitions as part of my role. I am not the leader of the free world, just a CEO working to increase the value of the franchise entrusted to him.
Up to this point, I have talked about ‘leaders’ driving these modes of execution. Leaders are not people with management titles per se. Leaders set standards of performance for others to follow. High performance organizations exhibit leadership coming from all directions, it is not an exclusively top-down phenomenon. Anybody, anytime can decide to be a leader. It is just a different mode of getting up and going to work in the morning.
In recent years, I have advised CEOs and management teams on these topics and many others. They asked, and we told them. We could sometimes hear a pin drop as people internalized these modes of execution. It made them uneasy. There was a mixture of being intrigued but fearing the perceived fall out. Fear is not good counsel.
Casual observation shows that it is hard for leaders to act on this. It struck them as unduly hard-assed and they feared backlash, people walking out the door, and so on. Everybody wants results, but not everybody wants to do what that takes. Still, I am also seeing leaders swarm to this, dramatically amp up their org, produce amazing results and never look back.
Performance-centric thinking like this doesn’t trend well with prevailing attitudes. Companies have become more fixated on their employees’ NPS scores than their customers’. They coddle their people. They get caught up in things that have nothing to do with their mission. It takes conviction and courage to execute like this. As William Wallace said in ‘Braveheart’, ‘people don’t follow title, they follow courage’. You will be immensely popular when good results come in. That’s all people want from you anyway.
提升能量！
弗兰克·斯鲁特曼
Snowflake董事长兼首席执行官
作为Data Domain和ServiceNow两家近年来成功的科技公司的前首席执行官，我经常面临这样的问题：你们做了什么？有什么秘密酱汁？你们是怎么做到的？我们从来没有认为自己与众不同。我们肯定不认为自己偶然发现了灵丹妙药。我们难道是连续两次极其幸运吗？回顾和反思之后，有一些值得注意的观察结果可能有益于他人。
底线是：组织中有提高表现的空间，可以通过增加速度和强度来提升。组织中自然存在相当的松弛度，可以在更高的水平上表现。领导的角色是将潜在的能力转化为卓越的结果。机会就在我们眼前，但出于某种原因，它没有进入意识。这种想法不仅适用于企业，我们经常在职业体育中看到，团队在基本相同的名单下，仅仅因为领导力不同，就可以在一夜之间从失败转变为成功。无论你称其为什么，X因素，什么的，它都是真实存在的。任何人都可以加入，但并不是每个人都会这样做。
这并不容易，因为你会让人们走出他们的舒适区。会有阻力。改变很难。有些人会用脚投票。如果你想成为一个受欢迎的领导者，这可能不适合你。领导的角色是改变现状，加快步伐，增加强度。领导者是组织的能量兔和节奏创造者。有些人会耗尽组织的能量；但领导者不会，他们会用能量包围组织。
数据域和ServiceNow
在2003年至2017年间，我们经营的Data Domain和ServiceNow两家公司有一些共同点。它们都是性能的离群值，尽管它们在不同的市场和时代是截然不同的业务。它们有相同的首席执行官和很多高管和扩展管理团队成员。在文化上，它们保持着一致，思想相似。这是一个提示。
Data Domain筹集了2800万美元的净资本，6年后为股东带来了24亿美元的回报。营收从零增长到每年6亿美元。该公司于2007年中期在纳斯达克上市。在2009年被EMC收购后，业务增长到每年数十亿美元的收入。它是一家具有软件利润率的存储业务。我们在Data Domain创收之前加入了这个公司，并且它面临着典型的跨越鸿沟的挑战。我在2009年的一本书《磁带很烂》中写到了这一事件：硅谷的增长故事。
另一方面，ServiceNow是一家总部位于圣地亚哥的云软件公司，当我在2011年初担任首席执行官时，公司已经在快速增长。惯常的鸿沟几乎没有成为障碍。但是，ServiceNow的收入已接近1亿美元，却有着一个冰棍摊的成熟度。运营方面的挑战是史诗级的，但我们逐渐控制了这个腾跃的野马，并加速增长。ServiceNow也是通过内部融资启动的，不超过650万美元的外部资金。
ServiceNow成为第二个在销售额上达到10亿美元的云软件公司，仅次于Salesforce。仅仅两年后，ServiceNow的收入就达到了200亿美元，高增长在不断持续。ServiceNow于2012年中期在纽约证券交易所上市，股价自此上涨了十倍以上，市值超过1000亿美元。
提高能量
我们的公司是建立和运营以表现为中心的。我们追求目标，驱动员工变得更好。对于最优秀的员工来说，这是一种非常解放的经历。几乎每个人都认同所谓的“表现文化”的概念，甚至宣称自己有一种，但很少有人真正理解这意味着什么，需要做什么，以及你必须放弃什么。我们的公司都是海军陆战队的风格，而不是和平队的风格。我们没有和平的意图。像我们这样的新兴公司每天都在与巨头竞争，争取生存的权利。我们很多时候都是处于被威胁的状态，感到非常紧张。在我们公司，你无法逃避战斗的心态。
很少有什么事情比薪酬哲学更能突显表现文化。在我们的公司，首先必须赚到了才能分红，以便资助奖金池。每个季度，我们都会根据当期业绩对奖金池进行资助。然后分配的过程开始了。经理们不允许平均分配奖金，我们坚持采用钟形分布。我们并不总是支付完整的奖金，我会在季度全员会议上亲自解释为什么。
我们担心的不是为表现不佳的员工支付奖金，而是给优秀员工支付不足的奖金。为了支付更高的奖金，经理们必须从表现谱系的另一端取走这笔钱。这让我们能够知道谁是强劲的表现者，以及谁不太受欢迎。每个员工每个季度都要与他们的经理就表现进行对话。这些代替了书面绩效评估。当与一个人分手时，如果存在低于平均水平的奖金历史，情况会变得更容易、更便宜、更快速。
经理每个季度与每个员工进行绩效补偿谈话是很难的。这是一种对抗性的过程。员工在成长过程中习惯了公司不真正赚取奖金，但奖金是可以预期的，就像是基本工资的一部分。这是一种权利文化的明显标志。
ServiceNow内部倡导员工成为驾驶员，而不是乘客。乘客最终与驾驶员到达相同的地方，但它们只是一份累赘。如果这是一个微妙的区别，那么就需要做出努力。在工作周结束时问问自己：我在那里真的真的很重要吗？在月末的时候呢？这是很多人宁愿避免回答的严峻问题。这是一个行动的呼唤，确保你能够用压倒性的信念回答自己和他人的问题。这会改变我们的安全感、信心和自尊心。
表现文化有许多其他维度和方面。但是，就本讨论的目的而言，我将概述三个向量，它们共同构成了一个表现执行框架。
我们的公司运行速度更快，标准更高，焦点更窄。比大多数公司都更快、更高标准、更窄的光圈。听起来很简单？问题是如何提高组织的能量水平。你要跑得更快，标准要更高，焦点要更强。这是一个表现“三角形”，因为它们相互放大。这种复合效应可以让人充满活力。
许多公司的缺乏速度、不达标准和缺乏焦点是令人惊讶的。他们认为这并没有什么问题。缺乏能量是可以感知到的。表现潜力无处不在。作为领导者，你的机会是在这三个维度中每一个都进行重置。你在每一个谈话、会议和交流中进行这样的重置。你寻找和利用每一个机会来加速、期望更高质量的结果，并缩小攻击面。然后，你无情地跟进和执行每一个转折。是的，这是对抗性的。这几乎就是CEO一直要做的事情：对抗人、问题和情况。
这不是一个快速的转变。事实上，它永远不会结束。对体系的冲击会是深远的，或者你可能没有推动得足够远。人们可能会抱怨，但请把这视为你正在引导它。一个领导者可以点燃一种文化，但是管理层必须接受它，否则这种能量不会在组织中产生回响。你可以慢慢来，像“煮青蛙”一样，但我们怎么能喜欢缓慢呢？并不是每个人都会跟着走。正确的人会站出来。文化将类似思想的人与其他人分开。你将找出谁是你的保持者，谁是不是。由于这种文化筛选了想法相似的人与其他人，你会找到答案。
让我们回到最初的问题：我们是如何成功的？我们没有发现任何银弹，我们没有觉得自己与众不同。相反，我们简单地将我们的业务转化为执行，高速和能量。我们没有犯常见的错误，即放缓速度或适应低要求。我们利用了我们的潜在能量，然后通过高速、高标准和高能量实现了巨大的成功。
作为领导者，你可以启动类似的机制。考虑如何利用你的团队的潜在能量，然后让他们在更高的速度、更高的标准和更高的能量下执行。这需要一些冲击，但它可以改变游戏规则并使组织充满活力。
增加速度
如果没有领导人推动组织的节奏，它自然会陷入慢悠悠的步伐。如果你曾经在政府机构工作或与之合作，你会看到极端的例子。除了下班时间外，没有任何紧迫性。这样的组织令人窒息，就好像每个人都在泥浆中游泳。
当领导者推动组织的节奏时，人们开始表现出精力充沛的步伐。他们散发出能量。有人问我能否在下周回复他某事，我会回答“明天早上怎么样？”这可能完全不合理，但不要紧。重点是改变人们的紧迫感。我们总是在缩短每件事的时间周期。我们有时候会走得太远吗？当然会。在尝试之前，你不知道什么是可能的。在与其他利益相关者的互动中，特别是客户方面，同样适用。他们都对合理的响应时间有期望，通过改变时间周期，你可以很容易地使自己与众不同，因为很少有人费心去做到这一点。
加快节奏不仅会让人们做事更快，他们开始以不同的方式做事。他们对别人的要求更高。这正是我们想要在一个组织中看到的。ServiceNow有一种无情的“把事情做成”文化，他们为此感到自豪。这种文化热情地接纳那些能把事情做好的人，并排斥那些做不到的人。
节奏必须是深刻的，易于理解的，惊人的，数量级的变化。你想快20%？几乎察觉不到，你很快就会回到旧模式。
在软件领域，我们经常围着桌子谈论产品需要什么，何时能看到它。开发团队往往会回来报告不可接受的时间框架，因为他们正在线性地进行事情，并没有足够的紧迫感。但是，一旦施加了压力，有人突然想到了如何以不同的方式做事，并显著提前完成了任务。压力改变了事情。
随着时间的推移，组织会陷入自己的节奏和步伐中，并在组织内部得到普遍理解。因为每个人都按照组织预期的节奏运转，所以你不必再那么努力，但在高增长的公司中，新人不断涌现，他们需要适当的“洗脑”。
这不是一个微不足道的改变。组织抵制比它们自然、相当缓慢的步伐更快的步伐。我们有些新员工在几周内就离职了，承认他们无法承受ServiceNow的节奏和强度。这对他们的体系冲击太大了。
你需要一个充满活力的团队，他们想要放手一搏。这正是我们想要吸引和留住的人。如果你不能推动节奏，你就会失去那些需要快节奏文化的人。而最好的人会。
加快节奏还会推动更狭窄的焦点。如果你在同一时间推进过多的方面，你就无法快速行动。接下来将更多地讨论这个问题。
提高标准
在加快速度时，不可避免地会有关于质量的借口。我们不可能如此快地前进并保持质量吧？我们同意，因为我们将更快地前进并提高质量。这对生产力有着复合效应。这不是违反重力，而是从系统中击败了大量的松散因素。直到压力到位，我们才知道自己可以变得更好、更快。
我们的承诺让我们在一个领域脱颖而出，那就是对客户的承诺。这是我们能够提供的最高标准的服务和支持。没有什么比让客户成功更重要的了。客户必须为我们唱赞歌，真正感到我们有他们的后盾。我们希望他们不仅喜欢我们，而且还必须爱我们！我们的净推荐得分很高，这不是偶然的。保持这样的标准很难，但我们的文化已经深深地融入了这种精神。
我喜欢引用已故的史蒂夫·乔布斯，他只有两种分类：要么是“疯狂的伟大”，要么是“彻底的垃圾”。没有中间地带，史蒂夫把它搞定了。我们的员工很容易理解这种说话方式。难道我们不都想要疯狂地伟大吗？这些话开始潜移默化地进入日常交流中，当人们判断别人的工作不是“疯狂的伟大”时，这是一种委婉的说法，即它是彻底的垃圾。
我们还通过询问人们是否喜欢他们的工作或是否热爱它来追求这种对话。喜欢它，是的；热爱它，不是的。因此，让我们下定决心热爱我们所生产的东西，而不仅仅是喜欢它。要对自己所生产的东西有强烈的感觉，甚至是充满热情。这会明显地改变事情。打破心理界限，这就是这种做法。
平庸是默默无闻的杀手。组织不会因为 C 级员工而倒闭。每个人都知道他们是谁，绩效最终会得到解决。杀死组织的人是你的 B 级员工。这是企业的祸
因为这种员工很多，通常是被接受的。他们经常被认为不够糟糕以致于解雇，但也不够好以至于留下来。他们是终极的乘客。
需要对 B 级员工进行筛选：他们要么成为 A 级员工，要么成为 C 级员工并被淘汰。你可以通过提高标准、拒绝平庸的结果来帮助他们。激发你的内心史蒂夫·乔布斯。
缩小聚焦范围
聚焦于核心目标是快速推动事情进展的最快方法。人们天生抗拒聚焦，因为他们无法决定什么是最重要的。这里存在一个问题：人们通常可以在一番思考后告诉你他们的前三个优先事项是什么，但他们很难决定只选一个。他们可能对自己的优先事项也有错误的看法，因此存在错误分配资源的风险。那么聚焦过多或过少是什么？您是否曾经讨论过这个问题？大多数团队都没有足够的聚焦。我很少遇到聚焦过于狭窄的团队。这违背了我们人类的本性。人们喜欢挑战庞大的任务。了解这一点可能对你有利。
当您聚焦时，您正在增加对剩余优先事项的资源投入。它不必再与大量其他事情竞争时间片。然后事情开始发生变化，任务得到完成，我们继续下一个事情。许多人和组织的聚焦范围非常广，但深度却只有一英寸。他们进展缓慢不应该让人惊讶。当您筛选出大量活动并制定更少而更清晰的目标时，阻塞现象就会得到解决。一次只做一点。我经常感到，当您解除优先事项的混乱时，命运也会随之而动。就像隐形之手一样，所有的事情突然都在进展。
这不仅仅是效率问题。我们需要理清真正重要的事情和不重要的事情，以及何时重要。我们通过宣布多个优先事项来拖延解决这个问题。这让我们听起来思考全面，但它完全缺乏冲击力。直指关键的思维是罕见的。我曾经参加过一些董事会会议，在这些会议上，CEO们会宣布多达十个优先事项。这让我们想起马克·吐温写给我们的长信，因为他没有时间写短信。
作为公司层面和CEO，我努力创造了盲目的明晰和唯一的目的。我的工作是增加特许经营权的价值。这是因为我被任命为为投资者（其中包括我们的员工）工作。我只做与该目标具有紧密联系的事情和应用资源。在科技领域，价值是增长的函数，因此我们为增长而运营我们的公司，没有其他目标。当提出与任务不可分辨的支出提案时，这是一个很容易做出的决定。投资者显然是极度同意的。
我们为ServiceNow的高管团队设置了一个指标。这无疑是云软件公司最纯粹的绩效指标。我们的董事会反对我这样做。他们相信成熟的公司必须有一个平衡的绩效考核卡，这可能是学术界提出的最糟糕的想法。人们说他们想要聚焦，但他们的行动却与之相反。一旦你明白了这意味着什么，聚焦就变得困难了。你不会做什么？
同样地，我们为吸引和留住人才而经营公司，无论性别、种族或民族出身如何。我们重视人们对我们目标的贡献，而不是因为他们有优先的肤色、性别或种族背景。你要么完全专注于你的目标并与之保持一致，要么你就会让各种干扰噪音进来，削弱你有限的资源。我对“多样性和包容性”没有任何反感，只要它是源自我们以目标为导向的执行模式。我们不是大学或非营利组织，这是一家企业。你如果没有聚焦，那么底层的情况将更糟糕。
Data Domain和ServiceNow是因为你的优势而雇佣你的，而不是因为你符合某个人口统计标准。好的人不想因为符合某个人口统计标准而被雇佣。我们为我们的员工赚了很多钱，也通过这种方式实现了更多的社会公正。我也不会对与我们的工作毫无关系的任何事情进行公开声明。聚焦是一种纪律。我避免了在我的角色中拥有高尚的社会抱负。我不是自由世界的领袖，只是一位CEO，致力于增加委托给他的特许经营权的价值。
到目前为止，我谈到了“领导者”推动这些执行模式的问题。领导者不仅仅是管理职称的人。领导者为他人树立绩效标准。高绩效组织表现出来自各个方向的领导力，这不是一种仅仅自上而下的现象。任何人在任何时候都可以决定成为领导者。这只是一种不同的工作模式。
最近几年，我为CEO和管理团队提供了关于这些主题和许多其他主题的建议。他们问了，我们就告诉了他们。有时候我们听到了团队内部对这些执行模式的内化，会非常安静。这让他们感到不安。他们既感兴趣，又担心可能出现的后果。恐惧不是好的决策依据。
随意观察表明，领导者很难采取行动。他们认为这太过严格，担心会有反弹，人们会离开他们。每个人都想要结果，但并不是每个人都想要做出那些需要的事情。尽管如此，我也看到领导者在这方面有所改善，大力增强组织，取得了惊人的成果，并且永不回头。
像这样以绩效为中心的思维方式并不符合流行态度。公司更关注员工的NPS评分，而不是顾客的评分。他们纵容他们的员工。他们陷入了与他们的使命无关的事情中。执行这样的思维需要信念和勇气。正如威廉·华莱士在《勇敢的心》中所说，“人们不会跟随头衔，他们跟随勇气。”当好的结果出现时，你将受到极大的欢迎。那正是人们想要的。
总之，这篇文章主要讨论了如何聚焦于核心目标，并指出了聚焦所带来的好处。通过避免多重优先事项，提高对有限资源的利用效率，并保持明确的、独特的目标，可以更加高效地完成任务。此外，文章还提出了对领导者的要求：只关注和目标有直接关系的事情，保持执行的纪律和勇气。
这种方式不仅适用于企业，也适用于个人。每个人都可以通过聚焦于自己的核心目标来提高自己的效率和成就。在进行决策时，需要关注自己的目标，并确保每个决策都与这些目标一致。聚焦并不意味着放弃多样性和包容性，而是意味着这些因素应该源自于我们的目标导向的执行模式。
最后，需要强调的是，聚焦不是一种轻松的选择。它需要持续的努力和执行纪律，以确保实现目标。但是，聚焦也是一种非常有效的方法，可以帮助我们更加高效地完成任务，并取得更好的成果。
这本书还没有中文版，但是他本人的其他文章以及书评，已经透露了一些主要做法。
看到这些措施，我不由倒吸一口冷气。别看照片上他很温和，一旦管理起公司，手腕真是非常强硬，不输给华为。
“我们的公司是海军陆战队，不是和平队。平静的生活不属于我们。像我们这样的创业公司，每天都要为了生存而与巨头对抗。我们是偏执狂，时时刻刻感到生存受威胁。加入我们，你必须有战斗心态。”
下面我就分享他的做法，你看看厉害不厉害。
（1）加快节奏，时刻要求员工以更快的速度完成工作。
如果你说一周后可以有结果，他就问你为什么不能明天或后天出结果？这倒不是因为着急，而是他要增加所有人的紧迫感。
公司变大了，就会行动迟缓，不愿意冒险。只有加快节奏，才能让公司始终充满活力，保持兴奋度。
他说：”要求某人做某事快20%，他们会使用传统策略。如果要求快2,000%，他们将不得不推翻所有基本假设，使用非传统策略，进行重大创新。”
（2）要求员工思考一些极端问题，打破传统思维的束缚。
你如何在接下来的六个月内实现你的10年目标？
如果每周只能工作一天，我们应该如何改变工作方式？
如果现有的营销渠道都消失了，我们将如何发展新客户？
产品增加什么特性，可以让价格提高10倍？
如果你有10倍的资源，会对产品做哪些改变？
（3）提出明确的、雄心勃勃的目标，鼓励员工大胆行动。iPod mini 的早期口号是”口袋里有 1,000 首歌曲”，SpaceX 公司的目标是让人类成为”多星球物种”。目标越清晰、越雄心勃勃，传统的惰性思维就越难生存。
（4）拒绝平庸的产品。他采取史蒂夫·乔布斯的标准，产品只有两种，要么是非常棒，要么是一塌糊涂，没有中间等级。
员工开发出新产品和新功能时，他会问：”你兴奋吗？你从心里喜欢它吗？”如果没有得到肯定答复，产品就必须重新调整。
（5）一流员工得到高额奖金。 每个季度末，公司都要举行绩效评定，一年要评4次绩效。
绩效分布是一个钟形曲线，高绩效员工总是头部的少数人，可以得到极高的奖金。奖金放在一个奖金池，其他人只能分剩下的奖金，或者根本没有奖金。大多数公司里面，一流员工的薪水，相比他们的贡献都偏低，这不利于激励优秀员工。
（6）缩小焦点，他要求员工只关注最重要的事情。”请列出接下来需要解决的100个问题，然后只留下最重要的问题1和问题2，放弃其他98个问题。”
任何偏离核心使命的事情都会让人分心。对于同一个团队的每个成员，他分别挨个问：”你们团队的优先事项是什么？” 如果答案不一致，他就知道团队不够专注，必须整改。