【商业往事】第50话：呆伯特的成功秘密

呆伯特的成功秘密

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（英文文章在中文文章之后）

「呆伯特」是一本讽刺美国白领阶级在办公室里种种荒谬事迹的漫画。最近这本书的作者，史考特·亚当斯出了一本新书：「我的人生样样稀松照样赢」。亚当斯用这本书来叙述他的想法，和自己在办公室里的工作经历。

这本书仍然维持呆伯特一贯辛辣讽刺的风格，并且嘲笑那些成功人士的陈腔滥调。书中有一个观念，我特别喜欢：「激情是成功的副产品，不是成功的先决条件」。为了支持自己的观点，他用丰富的亲身经历过的失败经验做例子。「那些没有成功的努力——失败的案例——大多数——慢慢榨干了我的激情，因为它们失败了」，至于让他成功的漫画，「起初这只是我愿意尝试的很多致富计划之一，但是当它开始看起来有搞头的时候，我对画画的激情增加了」。

我是不大相信这类把一个人的成功归因于他过去是多么辛苦的说法。鸿海郭台铭董事长今天的成功绝不是因为在他公司还小的时候，郭董被其他公司小采购欺负了（这是他以前说给商业周刊的故事）。我不相信这类的负面经验可以引导一个人的成功。只有美好的经验，或者是正面结果，才可以引导人们更努力的工作。所以，我是宁可相信郭董的成功，是因为他做对了某些事，得到了美好的成果。

中国文化里似乎喜欢强调或者夸大一个人的成功是因为年轻或者小时候的艰难岁月。这种根深蒂固的文化，现在还在鼓励家长找机会让小孩子吃苦受难。在中国的文化里，一个人成功了，就会提起过去艰苦的童年；如果没有这种经历，还得编造一段辛苦的岁月，来增添成功的传奇性。

众所周知，沃伦·巴菲特是一个勤奋的华盛顿邮报送货员。但我从来没有读过沃伦·巴菲特抱怨他童年的故事。而沃伦·巴菲特曾经表示，他购买可口可乐公司的动机是：可口可乐独特甜美的味道，还有混合着在他的青少年时期，从收集兑换可乐瓶中赚到钱所体验到的甜蜜。

因此，在我看来，激励员工能够有更好表现的正确方式是提供某种奖励，让员工可以从正向的经验中学习。从呆伯特的书中，我们了解到，如果希望员工完成任务，则需要设计一个工作环境：[1] 使他们更容易实现目标，并且 [2] 为他们提供征服目标所需的动力，以推动他们完成那些困难的任务。

我认为，任何良好的管理制度都应该被设计为激励员工创造良好绩效，而不是设计来惩罚绩效不佳的员工。每当我们感谢团队成员完成任务时，我们也鼓励他们实现更高的目标。员工们会记住这样一个积极的成功经验，并且很可能一遍又一遍地重复期望行为，在这过程中逐渐获得信心和能力。积极强化成功经验才是成功人士成功的真正秘密（而不是他们在媒体上吹嘘的那些悲惨的经验）。

故事出处: 

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life. 

By Scott Adams.

Does Success Require Going Through a Difficult Period?

Dilbert is an American comic strip that is known for its satirical office humor about white-collar micromanagement. Recently, the writer and cartoonist of Dilbert, Scott Adams, published a new book “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life,” to describe his thoughts and his experiences about office life and his career.

This book still employs Dilbert’s satirical style, poking fun at famous people’s success and the clichés that led them to it. There is a concept that I like in this book, which states “Passion is a byproduct of succeeding at something, not a prerequisite to it.” To support this concept, he used his abundant personal experience with failure. Regarding his ideas and dreams, he states “The ones that didn't work out – and that would be most of them – slowly drained my passion as they failed. However, drawing a comic strip started out as just one of many get-rich schemes I was willing to try. When it started to look as if it might be a success, my passion for cartooning was increased.”

I rarely buy into those stories which attribute one’s success to experiencing hardship, such as the story about the Hon Hai (Foxconn) founder Terry Kuo, who’s success supposedly sprang from the humiliation he experienced at the hand of a small purchaser back when Kuo’s company was not so big. I’m reluctant to believe this particular story because it focuses on a bad or negative experience and I don’t think that a bad experience logically leads to a person’s success. Generally, it is the good, positive experiences or outcomes that entice people to work hard at something over and over. So, it seems far more likely to me that Kuo’s success came as a result of his doing something “right” that somehow rewarded him.

It seems to be the case that Chinese culture often tends to emphasize or even exaggerate the struggles people encountered when they were younger, particularly as children, well before achieving success. This is so ingrained in the culture that it almost encourages adults to impose a period of hardship on children in order to prepare them for success. And, if a Chinese person somehow manages to gain success without having gone through hardship as a child, legends and lore will be created by the culture to make it appear that such a person was no exception to this “rule.”

It’s commonly known that Warren Buffett was a hard-working Washington Post delivery boy. But I’ve never read a story in which Warren Buffett complained about his childhood. However, Warren Buffett has indicated what his motivation for selling Coca-Cola was: the dual reward of the sweet taste of Coca-Cola combined with the sweetness experienced by earning money from redeeming coke bottles as a teen.

It’s commonly known that Warren Buffett was a hard-working Washington Post delivery boy. But I’ve never read a story in which Warren Buffett complained about his childhood. However, Warren Buffett has indicated what his motivation for selling Coca-Cola was: the dual reward of the sweet taste of Coca-Cola combined with the sweetness experienced by earning money from redeeming coke bottles as a teen.

So, it seems to me, the proper way to motivate employees to behave or perform well is to provide a reward of some kind in order to provide them with the potential for a positive experience from which they can learn.  From Dilbert’s book, we learned that, if the management team wants employees to complete their tasks, it needs to design a working environment that [1] makes it easier for them to reach their goals, and [2] gives them the motivation necessary to conquer the difficulties in completing their tasks.

I believe that any good management system should be designed to motivate employees to have good performance, rather than punishing them for poor performance.  Each time that we give our team members appreciation for doing tasks well, we are also giving them encouragement to reach higher goals.  Employees will remember such a positive initial successful experience and most likely repeat the desired behavior over and over, progressively gaining confidence and competence. Positive reinforcement is the real secret for successful people’s success.