微软元老回首职场生涯12年(2)

大学里的教授评估往往会参考学生在那门课得到的成绩，因为学生的成绩与他对教授的评价有很明显的关系。我一般不会认真听一个业绩不好的人对他老板的吐槽，但是如果一个业绩好的人批评他的老板，我会洗耳恭听。 Bias towards action.  “Litebulb” will drain your soul. 不行动的话，闲聊会耗尽你的生命（Litebulb是微软内部的一个广泛话题讨论组）。 Words matter.  Connotations matter. 字有表意，也有隐含的意思。 If you consistently deliver what the business needs most, and you do it well, it’s impossible not to get promoted.  People tell me this isn’t true, that it’s all about the people you know and about “visibility.”  I have no idea how to consistently deliver impactful business results without becoming visible as a side effect.  I hate it when developers ask me how to become “more visible.”  They hate it when I tell them to “do great work.”  They think I’m mocking them. 如果你不断做公司最需要的事情，你是一定会被重用的。有人说，不是的，人际关系和在人前表现自己更重要。我不明白，如果你持续做对公司意义很重大的事情，怎么可能不被别人注意到。我很讨厌程序员问我怎么才能在人前表现自己。他们也很讨厌我的答案“把事情做得更漂亮”，觉得我是在讽刺他们。 Be genuine.  Never give advice for your own advantage.  I’ve never once counseled a person to join my team or to stay on my team because I needed them. 做一个真诚的人。给别人建议时不要考虑自己的利益。我从没有说服过任何人加入我的团队，或者说服他们不要走，仅仅因为我需要他们。   Listen to understand.  Speak to be understood. 听人说话时尽量理解，讲话时尽量容易让别人理解。 Good ideas are a dime a dozen.  Great ideas are usually laughed at.  Neither sees the light of day without you taking action.  Do the work to prove your idea, or stop talking about it.  In an entrepreneurship class in college, I pitched the idea of an online grocery delivery service and got laughed off stage.  Hurt, but convinced of my great genius, I returned the following week to pitch the idea of online movie rentals using the postal service.  I called it NetVideo.  Everyone thought it was absurd.  I used to tell this story to bolster what I thought was my streak of unrecognized, prognosticating technical genius.  These days, I tell the story to remind myself that in the end, only action and execution matter. 好的创意很多。伟大的创意常常会遭受嘲笑，除非你去实现它。不要光说，用行动来证明你的点子。在大学的一门创业课里，我讲了一个网上租看和邮寄电影光碟的点子，我当时把它起名叫“NetVideo”，所有人都觉得很荒唐。以前我讲这个故事是为了炫耀我当时多么有远见（指后来用相同点子起家的上市公司Netflix），但是现在我讲这个故事是想告诉你，行动和执行是最重要的。 What’s your final level at Microsoft?  Please don’t say CEO or Technical Fellow – I can almost guarantee you it’s not.  A realistic appraisal helps you aim for the right things, and is also essential to happiness.  A VP once told me that he had already attained the highest position he’d ever reach at Microsoft. It wasn’t false humility.  It wasn’t sour grapes. He was confident in his abilities and ambitious about doing great work.  He was just more grounded and self-aware than many, and thus more content.  Don’t give up or sell out.  Just know yourself. 你在微软最终的职位级别是什么？请不要说 CEO 或科技院士，因为我几乎可以保证你达不到。对自己能力更现实的认识会帮助你更准确找到目标，而且也会让你更加快乐。一位副总裁曾经告诉我, 他已经做到了他在微软能做的最高职位。这不是假谦虚，也不是抱怨。他对自己很自信，而且很有事业心。他只不过是对自己有很清楚的认识，而且懂得满足。不要放弃，也不要出卖自己。但是你要正确认识你自己。 If you only ever implement feedback that you agree with, you probably don’t need the feedback in the first place.  For feedback to be useful, you must at least occasionally consider implementing feedback that you don’t initially agree with.  How else will you discover your blind spots? 如果你只采用你赞同的反馈，那很有可能这些反馈从一开始就不是你需要的。真正有价值的反馈是那些你在一开始并不赞同的反馈。要不然，你怎么去发现你的盲点？