Unit 19 How to Keep Your Most Talented People
第19篇 如何留住你的最优秀人才
In 1943, social scientist Abraham Maslow outlined a pyramid that showed what he called the human being's "hierarchy of needs."
1943年,社会学家亚伯拉罕·马斯洛提出了金字塔式的人类需求层次理论。
People start with a desire for basic physiological needs: food, clothing,shelter-that's the bottom of the pyramid. Once they've achieved those,they seek safety, and then social interaction and love, and then self-esteem. Finally, at the top of the pyramid, is what Maslow called "selfactualization" -the need to fulfill one's self, and become all that one is capable of becoming.
人们从基本的生理需求吃、穿、住开始,这些位于金字塔的最底端。一旦他们实现了这些,他们就会寻求安全,然后是社交和爱,接下来是自我尊重。最后,在金字塔的顶端,是马斯洛所说的自我实现,即实现自我,发挥自己所有潜能的需求。
In the early days of the study of management, Frederick Taylor wrote that what workers most want is high wages-which would help them fulfill their basic physiological needs. But it's fair to say today, most workers-and particularly your best workers-have made their way to the top of Maslow's pyramid.
在管理研究的初期,弗里德里克·泰勒曾写道,工人们最想得到的是高工资,这有助于他们满足基本的生理需求。但公平地说,如今的大多数工人,尤其是最优秀的工人已经走向了马斯洛金字塔的顶端。
"Making a living is no longer enough," wrote management guru Peter Drucker. "Work also has to make a life." If you want to keep good people, their work needs to provide them with meaning-a sense they are doing something important,that they are fulfilling their destiny. At the end of the day, these psychological needs are likely to be as important, and perhaps more important, than the salary you pay.
管理学大师彼得·德鲁克说,生存已经不够了,工作也是为了生活。如果你想留住人才,他们的工作需要让他们感到有意义,一种他们在从事重要的工作、实现自己使命的感觉。总有一天,这些心理需求可能会同你支付的工资同样重要,甚至更加重要。
To keep your best people, then, you need to make sure they are Personally committed to the goals of the organization, and that they feel those goals are worth achieving. And you need to make certain they feel they are playing a suitably significant role in reaching those goals.
为了留住人才,你需要确保他们个人致力于组织目标的实现,并让他们觉得这些目标值得他们去实现。你需要确定,他们感觉在实现组织目标的过程中扮演着恰如其分的重要角色。
That's a complex management challenge, not easily summed up in a few simple rules or guidelines. One good description of the complex social and psychological elements that go into creating a satisfying workplace is in Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Soul of a New Machine. Mr. Kidder skillfully records the human drama, and, ultimately, the magic that motivated a team of engineers at Data General Corp. in the 1970s to develop a new generation of computer.
这是管理上的一项复杂挑战,难以概括成几条简单的标准或规则。特雷西·基德的《新机器的灵魂))-书描写了创建一个令人满意的工作场所所涉及的复杂的社会和心理因素。此书获得了普利策奖。基德先生很好地记录了人类的这些因素,这也是上世纪70年代最终激励了 Data General Corp一个工程师团队开发出新一代电脑的魔力。
The Data General team worked with little formal encouragement from the company's top management. But they came to believe in what they were doing. At the end of his book, Mr. Kidder compares the people on the team to the stonemasons who bui1t the great cathedrals.
Data General Corp.的工程师团队从公司的最高层没有获得过什么正式的鼓励。不过他们却坚信自己所做的事情。基德在书的最后,将小组中的工程师比作修建了大教堂的石匠。
"They were building temples to God. It was the sort of work that gave meaning to life. That's what team leader Tom West and his team of engineers were looking for, I think. They themselves liked to say they didn't work on their machine for money.In the aftermath, some of them felt that they were receiving neither the loot nor the recognition they had earned, and some said they were a little bitter on that score. But when they talked about the project itself, their enthusiasm returned. It lit up their faces. Many seemed to want to say that they had participated in something quite out of the ordinary."
他们是在建造向上帝致意的教堂。这是一种赋予生活意义的工作。我想,这正是组长汤姆·维斯特和他的工程师团队在寻找的。他们喜欢说自己并不是为了钱才开发电脑的。成功之后,一些人觉得自己既没有得到钱也没有得到应得的认可。有些人说,他们对此感到有些痛心。不过当谈到项目本身时,他们的热情就又回来了。热情点亮了他们的脸庞。很多人看起来想说,他们曾经参与了一项非凡的事业。
That is the magic of managing talented people.
这就是管理人才的秘诀。