TED- 分布式工作如何释放你的潜力？

摘要：In fact, I've never been the first, second or even third to offer my opinion.

Like many of you, I am an introvert.

我和你们许多人一样，是个内向的人。

And I know it sounds ironic because I'm the chief people officer of a large tech company.

我知道这听起来很讽刺，因为我是一家大型科技公司的首席人事官。

But I've never been the loudest in the room.

但我从来都不是房间里声音最响亮的那个。

In fact, I've never been the first, second or even third to offer my opinion.

事实上，我从来都不是第一个、第二个、甚至第三个表达观点的人。

I've always listened more than I speak.

比起表达，我更常倾听。

And in a world where most dominant voices are often seen as leaders, I've had an uphill battle at work.

在这个主导话语权的人经常被看作领导者的世界，我艰苦地奋斗。

Until distributed work changed my life and many others.

直到分布式办公改变了我和其他许多人的生活。

I have always had what I call a grinder's mentality, and it was shaped early on in my life.

我一直有我所谓的百炼成钢思想，这是在我早年养成的。

I was born in a tier-two city called Indore in India, a country that still favors boys.

我出生在印度一个叫印多尔的二线城市，印度至今偏爱男孩。

I was the youngest of three sisters.

我是三个姐妹中最小的一个。

But my parents were very progressive and they expected me to excel both at sports and academics.

但是我的父母非常进步开明，他们希望我在体育和学术方面都能出类拔萃。

Hindi is my first language, not English.

我的第一语言是印地语，不是英语。

And for those where English is not your first language, you may understand that it's one thing to be fluent at English and it's another to argue your point in it.

对于那些母语不是英语的人来说，你应该能理解说一口流利的英语是一回事，而用英语为自己的观点争辩是另一回事。

Well, with all of that prep, when I joined the workforce, it got further amplified because corporate environments expect you to show up in a certain way.

尽管有所准备，当我入职时这种现象更显著了，因为企业环境期待你以某种方式展现自己。

For you to be successful, you have to be articulate, you have to be the first one to speak, you should be able to hold the space in the room and the list goes on.

要想取得成功，你必须能说会道，你必须是第一个发言的人，你要能控场......这样的例子不胜枚举。

Well, I was putting a lot of energy in showing up in a certain way, and it was really affecting my life outside of work.

我在展示自己这方面花了不少精力，这也确实影响了我的工作之余的生活。

I would come home exhausted and all I could think of was how quickly can I retreat to my room for the night?

我回家时筋疲力尽，我唯一能想到的就是，我什么时候才能回家休息？

Well, 2020, fast forward, as we all know, we became remote workers overnight.

快进到 2020 年，众所周知，我们一夜之间变成了远程工作者。

And the future of work was here.

而工作的未来就在这里。

Since that day, my company went fully distributed, meaning every single employee could choose every single day where they work from.

从那天起，我的公司实现了全员分布式办公，这意味着每位员工每天都可以选择他们的工作地点。

We have over 12,000 employees working across 3,000 cities and locations in 14 countries.

我们拥有超过 12,000 名员工在 14 个国家的 3,000 个城市和地点工作。

But we are not a remote company.

但是我们不是一家远程公司。

We are distributed.

我们是分布式的。

We have over 12 physical offices which many of our employees choose to work from.

我们有超过 12 个实体办公室，我们的许多员工选择在这些办公室工作。

But there is no return to office mandate, no compulsory days, just choice.

但是我们不强制让员工返回办公室，没有强制的日期，只有员工自己的选择。

We moved to team anywhere and when we were doing that, we had to really get focused in terms of how we work, because where we work is one variable of the equation, but how we work is the most important variable.

我们转为不限地域的团队工作，而这么做的时候，我们必须专注于如何工作，因为在哪儿工作仅仅是公式中的变量之一，而如何工作才是最重要的那个变量。

And there is a spoiler alert for all of you, that we had to get really, really good at collaborating.

这里先给大家剧透一下，我们必须非常非常擅于合作。

First, we had to move to asynchronous ways of working, meaning work happens in its own time.

首先，我们必须转变为异步工作，这就是说在各自的时间工作

So meetings are not the default.

因此，开会不再是必经环节。

Meetings are the last resort.

不到万不得已不用开会。

We use tools such as Loom, which allows you to create shareable videos and content which your teams can listen to, look at it and react to in their own time.

我们使用诸如 Loom 之类的工具，它允许您创建可共享的视频或内容，您的团队可以在有空时收听、查看并做出反应。

By using Loom, we have saved one of the dreaded thoughts, which I'm sure some of us might have experienced sitting in a meeting, which is "Oh my God, this could have been an email." Like, "Why we're here?" By using Loom, we have saved close to about half a million meetings.

通过使用 Loom，我们避免了一个可怕的想法，我们当中肯定有些人在开会时遇到过，“天啊，一封邮件就能说清的事儿。”“我们为什么在这儿开会啊？”通过使用 Loom，我们避免了近 50 万次会议。

Second thing we had to focus on was we got really deliberate about how we design our workday.

我们需要关注的第二件事就是我们在制定工作日安排的时候要很慎重。

Today, 65 percent of knowledge workers think that it's more important to respond to a notification rather than moving actual work forward.

如今，65% 的脑力劳动者觉得响应一条通知比推进实际工作更为重要。

So we get our teams to really design their day, which is divided in three halves.

因此，我们让我们的团队去真的设计他们的一天，把一天分为三份。

One designated time for meeting.

一份是会议专用时间。

There is designated work block to only do deep work and focused work, and then there is allocated time to do project work with your teams.

一个指定的工作时段用于深度工作和专注工作，还有一份和你的团队一起完成项目

We've also realized that working across time zones can be a real challenge for global companies, so we make sure that the work is not divided beyond two time zones to make sure there is four hours of collaboration time between teams.

我们还发现跨时区工作对跨国公司来说可能是一项真正的挑战，所以我们要确保工作不会被划分到两个时区，要保证团队之间有四个小时的协作时间。

The third most important aspect is how do you build real connection in a distributed world.

第三个重要因素就是是如何在分布式的时代建立真正的链接。

And let me tell you, there is a myth that you build connection by sporadic office attendance.

我来告诉你，有一个误区，就是你能通过零星的办公室出勤来建立链接。

Like, you sitting with your mate next to each other, staring at your laptop, you're not building any connection.

比如，你和同事排排坐，盯着笔记本电脑，你没法建立任何链接。

What we found out is that you build real connection when you bring teams together to work on a problem or on a strategy, ideate new things, but bring them together for a reason.

我们发现真正能建立链接的方式是当你召集团队共同研究问题或制定策略构思新事物，而不是强行把他们凑到一起

That's when you build intentional togetherness.

因为那是刻意地建立团结。

I also get asked, "So have you seen any drop in productivity?" And my answer is no.

我还被问到：“那么你看到生产率下降了吗？”我的答案是否定的。

Ninety-two percent of our employees say that they are doing [the] best work of their lives, and one-third of them have seen improvement in focus.

92% 的员工说他们正在做一生中最好的工作，三分之一的人发现自己的注意力有所改善。

Well, working this way, for me personally, it really unlocked my potential almost immediately.

而这种方式工作，就我个人而言，几乎是立即就释放了我的潜力。

We often argue that smart people think on their feet, and of course, many do.

我们经常说，聪明的人会急中生智，随机应变当然，很多人是这样的。

But there are lots of super smart introverts who show their intelligence differently.

但是也有很多超级聪明的内向者会用不同的方式表现自己的才智。

That has been my experience.

以上是我的经验。

I fundamentally believe that I've been able to accelerate my career faster in a distributed world.

我深信分布式的时代能更快地推进我的职业发展。

It has leveled the playing field for me and created an environment where career growth was location-agnostic.

它为我创造了公平的竞争环境，创造了一个不受地点限制的职业发展环境。

Today, the talent is not defined by whether you live close to an office or a city.

现如今，界定人才的标准不再是你住在办公室附近还是城市附近。

You can be living in Atlanta or Albuquerque, and you can find the best talent in any of those locations.

你可以住在亚特兰大或阿尔伯克基，你可以在任何地方找到最优秀的人才。

So there are lots of benefits I can go on about distributed work.

关于分布式工作的优点我还能继续说很多。

Other thing I would like to say is, you know, when we reduce the future of work to a conversation or an argument between working from office and working from, you know, home, we are thinking too small.

还有一件我想说的是，当我们把工作的未来降级为讨论或争论在办公室办公和居家办公的时候，我们的格局就太小了。

Sweeping mandates of return to work is a very easy and a safe option.

全面返岗返工是一个非常简单且安全的选择。

And a lot of organizations use it for whatever various reasons.

很多公司出于各种各样的原因都在这么做。

But having worked in the people's space, I can tell you, when you give people the choice of when and where they work, you are giving them the key to accelerate their full potential.

但是在和人打交道的环境里工作，我可以告诉你，当你让人们选择工作时间和地点时，你是在为他们提供充分发挥潜力的钥匙。

For me, that is the future of work.

对我来说，这就是工作的未来。

Where we stop focusing on when and where the work gets done and start focusing on the how.

我们不再关注工作被完成的时间和地点，而开始专注于如何完成工作。

A world where work works for everyone.

一个人人好办公的世界。

Thank you.

谢谢。

Thank you so much for that, Avani.

非常感谢你的演讲，阿瓦尼。

Stay with me for a minute.

请稍等片刻。

Before you leave us, I just want to ask a question.

在你下场前，我想问一个问题。

You know, you make a compelling case for distributed-first teams.

你为分布式优先团队提供了一个很可信的案例。

How do you approach mentorship in a distributed workforce?

那么你是如何在分布式环境中推行导师制的呢？

So like I said, when you make the choice, you have to build a lot of enablement in the organizations in order to do that.

像我刚才说的那样，当你做选择的时候，你必须先在企业里建立强大的支持才能做到这一点。

Which means starting from entire life cycle of onboarding.

这意味着从入职的整个周期就要开始。

So what we experienced, based on where you are in your career and your journey, if you're a new grad or if you're a new hire, you need more curated in-person experience to build that enablement upfront.

所以我们希望以你在你职业生涯和旅程的位置作为基础，无论你是应届毕业生还是新员工，你都需要更多精心规划的面对面的交谈来提前建立这种支持。

When it comes to the leaders, it's a very different skill to have a performance conversation in person versus having it remote.

而对于领导者面对面的绩效谈话和远程的谈话是截然不同的。

So you have to really switch your entire L and D muscle to build around that.

所以你必须让所有掌管学习和发展的细胞都围绕着它来进行转换。

We also have seen that having bite-sized learning is much better.

我们还发现把知识掰开揉碎地学习会更好。

You absorb better in a distributed fashion rather than sitting against like, you know, online training and going through it.

你可以通过分布式的方式更好地吸收知识，而不是就坐在那里接受在线培训并经历一切。

So there are various ways.

所以有很多的方法。

Fantastic.

太棒了。

Well, if we've got people in organizations that may be considering a move to a distributed-first working model, if they're concerned about the impacts on culture, what advice would you give those folks?

那么，如果我们的企业里有人正在考虑转变为分布式优先的工作模式，但他们担心对企业文化产生影响你有什么建议可以给他们吗？

I would say, when you're thinking about culture, and based on, you know, how distributed and how global your organization is, you have to get really nuanced about it.

我想说的是，当你考虑企业文化时基于你们企业分布式程度以及全球化程度的不同你必须专注每一个细节。

So one size will not fit all.

没有放之四海而皆准的方法。

You have to cater to different cultures where probably coming together for a different reason makes more sense to build some connection.

你必须迎合不同的文化，这些不同的文化背景的人出于不同的原因汇聚到一起并且建立了连接。

So it has to be very, very nuanced when you're thinking about culture.

所以当你考虑企业文化时，必须注重细枝末节。

And you also have to anchor yourself to two or three values, which you believe in as a company, because that will help you make some decisions.

而且，作为一家公司，你还必须坚守两到三个价值观，这将有助于你做出一些决定。

Those will be your guiding principles on this journey.

这些将是你在这段旅程中的指导原则。

Fantastic, thank you so much.