明星员工就该获得明星待遇吗？（上）

How vital are your vital few? In any team or organization, a small number of individuals will account for a substantial amount of collective output. These “stars” are able to systematically outperform the majority of their peers and confirm the well-established Pareto effect whereby 80% of collective output can be attributed to 20% of the people in a group, or even fewer.

在你的公司里，那些重要的少数人有多重要？在任何团队或组织中，一小部分个人将占集体产出的很大一部分。这些“明星”能够系统地超越他们的大多数同行，并证实了帕累托效应，即80%的集体产出可以归因于一个群体中20%的人，甚至更少。

Contrary to popular belief, there are universal traits that predict whether individuals will be part of an organization’s vital few, such as their higher levels of intelligence, work ethic, and social skills. In other words, people who are smart, nice, and hard-working tend to outperform their peers. They also learn faster and are more likely to adapt to new demands, which means they have higher levels of potential even for jobs they have not done in the past.

与普遍的看法相反，有一些普遍的特质可以预测个人是否会成为组织中少数重要成员的一部分，比如他们的智力、职业道德和社会技能。换句话说，聪明、善良、勤奋的人往往比他们的同龄人表现更好。他们也学得更快，更有可能适应新的需求，这意味着他们有更高水平的潜力，即使是他们过去没有做过的工作。

Because of this, stars are more likely to be in demand than their peers, so they will be approached by recruiters and rival organizations, who will try to entice them with better job offers and career opportunities. As McKinsey predicted 20-years ago, there is a War for Talent, and, in the age of human capital, a company’s stars are the commodities being fought for. This is particularly critical in high-complexity jobs, where the average output difference between average and star employees is 800% (as opposed to 50% in low-complexity jobs).

正因为如此，明星们比他们的同龄人更有可能成为抢手货，所以招聘人员和竞争对手会联系他们，他们会试图用更好的工作机会和职业机会来吸引他们。正如麦肯锡20年前预测的那样，人才争夺战正在打响，在人力资本时代，公司的明星是人们争夺的商品。这在高复杂度的工作中尤为关键，在高复杂度的工作中，普通员工和明星员工的平均产出差是800%（相比之下，低复杂度工作的平均产出差是50%）。

So, what can you do to keep your star performers motivated? Since engagement is a critical driver of performance, minimizing the gap between what your stars can do and actually do will be vital to achieving the highest level of collective output. Here are a few data-driven suggestions:

那么，你能做些什么来激励你的明星员工呢？由于敬业度是绩效的一个关键驱动因素，因此尽量缩小明星们能够做什么，和实际做什么之间的差距对于实现最高水平的集体产出至关重要。以下是一些数据驱动的建议：

1. Know who they actually are:

This may sound obvious, but since most organizations rely on subjective ratings of managers to identify their star performers, false positives are the norm. Unfortunately, this unreliable methodology turns the pivotal exercise of internal talent identification into a popularity contest whereby politically astute employees who manage up and take credit for others’ achievements are more likely to emerge as high potentials — though they more faux po’s than hipo’s. Consider that a seminal meta-analysis on the main predictors of career success identified that political skills are the strongest predictor. As I argue in my forthcoming book, this is one of the reasons why men are more likely to emerge as leaders, even when they are incompetent. In order to ensure that you know who your star performers really are, you should: (a) put in place reliable quantitative performance indicators to compare people’s relative contribution to the team’s performance; (b) use valid psychological assessments to identify their potential (beyond their past performance); and (c) pay attention to your employees’ reputations, particularly what their peers and colleagues think of them (you can’t fool all people all the time). And remember: some people will always get annoyed when they find out they are not regarded as stars, but fair rules and transparent criteria will significantly reduce the number of complainers.

这听起来似乎很明显，但由于大多数组织依赖于管理者的主观评价来确定他们的明星员工，错觉也是常态。不幸的是，这种不可靠的方法将内部人才鉴定的关键实践变成了一场人气竞赛，在这场竞赛中，管理得当、为他人成就争光的政治精明员工更有可能脱颖而出，尽管他们比高潜力人才更假。考虑到一项关于职业成功主要预测因素的开创性荟萃分析发现，政治技能是最强有力的预测因素。正如我在即将出版的新书中所言，这也是为什么男性更有可能成为领导者的原因之一，即使他们不称职。为了确保你知道你的明星员工到底是谁，你应该：（1）建立可靠的量化绩效指标来比较人们对团队绩效的相对贡献；（2）使用有效的心理评估来确定他们的潜力（超越过去的表现）；（3）注意员工的声誉，特别是他们的同事和同事对他们的看法（你不能总是愚弄所有人）。记住：有些人发现自己不被视为明星时总是会生气，但公平的规则和透明的标准会大大减少抱怨者的数量。

2. Let them know that you know they’re valuable:

Although many organizations refrain from telling their stars that they are stars, there are several problems with this approach. First, if your concern is that by telling your stars that you consider them stars they will become entitled, then you should note that true stars have the capacity to remain motivated and humble even after their contribution to the firm is acknowledged. In other words, if their performance decreases because you told them, then they were not real stars (and you will not lose too much if they go). Second, fairness is not treating everyone the same, but treating them as they deserve to be treated: if you make your stars feel that they are just like everyone else, they will feel unfairly treated, and rightly so. Third, no matter how much potential people have, they will need to be developed in order to live up to it. This means investing in them, and since you cannot invest in every single employee — and investing in your stars will produce the biggest ROI — you will probably want to tell them that they are worthy of investment. And if you are worried about the risk that they might leave after you invest in them, remember that, as Henry Ford noted, “the only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.”

虽然许多组织不愿告诉他们是明星员工的事实，但这种方法存在几个问题。首先，如果你关心的是，通过告诉你的明星员工们，你认为他们会有资格成为明星员工，那么你应该注意到，真正的明星员工有能力保持积极性和谦逊，即使他们对公司的贡献已经得到认可。换句话说，如果他们的表现因为你告诉他们而下降，那么他们就不是真正的明星（如果他们走了，你也不会损失太多）。第二，公平不是对每个人都一视同仁，而是按照他们应该得到的待遇对待他们：如果你让你的明星元觉得他们和其他人一样，他们会觉得自己受到了不公平的对待，而且这样做是正确的。第三，无论人们有多少潜力，他们将需要发展以达到它。这意味着对他们进行投资，既然你不可能对每一个员工都进行投资——而对你的明星员工进行投资会产生最大的投资回报率——你可能会想告诉他们，他们值得投资。如果你担心他们可能在你投资后离开，请记住，正如Henry Ford所指出的，“唯一比培训员工、让他们离开更糟糕的事情，就是不培训他们，让他们留下来。”

点此阅读：明星员工就该获得明星待遇吗？（下）