创业与商业sivers.org
授权，否则累死：自雇者的陷阱
Delegate or die: the self-employed trap
2011 — 2012，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
Derek Sivers 的这篇文章讲自雇者和小企业主常掉进的陷阱：如果凡事亲力亲为、不肯授权，业务就会把你牢牢绑住，你反而比打工时更不自由。文章主张通过授权、建立流程和培养能独立做决定的人，让自己从日常运营中脱身。
为什么经久不衰：每个创业者、自由职业者或小团队负责人都可能陷入“越做越忙”的困境，而文中关于授权、系统化和避免成为公司瓶颈的教训多年后依然适用。
HN 评论精选
授权真正的难点是找到可信任的人，而非授权理念本身；作者已有能干团队，所以他的经验可能偏乐观。
不过说实话，你其实已经把98%的授权问题解决了。最大的障碍并不是告诉员工“这是我们的理念，我相信你们会按此做决定”，而是真正找到你能信任的人。听起来你早就有一支能干、有技能的团队，你只是一直在微观管理他们，然后意识到他们足够能干、可以自己做决定，就放手了。跟真正找到这样的人相比，这不算什么（至少对我来说）。
StavrosK查看英文原文
To be honest, though, you already had 98% of the delegation problem solved. The biggest hurdle isn't telling employees "here's what we stand for, I trust you to make decisions according to our philosophy". The biggest hurdle is to actually find people you can trust with it. It sounds like you already had a team of competent, skilled people whom you just micromanaged, and then realised they were competent enough to act on their own and let them. This is trivial compared to actually finding such people (at least for me, I guess).
自雇却不授权反而比打工更不自由，个人成为公司瓶颈，一旦个人垮掉整个公司也会垮掉。
我从以前一家公司雇主那里学到这一点。我们当地的一个承包商表面上做得很好，我猜他赚了很多钱，但当他想去度假时，却因为必须亲自履行的客户义务而八个多月都走不开。看到这个，再想想以自由之名自雇、却把自己的生意经营得几乎在各方面都比普通“给人打工”更被困住，这种徒劳，我决定在自己的生意中一有机会就积极授权。如果你从没时间享受，有数百万美元又有什么意义？而且，一家过度依赖某个人的公司永远无法超越那个人的能力上限；他成了一个瓶颈，拖慢（通常完全停止）整个公司的增长。几年后当他终于撑不住时，整个公司也会跟他一起垮掉。我很高兴 Derek 在一切崩溃前发现了这一点；很多企业主没有。
cookiecaper查看英文原文
I learned about this at one of my old corporate employers. One of our local contractors was ostensibly doing very well, and I presume he was making a lot of money, but when he wanted to go on vacation, he couldn't leave for over eight months because of his obligations that he had to personally fulfill for clients. Seeing this and thinking about the futility of being self-employed in the name of freedom but running your business such that you are more trapped than a normal "working-for-the-man job" in almost every sense, I decided I would always delegate aggressively when I had the opportunity to do so in my own businesses. What's the point in having millions of dollars if you have never the time to enjoy any of it? Also, a company that is overly dependent on one individual is unable to ever exceed the capacity of that individual; he becomes a bottleneck that slows (usually to a complete stop) the growth of the whole company. In a few years when he finally cracks, the whole thing goes down with him. I'm glad Derek found this out before it all collapsed; many business owners don't.
用文档化流程和明确的授权规则把重复工作系统化，让企业不依赖个人记忆和亲力亲为。
我几个比较精明的（小型）软件公司朋友用这套系统：1）公司有一份给所有人的入职 Google 文档，按标题分组。比如“常见客服问题”下面写：查询：客户抱怨无法登录软件。常见说法：X、Y、Z。处理：去仪表盘第 X 页（内部工具中有详细说明），搜索……如果找到客户，用密码重置工具，然后复制粘贴以下回复给客户，如果能合理猜出名字就加上。如果工具没有结果，把邮件转发到 foo@bar.com，不要回复。2）每当老板对某一类邮件感到厌烦，就改进内部工具或业务规则，把自己从那个工作流中优化出去。3）通常有一条兜底规则：“如果你遇到新情况，认为 100 美元以内能处理，就自己处理（参见：获取公司卡权限），并在每周报告的 Google 文档中填写为什么情况新、你怎么处理、花了多少钱。别担心，我们信任你的判断。”（这大概是 Tim Ferriss 给过的最好的可操作建议之一。）4）把这个状态机记录成 Google 文档，意味着企业拥有比单个员工更长的记忆，这在虚拟公司情境中尤其重要。
patio11查看英文原文
A few of my savvier (small-ish) software buddies use this system: 1) We have an onboarding Google Doc for everyone at the company. It is grouped into headings. One heading might be, e.g., "Common Customer Support Questions" followed by "Query: A customer complains they can't log into the software. Common phrasings for this: X, Y, Z." Research: "Go to page X in the dashboard [detailed in Internal Tools]. Search for... . If you find the customer, use the password reset tool, then copy/paste the following response to the customer, adding in their first name if you can reasonably guess it. If the tool reports no results, forward email to foo@bar.com and send no response." 2) Every time the proprietor gets tired of a genre of emails, they improve either the internal tools or the business rules to optimize themselves out of that workflow. 3) There is frequently a catch-all rule saying something like "If you have a novel situation and think you can handle it for under $100, do so [see: Getting Access To A Company Card], and fill in why the situation was novel, how you handled it, and what you spent on your weekly report Google doc. Don't worry, we trust you to use your judgement." (This is probably among the best pieces of actionable advice Tim Ferris ever gave.) 4) Capturing this state machine as a Google doc means the business has a memory longer than the individual workers, which is particularly important in a virtual-company sort of situation where you're dealing with VAs/freelancers who a) will often not pan out and b) when they do pan out have an expected lifetime tenure with the company of 6 ~ 24 months only.
授权要平衡，完全放手不管会让公司濒临崩溃，领导者仍需承担领导责任。
这里需要取得微妙的平衡。如果你读过 Derek 更多（很精彩的）文章，就会知道他那套完全撒手不管的风格曾让公司几乎崩溃。这样授权是很好的一步，但领导者的责任是领导，而不是躲起来。
casca查看英文原文
There is a fine balance to be achieved here. If you've read more of Derek's (excellent) posts, you'll know that his complete hands-off style led to the company almost collapsing. Delegating like this is a great step, but a leader's responsibility is to lead, not hide away.
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