《向前一步》作者:谢丽尔·桑德伯格_第33頁
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my
spreadsheet with his hand and told me not to be an idiot (also a great piece of advice). Then he
explained that only one criterion mattered when picking a job—fast growth. When companies grow
quickly, there are more things to do than there are people to do them. When companies grow more
slowly or stop growing, there is less to do and too many people to not be doing them. Politics and
stagnation set in, and everyone falters. He told me, “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t
ask what seat. You just get on.” I made up my mind that instant. Google was tiny and disorganized,
but it was a rocket ship. And even more important to me, it was a rocket ship with a mission I believed
in deeply.

Over the years, I have repeated Eric’s advice to countless people, encouraging them to reduce their
career spreadsheets to one column: potential for growth. Of course, not everyone has the opportunity
or the desire to work in an industry like high tech. But within any field, there are jobs that have more
potential for growth than others. Those in more established industries can look for the rocket ships
within their companies—divisions or teams that are expanding. And in careers like teaching or
medicine, the corollary is to seek out positions where there is high demand for those skills. For
example, in my brother’s field of pediatric neurosurgery, there are some cities with too many
physicians, while others have too few. My brother has always elected to work where his expertise
would be in demand so he can have the greatest impact.

Just as I believe everyone should have a long-term dream, I also believe everyone should have an
eighteen-month plan. (I say eighteen months because two years seems too long and one year seems
too short, but it does not have to be any exact amount of time.) Typically, my eighteen-month plan
sets goals on two fronts. First and most important, I set targets for what my team can accomplish.

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Employees who concentrate on results and impact are the most valuable—like Lori, who wisely
focused on solving Facebook’s recruiting problem before focusing on herself. This is not just thinking
communally—the expected and often smart choice for a woman—but simply good business.

Second, I try to set more personal goals for learning new skills in the next eighteen months. It’s
often painful, but I ask myself, “How can I improve?” If I am afraid to do something, it is usually
because I am not good at it or perhaps am too scared even to try. After working at Google for more ▓▓網▓文▓檔▓下▓載▓與▓在▓線▓閱▓讀▓
than four years, managing well over half of the company’s revenues, I was embarrassed to admit that I
had never negotiated a business deal. Not one. So I gathered my courage and came clean to my boss,
Omid Kordestani, then head of sales and business development. Omid was willing to give me a chance
to run a small deal team. In the very first deal I attempted, I almost botched the whole thing by making
an offer to our potential partner before fully understanding their business. Fortunately, my team
included a talented negotiator, Shailesh Rao, who stepped in to teach me the obvious: letting the other
side make the first offer is often crucial to achieving favorable terms.

Everyone has room to improve. Most people have a style in the workplace that overshoots in one
direction—too aggressive or too passive, too talkative or too shy. In that first deal, I said too much.
This was not a shock to anyone who knows me. Once I identified this weakness, I sought help to
correct it. I turned to Maureen Taylor, a communications coach, who gave me an assignment. She told
me that for one
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