[2021-05-22]成为勇敢的领导者意味着什么？问问微软的凯特·约翰逊

Kate Johnson, president of Microsoft U.S., leads a $45 billion solutions and services 10,000-person field team to pursue the company’s mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more by focusing on driving transformation.

微软美国公司的总裁凯特•约翰逊带领着一个万人团队，年销售450亿美元的解决方案和服务，致力于实现公司使命：专注于推动转型，让全球每个人和组织都能取得更大成就。

As a 20+ year business technology veteran, Johnson’s career trajectory includes serving as chief commercial officer of GE Digital, and business transformation roles at Oracle, Red Hat, and UBS Investment Bank. Johnson is also a leader on diversity and inclusion initiatives and is a delegate to Microsoft’s CEO Inclusion Council, which focuses on driving Microsoft’s internal and external diversity and inclusivity agenda.

作为一名拥有20多年经验的商界精英，约翰逊的职业生涯包括担任通用电气数字业务的首席商务官，以及在甲骨文、红帽和瑞银投资银行负责业务转型。她还是多元化和包容性计划的领导者，也是微软CEO包容性委员会的代表，该委员会致力于推动微软内部和外部的多元化和包容性议程。

Johnson holds an MBA from Wharton and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Lehigh University. She spoke at the recent Women in Data Science Philadelphia conference, hosted by Penn and Wharton, with Mary Purk, executive director of Wharton Customer Analytics and AI for Business.

约翰逊拥有利海大学电气工程学士学位和沃顿的MBA学位。最近在宾大和沃顿于费城主办的“数据科学中的女性”大会上，她和“沃顿客户分析和商业人工智能研究中心”的执行董事玛丽·珀克共同探讨了有关话题。

Mary Purk: Kate, can you tell us about your career journey as a start for our conversation?

玛丽·珀克：凯特，作为我们谈话的开始，能概述一下你的职业生涯吗？

Kate Johnson: I started with an education in electrical engineering, but after about 11 seconds in a lab doing the work that I had studied to do, I realized that maybe EE was not a good fit for me — both personality-wise and capability-wise. I was probably better on the people side, connecting people to technology rather than building the technology itself. So, I went into selling it and focused on trying to help tech companies grow.

凯特·约翰逊：我在大学里学习的是电气工程，但在实验室里做了11秒钟实验后，我意识到也许电气工程不适合我——无论是从个性还是能力方面。我可能在人的方面做得更好，比如将人与技术联系起来，而不是构建技术本身。所以，后来我开始销售技术方案，专注于帮助科技公司成长。

I realized that I needed an MBA to give me the foundation and the fundamentals that I lacked with my engineering degree. I just fell in love with the business side and went into consulting, where I got a chance to sample many different industries, technologies, and business problems. It was an incredible opportunity and I went on to be a CIO of an investment banking division, and from there went to the technology side, where I sold technology to CIOs. I played both a buyer and a seller role.

我意识到需要一个MBA来学习在工程学中学不到的基本原理和基础。我爱上了商业领域，进入了咨询行业，在那里我有机会体验许多不同的行业、技术和商业问题。这是一个令人难以置信的机会，我后来成了一家投资银行部门的首席信息官，从那里我进入了技术领域，把技术卖给了首席信息官。我同时扮演过买家和卖家的角色。

Throughout my career, I have had three big takeaways. The first is that my story starts with my thinking I knew what I wanted to do, though I did not. Many people think they know what they want to do, and it’s spot-on, and it’s a lifelong passion. Those people are lucky because they can focus. For those of us who do not necessarily know, or we think we do, and we are wrong, I am living proof that it’s okay. The pivot becomes part of the journey.

在我的职业生涯中，我有三个重要的收获。首先，在大学时，我以为知道自己想做什么，但其实我并不知道。许多人知道自己想做什么，而且正在体验，还能保持长久的激情。那些人很幸运，因为他们能心无旁骛。对于不一定知道，或者自以为知道，后来却错了的人，我就是一个例证。这也没什么。这种旋转和迂回也是人生旅程的一部分。

“Every day you need to open the door for the next experience, rather than approaching life thinking that you know the answers.”

“每天你都需要为下一次的经历敞开大门，而不是以为自己知道答案。”

The second lesson is, I never immersed in one function or industry. I went across the top, which gave me a meta-layer of learning. That was extremely important to my discovery that what I love the most, and the thing I was probably best at, was managing and leading change. I love to study it, be a part of it, create it, instigate it, and lead it. I do not think I ever would have figured that out had I taken the more traditional route.

第二个体会是，我从来没有沉浸在一个功能或行业。我越过顶端，这给了我一个学习的元层。这给了我极好的机会，发现自己最喜欢、最擅长的是管理和领导变革。我喜欢研究它，成为它的一部分，创造它，鼓动它，领导它。如果我走更传统的职业路线，可能我永远也不会发现这一点。

And third, the most important lesson is that in anything you do, you must believe you are worthy and able, and you are the one who can get it done. I have had amazing educational and professional experiences. But the most impactful learning experience — and the most defining element of who I am as a human being — came from my role as a mom for my child who needed help in the classroom [because of] learning disabilities. The way I was approaching the situation for my son was to compare him to traditional standards of what success looks like. The principal of the school when my son was in fourth grade gave me a book, Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. He said, “Kate, you have to read this because the way you’re measuring success is all wrong.”

第三，最重要的一课是，无论你做什么，你都必须相信自己是有价值的，有能力的，而且你是能够完成任务的人。我有过令人羡慕的教育和职业经历。但是，最有影响的学习经历——也是我作为一个人的最重要因素——来自于我作为母亲的角色。我的孩子在课堂上需要帮助，因为他有学习障碍。我曾经将他与传统的成功标准进行比较。我儿子四年级时，他所在学校的校长给了我一本书：卡罗尔·德韦克写的《观念：成功的新心理学》。他说：“凯特，你必须读它，因为你衡量成功的方式是完全错误的。”

After reading the book, I discovered how to navigate the classroom with a child who was not necessarily a perfect fit for the standard way of learning. More importantly, it showed me how I could be a better mom, sister, friend, wife, daughter, and professional. It taught me that you can learn or do anything if you are willing to commit to practicing. You must keep an open mind to new ways of doing things. Every day you need to open the door for the next experience, rather than approaching life thinking that you know the answers.

读完这本书后，我发现了如何与一个不完全适合标准学习模式的孩子度过教室时光。更重要的是，它向我展示了我如何成为一个更好的母亲、姐妹、朋友、妻子、女儿和专业人士。它教会了我，如果你愿意实践，你可以学习或做任何事情。你必须对新的做事方式保持开放的心态。每天你都需要为下一次的经历敞开大门，而不是以为你知道答案。

That was fundamental to how I started thinking about my roles at work. It is certainly fundamental to how I think about my role of leading Microsoft’s change in the commercial world, to figure out how to go from selling legacy brand products to being the number one player in the cloud. I am a firm believer that it does not matter who you are, what you’ve studied, or what you want to do. The world is there for you if you are willing to commit the time and the work.

这是我开始思考自己在工作中角色的基础。对于我如何看待自己在商业世界引领微软变革的角色，如何从销售传统品牌产品转变为云中的头号玩家，这无疑是至关重要的。你是谁，学过什么，想做什么都不重要。如果你愿意投入时间和工作，世界就在那里等着你。

Purk: Thank you for sharing that journey. One of the biggest challenges we face today is the role of technology in inclusion. How is Microsoft approaching and planning for that?

珀克：谢谢你分享这段旅程。我们今天面临的最大挑战之一是技术在包容性中的作用。微软是如何行动的呢？

Johnson: Just think about the past year. What would life have looked like if we could not have harnessed the power of a remote workforce to continue to push innovation and growth in our economy? We would have been in serious trouble. Technology enabled us to include the brainpower of most of our workforce to keep going. Companies that had not invested in the basic infrastructure to do that had trouble getting back into the game once the pandemic broke. Frankly, some of them will never be able to catch up. Others that had made that investment doubled down. They asked, now that we are fully operational, what else can we do to innovate to keep ahead? We saw years and years of digital transformation happening just in months. That is the first thing.

约翰逊：想想过去的一年。如果我们不能用远程工作的力量继续推动经济创新和增长，生活会是什么样子？科技让大部分的脑力劳动者继续远程工作。那些没有在基础设施上进行投资的公司，一旦疫情爆发，就很难重新投入到游戏中。坦白说，他们中的一些人永远也赶不上。其他人的投资则富有成效。他们在继续追问：既然我们已经可以如此全面运作，我们还能做些什么来创新以保持领先？我们看到投资数年的数字化转型就在这几个月内实现。这是第一件事。

Secondly, technology is our chance at including everybody [in the growth process]. I spoke about my learning experience as a mom because I think it is important for all of us to recognize that my unique experience at home is what helps me with my unique value proposition at work. That role as a mom, in addition to all my other roles, has shaped the way I lead teams. Well, guess what? We need people like me in the workforce to make sure that we shape technology in a way that is inclusive of that mindset.

第二，技术在发展过程中给予了让每个人都参与进来的机会。我谈到了自己作为母亲的学习经历，这个独特的家庭经历也促进了我在工作中形成独特的价值主张，塑造了我领导团队的方式。你猜怎么着？我们需要像我这样的员工来确保我们以一种包容心态来塑造技术的力量。

We also need technology to consider all the needs of people who may not have all the capabilities. For example, what if you are sight impaired or hearing impaired? For so long, you may have been blocked out of participating in the economy in so many different vectors. But now technology offers an opportunity to include you. That is why we must continue to invest in technology accessibility for everybody.

我们还需要技术来考虑残障人士的需求。例如，如果你有视力障碍或听力障碍怎么办？长久以来，你可能一直在各个维层面被阻止参与就业和经济。但现在科技为你提供了机会。这就是为什么我们必须继续为每个人的技术无障碍性投资。

“In order to learn in front of people, you have to be hugely vulnerable. You have to admit that you don’t know something to learn.”

“为了向他人学习，你必须非常脆弱。你得承认你不知道。”

Purk: Could you highlight two or three key goals that Microsoft and you as a leader are focused on as an example of what they might expect to see in their companies?

珀克：你能否举个例子，微软和你目前重点关注的2-3个关键目标？

Johnson: I think what you are asking me is, what is your responsibility in this story, and what is Microsoft’s responsibility? This past year we had an awakening. It was born out of tragedy. While I wish we could have avoided each of those tragedies, what happened was when the world was quiet and we were sheltering in place, George Floyd was murdered, Breonna Taylor was murdered, and Ahmaud Arbery was murdered. Suddenly, we had nowhere to hide or to avoid this notion that we have a massive racism problem in the United States of America.

约翰逊：我猜你问我的是，你在这个领域的责任是什么，微软的责任是什么？去年是觉醒的一年。虽然我希望我们能够避免每一场悲剧，但发生的事情是，当世界安静下来，我们在原地躲避时，乔治·弗洛伊德被谋杀了，布雷纳·泰勒被谋杀了，艾哈迈德·阿尔伯里被谋杀了。突然间，我们无处藏身，也无法否认这样一种认识，即美国存在一个巨大的种族主义问题。

The beauty of the awakening is that it gives us this moment in time where we can use that awareness to improve our ability to drive equality and equity. When you think about a company’s responsibility — especially one whose mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more — there could not be a more important commitment we could make to the communities we serve. We must show the possibility and promise of implementing a diverse and inclusive workplace. We spent a lot of time thinking through what that looks like and how we could make it real. I personally saw it as a major component of my job. We have 175,000 employees — give or take 10,000 — in any given month at Microsoft. That is like a little microcosm of the world. We sell into every single market in the world.

觉醒的美妙之处在于，它给了我们这个时刻，让我们能够利用这种意识来提高我们推动平等与公平的能力。当你想到一家公司的责任时——尤其是当微软的使命是让地球上的每个人和组织都能取得更大成就——我们对所服务的社区做出承诺是再重要不过了。我们必须展示实施多样化和包容性工作场所的可能性和前景。我们花了很多时间思考未来的愿景，以及如何让它成为现实。这是我工作的重要组成部分。微软全球有17.5万名员工，或有一万人上下浮动。我们的产品销往世界上每一个市场。这就像世界的一个小缩影。

To do that successfully, you must look like the markets you want to sell into. Your technology must serve all the constituents in the markets that you sell into to really be successful. So we had to break the problem down. I have to sell $45 billion worth of stuff this year, and that consumes me at night, I promise you. But what really keeps me up is, how do I make sure that I have created opportunities for human beings who never thought they had a shot at leading in a company like this?

要成功地做到这一点，你必须了解你想销售的市场。你的技术必须服务于你所销售的市场的所有组成部分，才能真正取得成功。所以我们必须把问题分解。今年我要卖价值450亿美元的东西，这让我面临压力。但真正让我难以入眠的是，如何确保为那些从未想过自己有机会领导这样一家公司的人创造机会？

It starts with making sure that we are building the skills that everybody needs — like my workforce of 10,000. You cannot just say, “Okay now you have to be diverse and inclusive.” You must give people the capabilities to change behavior… whether that means daring to lead or learning to rumble. We must figure out how to have difficult conversations about race and what to do with those conversations. Once we get things right inside our organization with skills and operations, we have got to bring that goodness and learning to the markets we serve.

首先要确保我们正在培养每个人都需要的技能——比如我的一万名员工。你不能只是说，“好吧，现在你必须多样化和包容。”你必须给人们改变行为的能力……无论这意味着敢于领导还是带领大家在混乱中前行。我们必须弄清楚如何进行有关种族的艰难对话，以及如何处理这些对话。一旦我们在企业内部通过技能和操作把事情做好，我们就可以把这种善意和知识带到所服务的市场中。

Purk: Could you tell us about Microsoft’s empathy and action plan? What is this, and why are you introducing it now? I assume it relates to what you were just talking about.

珀克：你能告诉我们微软的“同情心和行动计划”是什么吗？为什么你现在要介绍它？我想这和你刚才说的有关。

Johnson: Yes, 100%. Two years ago, when I was trying to raise up the leadership across Microsoft U.S., I recognized learning as a way that we can all bond. In order to learn in front of people, you have to be hugely vulnerable. You have to admit that you don’t know something to learn. I loved that as a way to bring my leadership team together. I said, “Let’s go learn about race.” And everybody was like, “What?” And I said, “Let’s go to Montgomery, Alabama, and visit Bryan Stevenson, the author of Just Mercy.” That was a book that became a movie with Michael B. Jordan and is now a blockbuster. Bryan was somebody that our company had done a lot of work with, and he is known as one of the most empathic leaders of all time. He has dedicated his career to helping the underserved and representing people who were wrongfully imprisoned and on death row.

约翰逊：是的，百分百。两年前，当我试图提升微软美国的领导力水平时，我认识到学习是一种凝聚团队的方式。为了向他人学习，你必须非常脆弱。你得承认你不知道。我喜欢把学习作为一种让领导团队凝聚起来的方式。我说，“让我们去学习关于种族的问题吧！……让我们去阿拉巴马州的蒙哥马利，拜访一下布莱恩·史蒂文森，他是《正义的怜悯》的作者。”这本书后来拍成了电影，由迈克尔·B·乔丹主演，成了一部大片。布莱恩和我们公司有很多接触，他是有史以来最有同情心的领导者之一。他把职业生涯奉献给帮助那些弱势群体，并为那些被错误地监禁和被判死刑的人奔走。

Sure enough, we flew out there, 12 of us on the leadership team, and spent two days learning about the history of African Americans in the U.S. It was probably one of the most powerful learning experiences I have ever gone through. We have two African American women on the leadership team. It meant a lot to them that we would spend the time to do this, but more importantly, the non-African American members of the leadership team learned a whole lot.

最终，我们领导团队共12人飞到了那里，花了两天时间学习非裔美国人的历史。这可能是我经历过的最有影响力的学习经历之一。高管团队里有两位非裔美国妇女。我们花时间来做这件事对她们来说意义重大。但更重要的是，其他人学到了很多。

“Courageous leadership means taking on the consequences of all the hard decisions you have to make.”

“勇敢的领导意味着承担你必须做出的所有艰难决定的后果。”

Bryan Stevenson gave us a formula for empathy. I said, “You’re one of the best empathic leaders I’ve ever met in my life. If I want to drive empathy at scale in Microsoft US, how do I do it?” And he said, “Kate, it’s a formula. Empathy equals proximity. You have got to get close to something. Plus narrative — you must be a great storyteller so that you can tell everybody what is going on. The next element is hope. The narrative must be hopeful; it cannot be negative and surrounded by fear and uncertainty and doubt. The final piece is action, even in the face of adversity, especially in the face of adversity.” That resonated with me. As a change leader, if you can break down something that is ambiguous, amorphous, and hard to define and give me a formula, I will take that and work with my team and figure out how to operationalize it.

史蒂文森给了我们一个共情的公式。我说，“你是我这辈子见过的最有同情心的领导人之一。如果我想在微软美国推广同理心，我该怎么做？”他说：“凯特，这是个公式。同理心=亲近。你得亲近些什么。加上叙事—你必须擅长讲故事，这样你就可以告诉大家发生了什么。下一个因素是希望。叙述必须充满希望；不能是消极的，不能被恐惧、不确定性和怀疑所包围。最后一点是行动，尤其是面对逆境。”他的这番话引起了我的共鸣。作为一名变革领导者，如果你能分解一些模棱两可、不定形、难以定义的东西，并给我一个公式，我就会与团队一起接受它，并找出如何操作它。

The cool thing is that we focused on that first piece — proximity to drive empathy — and made a lot of difference in that first year. As we came into 2020 and experienced what the world experienced, we realized that it couldn’t be a mantra. We could not just be talking about becoming empathic leaders; we had to have a program. That is where we came up with three things: We have to have skills, we have to be intentional, and we have to have operations to support lasting change. Most importantly, we have to bring this to the marketplace.

最酷的是，我们把注意力集中在第一件事上——以亲近来激发同理心。在第一年里，我们做了很多改变。当我们进入2020年，经历了世界所经历的一切，我们意识到不能只是唱赞歌，不能只纸上谈兵；必须有一个计划。这就是我们想到的三件事：我们必须有技能，意愿，和行动来推动持久的变革。最重要的是，我们必须把它推向市场。

Purk: How are you able to push the passion towards the mission of creating opportunities for people who never thought they had a chance throughout the organization?

珀克：对于那些从未想过自己在整个组织中有机会的人们，你是如何把激情推向为他们创造机会的使命？

Johnson: One thing I see happening is really important. It might have to do with what we all lived through over the past year. There is not a single company on earth that does not care about corporate social responsibility. We care about our carbon footprint with sustainability, we care about taking our assets and making them available to the society at large. We care about skilling. And we care about bringing health to everybody, using technology, for example, to provide remote health support to patients. Corporate social responsibility has proven time and time again to not only be great for humans but also great for business.

约翰逊：我认为正在发生的一件事非常重要。这可能与我们过去一年所经历的有关。世界上没有一家公司不关心企业的社会责任。我们关心我们的碳足迹和可持续性，我们关心我们的资产获取和让它们可用于整个社会。我们关心技能。我们关心为每个人带来健康，利用科技，例如，为病人提供远程医疗支持。企业社会责任已经一次又一次地证明不仅对人类有好处，而且对商业也有好处。

Purk: You have been focusing a lot on courageous leadership. What does courage mean to you?

珀克：你一直很注重勇敢的领导力。勇气对你意味着什么？

Johnson: I think about courage in so many ways. If you are an individual contributor or part of a larger organization, courage could simply be this notion of speaking truth to power. That can be hard because you must live with the consequences. People wonder if they will face retribution because their managers do not like what they say, and sometimes it can get uncomfortable. I also must speak the truth to [Microsoft CEO] Satya Nadella, [executive vice president] Judson Althoff, and all my bosses. Courageous leadership means taking on the consequences of all the hard decisions you have to make. Do you want to be intentional about driving diversity? Well, guess what, there is a whole constituency out there that is not excited to give up privilege.

约翰逊：我从很多方面考虑勇气。如果你是个人贡献者或更大阻止的一员，勇气可能是向权力说实话的概念。这可能很难，因为你必须承受后果。人们担心因为领导不喜欢他们的话而受到惩罚，有时这会让他们感到不舒服。我也必须向我的老板们（微软首席执行官萨蒂亚•纳德拉、执行副总裁贾德森•阿尔托夫等）说实话。勇敢的领导意味着你必须承担所有艰难决定的后果。你想有意识地推动多样性吗？好吧，你猜怎么着，外面有一些选民就是不想放弃特权。

If you are a leader, you must think about all your constituents. You need to realize that change for some means change for everybody. And you must have conviction, when you bring something like that to the table, because you will have to live with the consequences. I am passionate about courageous leadership because it means you are going to face the consequences for what you are doing. It means you are going to pursue doing what is right, no matter how hard it i

如果你是一个领导者，你必须考虑所有的选民。你需要意识到对某一部分人的改变意味着对每个人的改变。当你把这样的事情摆到桌面上时，你必须有信念，因为你将不得不承受后果。我热衷于勇敢的领导，因为这意味着你要为行为承担后果。这也意味着你对于目标有所信仰，不管过程有多艰难。

As a leader, controlling emotional contagion, especially during the pandemic, should be a priority. Ignoring the power of mood, whether it originates in the self or is “caught” through contact with others, means losing an important opportunity to influence outcomes. Cognition and emotion are completely intertwined: If you and your team are stressed, fearful, or worried, your decision-making and ability to process information are negatively affected. Conversely, positive emotions lead to better employee attitudes, creativity, and job performance.

作为领导者，控制情绪传染，尤其是在疫情期间，应该是一个优先事项。忽视情绪的力量，不管它是源于自我还是通过与他人的接触而“被传染”，都意味着你将失去了影响结果的重要机会。认知和情感是完全交织在一起的：如果你和你的团队感到压力、恐惧或担忧，你的决策和处理信息的能力就会受到负面影响。相反，积极的情绪会使员工的态度、创造力和工作表现更好。

Negative mood contagion — as opposed to recognition of widespread individual feelings of anxiety and fear that have occurred during the pandemic — may be necessary sometimes to achieve a specific team goal but should be relegated to short-term situations. For example, team leaders may want to elicit shared feelings of frustration or anger in cases where teams have lost to a competitor or have not met their goals, or they may want to induce feelings of legitimate fear when getting teams to understand organizational realities and accept why a change effort is important.

负面情绪传染，与疫情期间发生的广泛的个人焦虑和恐惧情绪相反——有些时刻消极情绪传染可能是实现特定团队目标所必需的，但这属于短期特例。例如，在团队输给竞争对手或未能实现目标的情况下，领导者可能希望激发共同的挫败感或愤怒感，或者在让团队了解企业现状并接受变革努力的重要性时，他们可能希望激发团队成员合理的恐惧感。

Use your knowledge of the impact of mood contagion to create more positive team dynamics, increase performance, and decrease turnover by consciously managing your own emotions and the emotions you want to spread in your team.

利用你对情绪传染影响的了解，通过有意识地管理自己的情绪和你想在团队中传播的情绪，能够创造更积极的团队动力，提高绩效，减少员工流失。