To Managers Knew They're on the Right Paths | Jina Kim (2/2)

As a leader, you might think, oh, I've been there, I've done that. I know everything. You don't know everything. You never know when you're going to need help. You don't know when you're going to fail. You are still going to learn from everyone. In a way for you to be a better leader, you need to course correct right away. Unless you make that direction as soon as possible, it could be a decision that fails your start-up.

作为领导者，你可能会想，哦，我已经去过那里，做过那些事。我知道一切。但其实你并不知道一切。你永远不知道什么时候你会需要帮助。你也不知道什么时候你会失败。你还要向每个人学习。为了成为一个更好的领导者，你需要立刻纠正错误。除非你尽快改变方向，否则这个决定可能会让你的初创公司失败。

Hi, my name is Gina Kim and I worked in Silicon Valley for about 10 years. I started out as an employee number four at CARDA, as an operations manager. And I also helped with customer support, customer success. And I built that team from ground up. By the time I left, CARDA was 8 billion in terms of valuation. We had about 1,000 in place. What I focused on is helping startups grow in terms of customer journey and go-to-market strategy and helping them also with just growing their customers.

嗨，我叫Gina Kim，曾在硅谷工作了约10年。我最开始在CARDA担任运营经理，是第四个员工。我还帮忙处理客户支持和成功案例。我还从零开始组建了团队。当我离开CARDA的时候，它的估值已经达到了80亿美元，员工数量也有1,000人左右。我专注于帮助初创企业的客户旅程和市场营销策略，以及帮助他们扩大客户群。

I think this was back in 2016 when E-Share was still growing. One feedback that I got was actually from Henry. And he said that in the company survey, someone wrote, I don't want to work with Gina. And I really thought of it. And first, it was very hurtful because as an employee number four, I thought, I'm doing my best to make E-Share successful. Why is it that this person is not feeling that I'm doing that? And I kind of thought back to the things that I did. And I looked at my Slack messages and I realized communication is a problem. We were getting to the point where we were bigger. And certain messages that I was sending to the product team seemed like I was ordering them what to do using my influence as employee number four. That's when I realized, OK, I shouldn't take any of these human relationship for granted because success is not permanent. You never know when you're going to need help. You don't know when you're going to fail. As a leader, you might think, oh, I've been there. I've done that. I know everything. You don't know everything. You are still going to learn from everyone.

我想这件事是在2016年，那时E-Share还在发展时发生的。我收到一个反馈，是从亨利那里得到的。他说在公司调查中，有人写下了不想和吉娜一起工作。我真的很想通了。首先，这非常伤人，因为作为第四名员工，我认为我正在尽我所能让E-Share成功。为什么这个人觉得我不是在这么做呢？我回想了一下我做的事情。我看了看我的Slack消息，意识到沟通是一个问题。我们已经变得越来越大了。我给产品团队发的某些消息似乎是在利用我的影响力作为第四名员工来命令他们做事。那时我意识到，我不应该把这些人际关系视为理所当然，因为成功并非永久。你永远不知道什么时候你需要帮助。你不知道什么时候会失败。作为领导者，你可能会认为，哦，我已经经历过那些事情，我知道一切。你不知道一切。你仍然会从每个人身上学到东西。

You get a new intern. This came in straight out of college. There's something that you are going to learn from that person. Because I think a lot of founders, yeah, they think that, OK, even if they made a mistake, they kind of have to go with their own vision and keep going that wrong path. But when you think about it, everyone already knows that the mistake has been made in a way for you to be a better leader. You need to course correct right away. Unless you make that direction as soon as possible, it could be a decision that fails your startup. Never know.

你们有一个新的实习生。是刚从大学毕业的。你们会从这个人身上学到东西的。因为我认为很多创始人会认为，即使犯了错误，也得按照他们自己的想法去走错的路。但是如果你想一想，实际上每个人都知道这个错误被犯了，这对你成为更好的领导者是有帮助的。你需要马上改变方向。如果你们不尽快做出正确的决策，它可能会导致你们的创业失败。毕竟你永远不知道。

Some people might have really great solutions, but they might not be telling you because they're introvert or because they're scared to speak up. And by creating this collaborative environment, you might actually have a better result. One thing that I learned, Akarta, is that as a manager, you don't want to do the toughest job. So Akarta, what we would say is when you get promoted, people don't say, congratulations, they say, I feel sorry for you. So the reason why a leader should take on the toughest job is because that's the only way you'll get the respect of your team, especially at a startup. If you're just directing your team members to do what's needed, they'll do literally just 100% of what they need to do, but at a startup, you really, everyone needs to put in 120%. And so that motivation factor is so important.

有些人可能有很好的解决方案，但他们可能不会告诉你，因为他们是内向的，或者因为他们害怕讲话。通过创造这种协作环境，你可能会得到更好的结果。其中一个我学到的东西是，作为一名经理，你不想做最困难的工作。所以，Akarta，当你升职时，人们不会说祝贺你，而是说他们为你感到遗憾。因此，领导者应该承担最艰巨的工作，因为这是唯一的方法，你才能得到团队的尊重，特别是在创业初期。如果你只是指导团队成员做必要的事情，他们只会做到必要的100%，但在创业公司，你真的需要每个人都投入120%。因此，激励因素非常重要。

For me, my leadership style, I want to listen to the people I work with. And I want to have that genuine connection with them. I don't want to say, I know everything, and you need to do it my way. Even as a customer success leader, I want during my 101 with my team members. I ask them, what is it that you want to do ultimately? And if they want to be an engineer, or if they want to be a data analyst, I want to help them do that. They could do it through internal transfer or could be by just going to another company. But at the end of the day, people are going to do what they want to do. And so for you, if you help them get there, it's actually good for the startup.

对于我来说，我的领导风格是愿意听取我工作的人的意见，建立真正的联系。我不想说我什么都知道，你们必须按照我的方式去做。即使作为客户成功的领导，我也希望与团队成员进行一对一的交流。我会问他们，你最终想要做什么？如果他们想成为一名工程师或数据分析师，我会帮助他们实现。他们可以通过内部调动，或者去另一家公司。但是，最终人们会做他们想做的事情。如果你能帮助他们实现他们的愿望，对于创业公司来说，这实际上是有好处的。

Another thing that's really important is that as a leader, you're there to unblock the problems that your team has. If the team is working on something, and they're hitting some kind of roadblock, in a way, you have the hardest job because you're doing things that might be very difficult for the team to do, so you're doing that. The part of what I did was when we have very difficult customers, I was the one who was talking to them, and I'm the one who is sort of apologizing to them. That's really helpful for the other team members to see. Then they realize, oh, wait, Gina is there to really take care of me. It's not about just asking me to do things that are impossible.

另一件非常重要的事情是，作为领导者，你的责任是为你的团队排除问题。如果团队正在处理某些事情，而他们遇到了一些难题，那么从某种意义上讲，你的工作是最艰难的，因为你正在做可能对团队来说非常困难的事情。我做的一部分工作是当我们遇到非常困难的客户时，我是与他们交谈的人，我也是道歉的人。这对其他团队成员非常有帮助。然后他们意识到，哦，等等，吉娜真的在照顾我。这不只是要我做一些不可能的事情。

One thing I believe is that employee happiness equals customer happiness, because when the customer success employees happy, that feeling will transfer over to the customer, and they will try to be do more than what they have to do.

我相信的一件事是员工的幸福等于客户的幸福，因为当客户使员工感到愉快时，这种感觉会传递到客户，他们将努力做超出他们本应做的事情。

So as a leader, you're not gonna be able to see what the employee is doing all the time. You have to trust them. The only way to know that is by being a good leader and motivating them and truly caring for them, and having that genuine connection with that employee.

作为领导者，你不可能一直看着员工在做什么。你必须信任他们。了解他们是否值得信任的唯一方法是成为一个好领导者，激励他们，真正关心他们，并与员工建立真正的联系。

One thing that I really loved about Carter is that it was run like a sports team. The managers were considered more of a coach, and when you look at a sports team, the overall goal of the team is to win, right? As a sports team, the coach is there to really help the team understand what they did wrong, and then they'll improve it so that they can win for the next time.

我非常喜欢卡特的一点，那就是他们经营得就像一支运动队。经理被看作是教练，看看运动队，团队的总体目标是要赢，对吧？作为一支运动队，教练要帮助团队理解他们哪里做得不对，并帮助他们进行改进，以便下一次赢得比赛。

Having that kind of coach in your personal life is I think also very helpful, because that coach can help you get to the right path, and they're not just creating this path for their sake, but it's for you. They're helping you go to that unique path.

我认为，在你的个人生活中有那样一位教练也非常有帮助，因为教练可以帮助你走上正确的道路，他们并不是为了自己而建立这条道路，而是为了你。他们正帮助着你走向那条独特的道路。

So I didn't have the actual personal coach until two years ago, before that I used a lot of people that were in my life as sort of my coach. One coach I had, informal coach I had, I would say would be Henry. Even when he was giving me negative feedback, he was very gentle about it, and gave me the reasons why. Which I think is very important. I also had another informal coach, this lady that I worked with, and she is right now in her sevenies, and she's gone through a lot, she was a single mother. She actually encouraged me to come to California.

所以直到两年前我才真正拥有了私人教练，之前我使用了很多我生活中的人作为我的教练。一个我曾经有的非正式教练是亨利。即使他给我负面反馈，他也非常温和，并给出了原因。我认为这非常重要。我还有另一个非正式教练，是我与之合作的一位女士，她现在已经七十多岁了，经历了很多，她是单身母亲。她实际上鼓励我来到加州。

You don't have to have a coach who's super successful or anything like that, but someone who is genuine, that you can talk to, that really cares for you, I think it's really important. One thing I noticed is that, when people talk to coach, if you don't agree something, then you don't agree, and then you kind of come to terms and find the best approach, I think that's really important.

你并不需要一个非常成功的教练或者什么的，但需要一个真实的、可以交流的、真正关心你的人，我认为这非常重要。我注意到的一件事是，当人们与教练交流时，如果你不同意某些事情，那么你就不同意了，然后你会逐渐接受，并找到最好的方法，我认为这非常重要。

One of my customers would tell me is that, they want to focus on the product, and they don't want to deal with issuing stock options or dealing with investors, and the fact that now this was all done by Carter was really helpful for them, because they're able to use their time more effectively. And those are the types of moments where it's just so rewarding.

我的一个顾客会告诉我，他们想把重点放在产品上，不想处理股票期权或处理投资者，现在卡特尔为他们完成了这一切，这对他们非常有帮助，因为他们能更有效地利用时间。这些时刻真是太令人满意了。

Now I would say my KPI is when I get that look on the founder's face, that they have that aha moment, and it's actually helping them grow and become a better company, and helping their employees be happier and help them create that better work environment. And I want to do that for a lot of the startups that are not in Silicon Valley, because they don't have all the resources that Silicon Valley startups have. So if I can bring that to them, that will give them a joy.

现在我会说，我的关键绩效指标是当我看到创始人脸上的表情，他们有了那个"啊哈"的时刻，实际上这有助于他们的成长，使他们成为更好的公司，并帮助他们的员工更快乐、创造更好的工作环境。我想要将这种体验带给许多不在硅谷的创业公司，因为他们没有硅谷创业公司拥有的所有资源。因此，如果我能为他们带来这种体验，那将给他们带来快乐。