????X汽車大獎（Automotive X Prize）的挑戰(zhàn)看起來無法完成：造一輛可以合法上路，價格也不太離譜的車，不過油耗要低于100英里/加侖，還要盡快造出來。喬? 賈斯蒂斯不信這個邪，當然，1000萬美元的獎金也令人難以拒絕。

????一開始，賈斯蒂斯單打獨斗，不過情況很快就改觀了。他開始寫博客，在社交媒體上分享他的成功、挫敗和教訓，很快就吸引了來自四個國家的44名熱情的志愿者。就這樣，WIKISPEED團隊誕生了。

????隊如其名，WIKISPEED團隊的主旨就是加速，而且不局限于他們建造的汽車。成員們可以加速學習過程，借用來自敏捷軟件開發(fā)的原理來思考和解決復雜問題。而他們的成果見證了他們的學習能力：就在組隊3個月之后，WIKISPEED團隊的工程原型車就獲得了X汽車大獎主流級別比賽的并列第10名，一舉超越了全球100多輛參賽車。更重要的是，賽事之后團隊勢頭正旺，繼續(xù)追尋以合理價格建造超級高效汽車的夢想。

????WIKISPEED團隊的成功不僅在于它本身令人印象深刻，還在于這一成功對各種規(guī)模的組織的廣泛啟示。在本文作者合著的《拉動力》（The Power of Pull）一書中，我們解釋了深化的全球化和技術的迅速進步如何帶來一個變化愈演愈烈的新的競爭格局。

????為了競爭，公司必須將重心從簡單的規(guī)模擴展轉變到員工知識的擴展上來。然而許多公司對“人才培養(yǎng)”口惠而實不至，難以真正地幫助員工跟上市場變化的步伐。這不僅僅是挽留人才或者員工滿意度的問題了：學習快的員工提高得也快，而提高快的員工能為整個公司帶來業(yè)績提升。

????為實現這一點，公司需要考慮WIKISPEED團隊的成功四原則：

????主動聯系積極分子

????你的公司里有聰明人，但公司之外的聰明人更是數不勝數。成功愈加地依賴于和外部人員聯系并利用他們所帶來的知識。

????憑借社交軟件、云計算、移動性和大數據這樣的新技術所提供的強大工具，各個社會生態(tài)系統(tǒng)達到了前所未有的廣度和深度，可以幫我們聯系到世界各地的積極分子。通過社交平臺，喬? 賈斯蒂斯迅速集結了充滿激情和動力的一伙人，這在以前是無法做到的。公司有更多的機會使用這些技術來延伸和深化他們與外界個體和組織的聯系。

????為何強調積極分子？積極分子渴望挑戰(zhàn)并為之激動。這些挑戰(zhàn)被視作快速學習的機會，他們也更可能去發(fā)現和聯系具有相關經驗的人，幫助他們更快地找到創(chuàng)造性的解決方案。積極分子聚集得越多，背景越多樣化，就越有可能得到相關的經驗加以利用，而參與者也越有機會互相學習。就像賈斯蒂斯所說的：“士氣是速度的倍乘器?！碑斆鎸ο馲汽車大獎那樣極其復雜的問題時，任何個人已經知道答案的可能性微乎其微（否則那人已經可以拿下1000萬美元的大獎了），所以聯系和集結積極分子會有顯著的益處。

????Joe Justice was inspired to enter the Automotive X Prize contest in 2008 after hearing about the seemingly impossible challenge: create a road-legal, reasonably priced car that gets 100 miles-per-gallon, and build it fast. The $10 million purse didn't hurt, either.

????Justice may have entered the contest alone, but it didn't stay that way for long; he began blogging and using social media to share his successes, setbacks, and lessons, and soon attracted a team of 44 passionate members from four countries excited to volunteer their time. Just like that, Team WIKISPEED was born.

????As the name suggests, Team WIKISPEED is all about acceleration, and not just in the cars they build. The group of volunteers can speed up how they learn by using principles from agile software development to think through and solve complex problems. Indeed, the proof is in the results: just three months after forming, Team WIKISPEED had a working prototype that tied for 10th place in the X Prize contest's mainstream class, outlasting over a hundred other entries from all over the globe. More importantly, the competition built momentum for the team and its dream of putting ultra-efficient cars on the road at a reasonable price.

????The success of Team WIKISPEED is not just impressive in its own right; it has broad implications for organizations of all sizes. In our book, The Power of Pull, we explain how increased globalization and rapid advances in technology have brought about a new competitive landscape of increasingly volatile change.

????To compete, firms will have to shift their focus from simply increasing in size to increasing employee knowledge. Yet despite all the lip service paid to "talent development," many firms today struggle to meaningfully engage their employees in a way that will help them keep pace with the changing marketplace. This issue is not simply one of retention or employee satisfaction: employees who learn faster improve faster, and those who improve faster can deliver improved performance for the entire company.

????To pull this off, firms should consider four principles that helped Team WIKISPEED:

????Reach out to passionate people

????No matter how many smart people you have at your firm, there are a lot more on the outside. Increasingly, competitive success hinges upon the ability to connect with others and take advantage of the knowledge that they can bring to the table.

????New technologies like social software, cloud computing, mobility and big data provide powerful tools to increase the reach and richness of different ecosystems, helping to connect passionate people wherever they may be. Through social software platforms, Joe Justice was quickly able to assemble an army of passionate and driven individuals, which would have been very difficult otherwise. Companies have even more significant opportunities to use these technologies to extend and deepen their relationships with outside individuals and organizations.

????Why the emphasis on passionate people? Passionate individuals seek out and are excited by challenges. They see these challenges as an opportunity to learn faster. They are also much more likely to identify and reach out to others who might have relevant experience, thereby helping them to reach a creative solution faster. By bringing together a larger and more diverse set of passionate people, there are more relevant experiences to draw from, and more opportunities for participants to learn from one another. As Justice puts it, "Morale is a multiplier for velocity." When tackling incredibly complex problems like building a 100 mpg vehicle, it is highly unlikely that any one person already has the answer (otherwise they might already be $10 million richer!), so the benefits of connecting with and bringing together passionate people can be significant.