????你談到了約翰?多納霍和他的購物網站eBay，它就是個很好的例子。他們是怎么做的呢？取得了什么樣的成果？

????eBay會為前成員群體提供一整套服務，其中最突出的是社交活動——公司會邀請前成員回來參加活動，以保持與他們的關系。用“索取”的方式是無法建立良好關系的。你應該先建立好關系，之后再自然而然地受益。我想，他們可能還讓前員工給他們推薦了新員工。他們獲得了許多情報，了解了技術的最新發展，知道公司該如何作出反應。他們還與在線支付網站貝寶（PayPal）的一些員工舉行晚餐會，討論各種問題，比如：你認為貝寶應該怎樣發展？付款方式會如何變化？

????你說到，你正試圖就公司員工與外部人員的關系撰寫一本新書，也給出了一些這方面的例子。那么，Greylock是怎么實踐這一點的呢？

????我們會在周一早上舉行集體會議，問大家這周都跟哪些人見過面。然后（如果有值得提出的相關事實或關系），他們就會提出來：“這件事可能會對你有用”。

????員工們往往面臨著一種持續性的壓力，需要在不放棄現有工作的同時為未來工作做準備。同時，由于他們從事某一份工作的時間變短了，想取得專業進步的機會也就更少。他們應該如何做好準備？

????在專業技能方面，工業模式已經不管用了。以前的情況是，通過反復培訓，幫助員工做好準備。而現在則更像敏捷編程，是一種不斷的適應過程。不斷適應的形式有兩種，一種是不斷獲取有關未來工作的情報（在這一點上也有許多不同的方法）。例如，可以請別人共進午餐，同時把情報帶回公司。第二種技能培訓的方式則是更小塊的學習，更具有適應性和持續性。與進入商學院學習不同，（員工們可以）在各種大型會議和簡短會議中學習……還可以參加為期兩周的輔導班。大家會看到，通過網絡遠程學習，很多人都能獲得專業證書。

????你們為什么要寫這本書？

????在雇主與員工的關系上，某種根本性的概念已經破碎了。這種破碎體現在兩個方面。雖然人們嘴上說，“我們還會為所有的好員工提供終身雇傭制”，同時又互相使眼色，生怕說漏了嘴。在這類談話中，公司和員工都在撒謊，其實雙方都知道時代已經不一樣了。一日制雇傭合同里，雙方會隨時準備好，并且愿意在合適的時機終止雇傭關系。而現在，我們走向了這種關系的另一個極端。信任的缺失阻礙了創新和長期的合作。

????你們希望人們從這本書里學到什么？

????生活在互聯網時代，你會發現，你不認識的聰明人總比你認識的多得多。問題是，作為一名管理者，你該如何管理團隊，以便好好利用這一點？放手讓一部分人也有一個補償，因為你可以引進新鮮血液。它能帶來大量最新信息、新的人脈資源和外界的最新動態。讓與你有著良好關系的前員工進入其它公司也有好處：如果這種良好關系能夠持續，它就會反過來給你提供情報。

????因此，職業道路是一種產品的組合，而不是一系列的頭銜。擁有后一種思維模式的人將職業發展看成頭銜的階梯。這個階梯的意義現在已經大大降低了——真正有意義的是一系列的項目。《同盟》這本書給出了一種新方法，讓你能夠以系列項目的形式管理團隊和人員，并因此獲得巨大成功。而作為一名管理者，你能為員工做到什么呢？你無法給他們終身雇傭的保證，但可以幫助他們發展終身就業的技能。做到這一點才是真正對員工好。（財富中文網）

????譯者：朱毓芬/汪皓

????You talked about John Donahoe and eBay as a good example. How did that work and what have the results been like?

????The eBay alumni network runs a set of services—the most prominent is events—where they invite alumni back to the events to keep a relationship going with the company. You never build a relationship with a “give me something.” You just build the relationship and good things come out of them. I think they have alumni referring new employees. They’ve gotten intelligence about how technology is evolving and how eBay should react. They’ve hosted a dinner with some of the Paypal folks, for example, to say, how do you think Paypal should evolve? Where are payments going?

????You talk about attempting to codify the relationships that people in your organization have with outsiders. You give some examples of that. How does this work at Greylock?

????We publicize in a huddle on Monday morning, who are all the different people that folks are meeting with this week? Then [if there's a relevant fact or relationship to bring up] people say, “This would be something useful for you to know.”

????There’s a constant pressure on workers to prepare themselves for the jobs of the future without abandoning the jobs they have; at the same time, because they stay in jobs for shorter periods, they often have less opportunity for professional development. How do people prepare?

????In terms of professional skills it’s no longer useful to think about the industrial model. I train and train andthen I am ready. Rather, it’s like agile programming—continual adaptation. There are two forms of continual adaptation. The first is picking up intelligence on the job. [And that can happen in lots of ways.] For example, you can expense a lunch meeting and bring intelligence back to the organization. The second way skills retraining happens is in more bite-size chunks that occur in a much more adaptive and ongoing way. Instead of, say, going to business school and returning, [employees can learn] in conferences and briefings…. Two-week classes, for example. You can easily see professional certifications happening via remote learning over the Internet.

????Why did you write this book?

????There’s an underlying broken notion in thinking about how an employer and an employee relate to each other. The breakage goes to two factors. One is, “well we’re still doing the lifetime employment of all the people we like”—wink, wink, nudge, nudge. In that conversation, the company and employee are lying to each other. Both know that’s not the modern world. We’ve swung to the opposite extreme of one-day employment contracts, where either side is ready and willing to cut off the relationship whenever convenient. The lack of trust hinders innovation and long-term collaboration.

????What do you want people to take away from it?

????Part of living in the networked age is there are always a bunch more smart people that you don’t know than you do know. The question is, as a manager, how do you navigate your group to take advantage of that fact. One trade-off of having some people move on is good: bringing in new blood. That brings in a whole raft of new information, network access, changes in what’s going on. It’s also good to have people you have good relationships with go to other places because when the relationship continues, that becomes an intelligence stream back.

????The career, then, is a combination or products, not a series of titles. People have this model of thinking about the progression of careers as a ladder of titles. That ladder of titles now means a lot less. What actually matters is a sequence of projects. The Alliancesays, here is a way you can manage groups and people on sequences or projects where you can accomplish great things.So what as a manager can you do for your employees? You can’t guarantee them lifetime employment, but you can give them lifetime employability. That’s when you have been awesome to your people.