TED演讲- 提出傻问题，拥抱错误 Lessons on Innovation Dave Rag

摘要：When I started at Intuit in 2020, my job was to do marketing and advertising for QuickBooks, but it was in that position that I sa

Two years ago, I became an accidental entrepreneur.

两年前，我意外地成为了一名“内部创业者”。

Meaning an entrepreneur, but within a larger company.

其实指的就是“创业者”，但在一家大企业内部，

Didn't mean to.

我本没这个打算。

When I started at Intuit in 2020, my job was to do marketing and advertising for QuickBooks, but it was in that position that I saw an opportunity, an opportunity for Intuit, to help connect our small-business customers with complementary products and services that would help them grow and thrive, while also being good for our business.

当我于 2020 年创立财捷集团（Intuit）时，我在 Quickbooks 公司从事市场营销和广告工作，但是我在那个岗位上发现了一个机会，一个为 Intuit 准备的机会，帮助撮合小型企业客户和与之互补的产品和服务，帮助它们茁壮成长，同时有益于我们的业务。

Now, I sat on the idea for a while, really wanting to focus on the work that was right in front of me, but I couldn't shake it.

我当时把这个想法搁置了一会儿，真的很想关注眼前的工作，但挥之不去。

So I eventually pulled together a proposal, brought it to our leadership team, and much to my surprise, they said, "Go pursue it." And it was at that moment I started making every mistake possible in trying to bring it to life.

我最终写出了一份企划书，拿去给我们的领导团队看，出乎我意料的是，他们说：“去做吧。”从那时起，我开始在将其实现的途中犯下一个个错误。

But through those mistakes, I've learned what it means to be a successful intrapreneur, and I'm going to share those mistakes today in the hopes that if there's anyone that has an idea and wants to build something from within, that this can be helpful.

但是通过这些错误，我学到了要成为一位成功的内部创业者意味着什么，我今天也将在此分享这些错误，希望如果有人有了一个点子，想在内部做出些什么，它们能帮上忙。

So the first lesson I learned was to socialize your vision early and often.

我学到的第一点就是尽早、频繁地宣扬你的愿景。

I had romanticized the idea of a skunkworks-like start-up within Intuit.

我曾理想地想象 Intuit 会像是臭鼬工厂实验室型的创业公司。

I built a lean team.

我组织了一个精益团队。

We worked in the shadows.

我们悄悄地工作。

Everything was on a need-to-know basis.

一切都按照“按需知密”的原则。

The more people that got involved, the more process, the more bureaucracy, the more opinions, it was just going to slow us down.

参与的人越多，程序越多，官僚主义越多，意见越多，只会拖慢我们的进度。

And it worked, but not very long.

确实有效，但好景不长。

The problem was, as we started to grow and become a legitimate business, I needed the support from a lot more teams and I didn't have it.

问题是当我们想增长成真正的业务时，我需要来自大量团队的支持，但我没有。

Some of the most uncomfortable conversations I had with my coworkers was going to someone that I knew was stretched thin, had no idea what I was working on, and telling them that they needed to carve out additional time to help support it.

我和我的同事有过的最令人不适的对话就是找到我知道很忙的人，他们都不知道我在做些什么，还要告诉他们，他们得再划出一点时间支持我的工作。

I was not very popular in those moments.

那些时候我可不太讨人喜欢。

In my attempt to move fast, I made us move slow because with every new team that we approached, we were starting from scratch and had to paint that picture over and over again.

我尝试加快脚步的时候，却让我们变慢了，因为我们接触的每一个新团队，都要从零开始，我们要一遍遍地描绘图景。

This is also when I learned the value of a well-placed happy hour or coffee break.

我也在此时领悟一场正合时宜的欢乐时光或者咖啡时间是多么重要。

So I realized it was really important for me to establish a human connection and not a transactional one.

我发现建立人际联结而不是交易关系真的很重要。

So I'd ask my colleagues to go out and grab a beer or coffee and we would talk.

我可以邀请我的同事一起出去喝杯啤酒或者咖啡，顺便聊一聊。

And in those conversations, I would learn about their workload, their resource constraints, about what energizes them and their teams.

在这些对话中，我可以了解他们的工作量、他们的资源限制、他们和他们的团队会为何振奋。

It was also an opportunity for me to share my vision, why I was excited, and what I thought I could do for our customers and our business.

也是一个我分享愿景的机会，我为什么兴奋，我认为我能为我们的客户和业务做些什么。

The second lesson that I learned, very similar to the first, but on the flip side, is this idea of listening early and often.

我学到的第二点与第一点很相似，但是是相反的角度，那就是尽早、频繁地倾听。

I'd been in marketing for almost 20 years at that point.

当时，我从事市场营销将近 20 年。

I'd worked on Super Bowl ads, global brand campaigns.

我参与过超级碗广告、全球品牌营销活动。

I thought I knew everything that there was to know about marketing and advertising.

我以为我已经知道了有关市场营销和广告的一切。

And because of that, I had a crystal-clear picture in my head of how I wanted every piece to work in this new initiative.

因此，我心里一清二楚我希望这个新项目中的每一部分该如何运作。

When someone would say that something wasn't possible or had a difference of opinion, I immediately labeled them as blockers.

当有人说什么是不可能的，或者表达异议，我立即把他们标记为“阻碍”。

They were either not understanding what we were doing, they were scared or simply just didn't want to do the hard thing.

他们要么不懂我们在做什么，所以害怕，要么只是不想啃硬骨头。

The truth was, I was grossly overconfident in my understanding of everything.

真实情况是，我对于我对一切的理解总体过于自信了。

I knew very little about corporate accounting principles.

我对企业会计准则了解甚少。

I knew enough to be dangerous about things like privacy law, and those "blockers" were actually deeply invested in the success and were trying to prevent me from making the mistakes that would get the project killed.

我对隐私法之类的东西了解少到危险，而那些“阻碍”其实对成功非常在意，只是为了让我避免犯下错误，杀死这个项目。

And to be clear, I was making a lot of mistakes.

老实说，我犯了很多错误。

It's only because of them that the project not only lived on, but thrived.

正是因为他们，这个项目不仅活下去了，还蓬勃发展了。

Listening became so important to the project that we implemented something that we called dumb-question sessions.

倾听对于项目变得如此重要，以至于我们实行了我们口中的“愚蠢问题大会”。

These were a safe-place, judgment-free zones where myself and others could ask questions that maybe we were nervous to ask in other forums, maybe because we should have known the answer to those, maybe because it's obvious to the rest of the organization, but just because of the role that we sit in, we were never exposed to it.

这是个安全的环境、没有指指点点的地方，我本人和别人可以提出一些在其他论坛中不好意思提出的问题，也许是因为我们本该知道这些问题的答案，也许是因为对组织中的其他人答案都很明显，但只是因为我们的角色，我们从来不知道这些。

Regardless, the purpose of it was to have a shared understanding of all parts of our business.

无论如何，大会的目的是构建对于业务各个部分的共识。

I remember one specific example where there was an acronym that had been used for weeks, and I didn't know what it was.

我记得一个具体的例子，那就是有一个用了几周的缩写，我不知道它是什么意思。

I didn't ask early on.

我之前没问。

So much time had gone by that I felt like I was trapped.

我感觉我被困住了好久好久。

I didn't want to ask at that point.

当时我也不想问。

I thought I was going to have to live with this lie for the rest of my life.

我以为我这辈子就得这么忍着了。

But it was because of the dumb-question session and the judgment-free zone that I was able to ask and fill in all the gaps.

但是，正是因为有了“愚蠢问题”环节和“无评判区”，我才能够提出问题并填补所有空白。

And actually, one note on that last example, I'm pretty sure there was a little bit of judgment, but I think I deserved it.

实际上，关于最后一个例子，我很确定有一点评判，但我觉得我活该。

So the last lesson that I learned, and the one that I feel is most important and possibly counterintuitive, is that the stakes can be quite high.

我学到的最后一点，这也是我觉得最重要的一点，也许有点违法直觉，那就是代价可能很高。

Your personal risk tolerance doesn't matter.

你的个人风险承担能力无关紧要。

If you go out and start your own business and it fails, it is not a good thing.

如果你跑出去成立自己的公司，然后失败了，不是件好事。

It can add stress to your family, obviously financial implications.

可能会给你的家庭带来压力，显然有经济上的负担。

Intuit was founded on trying to make sure that that doesn't happen, but if it does, it's relatively contained.

Intuit 创立的初衷就是确保这种情况不会发生，但是如果发生了，相对来说影响能得以控制。

If I were to do something that compromises our customers' trust in our products and our brand, or create a poor product experience for our QuickBooks product, the implications can be far-reaching.

如果我干了些什么事，损害了客户对我们产品和品牌的信任，或者为我们的 QuickBooks 产品做出了糟糕的产品体验，影响就深远了。

It can impact a lot of small businesses.

会影响很多小型企业。

You can't shoot from the hip.

你不能为所欲为。

That's not to say that you need to work out of a sense of fear, either.

这也不代表你得担惊受怕地工作。

You just have to be super thoughtful about how every decision you make, how every action you take, could impact the broader organization.

你只是得十分慎重地做出每一个决策、采取每一个行动，这会更广泛地影响到公司。

To wrap up, again, if you are someone that has an interesting idea that you feel like you want to build from within, I encourage you, work with the system.

总结一下，再说一遍，如果你有一个有趣的想法，觉得想在公司内部把它做出来，我鼓励你与大环境合作。

There is a lot of horsepower built up in these large organizations.

大公司里的力量很强大。

Lean on the experts, learn from them.

依赖专家，向他们学习。

Will you go a little bit slower at times?

你会时不时放慢脚步吗？

Yes.

会。

Will you make compromises that you didn't want to make?

你会做出不想做出的让步吗？

Absolutely.