想要了解更多关于诊断问题的内容，可以阅读第三章 ，我的管理原则。
In diagnosing problems, how willing are you to “touch the nerve” (i.e., discuss your and others possible mistakes and weaknesses with them)?
诊断问题时，你敢不敢触碰敏感问题？（和他们讨论自己或他人可能的错误和缺点）
Are you willing to get at root causes, like what people are like?
你愿意探寻根本原因吗？比如去了解人们的真实情况？
Are you good at seeing the patterns and synthesizing them into diagnoses of root causes?
你善于扮演观察者的角色，并融入到根本原因的诊断中去吗?
4) Designing the Plan (Determining the Solutions)
4）设计方案（决定解决方案）
In some cases, you might go from setting goals to designing the plans that will get you to these goals; while in other cases, you will encounter problems on the way to your goals and have to design your way around them. So design will occur at both stages of the process, though it will occur much more often in figuring out how to get around problems. In other words, most of the movement toward your goals comes from designing how to remove the root causes of your problems. Problems are great because they are very specific impediments, so you know that you will move forward if you can identify and eliminate theirroot causes.
某些情况下，你从目标设定、设计解决方案到一步步走向目标，但有时你在通往目标的途中遇到了问题，不得不想办法解决。无论是哪种，都需要方案设计环节，更多时候是需要指出如何解决问题。换句话说，通往目标的路上，我们做的无非是按照设计，消除产生问题的根本原因。问题是很棒的东西，因为问题是非常具体的障碍物。一旦发现问题并解决了，就能朝前迈进。
Creating a design is like writing a movie script in that you visualize who will do what through time in order to achieve the goal.
方案设计和写电影剧本一样，形象化地描述在规定时间内为实现目标需要做哪些事。
Visualize the goal or problem standing in your way, and then visualize practical solutions. When designing solutions, the objective is to change how you do things so that problems don’t recur—or recur so often. Think about each problem individually, and as the product of root causes—like the outcomes produced by a machine. Then think about how the machine should be changed to produce good outcomes rather than bad ones. There are typically many paths toward achieving your goals, and you need to find only one of them that works, so it’s almost always doable.
把设定的目标或阻碍目标实现的问题都形象化，再提供形象的实际解决办法。设计解决方案时，目的是改变你做事的方式，防止错误反复出现。独立地思考每个问题，把问题视为某个根本原因的产出物，就像一台“机器”带来的结果一样。然后再想想怎样改进机器，使之生产合格的产品。实现目标的路径很多，找出一条行得通，可操作的就好。
But an effective design requires thinking things through and visualizing how things will come together and unfold over time. It’s essential to visualize the story of where you have been (or what you have done) that has led you to where you are now and what will happen sequentially in the future to lead you to your goals. You should visualize this plan through time, like watching a movie that connects your past, present, and future.
有效的方案设计需要把问题想透，能形象化描述事情的来源起因和未来发展方向。关键是要能跟讲故事一样，形象化地描述整个过程，从你来自何处（或你做过什么），到你现在的情况，以及未来发展如何，一直到实现目标。整个方案要随着时间轴日益具体形象化，就像看一部记录了你过去，现在和未来的电影一样。
Then write down the plan so you don’t lose sight of it, and include who needs to do what and when. The list of tasks falls out from this story (i.e., the plan), but they are not the same. The story, or plan, is what connects your goals to the tasks. For you to succeed, you must not lose sight of the goals or the story while focusing on the tasks; you must constantly refer back and forth. In My Management Principles (Part 3), you can see one such plan.
然后把设计方案写下来，保证自己能随时看到。方案设计包括谁要在什么时候做什么。具体任务清单是根据设计方案设置的，但任务和方案又不尽相同，方案设计将你的目标同具体任务关联起来。想要成功，在关注具体任务的同时 ，就一定不能忽视目标或方案。要记得不断反复前后查看。在第三章 我的管理原则中，你会看到这样一个方案。
When designing your plan, think about the timelines of various interconnected tasks. Sketch them out loosely and then refine them with the specific tasks. This is an iterative process, alternating between sketching out your broad steps (e.g., hire great people) and filling these in with more specific tasks with estimated timelines (e.g., in the next two weeks choose the headhunters to find the great people) that will have implications (e.g., costs, time, etc.). These will lead you to modify your design sketch until the design and tasks work well together. Being as specific as possible (e.g., specifying who will do what and when) allows you to visualize how the design will work at both a big-picture level and in detail. It will also give you and others the to-do lists and target dates that will help direct you.
设计方案时，按时间次序，思考各种相关联的任务，在纸上粗略地写个大概，再用具体任务补充完善。这是个反复的过程中，粗略描绘宏观大方向（例如：聘请优秀的员工）和往框架内填充具体任务的过程中交替反复，这些具体的任务要估算大概时间（例如：未来两周内选猎头公司帮忙物色优秀人才），还要考虑因此带来的影响（例如：成本，时间等）。通过不断完善，设计方案草图等具体任务也会相得益彰充实起来。尽可能做到具体（例如：明确谁在什么时候做什么），这样你的设计方案从宏观布局到细枝末节都会显得十分形象化。方案里也会明确任务清单和任务完成时间，为工作指明方向。
Of course, not all plans will accomplish everything you want in the desired time frame. In such cases, it is essential that you look at what won’t be accomplished and ask yourself if the consequences are acceptable or unacceptable. This is where perspective is required, and discussing it with others can be critical. If the plan will not achieve what’s necessary in the required time, so that the consequences have an unacceptably high probability of preventing you from achieving your goal, you have to either think harder (probably with the advice of other believable people) to make the plan do what is required or reduce your goals.
在预期时间框架下，并不是所有的计划都能完成，关键是关注无法完成的任务，问自己这个结果是否可以接受。这时就需要集思广益了，同他人展开探讨至关重要。如果无法在规定时间内完成必须完成的任务，后果极有可能阻碍你实现最终目标，这时就得绞尽脑汁想想（可能需要其他值得信赖之人的建议）怎么样调整方案，使得任务能够得以完成，或者你也可以降低目标难度。
People successful with this stage have an ability to visualize and a practical understanding of how things really work. Remember, you don’t have to possess all these qualities if you have someone to help you with the ones you are missing.
顺利完成这个步骤，需要具备形象化的能力，能务实理解工作实际情况。记住，如果有人帮你，你不必完全具备这些能力。
How good is your ability to visualize?
你形象化表述能力如何？
How confident are you that your assessment of your ability to visualize is accurate?
你对自己在形象化表述能力方面的自我评估有几分信心？
If you are confident of your self-assessment, why should you be confident (e.g. do have an excellent track record of visualizing and making what you visualized happen, have other believable parties told you that you are good at this)?
如果你对自我评估很有信心，请论述自信的原因。是因为有过往业绩吗，还是值得信赖之人告诉过你？
Remember: Designing precedes doing! The design will give you your to-do list (i.e., the tasks).
记住：方案设计要在具体行动之前！方案设计会列出具体的工作任务。
5) Doing the Tasks
5）完成任务
Next, you and the others you need to rely on have to do the tasks that will get you to your goals. Great planners who don’t carry out their plans go nowhere. You need to “push through” to accomplish the goals. This requires the self-discipline to follow the script that is your design. I believe the importance of goodwork habits is vastly underrated. There are lots of books written about good work habits, so I won’tdigress into what I believe is effective. However, it is critical to know each day what you need to doand have the discipline to do it. People with good work habits have to-do lists that are reasonablyprioritized, and they make themselves do what needs to be done. By contrast, people with poor work habits almost randomly react to the stuff that comes at them, or they can’t bring themselves to do the things they need to do but don’t like to do (or are unable to do). There are lots of tools that can help (e.g., thank God for my BlackBerry!)
接下来，你和需要依靠的工作团队将完成任务，实现目标。成功的设计者是不会让方案落无实处的，你需要“推动”方案的实施，完成目标，这需要大家自觉按照设计方案做事，我认为很多人都大大低估了良好工作习惯的重要性。以良好工作习惯为题材的书籍很多，我认为这点对各种效率很重要，我就不在此赘述了。知道每天需要做什么并具备良好的纪律来保证这些工作的完成是至关重要的。工作习惯好的人，任务清单是经过合理优先排序的，他们依此完成必要的任务。相比而言，工作习惯差的人几乎都是胡子眉毛一把抓，来什么就做什么，没法自觉完成必要任务，不喜欢做，也不会做。很多工具能帮到你。（例如：我的黑莓手机！）
You need to know whether you (and others) are following the plan, so you should establish clear benchmarks. Ideally you should have someone other than yourself objectively measure if you (and others) are doing what you planned. If not, you need to diagnose why and resolve the problem.
你得知道自己与工作团队是否在按设计的方案工作，因此你应建立清晰的衡量标准。理想情况下，你得找个人客观评价你的工作是否在按设计方案执行。如果不是，就得诊断原因，解决问题。
People who are good at this stage can reliably execute a plan. They tend to be self-disciplined and proactive rather than reactive to the blizzard of daily tasks that can divert them from execution. They are results-oriented: they love to push themselves over the finish line to achieve the goal. If they seethat daily tasks are taking them away from executing the plan (i.e., they identify this problem), they diagnose it and design how they can deal with both the daily tasks and moving forward with the plan.
擅于完成此步骤的人能令人放心地实施方案，这样的人很自律，是积极行动派**，不会因日常大量的繁琐工作影响任务的落实，他们以工作结果为导向：热爱推动自己冲刺前行，突破终点，实现目标。
As with the other steps, if you aren’t good at this step, get help. There are many successful, creative people who are good at the other steps but who would have failed because they aren’t good at execution. But they succeeded nonetheless because of great symbiotic relationships with highly reliable task-doers.
和其他步骤一样，如果你不擅长这一步，请找别人寻求帮助。有很多创造力很强的成功人士擅长其他几步，但如果在执行落实这步上没做好，就可能会失败。
For a more detailed explanation of doing what you set out to do, please see My Management Principles.
想了解关于落实计划的详述内容，请阅读我的管理原则这章。
How good are you at pushing through?
你擅于推动自己完成任务吗？
How confident are you that your assessment of your ability to push through is accurate?
你对自己在这方面能力的自我评估有几分自信？
The Relationships between These Steps
五大步骤间的联系
Designs and tasks have no purpose other than to achieve your goals. Said differently, goals are the sole purpose of designs and tasks. So you mustn’t forget how they’re related. Frequently I see people feel great about doing their tasks while forgetting the goals they were designed to achieve, resulting in the failure to achieve their goals. This doesn’t make any sense, because the only purpose of tasks is to achieve goals. In order to be successful, your goals must be riveted in your mind: they are the things you MUST do. To remember the connections between the tasks and the goals that they are meant to achieve, you just have to ask, “Why?” It is good to connect tasks to goals this way (with the “Why?”), because losing sight of the connections will prevent you from succeeding.
设计方案与任务最主要的目的就是实现你的目标。虽然方案和任务有所不同，但都是为了最终实现工作目标。所以一定不要忘记它们同目标之间的联系。我经常发现有人对自己完成了各项任务洋洋得意，却忘了最终的工作目标是什么，最终没能实现目标。这其实很没意义，因为任务的唯一目的就是实现目标。要想成功，必须牢记自己的工作目标：这些是你必须要做的事情。记住，任务和目标之间的联系，完成任务是为了实现目标的。其实你只用问“为什么”就知道他们之间的联系了。通过“为什么”将任务和目标联系起来很好，因为忽视了这种关联，会阻碍你实现成功。
Again, this 5-Step Process is iterative. This means that after completing one of the steps you will probably have acquired relevant information that leads you to modify the other steps.
再次说明，这五大步骤是循环往复的，也就意味着当你完成一个步骤后，可能会获得有用的信息帮助你改善其他步骤。
If this process is working, goals will change much more slowly than designs, which will change more slowly than tasks. Designs and tasks can be modified or changed often (because you might want to reassess how to achieve the goal), but changing goals frequently is usually a problem because achieving them requires a consistent effort. I often find that people who have problems reaching their goals handle these steps backwards; that is, they stick too rigidly to specified tasks and are not committed enough to achieving their goals (often because they lose sight of them).
如果这个过程开始运作了，对目标的改变远慢于设计方案的改变，而任务的改变则快得多。设计方案和任务可以经常调整改变（因为你可能想重新评估实现目标的方式），但频繁改变目标则通常会带来问题，因为实现目标本来就需要贯彻始终的努力。我常发现，有人在实现目标的征途上遇到问题，他们反复退回之前的步骤，对某些具体任务过度苛刻，却没有花更多精力在实现目标上，很多时候是因为他们忽略了目标的存在。
Weaknesses Don’t Matter if You Find Solutions
找到解决方案，有缺点也不要紧
To repeat, the best advice I can give you is to ask yourself what you want, then ask ‘what is true,’ and then ask yourself ‘what should be done about it.’ If you honestly ask and answer these questions you will move much faster towards what you want to get out of life than if you don’t!
再说一遍，我能给你的最好建议就是，问问自己想要什么，“真实情况是怎样的？”，“应该对此做些什么？”我相信只要按此步骤，就能更快实现梦想。
Most importantly, ask yourself what is your biggest weakness that stands in the way of what you want.
最重要的是，问你自己，阻碍你成功最大的缺点是什么。
As I mentioned before, everyone has weaknesses. The main difference between unsuccessful and successful people is that unsuccessful people don’t find and address them, and successful people do.
我说过，人人都有缺点，成功人士与平庸之辈的区别在于他们懂得发现缺点并采取解决方案。
It is difficult to see one’s own blind spots for two reasons:
发现个人缺点很难主要有两点原因：
1) Most people don’t go looking for their weaknesses because of “ego barriers”—they find having weaknesses painful because society has taught them that having weaknesses is bad. As I said early on, I believe that we would have a radically more effective and much happier society if we taught the truth, which is that everyone has weaknesses, and knowing about them and how to deal with them is how people learn and succeed.
1) 大多数人都不去搜寻自身缺点，就是因为“自我设障”，社会大环境告诉他们，有缺点是不好的，所以会觉得发现缺点很痛苦。我早前提过，如果大家都知道这样一个真相，即人人都有缺点，人们通过了解缺点，知道如何应对缺点而成长与成功，那我们的社会将变得更高效幸福。
2) Having a weakness is like missing a sense—if you can’t visualize what it is, it’s hard to perceive not having it.
2）具备缺点就像缺少一种感官——如果你无法形象描述这个感官是怎样的，也就很难察觉你在这方面的缺失。
For these two reasons, having people show you what you are missing can be painful, though its essential for your progress. When you encounter that pain, try to remember that you can get what you want outof life if you can open-mindedly reflect, with the help of others, on what is standing in your way and then deal with it.
基于这两点原因，要别人当你面告诉你缺少什么是挺痛苦的，但这是实现进步的重要步骤。遭受痛苦时，请记住：只要以开放的思维，并在别人的帮助下，对阻碍成功的东西进行反思，找到应对办法，就能实现人生梦想。
What do you think is the biggest weakness you have that stands in the way of what you want – the one that you repeatedly run into?
在追逐人生目标的征途上，你认为反复出现的阻碍你前行的最大缺点是什么？
People who don’t get what they want out of life fail at one or more of the five steps. But being weak atany one of these steps is not a problem if you understand what you are weak at and successfully compensate for that weakness by seeking help. For example, a good goal-setter who is bad at doingtasks might work well with a bad goal-setter who is great at doing tasks—i.e., they will be much more successful working together. It is easy to find out what weaknesses are standing in your way by 1) identifying which steps you are failing at and 2) getting the feedback of people who are successful at doing what you are having problems with.
没能实现人生梦想的人，一般是因为没能顺利完成五大步骤。但是对这五大步骤都不在行并不是问题，只需了解自己的缺点在哪，然后通过寻求帮助弥补这方面的劣势就好。例如，擅于设置目标但不擅长完成任务的人，可以和擅长完成任务但不善于设置目标的人进行合作。这两个人在一起工作，比单独工作要成功得多。找到阻碍成功的缺点不难，可以用以下的办法：1）弄清是哪一个步骤出了问题；2）从擅长你所不擅长的领域的成功人士那里获得反馈。
Because I believe that you will achieve your goals if you do these five steps well, it follows that if you are not achieving your goals you can use the 5-Step Process as a diagnostic tool. You would do this by 1) identifying the step(s) that you are failing at; 2) noting the qualities required to succeed at that step; and 3) identifying which of these qualities you are missing.
因为我认为只要做好这五个步骤，就能实现目标，若没能实现目标，也可以把这五步过程当作诊断工具。你可以：1）弄清楚在哪一步上失败的；2）记下需要完成此步骤所需的素质；3）弄清楚这些素质中，自己缺少哪些?
To repeat, the five steps and the qualities that I believe are required to be good at them are as follows:
再重复一下，以下是我认为五大步骤所需的素质：
Which qualities needed do you wish you had more of?
