身为公司掌门人，你的副手绝不应该通过猎头来寻找。最好邀请曾与你成功合作的人担此重任，这样，他一入职你们就能马上开展工作了。
不要把候选人名单局限于过去的同事。客户、供应商、家族成员和童年玩伴都应该进入你的视野。当初我创建“年轻创业家组织”【Young Entrepreneurs Organization，现在已成为“创业家组织”（EO）】的时候，我的得力助手是自己以前做临时助教时的一名学生，那时候他的表现给我留下了深刻的印象。早在鲍尔默成为微软公司（Microsoft）的首席执行官前，他和比尔•盖茨就曾是大学里的牌友。
那么你应该注重这个人的哪些素质呢？别忘了在如今这个商业环境中，只有高度关注市场的人才能成功。你的副手得是一位擅长救火，同时能贯彻执行你最佳理念的人。否则，你就会生活在许多企业家必须面对的噩梦里：什么都得亲力亲为，因为身边没人能干得了。你需要的还是一个能在你的宏伟构想和团队当中发挥缓冲作用的人——否则，你就会像很多企业家一样，把自己的人给逼疯。
一旦在自己的首选候选人中确定了人选，就需要先试着开展短期合作。可能你公司里有个董事会的顾问职位正缺人——埃里克•施密特在成为谷歌公司（Google）的首席执行官前曾是该公司的董事会成员——或是一份付酬顾问的活要人。通过这种安排你就能大概了解，今后真正和这位副手在自己的公司里共事是否会和谐顺畅。你得知道，不需要借助拳脚，也能斗得过他。
当你觉得已经找到人选时，就算你们彼此十分了解，也请做一次详细的正式面试，可以用一套客观评分系统来评价这位候选人。问问他对以前的职位和老板怎么看。我就有一次差点聘用一位相识多年、非常合乎要求的副手，直到做了一次这样的面试后我才打住，因为这个面试让我意识到，她之所以能跟以前的老上司和谐相处都是因为一个共通的原因——他们都可以辅导她。但我因为经常出差，没法如此频繁地辅导她，所以我最后认定她不是最佳人选。
要找一个合适的副手耗时费力，但一切都是值得的。哈佛大学（Harvard）教授诺阿姆•瓦瑟曼在其著作《创始人的窘境》（The Founder's Dilemmas）中曾经探讨过，创业公司实现了团队领导后，往往能表现得更出色。不是每个企业家都有幸找到完美的联合创始人，但如果日后能找到一位出类拔萃的副手，你就能获得许多同样非凡的回报。（财富中文网）
译者：清远
| | | Your deputy is the one position at your company that you shouldn't head hunt. It's best to bring in someone you've worked with successfully in the past, so you can hit the ground running from day one.
Don't limit your list to past colleagues. They can be clients, suppliers, family members, and childhood buddies. When I founded the Young Entrepreneurs Organization (now EO), my right hand was a former student from an adjunct teaching gig who had impressed me. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were poker-playing buddies in college, long before Ballmer became CEO at Microsoft (MSFT).
What should you look for in this person? Remember that in today's business environment, you've got to stay market-focused to win. For your No. 2, you need someone who's good at putting out fires and executing your best ideas. Otherwise, you'll be living the nightmare many entrepreneurs face: Doing everything yourself, because there's no one around you who can. You also need someone who can be a shock absorber between your grandiose ideas and your team -- or, like many entrepreneurs, you'll drive your people crazy.
Once you have an idea of who's available among your top candidates, look for short-term opportunities to collaborate. Maybe there's a board of advisers position open at your company -- Eric Schmidt served on Google's (GOOG) board of directors before he became CEO -- or a paid consulting gig. This will give you a feel for how well you will work together in your current company. You need to know you can fight with this person without resorting to fisticuffs.
When you feel like you've found the right person, even if you know each other well, do a detailed, formal interview, where you use an objective scoring system to evaluate candidates. Ask what they liked about their past positions and bosses. I once got very close to hiring a highly qualified right hand I had known for many years until I did an interview like this and realized that the common thread among the past managers she'd loved was their availability to mentor her. I wasn't going to be available to do that much, because I travel a lot, so I decided it wasn't a good fit.
It can take time to find the right deputy, but it's worth it. Entrepreneurial companies tend to do better when they are team-led, as Harvard Professor Noam Wasserman discusses in The Founder's Dilemmas. Not every entrepreneur is lucky enough to find the perfect co-founders, but if you later pick an amazing No. 2, you'll be able to reap many of the same rewards.
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