本文作者：David Brown，Entrepreneur网站嘉宾作家，是Techstars的联合创始人兼联合首席执行官。曾经是Pinpoint Technologies的创始人，现在加入了Zoll Medical Corp.
When building your organization from the ground up, it's best to assign employees (and co-founders) to specific roles to ensure smooth operations.
开始创立公司时，最好为员工（及共同创始人）分配特定的角色以确保顺利运营。
Take a look at the leadership at any major company -- tech or otherwise -- and it’s very unlikely to see a co-CEO title. Can you name a single company with $10 million in sales that has two CEOs? There are a few, but not many. At Techstars, we’ve been very vocal about why having two CEOs at the helm of any company is generally a bad idea, but that doesn’t mean it never works out.
如果你去看一下大公司的领导层，你会发现无论是科技公司还是其他类型的公司，都很少有共同首席执行官这一头衔。你能说出一家具有两位首席执行官的市值十亿美元的公司吗？ 有一些 ，但不是太多。在Techstars，我们一直说在任何公司中任命两位首席执行官都并非明智之举，当然这也并非在所有公司中都不适用。
When building your organization from the ground up, it’s best to assign employees (and co-founders) to specific roles to ensure smooth operations. When employees and funds are tight, it’s best for your future that everyone has their own path, with their own, distinct responsibilities.
开始创立公司时，最好为员工（及共同创始人）分配特定的角色以确保顺利运营。当员工和经费紧张时，为公司未来考虑，最好为每个人分配各自的不同的发展路径和职责。
Why co-CEOs don’t (usually) work
为何共同首席执行官（通常情况下）不适用
When an idea for a company happens, it’s more than likely the brainchild of more than one person. Co-founders may be thinkin, This is our collective idea, so we should share collective ownership of running the company. This is where they are wrong.
创立公司的想法经常是由多个人一起提出来的。共同创始人可能会想，这是我们的共同想法，因此我们应该拥有共同运营公司的权利。但这个想法是不对的。
Co-founders don’t want to create a hierarchy between them, which is perfectly understandable, but not in the company’s best interests. By creating co-CEOs, the company as a whole now views the co-founders as equals. If you take a deeper look into day-to-day activities, the co-founders probably aren’t all that equal -- there may be one person who is carrying the weight of the other founders. This can create bigger and more deeply rooted founder issues that have the potential to bring your company to its knees.
共同创始人不希望在他们之间划分等级，这是完全可以理解的，但这却不符合公司的最佳利益。采用共同首席执行官制时，公司作为一个整体，将会平等看待这些共同创始人。然而，如果你再深入思考下日常的活动，便会发现共同创始人并非都那么平等——可能会有一个人比另一个人更为重要。这就会在创始人之间产生更大的、更深层次的问题，而这些问题将有可能让你的公司走向灭亡。
Some co-founders decide on co-CEO titles because they don’t believe titles are relevant, or they don’t want to have the discussion at all. If co-founders are brushing off a conversation on titles, they will likely brush off more important discussions that need to be had.
有些共同创始人在确定共同首席执行官的头衔时，并不认为这些头衔有多重要，或者根本不想进行讨论。如果共同创始人放弃头衔方面的讨论，他们将有可能会错过一些更重要的、必要的讨论。
Founder issue amplification
创始人问题扩大
When two CEOs are working together to call the shots, there will be times when the two simply can’t agree. When they don’t, who gets the final call? Even worse, which CEO do employees go to for counsel and decision-making? When one is out of the office, is the other in charge and vice versa?
当两个首席执行官共同发号施令时，可能这两个人之间就会存在分歧。如果产生分歧，以谁的意见为主呢？更糟糕的是，员工需要遵从哪个首席执行官的提议和决策呢？如果其中一位不在办公室，另一位是否可以代理呢（反之亦然）？
In most cases, employees are conflicted and feel the need to get sign-off from both, which leads to slower decision-making, or in some cases an all-out halt in productivity. Other times, employees do the classic “mom vs. dad” approach, latching to the CEO that generally agrees with their point of view or signs off based on trust in their relationship.
在大多数情况下，员工会感到矛盾，感觉有必要获得两个人的签字，这就会造成决策缓慢，或者在某些情况下导致工作无法开展下去。有些时候，员工会采取经典的“父母对弈式”方法，选择追随那个通常会同意自己的观点或因信任关系而签字的首席执行官。
When growing a company, bringing on more and more employees, this conflict is bound to happen. And when the founder issues are too much to bear, one founder and CEO will back away -- maybe backing away from decision-making due to constant bulldozing, or pulling out of the company altogether. These issues may have never occurred if roles had been broken out at the start of the company.
公司发展过程中，员工人数日益增多，这个矛盾必然发生。当创始人问题日益膨胀时，其中一位创始人和首席执行官将会退出——可能由于不断的打击而退出决策，或者完全离开公司。如果公司创立之初便确定好角色分配，这些问题可能永远不会发生。
Defining roles early on
尽早确定角色
While some co-founders might feel it difficult to knight a CEO, early business interactions should be a telltale sign of who should be the one in the big chair. Some questions to ask each other:
尽管某些共同创始人可能感觉很难确定一位首席执行官衔，早期的商业互动可以作为参考，用来确定谁适合坐这头把交椅。可以相互询问以下问题：
Who thrives on the business issues and defers to the co-founder on the technical issues?
Who is tapped for media interviews, or leads investor pitches?
Who deals with contracts, negotiations and partnerships?
Who is perceived by others as the person in charge based on personality, attitude and assertiveness?
业务问题和技术问题分别应遵从谁的意见？
谁负责媒体采访或融资？
谁处理合同、谈判和合作？
根据个性、态度和魄力，大家认为应由谁来领导？
When a decision is made, the other founders should pick titles that match their specific strengths. The key here is that co-founders need to determine how they interact collectively as the executive leadership team. Communication and proper processes to discuss the smallest details of strategy, the business or the product should be in place from the very beginning.
确定首席执行官之后，另一位创始人应选择匹配自己特定优势的头衔。这里的关键是，共同创始人需要确定彼此应如何作为一个执行领导团队共同合作。应从一开始就进行沟通并落实讨论策略细节、业务或产品的正确流程。
Why best practices may not always be best for you
为何最佳实践可能并非始终适用
A startup with co-CEOs doesn’t necessarily mean the company is dysfunctional, but in early-stage companies the dual CEO can certainly lead to some problems that aren’t easy to fix. Internal power struggle, conflict avoidance problem, no clear chain of command -- all issues that can lead to internal and external strife.
采用共同首席执行官制的初创公司不一定会运转失灵，但在公司早期阶段两个首席执行官必然会产生一些难以解决的问题。内部权力争斗、冲突回避问题、缺乏明确的需求链——这些问题都可能导致内部和外部冲突。
Whether you and your co-founders decide to name one CEO, or split the role, the key to success is execution from the founding team. If the founding team is having struggles communicating or making decisions on who leads and who owns which aspects of the business, it might not be in your best interest to jump into the startup world together.
无论你和你的共同创始人决定只任命一位首席执行官还是共同担任此角色，成功的关键都是创始团队的执行力。如果创始团队无法就由谁来领导和负责哪些业务部分这一问题进行交流或做出决定，你们可能并不适合一起创业。
If you do plan to take the co-CEO route, here are a few best practices I’ve learned along the way:
Decide that a yes/no from one CEO is a yes/no from both.
Know each other's strengths and weaknesses, and let the stronger CEO be the tie-breaker in decisions that match their personality.
If you are unsure, discuss the smallest details of together.
Finally, trust each other!.
如果你计划采取共同首席执行官制，请参考下面的一些最佳实践：
获得其中一位首席执行官的批准/拒绝即视为同时获得两位首席执行官的批准/拒绝。
了解彼此的优势和弱势，让能力较强的首席执行官负责匹配其个性的决策。
如果你不确定，请一起讨论下详细的细节。
最后，相互信任！
本文由戈壁创投编译。原文载于 Entrepreneur：
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297835
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戈壁创投，差异化投资者
