Ever since Fortune, in 1998, started ranking the top women in business (yes, we were first), I've been asking the stars of the Most Powerful Women list how they reached the top and how they stay there. One month away from revealing our 2011 MPW rankings, now seems a good time to share some of their best career tips. Here is my Top 10:
《财富》杂志（Fortune）从1998年开始评选商界女强人（我们开创了此类评选的先河）。从那时起，我便一直在探讨最具影响力商界女性们（Most Powerful Women）的成功秘诀。她们是如何登上巅峰，并保持长久辉煌的？一个月之后，我们将公布2011年最具影响力商界女性的评选结果，现在正是分享她们职场成功秘诀的时候。以下为笔者总结的十大秘诀：
1. Don't plan your career. Most of the women on the Fortune MPW list, starting with PepsiCo (PEP) CEO Indra Nooyi, No. 1 in the rankings since 2006, had no clear career map when they graduated college or business school. Rather, they stayed flexible and open to the possibilities.
1. 不必规划自己的职业生涯。在最具影响力商界女性榜单中，包括从2006年便一直名列榜首的百事可乐公司（PepsiCo）CEO卢英德在内，大部分人从大学或商学院毕业后并没有明确的职场规划。相反，她们始终保持灵活和开放的姿态，来迎接任何可能出现的机遇和挑战。
2. Forget the ladder; climb the jungle gym. What good is a ladder when the world is changing so fast and unpredictably--and who knows what tomorrow's ideal job will be? Think of your career as a jungle gym, sharpen your peripheral vision, and look for opportunities all around.
2. 忘掉晋升阶梯；把职场当做攀爬架。世界变化太快，难以捉摸，梯子到底有什么意义？谁能预见明天最理想的工作是什么？把自己的职业想象成攀爬架，睁大眼睛，保持开阔的视野，从周围寻找机会。
3. Worry about the job you're in. "If you don't do that one well, you'll never get the next one," says Jan Fields, who started out cooking French fries at McDonald's (MCD) and rose to U.S. President. While it's important to envision some ultimate goal, says Fields, "you have to focus on what you have right now, or that long-term opportunity won't come."
3. 着眼于眼前。简•菲尔兹最初在麦当劳（McDonald's）负责炸薯条工作，通过不懈努力终于成为麦当劳美国区总裁。她认为：“如果连当前的工作都做不好，何谈下一份工作？”菲尔兹表示，预想一个最终目标当然非常重要，但“首先必须专注于眼下的工作，否则永远不会有长远的机会。”
4. Follow your compass, not your clock. Avon Products (AVP) CEO Andrea Jung lives by this advice, ever since she got passed over the first time around, for the CEO job. Former Time Inc. (TWX) CEO Ann Moore, on the Avon board at the time, gave Jung this advice. It's good that Jung stayed. In the CEO role since 1999, she's now the longest-serving female chief in the Fortune 500, and she's on the Apple (AAPL) and General Electric (GE) boards.
4. 瞄准人生大方向，不必在意一时得失。可以说，雅芳产品公司（Avon Products）CEO钟彬娴的成功靠的就是这句话。当时，她在公司CEO的首次角逐中败北，时任雅芳董事会成员、时代集团（Time Inc.）前任CEO的安•摩尔给了她这条忠告。于是，钟彬娴打消了离开的念头，留在了公司。钟彬娴从1999年便一直担任雅芳公司CEO，是《财富》500强公司（Fortune 500）中任期最长的女性CEO。同时，她还在苹果公司（Apple）与通用电气公司（General Electric）董事会任职。
5. Take risks. Google (GOOG) VP Marissa Mayer had a slew of job offers from well-known companies in 1999 when she was coming out of Stanford University with a Masters in Computer Science. She chose Google, then a brand new startup, because, she says, "I wanted to work for smart people, and I wanted to do things I wasn't ready to do."
5. 勇于冒险。1999年，谷歌公司（Google）现任副总裁玛丽莎•梅耶尔从斯坦福大学（Stanford University）毕业，获得了计算机专业硕士学位。当时，有多家知名公司向她伸出了橄榄枝，但她却选择了成立不久的初创公司谷歌。对此，她的解释是因为“我希望能为聪明人打工，而且我希望能够接受从未经历过的挑战。”
6. Be yourself. When Ursula Burns learned that she was going to be named CEO of Xerox (XRX), she knew that one of the easiest ways to succeed would be to act like her popular predecessor, who brought the company back from near-bankruptcy. "You can't try to be me," Burns recalls Mulcahy telling her. Burns says this is one of her rules today: "You can be somebody else and follow all your life, but you cannot be somebody else and lead."
6. 做你自己。当乌尔苏拉•伯恩斯得知自己即将被任命为施乐公司（Xerox）CEO时，她明白要想获得成功，最简单的方法就是延续前任的老路。她的前任梅卡尼深受爱戴，正是她力挽狂澜，使公司摆脱了濒临破产的困境。但据伯恩斯回忆，梅卡尼曾告诫她：“你必须做你自己。”伯恩斯称，这是她到今天依然坚持的原则之一：“你可以一辈子模仿别人，但模仿别人注定不能成为领路人。”
7. Don't balance. Juggle. "Stop believing in balance," says Anne Sweeney, who has raised two children including an autistic son while overseeing Disney's (DIS) Media Networks. She calls balance "the B word because it just doesn't exist." On days when you can't get it all done, "the best thing you can do is say, 'You know what? I gave it my best and I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning and try again. She adds, "There are days when it falls into place, but chances are, it happened because you had a lot of smart people that you work with who were knocking it out of the park."
7. 放弃平衡。学会变通。安妮•斯维尼有两个孩子，其中一个患有自闭症，同时她还要负责监督迪斯尼公司（Disney）媒体网络部的工作。她建议：“别再相信什么平衡。”她认为所谓的平衡“完全是胡说八道。”如果有时候没办法做完手头所有的工作，“最好的选择就是说：‘知道吗？我已经尽了全力。现在我要去睡觉了，等明天一早醒来再说吧。’”她补充说：“有时候事事如意，但这或许只是因为你有许多聪明的同事，他们出色地完成了工作。”
8. Give thanks. While, this may sound Polyannish, the people who make it to the top and stay there--especially women, who are judged within a narrower band of acceptable behavior than men tend to be--give out more appreciation than they take for themselves. "One of the greatest unwritten rules of business," says Gina Drosos, in charge of a $20 billion beauty business at Procter & Gamble (PG), is that it's so important to appreciate the hard work of your team and the people around you." As Drosos notes, the higher you climb, the less you do it all yourself.
8. 善于感恩。尽管这听起来过于乐观，但那些能始终身居高位的人极少居功自傲，他们更懂得向他人表达感激之情。女性更是如此，因为与男性相比，人们对她们的评判更加苛刻。吉娜•德罗索斯负责宝洁公司（Procter & Gamble）200亿美元的美容业务。她认为：“在商界，有一条不成文的原则，那就是要对团队和同事的努力工作表示感谢，这一点非常重要。”正如德罗索斯所说，职位越高，单打独斗的机会就越少。
9. Don't leave before you leave. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg introduced this advice in an essay that she wrote in Fortune's 2009 Most Powerful Women issue. She wrote the piece out of frustration--seeing way too many young women crimp career ambitions as they anticipate having children or otherwise settling down. Instead of "leaning back"--and then, almost inevitably getting bored--Sandberg advises: "Take life one step at a time and don't make decisions before you have to."
9. 三思而后行。在为《财富》杂志2009年最具影响力商界女性专刊撰写的一篇文章中，Facebook公司首席运营官谢丽尔•桑德伯格提出了这条建议。她写这篇文章完全是出于沮丧，因为她发现，太多年轻女性因为考虑到将来要生孩子或要稳定下来，因而束缚了自己的职业抱负。桑德伯格建议：“路要一步一步地走，除非迫不得已，不要提前做出决定。”因为过早“退缩”，最终必然会感到厌倦。
10. Own your power. Most women on our MPW list cringed at the word "power" 13 years ago when we launched the annual rankings. Sandberg came around eventually (She describes her "a ha moment" in a recent New Yorker profile). Oprah Winfrey has too. The secret to getting comfortable with your power is to define it your own way. My favorite definition comes from Oprah, who told me: "Power is the ability to impact with purpose."
10. 支配自己的权力。13年前，当我们开始评选年度最具影响力商界女性时，大部分人对于“权力”一词都感觉不太自在。桑坦伯格最终想通了【她在近期《纽约客》杂志（New Yorker）的一篇文章中描述了自己当年获悉入选时最初的不适应】。奥普拉•温弗瑞也有过类似的经历。要自如地行使自己的权力，诀窍就在于按照自己的方式对它进行定义。我最钟爱的定义来自奥普拉•温弗瑞，她认为：“权力是能够有目的地影响其他人的能力。”