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打印
Business
商業版塊
Bartleby
巴托比專欄
Overloaded overseers
不堪重負的管理者
A new paper illuminates the potential and the plight of middle managers.
一篇新論文闡明了中層管理人員的潛力和困境。
Nothing turns on management theorists more than conflicting incentives.
沒有什么比相互沖突的激勵更能激起管理理論家的興趣了。
(If the idea of an aroused management theorist has ruined your breakfast, sorry.)
(如果想到興奮的管理理論家讓你吃早餐時沒了胃口，那么在此說句對不起。)
They ruminate on financial motives—the adverse impact that individual bonus schemes might have on team collaboration, say.
比如，他們會認真思考金錢激勵，個人獎金機制可能會對團隊合作產生不利影響。
They churn out studies and books on the competing interests of shareholders and the executives who act on their behalf.
他們發表許多研究和書籍，論述股東和代表股東行事的高管之間的利益沖突。
A new paper, published by Achyuta Adhvaryu of the University of California, San Diego, and Emir Murathanoglu and Anant Nyshadham of the University of Michigan, casts fresh light on the problem.
加州大學圣地亞哥分校的阿曲塔·阿德瓦律以及密歇根大學的埃米爾·木拉塔納古和阿南特·納沙德姆發表的一篇新論文，對這個問題提出了新的見解。
It shows that clashing incentives are not always financial, and that conflicts can occur even between different levels of management.
論文表明，相互沖突的激勵并不總是金錢上的，在不同的管理層之間也可能出現這種沖突。
In the process it underlines that a much-mocked group deserves to be taken far more seriously.
在論述過程中，論文強調，一個備受嘲笑的群體應該得到更嚴肅的對待。
The authors examined the decisions of middle managers at Shahi Exports, one of India’s largest garment-makers.
作者研究了印度最大的服裝制造商之一沙希出口公司的中層管理人員的決策。
The firm has about 70 factories, where multiple teams of cutters, sewers and finishers produce clothing.
該公司擁有約70家工廠，工廠中有裁剪、縫制和最終加工等團隊來生產服裝。
In their study the academics tracked which team supervisors were being recommended for soft-skills training by their own managers, and then looked at the effect of that training on productivity and retention.
在他們的研究中，學者們跟蹤了哪些團隊主管被自己的經理推薦，去接受軟技能培訓，然后考察了培訓對工作效率和留任率的影響。
What they found was curious.
他們的發現非常奇特。
On average the training worked.
平均而言，培訓奏效了。
Teams whose supervisors had been through the course saw big productivity gains compared with control groups.
與對照組相比，那些接受過培訓課程的主管，其團隊的工作效率有了很大提高。
But these advances were distributed unevenly.
但這些提高的分布并不均勻。
Teams whose supervisors were most highly recommended by middle managers for training experienced no productivity gains; the benefits were concentrated on supervisors who were less recommended.
那些最受中層經理推薦進行培訓的主管，其團隊的工作效率沒有提升，效率提升的好處集中在那些不太受推薦的主管身上。
The pattern for retention was the reverse: there was a big drop in subsequent quit rates among supervisors who had been highly recommended by their managers, and little change among less recommended ones.
留任模式則與之相反：在經理強烈推薦的主管中，其隨后的離職率大幅下降，而在不太受推薦的主管中，離職率幾乎沒有變化。
Mr Adhvaryu et al look at a variety of explanations for this strange pattern and conclude that it reflects a deliberate calculation: managers were nominating those supervisors whom they regarded as flight risks.
阿德瓦律等人研究了對這種奇怪模式的各種解釋，并得出結論，這反映了一種刻意的計算：經理們提名了那些他們認為有跑路風險的主管。
That did not necessarily suit the interests of the company’s senior leaders.
這并不一定符合該公司高層領導的利益。
But it did suit the interests of middle managers, who bear the burden of filling in for missing supervisors and training new ones.
但這確實符合中層管理人員的利益，他們承擔著主管離職后補缺和培訓新主管的重擔。
Losing workers, in short, makes their lives a lot harder.
簡而言之，失去員工會讓他們的日子更加難過。
Retention matters more to them than productivity.
對他們來說，留住員工比提高工作效率更重要。
The paper provides three lessons, beyond the hoary one that incentives matter.
除了激勵很重要這個老掉牙的道理之外，這篇論文還提供了三個教訓。
The first is that agency problems can occur wherever power is delegated.
首先，只要有權力下放，就可能出現代理問題。
A decentralised organisation often makes a ton of sense, but it also risks introducing layers of competing interests.
組織去中心化通常都很合理，但這也有引入層層利益沖突的風險。
Another recent paper by Ingrid Haegele, then of the University of California, Berkeley, found that German managers at a big manufacturing company tried to hoard the best workers for their own teams.
加州大學伯克利分校的英格麗德·黑格勒最近的一篇論文發現，德國一家大型制造公司的經理試圖為自己的團隊囤積最好的工人。
When managers are themselves about to move into new positions, they have less incentive to discourage good employees from job-hopping.
當經理們自己即將擔任新的職位時，他們就沒有那么多的動力去阻止優秀員工跳槽。
Ms Haegele found that workers’ applications for internal promotions more than doubled during these temporary periods of selflessness.
黑格勒發現，在經理的這段短暫的無私時期，員工申請內部晉升的數量增加了一倍以上。
The second lesson is that middle managers deserve respect more than ridicule.
第二個教訓是，中層管理人員更值得被尊重，而不是被嘲諷。
The type of behaviour observed by the academics is possible because these managers have valuable private information: they know who is thinking of leaving the company and who is worth keeping.
學者們觀察到的行為是可能的，因為這些經理擁有寶貴的私人信息：他們知道誰在考慮離開公司，誰值得留住。
People in corner offices and boardrooms are usually too distant from the action to have this kind of insight.
坐在角落辦公室和董事會議室中的人通常離這些行動太遠，無法獲得這種洞見。
All of which means that middle managers can have a hugely beneficial effect on the performance of the workforce if the incentives are right.
所有這些都意味著，如果激勵措施得當，中層管理人員可以對員工的表現產生巨大的有益影響。
The third lesson from Shahi Exports is that money is not always the root problem.
沙希出口公司的第三個教訓是，問題的根源并不總是錢。
Its middle managers were making their training recommendations to avoid the extra work that comes from higher churn.
該公司的中層管理人員推薦人選參加培訓，目的是避免更高的員工流動性帶來額外工作。
That might make them sound lazy.
這可能會讓他們聽起來像在偷懶。
In fact, they are suffering from a common problem.
事實上，他們正遭受著一個共同的問題。
“Power to the Middle” is a forthcoming book on middle managers by Emily Field, Bryan Hancock and Bill Schaninger, a trio of consultants at McKinsey.
麥肯錫的三位咨詢師艾米麗·菲爾德、布萊恩·漢考克和比爾·沙寧格即將出版一本關于中層管理者的書，名為《給中層以力量》。
It argues that a lack of time and resources bedevils these unfortunate souls everywhere.
這本書認為，缺乏時間和資源困擾著各個地方的不幸的中層管理者。
A survey of 700 middle managers conducted for the book finds that they are spending one full day a week on administrative tasks.
這本書對700名中層管理人員進行了一項調查，發現他們每周有一整天的時間花在行政任務上。
Replacing good workers is never fun, but it is a lot worse if a manager is already running on empty.
找人接替優秀的員工從來都不是什么有趣的事情，但如果一個經理的位置已經是空著的，那情況就更糟了。
You don’t need to be a theorist to work that out.
就算你不是理論家，也能想通這個問題。
