企业革新模式需要改革

    我们生活在一个纷繁多变的世界里，越来越难以根据过去预测未来。变革是多方面的、无情的、颠覆性的，有时甚至是令人震惊的。

    在变革这个大漩涡中，长期存在的政权、古老的机构和历经百年的商业模式都将面临风险。如今，对于所有的组织来说，最重要的问题就是：我们能否跟上时代变迁的脚步？

    对于大多数组织机构来说，答案都是否定的。长江后浪推前浪，变革大潮中的弄潮儿往往是后起之秀，而不是老牌巨头——是谷歌（Google），而不是微软（Microsoft）；是现代汽车（Hyundai），而不是克莱斯勒（Chrysler）；是苹果（Apple），而不是诺基亚（Nokia）；是亚洲航空（Air Asia），而不是日本航空（JAL），诸如此类，不胜枚举。

    然而，面对不断变化的世界，暂时胜出的行业先锋与他们曾经击败的对手一样脆弱。战略实施周期日益缩短，成功变得前所未有的短暂——麦肯锡（McKinsey）2005年的一份研究报告表明：龙头企业（在某个行业营收排名前20%的企业）在五年内被取而代之的可能性为30%。这个概率是几十年前的三倍多。

    我们唯一能确定的预测就是：将来，也许很快，任何一家企业都不得不以前所未有的方式进行革新。

    问题是，企业成立的初衷并不是为了去适应变化。一百年前的管理先驱们想到的只是创立纪律严明、而不是富有弹性的公司。他们明白，程序化是效率的源泉。而适应性则需要偶尔放弃这些程序的意愿——大多数企业很少有这样的激励机制。

    这也就是为什么变革往往只会以两种形式出现：微不足道的变革和元气大伤的变革。回顾普通公司的历史，我们会发现它们长期进行着微不足道的增量变革，偶尔因出现危机而被动进行大举变革。为什么有的公司一定要在迷失方向、市值蒸发数十亿美元后才开始认真思考变革呢？

    We live in a world that seems to be all punctuation and no equilibrium, where the future is less and less an extrapolation of the past. Change is multifaceted, relentless, seditious, and occasionally shocking.

    In this maelstrom, long-lived political dynasties, venerable institutions, and hundred-year-old business models are all at risk. Today, the most important question for any organization is this: are we changing as fast as the world around us?

    For most organizations, the answer is no. In industry after industry, it's the insurgents, not the incumbents, who've been riding the waves of change -- it's Google (GOOG), not Microsoft (MSFT); Hyundai, not Chrysler; Apple (AAPL), not Nokia (NOK); Air Asia, not JAL; and so on.

    The vanguard, though, are just as vulnerable to change as their victims. Strategy life cycles have been shrinking, and success has never been more fleeting -- a 2005 McKinsey study indicated that market leaders (defined as being in the top quintile by revenue in a given industry) stand a 30% chance to be "toppled" within 5 years. This probability is over three times what it used to be a few decades ago.

    The only thing that can be safely predicted is that sometime soon your organization will be challenged to change in ways for which it has no precedent.

    Problem is, our organizations were never built to be adaptable. Those early management pioneers, a hundred years ago, set out to build companies that were disciplined, not resilient. They understood that efficiency comes from routinizing the nonroutine. Adaptability, on the other hand, requires a willingness to occasionally abandon those routines -- and in most organizations there are precious few incentives to do that.

    That's why change tends to come in only two varieties: the trivial and the traumatic. Review the history of the average corporation and you'll discover long periods of incremental fiddling punctuated by occasional bouts of frantic, crisis-driven change. Why should an organization have to lose its way and surrender billions of dollars in market value before getting serious about change?