日常工作保证组织秩序井然

    哥伦比亚大学商学院（Columbia Business School）教授雷•菲斯曼与《哈佛商业评论》（Harvard Business Review）执行编辑蒂姆•沙利文在他们合著的新书《组织：办公室潜在的逻辑》（The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office）的结尾引用了著名神学家莱茵霍尔德•尼布尔（Reinhold Niebuhr）的宁静祈祷文：

    上帝赐我宁静，接受我不能改变的事情，

    赐我勇气，去改变我所能改变的事情，

    赐我智慧，以分辨两者的不同。

    低声念几遍祷告文，然后提交开支报告，看着你的同事在格子间里忙碌，因为按照两位作者的说法，现代组织不完善和不正常的表现虽然令人恼火，但却不会改变。而你基本无能为力。

    菲斯曼和沙利文认为，这并不是一件坏事。这是世界上所能期望最好的体系，因为员工是很难对付的，资源是有限的，而工作运行良好。组织是经过权衡、不断变化的复杂产物：组织应该集中吗？或者加以规范？进行创新？委托代表？精简结构？

    答案并没有那么简单，两位作者清楚地阐述了这一点，他们为读者展现了现代组织的逻辑结构和演变过程。

    麦当劳公司（McDonald's）应该如何应对想安装牛肉烧烤台的特许业务经营者？Kayak.com网站为什么要让软件工程师接听客户服务电话？制药巨头如何组织研发来开发全新的热销药物？你如何评价卫理公会牧师在拯救灵魂方面（以及他们履行许多其他教会职责）的成效？

    菲斯曼和沙利文并没有给出所有的答案，但是两位作者做出了勇敢的尝试。分析了为什么某些组织运作良好，其他组织却运行失常。他们向读者描绘了让组织举步维艰、处境困难的情形。

    两位作者借鉴了各种组织的案例研究，这些组织规模各异。从惠普公司（Hewlett-Packard）、宝洁公司（Proctor & Gamble）和美国联邦调查局（FBI），到基地组织、萨摩亚政府和印度纺织工厂，他们为读者呈现了风趣的文笔和详实的信息。书中充满丰富的奇闻轶事、社会科学的理论分析，以及各种各样令人惊讶的假设猜想。读者将了解到麦当劳麦香鱼的起源，哈佛大学商学院（Harvard Business School）1910年的课程。这本书甚至追溯到了20世纪70年代，当时首席执行官很少留给自己超过9分钟的时间。

    Ray Fisman, Columbia Business School professor, and Tim Sullivan, editorial director of the Harvard Business Review close their book The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office with a serenity prayer attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

    God grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change,

    Courage to change the things I can,

    And wisdom to know the difference.

    Whisper that to yourself a few times, and file those expense reports, you cubicle-dwelling worker bees, because according to the authors, the modern organization -- maddeningly imperfect and dysfunctional as it may seem -- is here to stay. And there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

    Fisman and Sullivan also argue that it's not a bad thing. It's the best system one can hope for in a world where people are difficult, resources are limited, and work is well, work. Organizations are the complex, ever-changing product of trade-offs: Should one centralize? Standardize? Innovate? Delegate? Flatten?

    The answers are rarely so straightforward, a point the authors make abundantly clear as they walk readers through the logic and evolution of the modern day org.

    How should McDonald's (MCD) have handled an enterprising franchise owner who wanted to have a carving station for beef? Why did Kayak.com have its software engineers answer customer service calls? How can conglomerate drug companies organize R&D to develop next-generation blockbuster drugs? And how on earth do you evaluate Methodist ministers' effectiveness at saving souls (and performing their many other ministerial duties)?

    Fisman and Sullivan don't have all the answers, but the pair make a valiant attempt to parse why some organizations work and others don't, and they give readers a good picture of what makes the organization so unwieldy and so difficult.

    The authors draw upon case studies from organizations big and small. From Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Proctor & Gamble (PG), and the FBI to Al Qaeda, the Samoan government, and textile factories in India, they take readers on an enjoyable and informative romp, packed with rich anecdotes, meaty bits of social science, and all sorts of surprising factoids. You'll learn the origin of McDonald's Filet-O-Fish, Harvard Business School's curriculum circa 1910, and that even back in the 1970s, CEOs rarely had more than nine minutes of time to themselves.