官僚体系末路

    然而，大多数CEO和CIO依然停留在旧的管理范式之中；本应该大修时，他们却在那里微调，本应该变革时，他们却在那里发微博。走进美国一家最年轻、发展最快的IT公司，大家会发现一个令人沮丧的事实：它已经拥有600位副总裁。正如此前几乎所有的初创企业一样，官僚体系的触角已经慢慢包围了这家年轻的公司。管理者和一线员工的比例正在上升。决策周期越来越长。管理小组不断扩大，正在积聚更多的权力。规则正在激增。一切活动都需要获得法务部门的首肯。我们都知道这部大戏的结局。这家公司最终将成为一家仍然有些竞争力，但不那么举足轻重的企业。种种机遇被挥霍一空，利润缩水，人才外流，留下的员工基本上都过着当一天和尚撞一天钟的日子。

    大公司出了名的思路狭窄、行动迟缓，而且它们确实当之无愧。但问题不在于公司规模的大小，而在于官僚结构和与其相伴的管理流程。

    另一方面，互联网已经证明，一家组织不一定非得集权化才能强大，它完全可以庞大但不官僚，高效但不呆板，纪律严明但不剥夺权力。

    互联网以一种10年前很少有人能够想象的方式释放了人类的能力。它是人类能力的倍增器。官僚体系不是。在官僚体系下，我们可以完成一些非凡的事情，比如制造20纳米计算机芯片，但它挥霍了人类太多的才能。

    官僚体系尤为看重的是服从、勤奋和专业知识，主动性、创新和激情却不那么受待见，但在今天的创意经济中，这些能力恰恰是最重要的成功因素。难怪理查德•佛罗里达会在他的著作《创意阶层的崛起》(The Rise of the Creative Class)中这样写道：“在这个新兴的时代，最紧要的问题是创造力与组织之间的紧张关系。”

    人是一种适应能力非常强、富有创造力、充满激情的动物，但大多数组织并不是这样。拜官僚主义盛行的管理模式所赐，许多组织的能力已经赶不上为它效力的员工了。这是当务之急，同时也是机会：通过创造一种适合人发展的组织，来创造一种顺应未来趋势的组织。

    如果你相信信息技术的变革力量，你就必须面对一个事实：赢得未来的管理实践和流程与此前一代的官僚体系有着天壤之别，二者的差异之大就像 Skype之于“普通的老式电话”，亚马逊(Amazon)之于单排商业区，Twitter之于明信片。一旦你接受了这个事实，你就必须发挥自己所有的想象力，用全部的热情去迎接打造一个“后官僚体系组织”这一挑战。

    这就是我们跟一大群进步思想家、实践者和技术专家正在“打碎管理体系黑客马拉松”(Busting Bureaucracy Hackathon)做的事情。快来加入我们的行列吧。。（财富中文网）

    本文作者加里•哈默尔是MIX公司（意为“管理创新交流”）的共同创始人，著有《管理的未来》一书。他同时还是伦敦商学院的客座教授

    译者：叶寒

    And yet, most CEOs and CIOs are stuck inside the old paradigm; they're tweaking when they should be overhauling and tweeting when they should be transforming. It's disheartening to go inside one of America's youngest and fastest growing IT companies and discover that it already has 600 vice presidents. As with virtually every other startup that preceded it, the tentacles of bureaucracy have slowly encircled this young company. The ratio of managers to first-line associates is going up. Decision cycles are growing longer. Staff groups are growing and accumulating more power. Rules are proliferating. And legal has to sign off on everything.We know how this movie ends. It ends with a company that is still competent but just not very relevant. Opportunities have been squandered, margins have shrunk, the best brains have left, and those who are left are mostly going through the motions.

    Big companies have a well-deserved reputation for being blinkered and ponderous. The problem, though, is not size but rather the bureaucratic structures and processes that come with it.

    The web, on the other hand, has demonstrated that an organization doesn't have to be centralized to be robust, that it can be large but not bureaucratic, efficient but not inflexible, disciplined but not disempowering.

    The web has unleashed human capacity in ways that few of us could have imagined a decade ago. It's a multiplier of human capability. Bureaucracy isn't. It allows us to do some extraordinary things -- like manufacturing 20-nanometer computer chips -- but it squanders human talent.

    In a bureaucracy, obedience, diligence and expertise are valued. Initiative, innovation and passion? Not so much. It's precisely these latter capabilities that are most essential to success in today's creative economy. No wonder, Richard Florida, in his book, The Rise of the Creative Class, observed that "the biggest issue at stake in this emerging age is the tension between creativity and organization."

    Human beings are resilient, inventive, and passionate, but our organizations mostly aren't. Our bureaucracy-infused management models have left us with organizations that are less capable than the people who work within them. Therein lies the imperative and the opportunity: creating organizations that are fit for the future, by creating organizations that are fit for human beings.

    If you believe in the transformational power of IT, you have to face the fact that tomorrow's winning management practices and processes will be as different from their bureaucratic predecessors as Skype is from "plain old telephone service," as Amazon is from a strip mall, as Twitter is from a postcard. And once you've accepted this truth, you'll have to bring all of your imagination and all of your heart to the challenge of building a "post-bureaucratic organization."

    That's what we've been doing with a community of progressive thinkers, practitioners, and technologists in the "Busting Bureaucracy Hackathon." Join us.

    Gary Hamel is the co-founder of the MIX (Management Innovation eXchange) and author of "The Future of Management" and "What Matters Now." He's a visiting professor at London Business School.