Bureaucracy

官僚主义

 

Bureaucracy: Productivity’s enemy. Welch told his people to “fight it, kick it.” The GE CEO fought a two-decade war against bureaucracy with initiatives like boundaryless and Work-Out. GE’s list of values specifically addressed the company’s intolerance for bureaucracy (it was at the top of the list for many years), and stressed the importance of building an organization of trust, excitement, and informality. Welch recognized the adverse effects of bureaucracy and knew that unless he rid the organization of the worst of it, GE would never become a legitimate global competitor.

官僚主义:生产率的敌人。韦尔奇告诉手下去“打倒它、踢走它”。这位通用电气公司的首席执行官凭借“无界限”和“群策群力”这类倡导行动，与官僚主义进行了长达二十年的战争。通用电气公司在它的价值观中明确声言，公司绝不容忍官僚主义（多年来这一点都列在价值观中的首要位置上），并强调了构建相互信任、充满兴奋和不拘礼节的组织有多么重要。韦尔奇认识到了官僚主义的不利影响，也知道自己如果不从通用电气公司中根除它的恶习，公司就永远不可能成为合格的全球竞争者。

 

THE ORIGINS OF GE’S BUREAUCRACY

All large organizations have some bureaucracy. It is a given, inherent in the organizing form that was crafted in large part by Alfred P. Sloan, who became president and chief executive officer of General Motors in 1923. The GM CEO recognized the need for coherence and a unifying order when he confronted a sprawling corporation that was in dire need of organization. It was Sloan who transformed GM’s loosely configured, far-flung divisions into a coherent corporation.

通用电气公司官僚主义溯源

所有大型组织都有些官僚主义。它是大部分由阿尔弗雷德·P·斯隆手创的那种组织形式中固有的天性。斯隆于1923年成为通用汽车公司的总裁兼首席执行官。他所面对的是一家庞大的企业，它迫切需要的是组织，因而他便感觉到凝聚力和统一秩序的必要性。正是斯隆将通用汽车公司相互远隔、结构松散的分公司整合为一家紧密统一的企业。

 

 

Sloan speaks on the topic in his celebrated memoir, My Years with General Motors: “I became convinced that the corporation could not continue to grow and survive unless it was better organized, and it was apparent that no one was giving that subject the attention it needed.” Sloan did indeed give the subject the attention it needed and helped create the model for the modern organizing form that persists to this day. But while that organizing form worked well for many years, it had begun to become too restrictive as business became more demanding and more global in the 1980s.

斯隆在他有名的回忆录《我在通用汽车公司的岁月》（My Years with General Motors）中谈到了这个话题：“我开始认定，除非更好的加以组织，否则这家企业就无法继续增长和存续，而对于这个课题，明显没有人给予应有的重视。”斯隆倒是对这个课题给予了应有的重视，并帮助创建了一直持续到今日的现代组织模式。不过这种组织形式虽说多年来都挺管用，但到20世纪80年代，随着工商管理的要求更严格、全球化程度更高，它的制约性就过大了。

 

 

 

ON SLOAN AND WELCH: “BUREAUCRATS” FOR THEIR DAY

论斯隆与韦尔奇：他们时代的“官僚”

To provide a complete picture of Welch’s nemesis (bureaucracy), it is useful to contrast the two CEOs and the circumstances they encountered. One way to compare these two legendary leaders is to recognize Sloan as the man who helped construct the modern organizing form, and Welch as the man who helped tear it down. In the Sloan model, a company’s thinking and ultimate advantage comes from the company command center (its headquarters). That notion, however, was bogging companies down, not allowing units closer to the work, and to the customers, to think for themselves. After all, now there were managers in the home office who could make decisions for the workers. While Sloan’s watershed creation helped establish financial and managerial control, the concept of a mammoth hierarchy controlling a corporation had taken its toll a half a century later. Business was moving too quickly and that form was strangling creativity and innovation. Welch recognized that fact and worked to tear down the accouterments of bureaucracy when he became CEO in 1981.

在这两位首席执行官之间、以及他们所遭逢的环境之间进行比较，有助于完整地描绘韦尔奇的死敌（官僚主义）。对比这两位传奇领导人的一种办法，是将斯隆看作是帮助构建了现代组织形式的人物，而韦尔奇则是帮助将它摧垮的人物。在斯隆模式中，企业的思想和最终优势来自于它的指挥中心（它的总部）。但这种观念却不允许更熟悉工作和客户的单位自己动脑筋思考问题，从而使公司陷入泥潭。毕竟现在就有些总部管理人员无法代员工们作出决定。虽说斯隆划时代的建构帮助确立了财务和管理上的控制，但以庞大的等级制度来控制一家企业的这种概念在半个世纪以后却开始为害人间了。工商业的发展速度太快，而这种组织形式却在绞杀创造力和创新活动。韦尔奇认识到了这个事实，并在1981年当上首席执行官后致力于扯下官僚主义的铠甲。

 

THE EVOLUTION OF WELCH’S WAR AGAINST BUREAUCRACY

Welch wasted little time in identifying the enemy. In fact, he knew it well long before becoming GE’s CEO. In his first days with the company, Welch worked in a bureaucracy-free environment that was more akin to a “family grocery store” than a giant corporation. After he almost quit because he felt that he deserved more then the customary $1000 raise (Welch felt that he contributed more than his colleagues and deserved more), he was given an assignment he liked: “He [his boss] gave me a project where I was the only employee. I was able to call myself king, emperor, any title you wanted. And I hired one technician. And from that, we built a plastics business.”

韦尔奇官僚主义之战的演进

韦尔奇很快就认准了这个死敌。实际上他在当上通用电气公司首席执行官之前很久就认识它。在通用电气公司的最初那些日子里，韦尔奇工作的环境中没有官僚主义，那儿不像是一家巨型企业，而更像是一间“家庭杂货店”。不过他觉得惯例的1000美元加薪对不起他所干的工作，差一点因此而辞职（韦尔奇觉得他比同事的贡献更多，也应该得到更多的报酬），正在这时上司给他分配了一项他喜欢的任务：“他（上司）给了我一个项目，我是其中唯一的员工，可以自己封王、称帝，随便什么头衔都可以。我聘用了一名技术员。从那儿开始我们便建起了一家塑料制品公司。”

 

To Welch, those early days in GE’s plastics division represented a leadership ideal, and he spent years attempting to instill that same spirit of excitement back into the vastness of GE.

对于韦尔奇，最初在塑料制品公司的那些日子代表了领导的理想境界，而他花了数年的时间，想要将那种鼓舞人心的精神回馈到整个广大的通用电气公司中。

 

In 1968, 33-year-old Welch became GE’s youngest general manager, and as he moved up the hierarchy, he saw all of the things he hated about large companies: red tape, layers of management, waste, slow decision making, etc. When he became CEO, he had seen the best and the worst of GE, and was determined to wipe out the latter while generating more of the former. He always felt that business should be about excitement and passion and new ideas, not about bureaucracy and turf battles and slow decision making.

1968年，33岁的韦尔奇成为通用电气公司最年轻的总经理，随着他在等级制度中的地位上升，大型公司中他所厌恨的一切东西他都见识到了：官样文章、繁复的管理层、浪费、迟缓的决策制定等等。他当上首席执行官后，同时看到了通用电气公司最优秀和最糟糕的地方，并决心将弊病荡涤干净，同时进一步发扬公司的优点。他始终认为，经营管理所追求的应当是兴奋、激情和新的创意，而不是官僚主义、地盘之争以及迟缓的决策。

 

FIGHTING BUREAUCRACY FROM THE CHAIRMAN’S OFFICE

From 1981 on, Welch’s actions and programs waged war on GE’s intimidating bureaucracy, and he always knew that the battle would never be completely over. Even in his final months in office, Welch spoke of the importance of ridding the organization of this cancerous element. He called bureaucracy “the Dracula of institutional behavior,” meaning that it kept rising from the dead after they had driven a stake through its heart.

身为董事会主席而亲自出击官僚主义

自1981年起，韦尔奇的行动与计划便对通用电气公司吓唬人的官僚主义发动了战争，而且他始终都清楚，这场战斗永远不会彻底结束。即便在任上的最后几个月中，韦尔奇也时常谈及让组织摆脱这种毒瘤有多么重要。他称官僚主义是“制度行为中的德古拉”，意思是说即便用木桩刺穿它的心脏，它还会死而复生再爬起来。

 

In the late 1990s, while GE was in full throttle with Six Sigma, Welch spoke of the importance of relaunching Work-Out on a wide scale. The GE CEO was concerned that bureaucracy was creeping back into the organization. He advised one young worker that the only way to rid a large organization of the bureaucracy and walls and hierarchy was to “get a hand grenade ... and blow it up” (Welch of course meant that figuratively, not literally).

20世纪90年代，尽管通用电气公司在全力以赴地实施“六西格玛”计划，但韦尔奇还在谈论再次广泛开展“群策群力”活动的重要性。他担心官僚主义正在潜回组织中。他告诫一名年轻的员工说，让大型组织摆脱官僚主义、壁垒和层级制度的唯一办法，是“抓一枚手榴弹……把它轰掉”（当然，韦尔奇说的是形象化的、而不是字面上意思）。

 

Bureaucracy-banishing lessons

关于驱逐官僚主义的经验教训

 

1.      Make sure that everyone knows the enemy: Welch let everyone know that bureaucracy was killing the company. In articulating that message, he enlisted the help of every GE employee. Once the entire company was mobilized, GE was able to dismantle the company’s multilayered bureaucracy.

1.确保每个人都认清敌人：韦尔奇让每个人都明白官僚主义正在戕杀公司。在阐明这一精神时，他调动通用电气公司每一位员工都前来提供帮助。在整个公司全体动员起来后，公司也就就能拆除层层叠叠的官僚主义了。

 

2. Use the principles of Work-Out to jump-start a meaningful dialogue: Work-Out, Welch’s grand program to eliminate unnecessary work, was the key to ensuring that managers listened to the employees. It also built trust and unlocked the ideas that dwelled in the minds of the people who performed the work. If a multiday event is not possible, find another way to get managers and employees to talk to each other. Even a half day get together can be worthwhile, particularly if the employees know that this is their chance to tell managers how to do things better.

2.运用“群策群力”的原则来快速启动有意义的对话：“群策群力”是韦尔奇为消除多余工作而推出的大计划，它也是确保管理人员听取员工意见的关键。此外，这项计划也在公司中建立起了信任，并让那些实际执行工作的员工头脑中闭锁的创意解放出来。如果无法开展历时数天的活动，那就寻找另外的途径来让管理人员与员工对话。即便让他们在一起相处半天也是值得的，而如果能让员工知道，这是他们把如何改善事物的想法告诉管理人员的一个机会，那就会更加值得。

 

3. Always remember that even the best organizations have some bureaucracy: In the late 1990s, long after his software phase, Welch acknowledged that even his supercharged organization was not immune to bureaucracy (even after launching Six Sigma). In order to keep red tape in check, repeat step two (2) above at regular intervals (e.g., quarterly, biannually, etc.).

3、始终牢记即便最好的组织也会有些官僚主义：20实际90年代晚期，远在软件变革阶段结束之后，韦尔奇承认说，即便他经过“增压防护”的组织也难免会沾染官僚主义（哪怕是在推出“六西格玛”计划之后）。为了套住繁文缛节的笼头，需要定期重复执行上面列出的第2个步骤。