经济学人下载老板整天在干嘛?

Management

What do bosses do all day?
老板整天在干嘛？

The shocking truth can at last be revealed
惊人真相终将披露

May 5th 2011 | from the print edition

Gotta hone those networking skills
“撒网”技能有待磨练

THANKS to closed doors and fierce gatekeepers, bosses are tricky to observe in their natural habitat. Yet it might be useful to know what they do all day, and whether any of it benefits shareholders. A new Harvard Business School working paper sheds some light.

多亏了紧闭的房门和尽忠职守的把关者，老板们得以狡猾地呆在自己的窝里观察一切。然而，了解他们每天做什么，这些行为又对股东是否有利，也许是不无益处的。哈佛商业学院新披露的一份文件向我们揭示了部分真相。

Researchers asked the chief executives of 94 Italian firms to have their assistants record their activities for a week. You may take this with a grain of salt. Is the boss’s assistant a neutral observer? If the boss spends his lunch hour boozing, or in a motel with his assistant, will she record this truthfully? Nonetheless, here are the results.

调查对象为94位意大利公司的首席行政官，他们被要求让助理们记录下一周的活动。对这些，你也许不能全信。助理们是中立的观察者吗？如果老板在午餐时豪饮，或者和他的助理腻在汽车旅馆，她会如实记录吗？尽管有此种种不定因素，调查结果如下：

The average Italian boss works for 48 hours a week and spends 60% of that time in meetings. The most diligent put in another 20 hours. And the longer they work, the better the company does.

一般，意大利老板每周工作48小时，而且60%的时间花在会议上。最兢兢业业的人，工作时长甚至达68小时。而且，公司的运营状况和他们的工作时长成正比。