经济学人下载:企业老板与员工的意见分歧

Corporate culture
企业文化

The view from the top, and bottom
老板与员工的意见分歧

Bosses think their firms are caring. Their minions disagree.
老板们认为公司对员工关怀备至，但其下属却不以为然。

AS WALMART grew into the world’s largest retailer, its staff were subjected to a long list of dos and don’ts covering every aspect of their work. Now the firm has decided that its rules-based culture is too inflexible to cope with the challenges of globalisation and technological change, and is trying to instil a “values-based” culture, in which employees can be trusted to do the right thing because they know what the firm stands for.
随着沃尔玛发展成为全球最大零售商，其员工在工作的各方各面都受到了一大堆规则的限制。如今，沃尔玛已经认识到其以规则为基础的公司文化过于死板，无法应对全球化和科技变革所带来的挑战。所以，沃尔玛正尝试逐渐培养一种以价值观为基础的公司文化，在这种文化中，员工了解公司的主张，所以能够得到公司的信任，去做他们认为正确的事情。
 
“Values” is the latest hot topic in management thinking. PepsiCo has started preaching a creed of “performance with purpose”. Chevron, an oil firm, brands itself as a purveyor of “human energy”, though presumably it does not really want you to travel by rickshaw. Nearly every big firm claims to be building a more caring and ethical culture.
“价值观念”是管理学思维最新的热门话题。百事可乐公司已开始宣扬一个信条：“目的性绩效”。石油公司雪佛龙在自己的商标上印上“‘人类体能’的供应商”的字样，尽管它大概并非真的希望你用人力车代步。几乎每一家大型企业都宣称自身正在发展更为关怀体贴、合乎道德的企业文化。

A new study suggests there is less to this than it says on the label. Commissioned by Dov Seidman, boss of LRN, a firm that advises on corporate culture, and author of “How”, a book arguing that the way firms do business matters as much as what they do, and conducted by the Boston Research Group, the “National Governance, Culture and Leadership Assessment” is based on a survey of thousands of American employees, from every rung of the corporate ladder.
一项新的研究显示，实际情况与商家们所标榜的有差距。LRN（一家企业文化顾问公司）的老板、同时也是《怎么做到的？》（本书主张企业的经营方式与其经营的业务同样重要）的作者多弗•塞德曼委托波士顿研究集团进行这项“国家治理、文化和领导能力评估”的研究，该研究是以对来自公司各个级别的数千位美国雇员的调查为基础的。

It found that 43% of those surveyed described their company’s culture as based on command-and-control, top-down management or leadership by coercion—what Mr Seidman calls “blind obedience”. The largest category, 54%, saw their employer’s culture as top-down, but with skilled leadership, lots of rules and a mix of carrots and sticks, which Mr Seidman calls “informed acquiescence”. Only 3% fell into the category of “self-governance”, in which everyone is guided by a “set of core principles and values that inspire everyone to align around a company’s mission”.
研究发现，有43%的调查对象对其公司的文化有以下描述：以命令和指挥为基础、自上而下的管理模式或强制式的领导——塞德曼先生称之为“盲目服从型”。所占百分比最多的调查对象，即有54%的人认为其公司文化自上而下型的，但公司的领导也有技巧可言，只是规则繁多并存在软硬兼施的手段，塞德曼先生称这种为“知情服从型”。只有3%的调查对象属于“自我管理型”，即每个员工都被一套“核心原则和价值”所引导，这套原则和价值激励每个员工以公司的宗旨为中心进行工作。

The study found evidence that such differences matter. Nearly half of those in blind-obedience companies said they had observed unethical behaviour in the previous year, compared with around a quarter in the other sorts of firm. Yet only a quarter of those in the blind-obedience firms said they were likely to blow the whistle, compared with over 90% in self-governing firms. Lack of trust may inhibit innovation, too. More than 90% of employees in self-governing firms, and two-thirds in the informed-acquiescence category, agreed that “good ideas are readily adopted by my company”. At blind-obedience firms, fewer than one in five did.
研究也发现一些证据，证明这些公司文化之间的差异事关重大。在盲目服从型企业中，几乎有过半数员工都称在前一年目睹过有违职业道德的行为，而在其他类型的企业中只有四分之一的员工有此经历。但是，在盲目服从型企业中只有约四分之一的员工说他们可能会揭发这种行为，而在自我管理型企业中却有90%的员工会进行揭发。同样，上下级之间缺乏信任会抑制员工创新。自我管理型公司中超过90%的员工承认“绝妙的想法很容易会被公司采纳”，选择性顺从型公司中也有三分之二的员工这样认为。而在盲目服从型公司中，持这种想法的人少于五分之一。

Tragicomically, the study found that bosses often believe their own guff, even if their underlings do not. Bosses are eight times more likely than the average to believe that their organisation is self-governing. (The cheery folk in human resources are also much more optimistic than other employees.) Some 27% of bosses believe their employees are inspired by their firm. Alas, only 4% of employees agree. Likewise, 41% of bosses say their firm rewards performance based on values rather than merely on financial results. Only 14% of employees swallow this.
令人哭笑不得的是，研究还发现老板们时常对自己瞎掰的那一套信以为真，即便员工们不以为然。老板们相信其公司是自我管理型公司的程度比普通员工高八倍。（人力资源部那些心情愉快的职员也比公司其他员工要乐观得多。）大约27%的老板认为自己公司的员工能够被公司所激励。奈何，只有4%的员工同意此说。同样，41%的老板称其公司对绩效的奖励是建基于价值观之上的，而不仅是业绩。然而只有14%的员工接受此说。