該淘汰組織結構圖了

When the Financial Times was auctioning off lunch with journalists for its seasonal charity appeal a few years ago, someone had the bright idea of advertising the “lots” as decorations on a Christmas tree: the editor was at the top, and other writers dangled from the descending branches.

若干年前，英國《金融時報》出於季節性慈善募捐的目的，向公衆拍賣同旗下記者共進午餐的機會，有人想出一個巧妙的廣告點子，把“拍賣品”做成一棵聖誕樹上的裝飾：總編輯位於樹頂，其他撰稿人懸掛在下面的樹枝上。

I doubt any organisation has published a more blunt, bauble-based depiction of its hierarchy. Plenty have a less festive version, though: the organigram — or org chart — with the boss on top and minions branching off by seniority and reporting lines.

我覺得沒有哪個組織能把內部等級關係比這更直觀、更花哨地公諸於衆。不過，多數組織都有個沒那麼喜慶的等級體系圖：組織結構圖，老闆位於頂部，下屬按職位高低和上下級關係降次分佈其下。

Half of a small group of personnel directors I asked think such diagrams are an uncomfortable straitjacket, a loathed compliance obligation, a hindrance to more natural interaction between colleagues, or all three. Aaron Dignan of The Ready, a consultancy that helps companies such as Lloyds Bank and General Electric change structure and culture, calls them “the dirty secret” of human resources. They always come “with the caveat that they aren’t true”.

我問過少數幾個人事主管，他們中有一半認爲組織結構圖是一種讓人不自在的束縛、人們討厭遵循它們規定的責任義務、它們會妨礙同事們更輕鬆自如地交往，或者這三種弊端組織結構圖全佔。The Ready是一家幫助勞埃德銀行(Lloyds Bank)、通用電氣(General Electric)等企業實現結構與文化轉型的公司，其創始人亞倫?迪南(Aaron Dignan)將組織結構圖稱爲人力資源的“骯髒祕密”。它們總是伴隨着“附加說明它們不是真的”。

But the other half of my HR sample says charts clarify how the business works. They are a vital tool, providing information on the role and identity of team members. They supply valuable “context”. One said the org chart was her company’s best-read online document.

而我詢問的另外半數HR卻說，組織結構圖明確了公司業務是如何運作的。它們是很重要的一個工具，說明團隊成員的角色和身份。它們提供了重要的“背景信息”。一位HR說組織結構圖是她們公司閱讀量最多的聯機文檔。

Even when everyone used to pay attention to the pyramid of power, though, the diagram was a poor reflection of corporate reality. Century-old examples are pockmarked with vacancies, indicating that chartmakers struggled to keep up with changes.

即便在過去人人都關注權力金字塔時，這種圖也很難反映出企業的真實情況。老舊的圖例充滿了空缺的職位，表明製圖者們難以緊跟變化。

Now staff turnover is more rapid, charts are relics of a command-and-control approach, where information flowed through fixed channels, from your boss’s boss, down to your boss, to you, and back again.

如今，員工流動加快，組織結構圖是命令與控制工作方式的遺產，以往在那種工作模式中，信息總是通過固定渠道傳遞，從你上司的上司，下達到你的上司，再到你，如此反覆。

It need not be this way. In many such plans, the dreaded “dotted reporting line” already signals that nothing is as neat as the chart may imply.

而現在並不需要這樣。在許多組織結構圖中，令人生畏的“用虛線表示的上下級關係”已經說明事情絕不像圖表顯示的那麼簡單。

As historian Caitlin Rosenthal has written, the first organigram — an 1855 schema of the New York and Erie Railroad — was surprisingly modern. It looks organic, not man made, and it reversed assumptions of top-down power. The plan gives day-to-day authority to divisional heads, who “possessed the best operating data, were closer to the action, and?.?.?.?were best placed to manage the line’s persistent inefficiencies”.

歷史學家凱特琳?羅森塔爾(Caitlin Rosenthal)曾寫道，世界上第一張組織結構圖——1855年出自紐約伊利鐵路公司(New York and Erie Railroad)——它出人意料地先進。它似乎是有機的，而非出自誰人之手，而且它還顛覆了人們關於自上而下的權力的設想。它將日常的管轄權交予部門的主管們，他們“掌握着最佳的運營數據，更貼近實際業務，並且……是解決路線持續效率低下的不二人選”。

In search of new ways of managing, radical thinkers have studied the murmurations of starlings and the oozings of slime mould, both of which co-ordinate movement without formal hierarchy. Experiments are under way at businesses. They include the transformation of Zappos, the Amazon-owned shoe retailer, to Holacracy, a self-management system, and the development of autonomous teams at longer-established companies such as Ericsson and Microsoft.

爲探索新的管理方式，激進的思想家們研究了椋鳥羣和黏菌釋放的物質，發現兩者在協同運動時都不存在正規的等級劃分。他們在商業領域也做了實驗。他們研究了亞馬遜(Amazon)旗下鞋類零售商Zappos的轉型——該公司採取了“合弄制”(Holacracy)的自我管理體系——以及在愛立信(Ericsson)和微軟(Microsoft)這樣歷史悠久的公司中那些自主團隊的發展。

But while shredding the org chart may be a satisfying way of triggering such change, it could make everything worse if it deprives workers of information about who does what. Businesses need some structure to be able to grow — and sooner or later someone will want to see what that structure looks like.

然而，雖然摧毀組織結構圖也許是促成這種轉型的一個有效方式，但如果它使員工無從得知同事們各自的職責則會令情況變得更糟。企業的成長需要一定的結構——而且遲早有人會想了解這一結構。

It would be better to develop alternative pictures of how teams work. Lindred Greer of Stanford Graduate School of Business says her MBA students often describe how demoralising it is when people above them in the chart are less competent. She suggests something more like a Venn diagram, in which even junior team members are shown controlling subsets. “The important thing is that they have areas where they can still make their own decisions,” she says.

更好的辦法是製作一些圖片來說明團隊是如何運作的。斯坦福大學商學院(Stanford Graduate School of Business)的琳德麗德?格里爾(Lindred Greer)說她的MBA學生們常說，當見到組織結構圖上那些職位比他們高的人能力不濟時，他們是多麼沮喪。她建議採用一種維恩圖式的圖表，在上面即使團隊的基層成員也有控制的子集。“重要的是他們在一些領域可以自己拿主意，”她說。

Team members can define those areas by declaring which task they are best at. Peer pressure curbs any temptation to exaggerate skills, while recognition of colleagues’ expertise helps the team perform better overall.

團隊成員可以通過聲明自己最擅長什麼來界定自主決策領域。來自同事們的壓力會防止他們有意誇大自身的技能，而瞭解同事們的專業技能會令團隊的整體表現愈加出彩。

Named leaders also need to take a lower profile. Prof Greer adds to the management menagerie with her suggestion that leaders must behave like hippos. They can remain under water, with just their eyes protruding to observe the team, and emerge only if they need to exert their full authority.

被委任的領導者也需要更加低調。格里爾教授還建議領導者必須表現得像動物園中的河馬，能夠一直潛在水下，只露出雙眼關注團隊，只有在需要行使全部職權時才現身。

The fixed org chart is already losing potency. Applications such as Asana or Slack could accelerate its decline by nudging groups to reform around the experts on any task, though Silicon Valley is yet to fulfil its promise that technology will re-plumb the corporate system.

一成不變的組織結構圖已逐漸喪失效力。Asana、Slack之類的應用程序可能會加速它的衰落，這些應用會推動企業變革，在每一項任務中將相關專業人手作爲核心，即便硅谷還未兌現其讓技術重新探索企業制度的願景。

Meanwhile, even those HR executives who favour organigrams point out that younger staff could not care less about the hidebound hierarchy they represent. They will happily take ideas to a senior partner or divisional director, bypassing old-fashioned channels, says one. It is a reminder that the chart, love it or hate it, is not the main impediment to change; the people in it often are.

與此同時，即使那些認同組織結構圖的HR主管們也指出，年輕職員們也許並不怎麼在乎那種僵化的等級關係。一位HR說，現在的年輕人很樂意越過那些過時的渠道，向高級合夥人或者部門主管獻計獻策。這提醒我們，不管我們喜歡與否，變革的主要障礙已不再是組織結構圖；而往往是其中的人們。