【英语国际】“山高皇帝远”的跨国企业

Business leaders pull levers, issue uplifting statements, announce eye-catching initiatives...and then what? Not even the most hyperactive executive team can be everywhere at all times to monitor what is going on in the furthest reaches of the organisation. The actions of managers and staff on the ground will determine whether quarterly targets are hit and whether grand strategies are realised.Knowing this does not make it any less frustrating when carefully thought-out plans fail to deliver or, just as bad, seem to be simply ignored out in the field. An imposing corporate headquarters may impress visitors, but managers in distant time zones are unlikely to be so easily intimidated. As the old Chinese proverb has it: “The mountains are high and the emperor is far away.”

Irritation at the persistent failure of managers lower down the corporate ladder to perform partly explains the huge popularity of the hottest management buzzword of the early 21st century – execution. “There is nothing wrong with our strategy,” senior management teams can console themselves. “What we lack is the ability to execute it.”

This is what you might call the Carly Fiorina defence. After the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard finally won shareholders over to the idea of merging with Compaq in 2002, her ambitious goal of taking on Dell in the personal computer market had some vocal supporters, who were to fall silent later on. Arguably it was confusion in the ranks – was HP competing on price or on service? – that hobbled Ms Fiorina’s plans from the outset. She and her board may have understood the strategy perfectly well. The message did not get through in the real world, either to staff or to customers.

It is not only CEOs who suffer scars on their back while trying to change vast organisations. As Philip Stephens reported in the Financial Times last week, Tony Blair, the prime minister, is exasperated at his lack of success in reforming the UK’s public sector.

For almost a decade now the prime minister has been giving roughly the same speech, every three to six months, on the need for painful and radical reform. Every time the speech is delivered, front-line public sector managers look up wearily from their desks with a mixture of incomprehension and despair.

When strategy and culture are at odds, it is said, culture always wins. Large organisations are complex. A great deal can get lost in translation between the brilliant PowerPoint presentation to the board and the daily hand-to-hand combat of the marketplace.

We use the misleadingly simple term “globalisation” to describe how the largest corporations do business internationally, as though there is only one way of behaving. But trading across borders inevitably means running up against cultural differences. As the consultant and guru Fons Trompenaars has pointed out, culture can be a very slippery customer. In his book Did the Pedestrian Die? in 2003, Trompenaars reports findings from an exercise he conducted with tens of thousands of managers in more than 60 countries.

The obscure title stems from the scenario he presents to his seminar groups, as follows: you are a passenger in a car being driven by a close friend. He hits a pedestrian. Your friend was doing at least 35 miles an hour in a 20mph zone. There are no witnesses. Your friend’s lawyer says that if you are prepared to swear under oath that he was only doing 20mph, it may get him out of trouble.

Trompenaars asks his group of managers whether the friend has a definite right, some right or no right at all to expect you to testify to the lower figure. Responses vary dramatically. The Swiss almost unanimously feel that your friend has no right to expect you to perjure yourself and that you should in no circumstances consider doing so. But in Venezuela and China, for example, less than 35 per cent of people agree with the strict Swiss line.

So, understand the vagaries of the different cultures you are dealing with and all will be well with your global corporate strategy, right? Sadly, no. Indeed, blaming “cultural differences” has become an easy excuse for business leaders who have failed either to devise the right strategy in the first place or to appreciate how to put it into effect.

Andrew Kakabadse, a professor at Cranfield University’s school of management in the UK, argues that cultural issues are often a red herring when international businesses are struggling to perform.

“In the best-run companies the culture of individual countries makes no difference to the performance of the business,” he says. “The company creates its own powerful culture which supersedes the country culture.”

Prof Kakabadse says that some businesses underestimate the importance of country managers. “They are really part of the top team,” he says. Corporate strategy can be supported or undermined by country leaders, depending on whether it makes sense to them. Managers and staff lower down the hierarchy are well aware if their local leaders are in tune with the official messages coming down from HQ.

Business leaders need to mind the gap between head office and the rest of the company. Communicating strategy effectively will take longer, much longer, than you imagine. And “communication” should mean a frank and unhurried two-way exchange of views, not simply a lavish print run of gleaming corporate brochures.

“What about the workers?” was the traditional cry of organised labour in the last century. Before launching your next big strategic move, spare a moment to ask: what about the managers?

企业领袖动足脑筋，发布振奋人心的宣言，推出引人瞩目的举措……然后呢？即便是最积极活跃的高管团队，也做不到随时监控组织最远端的动态。基层管理者和员工的行动，将决定季度目标能否实现，宏伟战略能否贯彻。

了解这些，丝毫不会减轻企业高层在下列情况下的挫败感——精心拟定的计划未能奏效，或者同样糟糕的是，似乎在业务第一线根本被忽略了。外观宏伟的企业总部可能给来访者留下深刻印象，但身处不同时区的管理人员，不太可能轻易被镇住。正如中国古代谚语所云：“山高皇帝远。”

“我们缺乏执行能力”

企业高层对于下级管理者持续达不到业绩指标的愤怒，在一定程度上解释了“执行”(execution)这个21世纪初最热门管理术语为何如此风靡。“我们的战略没有任何问题，”高层管理团队会这样自我安慰。“我们所缺乏的是执行能力。”

你也许会把这称为“卡莉?费奥瑞纳(Carly Fiorina)式辩护”。2002年，这位惠普(Hewlett-Packard)前首席执行官与康柏(Compaq)合并的想法最终获得了股东的同意，她雄心勃勃的目标——在个人电脑市场挑战戴尔(Dell)——获得了一些人的公开支持，但这些人后来都不做声了。可以说，正是公司基层的困惑（惠普是要在价格上，还是在服务上展开竞争？），导致费奥瑞纳的计划从一开始就步履艰难。她和公司董事会也许对这一战略有着完美的理解。但这一信息并没有传递到现实世界中，既没有传达到员工，也没有传递给客户。

不仅仅是首席执行官们在尝试改变规模庞大的组织的过程中受挫。正如菲利普•斯蒂芬斯(Philip Stephens)上周在英国《金融时报》发表的报道中所言，英国首相托尼•布莱尔(Tony Blair)对于英国公共部门改革不见成效也感到恼怒。

近10年来，布莱尔每隔3到6个月就要发表内容大体相同的演讲，重申推行痛苦的彻底改革的必要性。他每次发表演讲时，公共部门的一线管理者们就会疲倦地从办公桌前抬起头来，神色中带着困惑和绝望。

文化总是赢家

有人说，当战略和文化发生冲突时，文化总是赢家。大型组织的结构是复杂的。从向董事会所做的精彩幻灯片(PowerPoint)陈述，到日常市场上的白刃战，其间可能会丢掉很多东西。

我们用“全球化”这个简单得让人产生误解的术语，来描述大型企业如何运营国际业务，仿佛世界上只有一种行为方式。但是，跨国贸易无可避免地意味着要遭遇文化差异。正如咨询大师丰斯•特龙彭纳斯(Fons Trompenaars)所指出的那样，文化可能是一位非常不可靠的顾客。在他2003年的著作《那个行人死了吗？》(Did the Pedestrian Die?)中，他谈到了自己对60多个国家数万经理人的调查结果。

你会为朋友作伪证吗？

这个令人费解的书名，源自于他向研讨会小组描述的一个场景：你是车里的一名乘客，驾车者是你的好友。他撞了一个行人。你这位朋友当时的时速至少有35英里，而该地区的限速是每小时20英里。当时没有目击证人。朋友的律师表示，如果你准备宣誓作证，称他当时的时速只有20英里，就可能帮助他摆脱困境。

特龙彭纳斯询问接受调查的那些管理者，那名朋友是否完全有权、部分有权或是根本无权指望，你证明他当时的时速是20英里？答案大不相同。瑞士人几乎一致认为，你的朋友无权指望你为他作伪证，而你在任何情况下都不该考虑这么做。但在委内瑞拉和中国等国家，只有不到35%的人赞同瑞士人的严肃立场。

“文化差异”成借口

那么，如果掌握了你所面临的不同文化的独特之处，你的全球企业战略就会顺风顺水了吗？可惜，并非如此。的确，当企业领袖没能在一开始就策划出正确的战略，或是在实施过程中卡壳时，抱怨“文化差异”已成为一个方便的借口。

英国克兰菲尔德大学(Cranfield University)管理学院教授安德鲁•卡卡巴泽(Andrew Kakabadse)辩称，文化问题往往是国际企业在执行方面陷入困境时的遮眼法。

“在运营得最好的企业里，单个国家的文化不会影响到企业的业绩，”他表示。“企业创造属于自己的强有力的文化，可以取代所在国的文化。”

卡巴泽教授表示，一些企业低估了区域经理的重要性。他表示：“他们其实应该是最高管理层的一部分。”区域经理能够支持或削弱企业战略——取决于该战略是否对他们有意义。再下级的管理者和员工心里很清楚，他们的上司与总部传达的官方讯息是否步调一致。

企业领袖需要留意公司总部和公司其余部分之间的隔阂。要有效地传达战略，需要的时间比你想象的要长得多。而且，“沟通”应该意味着坦城、从容的双向意见交流，而不只是印一大堆精美的企业手册。

“工人们该怎么办？”这是上世纪劳工组织的典型呼声。当你启动下一个重大战略举措之前，花点时间问一声：管理人员该怎么办？

译者/ 牛薇